The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI | Page 7

The doctrines in this work are applied, for their standard, with great
exactness, to the shortest possible periods both of conception and
duration. The title is "Some Remarks on the Apparent Circumstances of
the War in the Fourth Week of October, 1795." The time is critically
chosen. A month or so earlier would have made it the anniversary of a
bloody Parisian September, when the French massacre one another. A
day or two later would have carried it into a London November, the
gloomy month in which it is said by a pleasant author that Englishmen
hang and drown themselves. In truth, this work has a tendency to alarm
us with symptoms of public suicide. However, there is one comfort to
be taken even from the gloomy time of year. It is a rotting season. If
what is brought to market is not good, it is not likely to keep long. Even
buildings run up in haste with untempered mortar in that humid
weather, if they are ill-contrived tenements, do not threaten long to
incumber the earth. The author tells us (and I believe he is the very first
author that ever told such a thing to his readers) "that the entire fabric
of his speculations might be overset by unforeseen vicissitudes," and
what is far more extraordinary, "that even the whole consideration
might be _varied whilst he was writing those pages."_ Truly, in my
poor judgment, this circumstance formed a very substantial motive for
his not publishing those ill-considered considerations at all. He ought to
have followed the good advice of his motto: "_Que faire encore dans
une telle nuit? Attendre le jour_." He ought to have waited till he had
got a little more daylight on this subject. Night itself is hardly darker
than the fogs of that time.
Finding the last week in October so particularly referred to, and not
perceiving any particular event, relative to the war, which happened on

any of the days in that week, I thought it possible that they were
marked by some astrological superstition, to which the greatest
politicians have been subject. I therefore had recourse to my Rider's
Almanack. There I found, indeed, something that characterized the
work, and that gave directions concerning the sudden political and
natural variations, and for eschewing the maladies that are most
prevalent in that aguish intermittent season, "the last week of October."
On that week the sagacious astrologer, Rider, in his note on the third
column of the calendar side, teaches us to expect "_variable and cold
weather";_ but instead of encouraging us to trust ourselves to the haze
and mist and doubtful lights of that changeable week, on the
answerable part of the opposite page he gives us a salutary caution
(indeed, it is very nearly in the words of the author's motto): "Avoid,"
says he, "_being out late at night and in foggy weather, for a cold now
caught may last the whole winter_."[9] This ingenious author, who
disdained the prudence of the Almanack, walked out in the very fog he
complains of, and has led us to a very unseasonable airing at that time.
Whilst this noble writer, by the vigor of an excellent constitution,
formed for the violent changes he prognosticates, may shake off the
importunate rheum and malignant influenza of this disagreeable week,
a whole Parliament may go on spitting and snivelling, and wheezing
and coughing, during a whole session. All this from listening to
variable, hebdomadal politicians, who run away from their opinions
without giving us a month's warning,--and for not listening to the wise
and friendly admonitions of Dr. Cardanus Rider, who never apprehends
he may change his opinions before his pen is out of his hand, but
always enables us to lay in at least a year's stock of useful information.
At first I took comfort. I said to myself, that, if I should, as I fear I must,
oppose the doctrines of the last week of October, it is probable that by
this time they are no longer those of the eminent writer to whom they
are attributed. He gives us hopes that long before this he may have
embraced the direct contrary sentiments. If I am found in a conflict
with those of the last week of October, I may be in full agreement with
those of the last week in December, or the first week in January, 1796.
But a second edition, and a French translation, (for the benefit, I must
suppose, of the new Regicide Directory,) have let down a little of these
flattering hopes. We and the Directory know that the author, whatever

changes his works seemed made to indicate, like a weathercock grown
rusty, remains just where he was in the last week of last October. It is
true, that his protest