proud relatives. During the session of the legislature, dinners and balls abounded, and there were occasional attempts at theatricals. The latter was an amusement for which Washington always had a relish, though he never had an opportunity of gratifying it effectually. Neither was he disinclined to mingle in the dance; and we remember to have heard venerable ladies, who had been belles in his day, pride themselves on having had him for a partner, though, they added, he was apt to be a ceremonious and grave one.

In this round of rural occupation, rural amusement, and social intercourse, Washington passed several tranquil years, the halcyon season of his life. His already established reputation drew many visitors to Mount Vernon; some of his early companions in arms were his occasional guests, and his friendships and connections linked him with some of the most prominent and worthy people of the country, who were sure to be received with cordial but simple and unpretending hospitality. His marriage was not blessed with children; but those of Mrs. Washington experienced from him parental care and affection, and the formation of their minds and manners was one of the dearest objects of his attention. His domestic concerns and social enjoyments, however, were not permitted to interfere with his public duties. He was active by nature, and eminently a man of business by habit. As judge of the county court, and member of the House of Burgesses, he had numerous calls upon his time and thoughts, and was often drawn from home; for whatever trust he undertook he was sure to fulfil with scrupulous exactness.

CIII.-AMERICA IN 1774.

BURKE.

[EDMUND BURKE was born in Dublin, January 1, 1730, and died July 8, 1797. He entered parliament in 1765, and his abilities and industry soon made him favorably known, and gradually advanced him to a position of commanding influence in the affairs of his country. He continued in parliament till 1794. There were three great subjects which occupied, severally, the beginning, the middle, and the end of Burke's public career; and these were the relations of England to her colonies in North America, the affairs of India, and the French revolution. He had a wonderfully extensive and minute acquaintance with America, and the measures he counselled were wise and conciliatory; and had they been adopted, they might have postponed the independence of our country, though such an event was inevitable, sooner or later. His speeches on American affairs cannot now be read without the highest admiration alike of their ability and their temper and spirit.

The affairs of India, and especially the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the gov`ernor general, occupied Burke's time and thoughts for many years. As to the wisdom of his course and the soundness of his views upon this subject, there may be room for doubt; but there can be none as to the sincerity of his convictions, or the splendid intellectual powers he put forth in support of them.

During the last years of his life, the French revolution was the absorbing object of his thoughts, and he viewed it with the utmost aversion and alarm. His writings on this subject are marked by a tone of more passionate fervor, and by a style of more declamatory richness, than the productions of his early manhood.

Burke's mind was also much busied at one time with the project of economical reform. His speech on that subject is one of the best of his works, and may still be read with profit, as to the principles on which administrative reforms should be conducted.

Burke's mind was remarkable for a combination of qualities not often found together. Its groundwork was laid in practical good sense; but upon this was reared a splendid superstructure of imagination and eloquence. To great quickness of perception and brilliant readiness of power were added an industry that shrank from no amount of toil, and a faculty of presenting in the clearest possible light the most intricate mass of facts. Burke's influence as a practical statesman was impaired by his impatient spirit and his tempestuous sensibilities, which often led him to say and do unwise things; but these very traits have added to his fame as a writer, from the warm glow of human feeling which they throw over his speculations. His works have been frequently reprinted, and are read and studied by statesmen, both in England and America; for they abound in those wise principles and sound axioms in government which are as applicable to republican institutions as to those under which he lived.

Burke's influence as a public man was much increased by the excellence and purity of his private life, in which the rancor of political hostility could never find a stain. He was an affectionate husband and a doting father. The death of his son-an only child-in 1794 well nigh broke his heart; and the passages in his subsequent writings in which he alludes to his bereavement are among the most beautiful and pathetic in the language.

The following paragraph has been often quoted, but generally without the explana tions which it requires to make it intelligible. It is from a speech on conciliation with America, delivered in March, 1775, just before conciliation became impossible. Burke is urging the duty and expediency of healing counsels towards the colonies, by argu

ments founded on their rapid growth. He had just submitted some statistical tables to his hearers, by which it appeared that in the beginning of the century, the export trade to the colonies was one twelfth of the whole trade of Great Britain; but at the moment the orator was speaking, it was more than one third, -the whole trade having also advanced from six to sixteen millions.* This is the "great consideration" with which the passage begins. The speaker, having proved his position by dry statistics, now proceeds, in a passage of the highest beauty, to present the same truth to the imagination of his hearers in a picturesque form.

I CANNOT prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. Let us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst† might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough "to read the deeds of his ancestors, and could understand the nature of virtue." Suppose that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision, that when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the house of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy issue of moderate and healing counsels) was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, lord chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, while he enriched the family

* At the present time, the annual export trade of Great Britain to the United States is about thirty millions sterling.

+ Earl Bathurst, at the time of the delivery of this speech, was nearly ninety years old. He was a nobleman of social habits, and some literary taste, but no wise remarkable, and is remembered much more through this passage of Burke's, than by any thing he himself ever did or said.

The original is in Latin, of which the words in quotation marks are a translation.

with a new one.* If, amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and while he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of national interest, a small seminal principle rather than a formed body, and should tell him, "Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought on by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests, and civilizing settlements, in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life." If this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day! †

*The second son of Lord Bathurst was made lord high chancellor in 1772, and raised to the peerage, under the title of Baron Apsley. There is but one other instance in English history-that of Sir Thomas Moreof a man's reaching this rank in the life of his father. At this time, Lord Bathurst was advanced in the peerage, and made an earl. This is what Burke means by "turning back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain;" the father, in this case, having been promoted for his son's services, whereas, usually, the honors of the son are gained by the worth of the father. + Lord Bathurst died a few months after this speech was delivered.

This beautiful description of Burke's has been more than once imitated by succeeding speakers. There is a noble parallel passage in Mr. Webster's Plymouth discourse, pronounced in 1820; in which he traces the growth of New England during the eighteenth century by a corresponding reference to the life of John Adams, then living in a venerable old age, and who survived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, reach the highest place in the gift of the people, as Earl Bathurst lived to see his son attain the highest secular post which a subject of the English crown can reach. The compiler

CIV. THE RETIREMENT OF WASHINGTON.

GUIZOT.

[F. P. G. GUIZOT was born at Nismes, in France, in October, 1787. He has been highly distinguished both as a statesman and a man of letters. He was a cabinet minister of Louis Philippe during the greater part of his reign, and shared in his fall in 1848 He is the author of various historical works, most of which have been translated into English. He stands in the first rank of modern historians. He is distinguished for patient research, clear insight, and philosophical comprehension. His style is remark. able for vigor, eloquence, and precision.

The following extract is from an essay on Washington, prefixed to a French version of Sparks's Life and Writings, (abridged,) published in Paris in 1840.]

WASHINGTON did well to withdraw from public business. He had entered upon it at one of those moments, at once difficult and favorable, when nations, surrounded by perils, summon all their virtue and all their wisdom to surmount them. He was

ventures to subjoin in a note an extract from a speech delivered by him at the dinner given by the young men of Boston to Charles Dickens, February 1, 1842, in which the recent growth of our country is presented in a similar form:

"It is now sixty-seven years since the rapid growth of our country was sketched by Mr. Burke, in the course of his speech on conciliation with America, in a passage whose picturesque beauty has made it one of the commonplaces of literature, in which he represents the angel of Lord Bathurst drawing up the curtain of futurity, unfolding the rising glories of England, and pointing out to him America, a little speck scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, yet which was destined, before he tasted of death, to show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which then attracted the admiration of the world. There are many now living whose lives extend over the whole of this period; and during that space, what memorable changes have taken place in the relations of the two countries! Let us imagine the angel of that illustrious orator and statesman, when the last words of that profound and beautiful speech were dying upon the air, withdrawing him from the congratulations of his friends, and unfolding to him the future progress of that country, whose growth up to that period he had so felicitously sketched: 'There is that America, whose interests you have so well understood and so eloquently maintained, which, at this moment, is taking measures to withdraw from the protection and defy the power of the mother country. But mourn not that this bright jewel is destined to fall from your country's crown. It is in obedience to the same law of Providence which sends the full-fledged bird from the nest, and the man from his father's house. Man shall not be able to sever what the im mutable laws of Providence have joined together. The chafing chains of