and as they prevail, the balance is overfet, now upon one fide, now upon the other. The government is, one day, arbitrary power in a fingle perfon; another, a juggling confederacy of a few to cheat the prince and enflave the people; and the third, a frantic and unmanageable democracy. The great inftrument of all these changes, and what infuses a peculiar venom into all of them, is party. It is of no confequence what the principles of any party, or what their pretenfions are: the Spirit which actuates all parties is the fame,--the Spirit of ambition, of felf-intereft, of oppreffion, and treachery."

After fome allufions to the hiftory of England, accompanied with a few strictures on the violence and ferocity of the early ages, and on the lefs glaring effects of modern policy, fuch as corruption, venality, the contempt of honour, the oblivion of all duty to our country, and the most abandoned public prostitution, the writer inveighs against the perversion of justice, the delay and uncertainty of the law, and the tendency of all governments to reduce men into two claffes, the poor and the rich, the whole business of the poor being to adminifter to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich, and that of the rich, in return, being to find the best methods of confirming the slavery and increafing the burthens of the poor. "In a state of nature it is an invariable law that a man's acquifitions are in proportion to his labours in a state of artificial fociety, it is a law as conftant and as invariable, that thofe who labour most enjoy the feweft things; and that those who labour not at all, have the greatest number of enjoyments." He concludes with fumming up all his arguments, as if to make a full and ftrong impreffion on the reader's mind; yet contrives to discover, without entirely throwing off the mafk, that he is not in earnest, and that his chief de

fign,

fign, in this imitation of BOLINGBROKE, is to fhew the extravagance of that noble writer's philofophical theories. "If after all," fays he," you should confefs all these things, yet plead the neceffity of political inftitutions, weak and wicked as they are, I can argue with equal, perhaps fuperior force, concerning the neceffity of artificial religion; and every step you advance in your argument, you add a strength to mine. a strength to mine. So that if we are refolved to fubmit our reafon and our liberty to civil ufurpation, we have nothing to do but to conform as quietly as we can to the vulgar notions which are connected with this, and take up the theology of the vulgar as well as their politics. But if we think this neceffity rather imaginary than real, we should renounce their dreams of fociety, together with their visions of religion, and vindicate ourselves into perfect liberty."

Confidered as a fportive exercise of genius, or even as a serious attempt to leffen the number of BOLINGBROKE's admirers, the "Vindication of natural Society" did not meet with fuch a reception as its author had a right to expect. It almost "fell dead-born from the prefs," without provoking cenfure, or exciting any warm teftimonies of approbation. This failure of fuccefs in the first experiment did not difcourage Mr. BURKE from publishing, in the course of the fame year, his " Inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the fublime and beautiful." No fubject could be better chofen to attract regard, and to exhibit the various powers and accomplishments of the writer in the strongest and fairest light. Under the fhew of the most infinuating modefty, propofing his notions" merely as probable conjectures," he endeavoured to establish a new standard for deciding on the most admired productions of nature and art;-to point out and difpel the confufion of our ideas, which had rendered all former reasoning on the sub

ject

ject extremely inaccurate;-to lay down an exact theory of the paffions ;—and, from a critical furvey of the properties of things, by which those paffions were known to be principally affected, to deduce fuch rules as might be applied to the imitative arts, and to whatever else they concerned, without much difficulty. The very title given to this performance feemed to challenge an immediate comparison with LONGINUS's Treatife on the Sublime, and ADDISON'S Effays on Beauty, Novelty, and Grandeur. The fentence of the best judges was very flattering to Mr. BURKE. His name, indeed, did not appear to the work; but the author was univerfally allowed to have furpaffed LONGINUS in precifion, and ADDISON in depth and comprehensiveness, while he united the peculiar excellencies of both, the animation and dignity of the one, the fimplicity and elegance of the other. A fecond edition appeared in 1757, with an " Introductory Difcourfe concerning Tafte," and several other improvements. He afterwards made a few valuable additions to the work; and he certainly would have conferred a lasting favor on the admirers of polite literature, had he, when he withdrew from parliament, adhered to his own refolution, never more to rush forward into scenes of political strife and controversy, but to employ his leisure hours in giving fome finishing touches to this early production of his genius,---in impreffing upon it the stamp of maturity,---in adorning it with the filver honours of age.

Mr. BURKE foon began to derive more fubftantial advantages than mere applause from his Effay on the Sublime and Beautiful. His father, who always had a favorable, though not a fufficiently enlarged idea of young EDMUND's abilities, was fo enraptured at this extraordinary proof of them, that he immediately sent him one hundred pounds, to extricate him out of fome pecuniary em

barraffments

barrassments which he keenly felt at that time. This mark of paternal affection will be found more worthy of notice, if we confider the fcantinefs of the father's income, which entirely depended on his practice as an attorney, and was barely fufficient for the decent fupport of the rest of his family. Joy, pride, gratitude, filial love, all the ftrongest and most pleafing emotions were excited in EDMUND's breaft. He faw his debts paid off, and by a fond father, as the reward of his well-exerted talents. He found alfo no inconfiderable refource in the rapid fale of the book; while it afforded him an easy introduction to the best company. Mr. afterwards Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS, Dr. JOHNSON, and Dr. GOLDSMITH, one of Mr. BURKE's former fellow ftudents at Trinity College, were among the first who cultivated his acquaintance in London. The reputation of GOLDSMITH and JOHNSON refts on the firmeft foundations; but Sir JOSHUA's literary fame owed not only its fupport but its very existence to Mr. BURKE. It was fortunate for the latter that Sir JOSHUA'S ambition was not confined to the attainment of excellence in his own art, for which nature had eminently qualified him, but aspired to the higher fphere of eloquence, though he could rise to it only by borrowed wings. After reading the Effay on the Sublime and Beautiful, he eagerly fought out the author, and endeavoured to fecure his friendship. Sir JOSHUA's house was then, and continued to be, the favorite refort of men of merit. All were received with politeness and hofpitality; but Mr. BURKE experienced the most flattering attention. Frequent intercourfe left no doubt in Sir JOSHUA's mind, that the man who had written fo well on the principles of the elegant arts in general, was beft qualified to difplay the utmoft refinement of tafte, and brilliancy of genius in differtations on painting in particular. Theun

bounded

bounded admiration, with which Sir JOSHUA's difcourfes were afterwards heard, and are still read by the whole world, fhews how judicious and happy he was in his choice of an affiftant. It has hitherto been kept a fecret not only from the public, but from the private friends of both, that those difcourfes were the production of Mr. BURKE's pen. This truth we shall fully illustrate, when we come to give an account of the inftitution of the Royal Academy. We shall then tranfplant the laurel to the proper tomb; and hope that neither Mr. COURTENAY, Lord CARLISLE, nor Mr. MALONE, will be offended at our doing justice to the memories of the dead, and at our adorning the bust of Mr. BURKE with that beautiful wreath, which they, from mistake, have twined round another brow.

In tracing the immediate effects and the remoter confquences of the Effay on the Sublime and Beautiful, we find that it threw open to Mr. BURKE the door both of fame and fortune: it made ample amends for the neglect into which his first publication had fallen; and encouraged still bolder experiments than those of imitation or of criticism. He directed his thoughts to history and politics. He had before his eyes two or three ftriking inftances of writers, who, by these means, were rifing into eminence. The attention of the literary world was then fixed upon HUME'S Hif tory of the House of Tudor, and Dr. ROBERTSON's Hiftory of the Reign of MARY, Queen of Scots, and her fon JAMES, till his acceffion to the throne of England.. Many of the fame fubjects having been touched upon by the two hiftorians led to a direct, an immediate comparison of their respective merits. All men of candour and judgment readily allowed,. that the philofcphic dignity, the logical difpofition, the force of diction, the juft concatenation of circumstances, the lively pictures of manners,.

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