Let me
linger for a moment on that illustrious name.

In originality, erudition, and accomplishments Burke had no rival among
Parliamentary speakers. His prose is, as we read it now, the most
fascinating, the most musical, in the English language. It bears on
every page the divine lineaments of genius. Yet an orator requires
something more than mere force of words. He must feel, while he speaks,
the pulse of his audience, and instinctively regulate every sentence by
reference to their feelings. All contemporary evidence shows that in
this kind of oratorical tact Burke was eminently deficient. His
nickname, "The Dinner-bell of the House of Commons," speaks for his
effect on the mind of the average M.P. "In vain," said: Moore, "did
Burke's genius put forth its superb plumage, glittering all over with
the hundred eyes of fancy. The gait of the bird was heavy and awkward,
and its voice seemed rather to scare than attract."

Macaulay has done full justice to the extraordinary blaze of brilliancy
which on supreme occasions threw these minor defects into the shade.
Even now the old oak rafters of Westminster Hall seem to echo that
superlative peroration which taught Mrs. Siddons a higher flight of
tragedy than her own, and made the accused proconsul feel himself for
the moment the guiltiest of men. Mr. Gladstone declared that Burke was
directly responsible for the war with France, for "Pitt could not have
resisted him." For the more refined, the more cultivated, the more
speculative intellects he had--and has--an almost supernatural charm.
His style is without any exception the richest, the most picturesque,
the most inspired and inspiring in the language. In its glories and its
terrors it resembles the Apocalypse. Mr. Morley, in the most striking of
all his critical essays, has truly said that the natural ardour which
impelled Burke to clothe his judgments in glowing and exaggerated
phrases is one secret of his power over us, because it kindles in those
who are capable of that generous infection a respondent interest and
sympathy. "He has the sacred gift of inspiring men to care for high
things, and to make their lives at once rich and austere. Such a gift is
rare indeed. We feel no emotion of revolt when Mackintosh speaks of
Shakespeare and Burke in the same breath as being, both of them, above
mere talent. We do not dissent when Macaulay, after reading Burke's
works over again, exclaims: 'How admirable! The greatest man si