Burke | Page 2

the philosophic calm
of Locke or Mill, or even the majestic and solemn fervour of Milton,
are revolted by the unrestrained passion and the decorated style of
Burke. His passion appears hopelessly fatal to success in the pursuit of
Truth, who does not usually reveal herself to followers thus inflamed.
His ornate style appears fatal to the cautious and precise method of
statement, suitable to matter which is not known at all unless it is
known distinctly. Yet the natural ardour which impelled Burke to
clothe his judgments in glowing and exaggerated phrases, is one secret
of his power over us, because it kindles in those who are capable of that
generous infection a respondent interest and sympathy. But more than
this, the reader is speedily conscious of the precedence in Burke of the
facts of morality and conduct, of the many interwoven affinities of
human affection and historical relation, over the unreal necessities of
mere abstract logic. Burke's mind was full of the matter of great truths,
copiously enriched from the fountains of generous and many-coloured
feeling. He thought about life as a whole, with all its infirmities and all
its pomps. With none of the mental exclusiveness of the moralist by
profession, he fills every page with solemn reference and meaning;
with none of the mechanical bustle of the common politician, he is
everywhere conscious of the mastery of laws, institutions, and
government over the character and happiness of men. Besides thus
diffusing a strong light over the awful tides of human circumstance,
Burke has the sacred gift of inspiring men to use a grave diligence in
caring for high things, and in making their lives at once rich and austere.
Such a part in literature is indeed high. We feel no emotion of revolt
when Mackintosh speaks of Shakespeare and Burke in the same breath
as being both of them above mere talent. And we do not dissent when

Macaulay, after reading Burke's works over, again, exclaims, "How
admirable! The greatest man since Milton."
The precise date of Burke's birth cannot be stated with certainty. All
that we can say is that it took place either in 1728 or 1729, and it is
possible that we may set it down in one or the other year, as we choose
to reckon by the old or the new style. The best opinion is that he was
born at Dublin on the 12th of January 1729 (N.S.) His father was a
solicitor in good practice, and is believed to have been descended from
some Bourkes of county Limerick, who held a respectable local
position in the time of the civil wars. Burke's mother belonged to the
Nagle family, which had a strong connection in the county of Cork;
they had been among the last adherents of James II., and they remained
firm Catholics. Mrs. Burke remained true to the Church of her
ancestors, and her only daughter was brought up in the same faith.
Edmund Burke and his two brothers, Garret and Richard, were bred in
the religion of their father; but Burke never, in after times, lost a large
and generous way of thinking about the more ancient creed of his
mother and his uncles.
In 1741 he was sent to school at Ballitore, a village some thirty miles
away from Dublin, where Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker from
Yorkshire, had established himself fifteen years before, and had earned
a wide reputation as a successful teacher and a good man. According to
Burke, he richly deserved this high character. It was to Abraham
Shackleton that he always professed to owe whatever gain had come to
him from education. If I am anything, he said many years afterwards, it
is the education I had there that has made me so. His master's skill as a
teacher did not impress him more than the example which was every
day set before him, of uprightness and simplicity of heart. Thirty years
later, when Burke had the news of Shackleton's death (1771), "I had a
true honour and affection," he wrote, "for that excellent man. I feel
something like a satisfaction in the midst of my concern, that I was
fortunate enough to have him once under my roof before his departure."
No man has ever had a deeper or more tender reverence than Burke for
homely goodness, simple purity, and all the pieties of life; it may well
be that this natural predisposition of all characters, at once so genial

and so serious as his, was finally stamped in him by his first
schoolmaster. It is true that he was only two years at Ballitore, but two
years at that plastic time often build up habits in the mind that all the
rest of a life is unable to pull down.
In 1743 Burke