a nickname to
Single-Speech Hamilton was written by Burke. It was wise, witty and
profound--and never again did Hamilton do a thing that rose above the
dull and deadly mediocre.

It was a rival of Burke's who said, "He is the only man since Cicero who
is a great orator, and who can write as well as he can talk."

That Burke wrote the lectures of Sir Joshua Reynolds is now pretty
generally believed; in fact, that he received the goodly sum of four
thousand pounds for writing these lectures has been proved to the
satisfaction of a jury. Burke never said he wrote the Reynolds lectures,
and Sir Joshua left it to his valet to deny it. But read the lectures
now and you will see the stately step of Bolingbroke, and the insight,
wit and gravity of the man who said: "Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question
of privilege. If it is the pleasure of the House that all the heaviest
folios known to us should be here read aloud, I am in honor bound to
graciously submit, but only this I ask, that proceedings shall be
suspended long enough for me to send home for my nightcap."

* * * * *

Presently Burke graduated from doing hack-work for William Gerard
Hamilton to the position of his private secretary--Hamilton had been
appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and so highly did he prize Burke's
services that he had the Government vote him a pension of three hundred
pounds a year. This was the first settled income Burke had ever
received, and he was then well past thirty years of age. But though he
was in sore straits financially, when he perceived that the intent of
the income was to bind him into the exclusive service of his patron, he
resigned his office and refused the pension.

Without knowing how wisely he was acting, Burke, by declining the
pension and affronting Lord Hamilton, had done the very thing that it
was most expedient to do.

When Hamilton could not buy his man, he foolishly sought to crush him,
and this brought Burke for the first time into the white light of
publicity.

I suppose it is fully understood that the nobility of England are not
necessarily either cultured or well-read. Literature to most of the
titled gentry is a blank, my lord--it is so now and always has been so.
Burke's brilliant books were not sufficient to make him famous except
among the Elect Few; but the episode with Lord Hamilton set the gossips
by the ears, and all who had never read Burke's books now pretended they
ha