whatever thought came before him; but these illustrations touched no
deep feeling; they were fresh, original, racy, fanciful, picturesque,
a play of the head that never touched the heart. The man was by nature
cold; he had not the emotional depth or compass of an average
Englishman. Perhaps his strongest feeling of an enlarged or generous
description was for human progress, but it did not rise to passion;
there was no fervour, no fury in it. Compare him with Shelley on the
same subject, and you will see the difference between meagreness and
intensity of feeling. What intellect can be, without strong feeling,
we have in Bacon; what intellect is, with strong feeling, we have in
Shelley. The feeling gives the tone to the thoughts; sets the intellect
at work to find language having its own intensity, to pile up lofty and
impressive circumstances; and then we have the poet, the orator, the
thoughts that breathe, and the words that burn. Bacon wrote on many
impressive themes--on Truth, on Love, on Religion, on Death, and on the
Virtues in detail; he was always original, illustrative, fanciful; if
intellectual means and resources could make a man feel in these things,
he would have felt deeply; yet he never did. The material of feeling is
not contained in the intellect; it has a seat and a source apart. There
was nothing in mere intellectual gifts to make Byron a misanthrope: but,
given that state of the feelings, the intellect would be detained and
engrossed by it; would minister to, expand, and illustrate it; and
intellect so employed is Imagination.

Burke had indisputably a powerful imagination. He had both
elements:--the intellectual power, or the richly stored and highly
productive mind; and the emotional power, or the strength of passion
that gives the lead to intellect. His intellectual strength was often
put forth in the Baconian manner of illustration, in light and sportive
fancies. There were many occasions where his feelings were not much