Select Works of Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France. Edmund Burke

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      Burke’s Tract, as it stands, exceeds the measure of what he intended when it was commenced, and falls short of the great idea which grew upon him as he proceeded with it—of exhibiting fully and fairly to the eye of the world the grand and stable majesty of the civil and social system of England, in contrast with the hasty and incongruous edifice run up by the French Reformers. The analysis which precedes the text in the present edition distinguishes it into two portions, the first including two thirds, the second, one third, of the book. The First Part is occupied with England. It is to this First Part that the foregoing observations chiefly apply. It differs in so many points from the Second Part, which is occupied with the new political system of France, that a critic of the omniscient school might well be excused for attributing it to another hand. Half of the First Part, or one third of the whole work, forms what may be called the Introduction. It answers strictly to the original [lxv] title “Reflections on Certain Proceedings of the Revolution Society.”¹ It is sufficiently complete and coherent, and may be advantageously read by itself. The remainder of the First Part consists of several dissertations unequal in length and completeness. The most important is that which has been called Section I (the Church Establishment). It seems to be interrupted at page 223, and resumed at page 241, the intermediate space being occupied with a fragmentary vindication of the French monarchy and nobility. We have here the half-finished components of a greater work, the completion of which was prevented by the urgency of the occasion. The vindication of the English democracy, for Burke’s immediate purpose the least important part, but which would have perhaps possessed the highest interest for posterity, is omitted altogether. The “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs” to some extent supplies its place. But the whole of the middle third of the work is incomplete, and requires to be read with caution. Burke probably wrote the pieces which compose it at different times, during the spring, and laid the work aside altogether during the summer, of 1790.

      The Second Part, or Critique of the new French Constitution, was composed, according to appearances, as autumn approached, and the necessity for producing the work for the winter season, then the chief season of the year, whether for business or any other purposes, became apparent. This portion is rather a voucher or pièce justificative than a necessary part of the book. It is a piece of vigorous and exhaustive, though rapid and one-sided, criticism. It is a direct and unsparing diatribe on the new French statesmanship, viewing the system it produced wholly by the light of reason and common sense, and leaving out of account all the arguments which are adduced in the First Part of the work. It is, as might be anticipated, not altogether just. We may fairly demur, on the threshold, to the general spirit of Burke’s criticism.

      Dart thy skill at me;

       Bruise me with scorn; confound me with a flout;

       Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance;

       Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit.

      Posterity, however, in the words of Burke himself, written thirty [lxvi] years before, will not accept satire in the place of history. These pages contain more of Burke’s personal manner, and have a character less declamatory, more minute, and more to the immediate purpose, than what precedes. They evidently represent a great intellectual effort, and contrast strongly with the previous almost spontaneous ebullition of sentiment and doctrine. Yet they are marked, and by no means sparingly, with striking literary beauties, which the student will do well to search out for himself. The historical value of this part of the work is still considerable, though its interest is diminished by the fact that much of the constitution which it attacks speedily disappeared, and that Burke’s knowledge of it was not altogether correct or complete. As an instance we may take the ludicrous error at pp. 279–80, where it is assumed that the Departments and Communes were to be portioned out by straight lines with the aid of the theodolite. Burke was fond of a certain ponderous style of repartee, and something of this is traceable in his endeavours to show that the Liberty boasted by the Assembly was a mere semblance, and that they treated France “exactly like a conquered country.” Nothing can be more admirable than his applying to them the saying attributed to Louis XIV, “C’est mon plaisir—c’est pour ma gloire” (p. 214). Burke always had two favourite images, derived from the art of the house-builder, by which to illustrate the labours of the politician. One of these is the Buttress, the other the Cement, or Cementing principle.¹ Both of these he applies unsparingly in his vigorous condemnation of the details of the novelties of French polity. The buttresses were shams, and the cement had no binding in it. The criticism on the reformed Office of the King, and on the new Judicature, is brief, but to the purpose; but the most remarkable is that which relates to the army, containing as it does a forecast of the condition of a military democracy, and an anticipation of the future despotism of Napoleon (p. 332). Only one Frenchman, Rivarol, appears to have expressed a similar foreboding. The value of the remarks on the financial system, which conclude the work, is clouded by the perturbation of the question which came with the lengthened [lxvii] wars, and the Republic early took care to avoid bankruptcy by enormous contributions levied on the countries which fell under its yoke. The main predictions of Burke, however, were literally fulfilled. “The Assignats, after having poured millions into the coffers of the ruling rebellion, suddenly sank into the value of the paper of which they were made. Thousands and tens of thousands were ruined. The nation was bankrupt, but the Jacobin Government was rich; and the operation had thus all the results it was ever made for.”² On the appearance of M. Calonne’s work, “De l’Etat de France,” Burke considerably altered this Second Part of the work, and the text of the first edition differs, therefore, in many places, from the subsequent ones.

      Burke’s Tract provoked, in reply, as is well known, a whole literature of its own, no single representative of which is now held in any account, if we except the “Vindiciae Gallicae,” the early work of Sir James Mackintosh. It had, of course, its replies in French literature; but its general influence on France is best traced in De Bonald,¹ De Maistre, Chateaubriand, and other littérateurs of the reaction. The same kind of influence is traceable in German thought in the works of Goerres, Stolberg, Frederick Schlegel, and others. Burke’s true value was early appreciated in Germany, and A. M. von Müller, lecturing at Dresden in 1806, even remarked on the circumstance that Burke only met with his due honours from strangers. “His country but half understands him, and feels only half his glory, considering him chiefly as a brilliant orator, as a partisan, and a patriot. He is acknowledged in Germany as the real and successful mediator between liberty and law, between union and division of power, and between the republican and aristocratic principles.” Burke certainly has not been without his effect on the political notions of the non-theological philosophers, as Schelling, Steffens, Reinhold, &c.; and if the student should wish to set by the side of Burke for purposes of contrast the views of a competent professor of scientific theory, he should turn to the pages of Ancillon.² He [lxviii] must, however, be prepared to encounter a vast army of desperate commonplaces. Gentz, the translator of Burke, himself a considerable politician, is well imbued with his model; and at home the school of Burke is represented by the names of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Macaulay, Arnold, and Whately.¹ These few names will suffice to indicate approximately Burke’s peculiar place in general literature; but his influence in every way extends far more widely than any line which could be usefully drawn.

      Considering that Burke stands unapproachably the first of our political orators, and indeed in the very first rank as a writer and a thinker, it seems strange that so few express and formal tributes have been paid to his memory. Had Burke been a Frenchman, nearly every French critic, great or small, would have tried his hand on such a subject, not in parenthetical allusion, or in a few brief words of ardent praise, but in regular essays and notices without number. Where we have placed a stone, they would have piled a cairn. Thus have the Cousins, Saint-Beuves, Guizots, and Pontmartins taken every opportunity for long disquisition upon their Montaigne, Pascal, Bossuet, Molière, La Fontaine, and the other great authors of France. With us, moreover, the editions of Burke have been few, considering his fame; and his direct praises have been for the most part confined, here to a page, there to a paragraph. It is necessary for СКАЧАТЬ