came
luminous on the theme, and it was his forevermore.

At routs and fetes and four-o'-clocks, Burke was sought as an authority
on America. He had never been there--he had but promised himself that he
would go--for a sick wife held him back. In the meantime he had seen
every man of worth who had been to America, and had sucked the orange
dry. Macaulay gives the idea when he describes Burke's speech at the
Warren Hastings trial. Burke had never been to India; Macaulay had, but
that is nothing.

Says Macaulay:

When Burke spoke, the burning sun, the strange vegetation of the
palm and cocoa-tree, the rice-field, the tank, the huge trees,
older than the Mogul Empire, under which the village crowds
assemble, the thatched roof of the peasant's hut, the rich tracery
of the mosque where the Imam prays with his face to Mecca, the
drums, the banners and gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the
air, the graceful maiden with the pitcher on her head, descending
the steps to the riverside, the black faces, the long beards, the
yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the flowing robes, the
spears and silver maces, the elephants with their canopies of
state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, and the close litter
of the noble lady--all these things were to him as familiar as the
subjects which lay on the road between Beaconsfield and Saint James
Street. All India was present to the eye of his mind, from the
halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of the
sovereign, to the wild moor where the gipsy camp was pitched; from
the bazar, humming like a beehive with the crowd of buyers and
sellers, to the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of
iron rings to scare away the hyenas. He had just as lively an idea
of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots,
and of the execution of Numcomar as of Doctor Dodd. Oppression in
Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of
London.

The wide encompassing quality of Burke's mind made him a man among men.
Just how much he lent his power in those early days to assist those in
high places who needed him, we do not know. Such services were sacred to
him--done in friendship and in confidence, and held as steadfast as a
good lawyer holds the secrets of his client.

No doubt, though, that the one speech which gave glory and