BURKE'S " BROGUE."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR"]
Sin,—Notwithstanding the high authority and Parliamentary experience of the lady who had the honour to give birth to Mr. Charles Reade, few of your readers probably will share her dis- paraging estimate of Edmund Burke's political powers. I very much doubt whether such language as he was capable of uttering ",would be extinguished in interminable laughter " even in our present House of Commons. I think he would get many a " hear, hear," from Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, and even Mr. Bright, if he happened to sit opposite to them ; and he would be a godsend indeed to the party which found no fault with the Irish peculiarities of Mr. Whiteside, and is thankful for the eloquence, logic, and good sense, though accompanied with the brogue, of Mr. J. 'T. Ball. Mr. Compton Reade seems hardly to understand the mean- ing of the word, when he says that Burke's ambition was to " plagiarise" Cicero. Burke aimed at something higher than that, and in the opinion of all the world outside the Reade family
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