Edmund Burke: The Visionary Who Invented Modern Politics. Jesse Norman

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      The Burkes’ own position combined free trade with a belief in the social order and an emphasis on institution-building. Monopolies were to be avoided and oligopoly discouraged. Regulation and economic incentives should be set to enhance the public good over the long term. Promising infant industries could properly be supported by public subsidy while they were being established. The colonies should be encouraged to specialize, and develop competitive advantage where they could; and they should be allowed to export in their own right to foreign markets. But they should continue to be prevented from importing, in order to protect Britain’s status as the source of higher-value finished goods.

      We do not know the exact division of labour of the Account. It has been suggested that most of the hard work, and in particular that of compilation and summary, was done by Will, while its intellectual thrust, shape and power of generalization came from Edmund. But this may well be unfair, since Will was evidently no intellectual slouch. What we can say is that it too contributes to the body of Burkean ideas so far advanced in the Vindication and Enquiry. We have a common human nature, the Account avers; peoples differ crucially in their history, character and manners; what institutions and culture they develop make a huge difference to their well-being and success; the Christian religion is generally a civilizing force; great leaders are marked by their capacity for hard work and unselfish public service; divine providence creates opportunity, and the chance for failure to redeem itself.

      The Account was a success. It ran through several editions and was translated into Italian, French and German. It also gave William a start in life, and he was appointed in 1759 to the British administration in the recently captured island of Guadeloupe, where he began an ill-starred and occasionally illegal career as a fortune-hunter. Edmund, meanwhile, had moved on to the last of his early literary projects for the Dodsleys. Having demonstrated a talent for historical writing in the Vindication and the Account, he now aspired to write nothing less than a short history of England – in under two years.

      The first half of the century had seen at least five multi-volume narrative histories of England. Yet the feeling persisted that genius was somewhat lacking in this area, especially compared to the French and Italian masters, and that what was needed was a shorter treatment combining depth and accuracy. The philosopher David Hume – later well known to Burke – had started to meet the first requirement in 1754, and would soon be acclaimed for it. But his History was a massive affair in six volumes. Burke now proposed something radically different: just one-quarter as long, balancing narrative with analysis, and eschewing vast reams of scholarly research on the one hand and Bolingbrokian speculation on the other.

      In this, as in much else, he was heavily influenced by the French thinker Montesquieu, in his words ‘the greatest genius, which has enlightened this age’. Montesquieu argued that history was governed by general causes, constrained by ‘the nature of things’, be that physical geography or human custom and law. The result was an approach which emphasized key themes working themselves out through time, illuminated by carefully chosen examples. The experimental nature of Burke’s work may be hinted at in its title, An Essay towards an Abridgement of English History. But the book was never completed. It extends only as far as 1216, the passage of Magna Carta and the death of King John; and it was not published until 1812, some time after Burke’s death.

      Even so, the History is of great interest and value in understanding Burke. Its shape is broadly chronological, surveying in turn the ancient Britons, the Romans, Saxons and Normans. Each of them is treated in terms of their distinctive institutions and character or ‘genius’. This gives the work an occasional touch of 1066 and All That, of post-hoc-propter-hoc-ism in which historical contingency and luck are downplayed in favour of predestination and ‘the English story’.

      But the History is kept from this, or, worse, from the trite or pedestrian, by its many saving graces. One grace lies in its stylistic brio, starting from the opening chapter, which sweeps the reader majestically across the main facts of Europe’s geography and their relation to its history. Another lies in Burke’s flair for journalistic colour and the telling detail. A third lies in its deep engagement and sympathy with the cultures under examination, including those underplayed by others; thus Burke discusses at length the customs and institutions of the ancient Britons, paying particular attention to the Druids, ‘the priests, lawgivers, and physicians of their nation’. Infusing the whole is a dynamic, emergent Whiggish sense of liberty. And it is extraordinary to record that, even at this early stage, Burke is already exploring ideas about political parties in the History that he does not publish until 1770, as we shall see.

      The History is also marked by Burke’s insistence once again on the importance of providence, allowing him to avoid the intellectual trap of treating Montesquieu’s historical laws as deterministic certainties. And then there is the sheer persuasiveness of the book’s deeper argument. English history, English culture and English law did not begin with the Normans, the rest being dark ages; nor indeed with the Romans; the English are thus a heterogeneous and mixed people; in general, institutions matter more than individuals; custom, habit and manners are distinct from law, and often superior to reason; the present and future are conditioned, though not determined, by the past. These are, already, familiar and distinctively Burkean themes.

      In the Enquiry, Burke had written, ‘Those which engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of loveliness, are the softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness and liberality; though certainly these are of less immediate and momentous concern to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so amiable.’ This is Jane Nugent to the life, as one might expect in an essay on beauty and the emotions, written in early courtship. Edmund and Jane had married in March 1757. Jane’s Catholicism cannot have pleased Edmund’s father, but the couple adopted the Anglican rites for the marriage ceremony.

      In the following year, the Burkes had two children, Richard in February and Christopher in December. Christopher’s namesake Dr Nugent had decided to move to London, and this probably helped them to establish a home together – first in Battersea, in those days a village on the southern outskirts of London, and then on Wimpole Street. Wimpole Street now lies in the centre of London. At that time it was on the northern edge, with open fields beyond. Burke always loved the countryside, and may have deemed it healthier for his young children. The household waxed and waned. As well as immediate family, for several years it included Dr Nugent and his son Jack. Edmund’s brother Richard also lived for long periods with him and Jane, as did Will Burke between his travels. There was, in addition, a never-ending stream of visitors and house guests.

      Burke now had a wife, a family, a home, and a burgeoning literary reputation. What he did not have was an income. The Vindication and the Enquiry attracted modest fees; he and Will shared £50 for the copyright of the Account; and the History would have earned £300 if it had been completed (though in fact the project petered out in 1762). But these were small sums, at a time when a gentleman aspired to live on not less that £300 a year. More was needed, and rapidly.

      Accordingly, he turned in two directions: to journalism and, less directly, to public life. In April 1758 Burke contracted with the Dodsleys to edit, write for and produce the Annual Register. Over the previous decades there had been an explosion in newspapers and print journalism, first dailies and more recently monthlies with the launch of the Gentleman’s Magazine and the London Magazine in the 1730s. Various annuals had also been published, epitomizing each year’s events. The Annual Register attempted something new: not merely to be an authoritative and highly readable account of the year, but to add to that documentary record a wide range of other material of general interest. Its first part thus comprised a long piece of instant history, describing the main events of the year and placing them in a wider context, and a diary containing factual material culled from the newspapers, including births and deaths, speeches by the King, summaries СКАЧАТЬ