oracles of legislative Wisdom? Simply, BECAUSE they were too popular in
temporary effect, ever to become influential by permanent inspiration.
In their highest moods, and amid their noblest hours of triumph, they
were "of the earth earthy." Party; personality; crushing rejoinders, or
satirical attacks; a felicitous exposure of inconsistency, or a
triumphant self-vindication; brilliant repartees, and logical
gladiatorship,--such are among the prominent characteristics which
caused parliamentary debates in Burke's day to be so animating and
interesting to those who heard, or perused them, amid the excitements of
the hour. It is not to be denied that commanding eloquence, vast genius,
political ardour, intellectual enthusiasm, together with indignant
denunciation and argumentative subtlety, were thus summoned into
exercise by the perils of the Nation, and the contentions of Party.
Nevertheless, the local, the temporal, the conventional, and the
individual, in all which relates to the science of politics or the
tactics of partisanship,--are sufficient to excite and employ the
energies and qualities which made the general parliamentary debates of
Burke's period so captivating. But when we revert to his own speeches
and writings, we at once perceive WHY, as long as the mind can
comprehend what is true, the heart appreciate what is pure, or the
conscience authenticate the sanction of heaven and the distinctions
between right and wrong,--Edmund Burke will continue to be admired,
revered, and consulted, not only as the greatest of English orators, but
as the profoundest teacher of political Science. It was not that he
despised the arrangement of facts, or overlooked the minutiae of detail;
on the contrary, as may be proved by his speeches on "economical
reform," and Warren Hastings; in these respects his research was
boundless, and his industry inexhaustible. Moreover, he was quite alive
to the claims of a crisis, and with the coolness and calm of a practical
statesman, knew how to confront a sudden emergency, and to contend with