EDMUND BURKE

There is nothing unusual in Burke's early life. He was born in Dublin, Ireland,
in 1729. His father was a successful lawyer and a Protestant, his mother, a
Catholic. At the age of twelve, he became a pupil of Abraham Shackleton, a
Quaker, who had been teaching some fifteen years at Ballitore, a small town
thirty miles from Dublin. In after years Burke was always pleased to speak of
his old friend in the kindest way: "If I am anything," he declares, "it is the
education I had there that has made me so." And again at Shackleton's death,
when Burke was near the zenith of his fame and popularity, he writes: "I had a
true honor and affection for that excellent man. I feel something like a
satisfaction in the midst of my concern, that I was fortunate enough to have him
under my roof before his departure." It can hardly be doubted that the old
Quaker schoolmaster succeeded with his pupil who was already so favorably
inclined, and it is more than probable that the daily example of one who lived
out his precepts was strong in its influence upon a young and generous mind.

Burke attended school at Ballitore two years; then, at the age of fourteen, he
became a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and remained there five years. At
college he was unsystematic and careless of routine. He seems to have done
pretty much as he pleased, and, however methodical he became in after life, his
study during these five years was rambling and spasmodic. The only definite
knowledge we have of this period is given by Burke himself in letters to his
former friend Richard Shackleton, son of his old schoolmaster. What he did was
done with a zest that at times became a feverish impatience: "First I was
greatly taken with natural philosophy, which, while I should have given my mind
to logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my FUROR MATHEMATICUS." Following
in succession come his FUROR LOGICUS, FUROR HISTORICUS, and FUROR PEOTICUS, each
of which absorbed him for the time being. It would be wrong, however, to think
of Burke as a trifler even in his youth. He read in the library three hours