therefore they are not capable of such surpris- | self in the loose mould, and continues still coning turns and quick and glancing evolutions cealed. as the swallow. Accordingly they make use As it will be under my eye, I shall now have of a placid easy motion in a middle region of an opportunity of enlarging my observations the air, seldom mounting to any great height, on its mode of life and propensities; and perand never sweeping long together over the ceive already that, towards the time of coming surface of the ground or water. They do not forth, it opens a breathing place in the ground wander far for food, but affect sheltered dis- near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer tricts, over some lake, or under some hanging respiration as it becomes more alive. This wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in creature not only goes under the earth from windy weather. They breed the latest of all the middle of November to the middle of April, the swallow kind; in 1772 they had nestlings on but sleeps great part of the summer; for it to October the 21st, and are never without un- goes to bed in the longest days at four in the fledged young as late as Michaelmas.3 afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower; and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers. As the summer declines, the congregating flocks increase in numbers daily, by the constant accession of the second broods; till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they frequent the aits of that river where they roost. They retire (the bulk of them, I mean) in vast flocks together, about the beginning of October: but have appeared of late years in a considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, as late as November the 3rd and 6th after they were supposed to have been gone for more than a fortnight. While I was writing this letter, a moist and They therefore withdraw with us the latest of warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50, any species. Unless these birds are very short-brought forth troops of shell-snails; and, at lived indeed, or unless they do not return to the district where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations somehow, and somewhere; for the birds that return yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds that retire. the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead; and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence! a very amusing occurrence! to see such a similarity. of feelings between the two phereoikoi! for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and the tor House martins are distinguished from their congeners by having their legs covered with soft downy feathers down to their toes. They toise.-Letter L (or XCII). are no songsters; but twitter in a pretty in ward soft manner in their nests. During the More Particulars Respecting the Old Family time of breeding, they are often greatly molested with fleas.-Letter XVI (or LV). DEAR SIR, Selborne, April 21, 1780. Tortoise. Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord,* 'Much too wise to walk into a well:' and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha;5 but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentment by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the post chaises. The rattle and hurry of the hot sun; because his thick shell, when onee journey so perfectly roused it, that, when I heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, turned it out on a border, it walked twice downscald with safety.' He therefore spends the to the bottom of my garden: however, in the more sultry hours under the umbrella of evening, the weather being cold, it buried it8 Sept. 29. 4 islets 5 A hedge in a ditch. large cabbage leaf, or amidst the waving for-] ests of an asparagus bed. But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall: and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile; to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The Antiquities of Selborne. EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797) FROM THE SPEECH AT BRISTOL, 1780* Since you have suffered me to trouble you so much on this subject, permit me, gentlemen, to detain you a little longer. I am indeed most solicitous to give you perfect satisfaction. I find there are some of a better and softer nature than the persons with whom I have supposed myself in debate, who neither think ill of the Act of Relief, nor by any means desire the repeal; yet who, not accusing but lamenting what was done, on account of the consequences, have frequently expressed their wish that the late Act had never been made. Some of this description, and persons of worth, I have met with in this city. They conceive that the prejudices, whatever they might be, of a large part of the people ought not to have been shocked; that their opinions ought to have been previously taken, and much attended to; and that thereby the late horrid scenes might have been prevented. *In 1699 a most tyrannical law against Roman Catholics had been passed. The abolition of this law in 1778, by the Act of Relief, aroused some fanatical opposition expressed' in cries of "No Popery" and in the Lord George Gordon riots. Burke is defending before his constituents his support of the repeal. Sir Samuel Romilly called the entire speech "perhaps the first piece of oratory in our language." I confess my notions are widely different, and I never was less sorry for any action of my life. I like the bill the better on account of the events of all kinds that followed it. It relieved the real sufferers; it strengthened the state; and, by the disorders that ensued, we had clear evidence that there lurked a temper somewhere which ought not to be fostered by the laws. No ill consequences whatever could be attributed to the Act itself. We knew beforehand, or we were poorly instructed, that toleration is odious to the intolerant; freedom to oppressors; property to robbers; and all kinds and degrees of prosperity to the envious. We knew that all these kinds of men would gladly gratify their evil dispositions under the sane tion of law and religion if they could; if they could not, yet, to make way to their objects, they would do their utmost to subvert all religion and all law. This we certainly knew; but, knowing this, is there any reason, because thieves break in and steal, and thus bring detriment to you, and draw ruin on themselves, that I am to be sorry that you are in the possession of shops, and of warehouses, and of wholesome laws to protect them? Are you to build no houses because desperate men may pull them down upon their own heads? Or, if a malignant wretch will cut his own throat because he sees you give alms to the necessitous and deserving, shall his destruction be attributed to your charity, and not to his own deplorable madness? If we repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, is left for our faults and follies? It is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural temper, which beneficence can fret and sour, that is to be lamented. It is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and corrected. If froward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate anything but themselves? Does evil so react upon good as not only to retard its motion, but to change its nature? If it can so operate, then good men will always be in the power of the bad; and virtue, by a dreadful reverse of order, must lie under perpetual subjection and bondage to vice. As to the opinion of the people, which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed. -Nearly two years' tranquillity which followed the Act, and its instant imitation in Ireland, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a great measure, the effect of. insidious art, and perverse industry, and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate and much more general than I am persuaded it was. When we know that the opinions of even the page or two more, but this is enough for my greatest multitudes are the standard of recti- measure-I have not lived in vain. tude, I shall think myself obliged to make And now, gentlemen, on this serious day, those opinions the masters of my conscience; when I come, as it were, to make up my acbut if it may be doubted whether Omnip- count with you, let me take to myself some otence itself is competent to alter the essen- degree of honest pride on the nature of the tial constitution of right and wrong, sure I charges that are against me. I do not here am that such things as they and I are pos- stand before you accused of venality, or of sessed of no such power. No man carries neglect of duty. It is not said that, in the further than I do the policy of making govern- long period of my service, I have in a single ment pleasing to the people; but the widest instance sacrificed the slightest of your interrange of this politic complaisance is confined ests to my ambition, or to my fortune. It is within the limits of justice. I would not only not alleged that, to gratify any anger or reconsult the interest of the people, but I would venge of my own or of my party, I have had cheerfully gratify their humours. We are all a share in wronging or oppressing any dea sort of children that must be soothed and scription of men, or any one man in any demanaged. I think I am not austere or formal scription. No! the charges against me are all in my nature. I would bear, I would even my- of one kind: that I have pushed the principles self play my part in, any innocent buffooneries of general justice and benevolence too far, to divert them; but I never will act the tyrant further than a cautious policy would warrant, for their amusement. If they will mix malice and further than the opinions of many would in their sports, I shall never consent to throw go along with me. In every accident which them any living sentient creature whatsoever, may happen through life-in pain, in sorrow, no, not so much as a kitling, to torment. in depression and distress-I will call to mind "But, if I profess all this impolitic stub- this accusation, and be comforted. bornness, I may chance never to be elected into Parliament." It is certainly not pleasing to FROM REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLU TION IN FRANCE* those which were so delicately urged in the Yielding to reasons, at least as forcible as compliment on the new year, the king of events and that compliment. But history, who France will probably endeavour to forget these exercises her awful censure over the proceedkeeps a durable record of all our acts, and be put out of the public service; but I wish to be a member of Parliament to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat. I deceive myself indeed most grossly if I had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the visions and imagina-ings of all sorts of sovereigns, will not forget tions of such things, than to be placed on the most splendid throne of the universe, tantalized with a denial of the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other than the greatest curse. Gentlemen, I have had my day. I can never sufficiently express my gratitude to you for having set me in a place wherein I could lend the slightest help to great and laudable designs. If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property and private conscience; if by my vote I have aided in securing to families the best possession, peace; if I have joined in reconciling kings to their subjects, and subjects to their prince; if I have assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the citizen, and taught him to look for his protection to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to the good-will of his countrymen; if I have thus taken my part with † the best of men in the best of their actions, I can shut the book-I might wish to read a either those events, or the era of this liberal refinement in the intercourse of mankind. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen at her door, who cried out to her to save herwas first startled by the voice of the sentinel self by flight-that this was the last proof of 1 Spoken sarcastically; see beginning of third paragraph. These reflections grew out of a correspondence which Burke had with "a very young gentleman of Paris," and they retain the tone of a personal letter. They were published in 1790. An address from the Assembly had been pre sented to the King and Queen Jan. 3, 1790, felicitating them upon the new year and begging them to forget the past in view of the good they might do in the future, tions of the heart, may incline to think it pious and decorous to compare it with the entrance into the world of the Prince of Peace, proclaimed in a holy temple by a venerable sage, and not long before not worse announced by the voice of angels to the quiet innocence of shepherds. fidelity he could give-that they were upon him, | completely vanquished all the mean superstiand he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment. At first I was at a loss to account for this fit of unguarded transport. I knew, indeed, that the sufferings of monarchs make a deThis king, to say no more of him, and this licious repast to some sort of palates. There queen, and their infant children, (who once were reflections which might serve to keep this would have been the pride and hope of a great appetite within some bounds of temperance. and generous people,) were then forced to But when I took one circumstance into my abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid consideration, I was obliged to confess, that palace in the world, which they left swimming much allowance ought to be made for the soin blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed ciety, and that the temptation was too strong with scattered limbs and mutilated carcases. for common discretion; I mean, the circumThence they were conducted into the capital stance of the Io Pæant of the triumph, the of their kingdom. Two had been selected animating cry which called "for all the from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous BISHOPS to be hanged on the lamp-posts," slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen might well have brought forth a burst of enof birth and family who composed the king's thusiasm on the foreseen consequences of this body guard. These two gentlemen, with all happy day. I allow to so much enthusiasm the parade of an execution of justice, were some little deviation from prudence. I allow cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and this prophet to break forth into hymns of joy beheaded in the great court of the palace. and thanksgiving on an event which appears Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led like the precursor of the Millennium, and the the procession; whilst the royal captives who projected fifth monarchy,5 in the destruction of followed in the train were slowly moved along, all church establishments. There was, howamidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, ever, (as in all human affairs there is,) in the and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, midst of this joy, something to exercise the and all the unutterable abominations of the patience of these worthy gentlemen, and to try furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest the long-suffering of their faith. The actual of women. After they had been made to taste, murder of the king and queen, and their child, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of was wanting to the other auspicious circumdeath, in the slow torture of a journey of stances of this "beautiful day." The actual twelve miles, protracted to six hours, they murder of the bishops, though called for by so were, under a guard, composed of those very many holy ejaculations, was also wanting. A soldiers who had thus conducted them through group of regicide and sacrilegious slaughter, this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old was indeed boldly sketched, but it was only palaces of Paris now converted into a bastile sketched. It unhappily was left unfinished, in for kings. this great history-piece of the massacre of innocents. What hardy pencil of a great master, from the school of the rights of men,* will finish it, is to be seen hereafter. The age has not yet the complete benefit of that diffusion of knowledge that has undermined superstition and error; and the king of France wants another object or two to consign to oblivion, in consideration of all the good which is to 4 Ancient shout of victory. Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars? to be commemorated with grateful thanksgiving? to be offered to the divine humanity with fervent prayer and enthusiastic ejaculation?These Theban and Thracian orgies,2 acted in France, and applauded only in the Old Jewry,3 I assure you, kindle prophetic enthusiasm in the minds but of very few people in this kingdom: although a saint and apostle, who may have revelations of his own, and who has so 2 Bacchanalian orgies of ancient Greece. 3 A London street, where Dr. Richard Price, of the Revolution Society, had preached a sermon in approbation of the Revolution in France. 5 The dream of a Puritan sect of Cromwell's arise from his own sufferings, and the patriotic crimes of an enlightened age. Although this work of our new light and knowledge did not go to the length that in all probability it was intended it should be carried, yet I must think that such treatment of any human creatures must be shocking to any but those who are made for accomplishing revolutions, But I cannot stop here. Influenced by the inborn feelings of my nature, and not being illuminated by a single ray of this new sprung modern light, I confess to you, Sir, that the exalted rank of the persons suffering, and particularly the sex, the beauty, and the amiable qualities of the descendant of so many kings and emperors, with the tender age of royal infants, insensible only through infancy and innocence of the cruel outrages to which their parents were exposed, instead of being a subject of exultation, adds not a little to my sensibility on that most melancholy occa sion. I hear that the august person, who was the principal object of our preacher's triumph, though he supported himself, felt much on that shameful occasion. As a man, it became him to feel for his wife and his children, and the faithful guards of his person, that were massacred in cold blood about him; as a prince, it became him to feel for the strange and frightful transformation of his civilized subjects, and to be more grieved for them than solicitous for himself. It derogates little from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honour of his humanity. I am very sorry to say it, very sorry indeed, that such personages are in a situation in which it is not becoming in us to praise the virtues of the great. I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other object of the triumph, has borne that day, (one is interested that beings made for suffering should suffer well,) and that she bears all the succeeding days, that she bears the imprisonment of her husband, and her captivity, and the exile of her friends, and the insulting adulation of addresses, and the whole weight of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene patience, in a manner suited to her rank and race, and becoming the offspring of a sovereigns distinguished for her piety and her courage; that, like her, she has lofty sentiments; that she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron; that in the last extremity she will save herself from the last disgrace; and that, if she must fall, she will fall by no ignoble hand. 6 Maria Theresa It is now sixteen or seventeen years since 1 saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,-glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long succession of generations, even to the time we live in. If it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss 1 fear will be great. It is this which has given its character to modern Europe. It is this which has distinguished it under all its forms of government, and distinguished it to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique world. It was this, which, without confounding ranks, had produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into 7 By poison, self-administered. |