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interests of this place, when we acknowledge the eminent service rendered, both to our civil. and religious constitution, by your able and disinterested vindication of their true principles; and we obey the yet more sacred obligation to promote the cause of religio and morality, when we give this proof, that we honour the advocate by whom they are so eloquently and effectually defended."

This address was conveyed to Mr. Burke by Mr. Windham, of Norfolk; through whom Mr, Burke returned his answer:

MR. BURKE'S LETTER TO MR. WINDHAM.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"The valuable present I received from the resident graduates in the university of Oxford, becomes doubly acceptable by passing through your hands, Gentlemen so eminent for science, erudition, and virtue, and who possess the uncommon art of doing kind things in the kindest manner, would naturally choose a person qualified like themselves to convey their favours and distinctions to those whom they are inclined to honour. Be pleased to assure those learned gentlemen, that I am beyond measure happy in finding my well meant endeavours well received by them; and I think my satisfaction does not arise from motives merely selfish, because their declared approbation must be of the greatest importance in giving an effect (which without

that sanction might well be wanting) to an humble attempt in favour of the cause of freedom, virtue, and order, united. This cause it is our common wise and our common interest to maintain; and it can hardly be maintained without securing on a solid foundation, and preserving in an uncorrupted purity, the noble establishments which the wisdom of our ancestors has formed, for giving permanency to those blessings which they have left to us as our best inheritance. We have all a concern in maintaining them all: but if all those, who are more particularly engaged in some of those establishments, and who have a peculiar trust in maintaining them, were wholly to decline all marks of their concurrence in opinion, it might. give occasion to malicious people to suggest doubts, whether the representation I had given was really expressive of the sentiments of the people on those subjects. I am obliged to those gentlemen for having removed the ground of those doubts.

I have the honour to be, &c.

EDMUND BURKE." Of those who, from talents and knowledge, were competent judges of literary and political discussions, the Ministry and their friends, the greater number of the nobility and landed gentry, a considerable portion of monied men, some of the leaders of Opposition, most of the members of the universities, most of the clergy,

most gentlemen of the navy and army, a few of the professed men of letters, rather the smaller part of two of the learned professions, admirers of the constitution, for its experienced blessings, conceived the highest opinion of the reasoning and wisdom of Burke's book. Of those who were NOT competent judges, great numbers praised it upon trust:-common courtiers, household troops, underlings of office, and many other servants or retainers of Government whose employment and situation did not require ability and learning, admirers of royalty merely for its trappings and appendages; the greater number of persons of fashion, their dependants, and imitators; in short, such as were the mere parrots of the informed and wise.

On the other hand, of men of talents and knowledge, who, though they admired the ex. ecution, condemned the tendency of the REFLEXIONS, there were those of high speculative notions of liberty; the majority of Burke's former associates, the very ablest of them in the House of Commons, and some of the ablest in the House of Peers; the greater number of professed men of letters, who, from their habits of metaphysical disquisitions, often followed theory more than experience; men of the partial erudition which Grecian and Roman literature bestows, who formed their opinions more from particular models than general principles and history; many of the legal and medical

professions, a few of the clergy, a few of the nobility and gentry, a greater portion of the monied interest than of the landed, dissenting preachers, philosophical deists. Of those who were NOT competent judges, great numbers condemned Burke's REFLEXIONS upon trust:-retainers of Opposition, understrappers of letters, implicit believers of infidelity, inferior tradesmen and mechanics, debating-society orators, revolution club-men, declaimers at public meetings,-in short, also, mere parrots of learning and ingenuity.

The first answer to Burke came from the able pen of Dr. Priestley. A considerable part of this publication was a vindication of Dr. Price's opinion concerning the source and tenure of monarchical power in England: the rest is on the happy effects to be expected. from the glorious principles of the French revolution, from which Priestley forbodes the enlargement of liberty, the melioration of society, the increase of virtue and of happiness. As Priestley neither shewed, from history nor from the constitution of the human mind, that these principles, in their usual operation and consequence, tended to pro. duce all those blessings, it is the less surprising that the event was 'so totally contrary to his predictions.

But the answer to Burke, which produced the most important effects in these kingdoms, was the RIGHTS OF MAN," by the noted Thomas

Paine. Perhaps there never was a writer who more completely attained the art of impressing vulgar and undistingu shing minds. The plain perspicuity of his language, the force of his expressions, the directness of his efforts, wore so much the appearance of clear and strong rea.. soning (to those that judge from manner more than matter) that numbers, borne down by his bold assertions, supposed themselves convinced by his arguments.

The substance of his doctrine was peculiarly pleasing to the lower ranks. When mechanics and peasants were told that they were as fit for governing the country as any man in parliament, the notion flattered their vanity, pride, and ambition. While he had for the ignorant these notions of equality, * "so agreeable to the populace," he had additional charms, in meta. physical distinctions and definitions, to delight the half-learned with the idea, that when they were repeating his words, they were pouring forth philosophy. For them he had imprescriptible rights, organization, general will, attaint upon principle, and many other phrases, from which his votaries thought themselves as much instructed as the under Grave digger in Hamlet supposed himself from the learned distinctions

* See an instance of the same kind in Hume's History of the Reign of Richard II. speaking of John Ball.