ysentery at Cairo when about to start on a new
journey into the interior of Africa.

BURKE, EDMUND (1729-1797).--Statesman, orator, and political philosopher,
was the _s._ of an attorney in Dublin, where he was _b._ His _f._ was a
Protestant, but his mother, whose maiden name was Nagle, was a Roman
Catholic. He received his early _ed._ at a Quaker school at Ballitore,
and in 1743 proceeded to Trinity Coll., Dublin, where he graduated in
1748. His _f._ wished him to study for the law, and with this object he,
in 1750, went to London and entered the Middle Temple. He, however,
disliked law and spent more time in literary pursuits than in legal
study. In 1756 his first _pub._ work appeared, _A Vindication of Natural
Society_, a satire on the views of Bolingbroke, but so close was the
imitation of that writer's style, and so grave the irony, that its point
as a satire was largely missed. In the same year he _pub._ his famous
treatise _On the Sublime and Beautiful_, which attracted universal
attention, and three years later (1759) he projected with Dodsley the
publisher _The Annual Register_, for which he continued to write the
yearly Survey of Events until 1788. About the same time he was introduced
to W.G. Hamilton (known as Single-speech H.) then about to go to Ireland
as Chief Sec., and accompanied him in the capacity of private sec., in
which he remained for three years. In 1765 he became private sec. to the
Marquis of Rockingham, the Whig statesman, then Prime Minister, who
became his fast friend until his death. At the same time he entered
Parliament as member for Wendover, and began his brilliant career as an
orator and philosophic statesman. The first great subject in which he
interested himself was the controversy with the American colonies, which
soon developed into war and ultimate separation, and in 1769 he _pub._,
in reply to G. Grenville, his pamphlet on _The Present State of the
Nation_. In the same year he purchased the small estate of Gregories near
Beaconsfield. His speeches and writings had now made him famous, and
among other effects had brought about the suggestion that he was the
author of the _Letters of Junius_. It was also about this time that he
became one of the circle which, including Goldsmith, Garrick, etc., had
Johnson for its central luminary. In 1770 appeared _Thoughts on the
Causes of the Present Discontent_, directed against the growth of the
Royal power on the one hand, and of faction on