Quare, NISI QUI NATURAS HOMINUM, VIMQUE OMNEM HUMANITATIS, CAUSASQUE EAS
QUIBUS MENTES AUT EXCITANTUR, AUT REFLECTUNTUR, PENITUS PERSPEXERIT,
DICENDO, QUOD VOLET, PERFICERE NON POTERIT."--Cic. "De Orat." lib. i.
cap. 12.

But to return. If a critical analysis of Burke, as an exhibition of
genius, be attempted, his characteristic endowments may, probably, be
not incorrectly represented by the following succinct statement.

1. Endless variety in connection with exhaustless vigour of mind.

2. A lofty power of generalisation, both in speculative views and in his
argumentative process.

3. Vivid intensity of conception, which caused abstractions to stand out
with almost living force and visible feature, in his impassioned
moments.

4. An imagination of oriental luxuriance, whose incessant play in
tropes, metaphors, and analogies, frequently causes his speeches to
gleam on the intellectual eye, as Aeschylus says the ocean does, when
the Sun irradiates its bosom with the "anerithmon gelasma" of countless
beams. 5. His positive acquirements in all the varied realms of art,
science, and literature, endowed him with such vast funds of knowledge
(In the wealth of his multitudinous acquirements, Burke seems to realise
Cicero's ideal of what a perfect orator should know:--"Equidem omnia,
quae pertinent ad usum civium, morem hominum, quae versantur in
consuetudine vitae, in ratione reipublicae, in hac societate civili, in
sensu hominum communi, in natura, in moribus, co hendenda esse oratori
puto."--Cicero "De Orat." lib. ii. cap. 16.), that Johnson declared of