Farewell, and oh! where'er thy voice be tried, 418. Torno's cliffs. The poet probably a mountain in South America near Quito. has reference to the heights clime. Compare Gray's Progress of Poesy, page 207, lines 54-62, of this book. 420 425 430 CHARACTERIZATION BY HAZLITT. 1. There is no single speech of Burke which can convey a satis factory idea of his powers of mind. To do him justice, it would be necessary to quote all his works: the only specimen of Burke is, all he wrote. With respect to most other speakers, a specimen is generally enough, or more than enough. When you are acquainted with their manner, and see what proficiency they have made in the mechanical exercise of their profession, with what facility they can borrow a simile or round a period, how dexterously they can argue and object and rejoin, you are satisfied; there is no other difference in their speeches than what arises from the difference of the subjects. But this was not the case with Burke. He brought his subjects along with him; he drew his materials from himself. The only limits which circumscribed his variety were the stores of his own mind. His stock of ideas did not consist of a few meagre facts, meagrely stated, of half a dozen commonplaces tortured in a thousand different ways; but his mine of wealth was a profound understanding, inexhaustible as the human heart and various as the sources of human nature. He therefore enriched every subject to which he applied himself, and new subjects were only the occasions of calling forth fresh powers of mind which had not been before exerted. 2. Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer that he was one of the severest writers. His words are the most like things; his style is the most strictly suited to the subject. He unites every extreme and every variety of composition; the lowest and the meanest words and descriptions with the highest. He exults in the display of power, in showing the extent, the force, and intensity of his ideas; he is led on by the mere impulse and vehemence of his fancy, not by the affectation of dazzling his readers by gaudy conceits or pompous images. He was completely carried away by his subject. He had no other object but to produce the strongest impression on his reader, by giving the truest, the most characteristic, the fullest, and most forcible description of things, trusting to the power of his own mind to mould them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a splendid effect by setting fire to the light vapors that float in the regions of fancy, as the chemists make fine colors with phosphorus, but by the eagerness of his blows struck fire from the flint, and melted the hardest substances in the furnace of his imagination. The wheels of his imagination did not catch fire from the rottenness of the materials, but from the rapidity of their motion. He most frequently produced an effect by the remoteness and novelty of his combinations, by the force of contrast, by the striking manner in which the most opposite and unpromising materials were harmoniously blended together; not by laying his hands on all the fine things he could think of, but by bringing together those things which he knew would blaze out into glorious light by their collision. The florid style is a mixture of affectation and commonplace. Burke's was a union of untamable vigor and originality. 3. Burke was not a verbose writer. If he sometimes multiplies words, it is not for want of ideas, but because there are no words that fully express his ideas, and he tries to do it as well as he can by different ones. He had nothing of the set or formal style, the measured cadence, and stately phraseology of Johnson and most of our modern writers. This style, which is what we understand by the artificial, is all in one key. It selects a certain set of words to represent all ideas whatever as the most dignified and eloquent, and excludes all others as low and vulgar. The words are not fitted to the things, but the things to the words. 4. Burke was altogether free from the pedantry which I have here endeavored to expose. His style was as original as expressive, as rich and varied as it was possible; his combinations were as exquisite, as playful, as happy, as unexpected, as bold and daring as his fancy. If anything, he ran into the opposite extreme of too great an inequality, if truth and nature could ever be carried to an extreme. 5. Burke has been compared to Cicero-I do not know for what reason. Their excellences are as different, and indeed as opposite, as they can well be. Burke had not the polished elegance, the glossy neatness, the artful regularity, the exquisite modulation, of Cicero; he had a thousand times more richness and originality of mind, more strength and pomp of diction. I.-LORD CHATHAM. [INTRODUCTION.-The following extract is from Burke's speech on American Taxation, delivered in the House of Commons in 1774. It was made in support of a motion (introduced April 19, 1774) that “the House take into consideration the duty of threepence per pound on tea, payable in all his Majesty's dominions in America," with a view to repealing the same. In the course of his long speech, Burke reviews the policy of several successive British ministries in their conduct towards the Anglo-American colonies, and the extract begins with his characterization of Lord Chatham (William Pitt), who became prime minister in 1766.] 1. I have done with the third period of your policy-that of your repeal and the return of your ancient system and your ancient tranquillity and concord. Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the condition I have de- ; scribed it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham—a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this NOTES. Line 1. the third period. Burke had reviewed the commercial policy of Great Britain towards the American colonies as it had appeared in three periods-1, the period of the Navigation Acts; 2, that of the attempts to raise revenue from America; and 3, that of the repeal of the Stamp Act. 2. your repeal. The Stamp Act (for the provisions of which see United States History) was passed by Parliament in 1765; but owing to the vigorous op. position of the colonies, expressed through the First Colonial Congress and supported by the eloquence of those illustrious friends of America, Burke and Chatham, the Act was repealed in the following year (1766), Lord Chatham becoming then prime minister. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-What are the distinguishing qualities of Burke's style? Ans. They are sublimity of thought and splendor of imagery. 3, 4. not as long as it was happy. Change this from the negative to the posi tive form of statement. 4, 5. Another scene... stage. sentence? (See Def. 20.) What are the two figures of speech in this What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 34.) 5, 6. in the condition I have described it. Supply the ellipsis. 7. that keeps the name, etc. |