BURKE, Eomuxo, a philosopher and politician, distinguished over all the men of his times for eloqueuce and political foresight, was born in 1730, in Dublin, where his father had an extensive practice as an attorney. As a schoolboy, he displayed those traits of character and the germs of those powers which ultimately gave him greatness. In 1744, B. entered the university of Dublin, of which he became a scholar. His undergraduate course was not uninarked by the ordinary distinctions of successful application; but it would appear that lie mainly devoted himself to his favorite studies of poetry, oratory, history, and metaphysics. In Feb., 1748, he graduated B.A., and in 1751 took his degree as master of arts. In the interval (1750), being destined for the English bar, he pro ceeded to Loudon, to keep his terms at the Middle Temple. To legal studies, however, he never took kiudly, and ultimately he abandoned the idea of becoming a barrister. During the years 1750-56, he would appear to have occupied himself in traveling through: England, enjoying the society of literary men, in study, and finally in writing for various ? periodicals.
B., when yet at the university, had achieved a local reputation for literary talent and eloquence. Among the compositions of his undergraduate life the most noticeable per haps is his translation of the conclusion of the second Georgic of Virgil, which shows poetic talent of no mean order. His first important publication, however, was the cele brated Vindication of Xatural Society, written in imitation and ridicule of the style and reasoning. of lord Bolingbroke, in which, with well-concealed irony, he confutes his lordship's views of society by a reductio ad absurdum. This work, published anony mously in 1756, at the age of 26, attracted considerable attention. Soon after, in the same year, appeared his well-known essay, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful—a work containing a comprehensive induction of the various sources of the ideas referred to, but which must be pronounced a .failure, so far as it pretends to analyze into their primary elements the emotions of the sublime and beautiful.
The essay on the Sublime and Beautiful attained a rapid popularity, and its author soon found himself courted by all the eminent men of his time. Garrick was already one of his friends; among them he soon could count Reynolds, Soatne Jenyns, lord Lyt telton, Warburton, Hume, and Dr. Johnson. Notwithstanding this popularity, how ever, his progress continued slow; for three years yet, he had to occupy himself with periodical writing, devoting his leisure principally to political subjects. What is ecu sidered a joint work of B. and his cousin, William Bourke, appeared in 1757—viz., An Account of the European Settlements in America—and shows how carefully at this date he had studied the condition of the colonies. In 1761, Mr.W. G. Hamilton ("Single-speech Hamilton"), then secretary for Ireland, having appointed him his private secretary, he returned to Dublin, where, during two years' service, he demonstrated his aptitude for political business, receiving in 1763, in reward of his services, a pension on the Irish establishment of £300, which, however, he did not long enjoy.
Returning to Loudon, 'B., in 1764, along with Reynolds, founded the literary club, the history of which is associated with almost every considerable name in the literature of the period. But literary society did not call off his attention from the chances of a political career. He became private secretary to the marquis of Rockingham, on his becoming premier, and at the same time entered parliament as member for Wendover. Here his eloquence at once made him the reputation of being "the first man in the commons." The Rockingham administration, however, lived only a few months, and it terminated this his second political employment. To trace his subsequent career in parliament is more than the limits of this article will allow; it must suffice to state briefly that his parliamentary life extended from 1766 to 1794 without intermission; that he was successively member for Wendover. Bristol, and Mahon; twice held the post of paymaster of the forces, once under Rockingham, and again under lord North, with the standing of a privy councilor; that after a career in parliament remarkable for the laboriousness, earnestness, and brilliancy with which every duty was discharged, and extending over nearly 30 years, he retired at last, receiving the thanks of the com mons for his numerous public services, and rewarded by government, on the express request of his sovereign, with pensions amounting in all to 4-.!3700. It would be wrong, however, to omit that, as paymaster of the forces, lie, with a scrupulous regard to public economy, sacrificed all the perquisites of his otlice, exhibiting a severe integrity unexampled among public men; and that in his relation with the constituency of Bris tol, which was alienated from him by his advocacy of the claims of the Roman olics and of the opening up of the trade of Ireland, he was the first to maintain the doctrine of the independence of parliamentary representatives—that they are not machines to vote for measures approved by their constituencies simply for that reason. but men and thinkers chosen by them to calmly consider and legislate for the good of the commonwealth. It must also be mentioned, that during his career he rendered more important service to the cause of humanity than any man of his time: he prepared the way for the abolition of the slave-trade, a measure which was destined to ripen to success in the hands of Wilberforce; he advocated the cause of humanity in India against the voracious greed of stockholders, who regarded its millions simply as mate rials for plunder, and largely contributed to improve the government of that country. Towards America he advocated a policy of justice and conciliation, which, had it been adopted, would have averted the horrors of the war of independence, and retained the colonies in amity with the mother-country. And to the advocacy of every cause which he espoused, he brought a capacity for patient research that was unlimited, and an clo• quence that has never been transcended.