CONFESS I HAVE BEEN WEANED FROM THE OPINIONS I FORMERLY HELD WITH
RESPECT TO THE FORCE WHICH MIGHT SUFFICE IN TIME OF PEACE: nor do I
consider this any inconsistency, because I see no rational prospect of
any peace, which would exempt us from the necessity of watchful
preparation and powerful establishment." But the change of Fox's
opinions, and their similarity to those maintained by Pitt, with
reference to our war with France, are by no means ALL which history can
produce in justification of Burke's political wisdom and consistency.
The whole civilized world has read the "Reflections on the French
Revolution," whose sale, in one year, achieved the enormous number of
30,000 copies, in connection with medals or marks of honour from almost
every Court in Europe. Now, of all the replies made to this masterpiece
of reasoning and reflection, Mackintosh's "Vindiciae Gallicae" was
incontestably the ablest and profoundest. And yet, the greatest of all
his intellectual opponents thus addresses Burke, as appears from
"Memoirs" of Mackintosh, volume i. page 87:--"The enthusiasm with which
I once embraced the instruction conveyed in your writings is now ripened
into solid conviction by the experience and conviction of more mature
age. For a time, SEDUCED BY THE LOVE OF WHAT I THOUGHT LIBERTY, I
ventured to oppose, without ceasing to venerate, that writer who had
nourished my understanding with the most wholesome principles of
political wisdom...Since that time, A MELANCHOLY EXPERIENCE HAS
UNDECEIVED ME ON MANY SUBJECTS, IN WHICH I WAS THE DUPE OF MY OWN
ENTHUSIASM." Let us part from this branch of our subject by quoting
Burke's own words, uttered, as it were, on the very brink of eternity.
They attest, to the latest moment of his life, with what a sacred
intensity and unflinching sincerity he clung to his original sentiments
touching the French Revolution. Nor let the present writer shrink from
adding, they constitute but one of the many specimens of that
instinctive prescience, whereby this profoundest of philosophical