from such a list could one exclude _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, by which Mrs.
Beecher Stowe anticipated the deed of Harper's Ferry nine years before
it came.

These are but few books and few authors. With Lord Morley's three thrown
in, they still fall far short of a score. Readers will add other names,
other books that ranked as acts and burnt like fire. To their brief but
noble roll, I would also add one name, and one brief set of speeches or
essays that hardly made a book, but to which Lord Morley himself, at all
events, would not be likely to take exception. He mentioned Burke's
famous denunciation of Rousseau, and, indeed, the natures and aspects of
no two distinguished and finely-tempered men could well be more opposed.
But none the less, I believe that in Burke, before growing age and
growing fears and habits chilled his blood, there kindled a fire
consuming in its indignation, and driving him to words that, equally
with Rousseau's, may rank among the acts of history. In support of what
may appear so violent a paradox when speaking of one so often claimed as
a model of Conservative moderation and constitutional caution, let me
recall a few actual sentences from the speech on "Conciliation with
America," published three years before Rousseau's death. The grounds of
Burke's imagination were not theoretic. He says nothing about abstract
man born free; but, as though quietly addressing the House of Commons
to-day, he remarks:

"The Colonies complain that they have not the characteristic
mark and seal of British freedom. They complain that they
are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not represented."

That simple complaint had roused in the Colonies, thus deprived of the
mark and seal of British freedom, a spirit of turbulence and disorder.