or his _History of America_
was Burke's immortal letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the American
War, we must, I think, be forced to admit that, as so often happens when
a Scotchman and an Irishman do business together, the former got the
better of the bargain.

Burke's first public employment was of a humble character, and might well
have been passed over in a sentence, had it not terminated in a most
delightful quarrel, in which Burke conducted himself like an Irishman of
genius. Some time in 1759 he became acquainted with William Gerard
Hamilton, commonly called 'Single-speech Hamilton,' on account of the
celebrity he gained from his first speech in Parliament, and the steady
way in which his oratorical reputation went on waning ever after. In
1761 this gentleman went over to Ireland as Chief Secretary, and Burke
accompanied him as the Secretary's secretary, or, in the unlicensed
speech of Dublin, as Hamilton's jackal. This arrangement was eminently
satisfactory to Hamilton, who found, as generations of men have found
after him, Burke's brains very useful, and he determined to borrow them
for the period of their joint lives. Animated by this desire, in itself
praiseworthy, he busied himself in procuring for Burke a pension of 300
pounds a year on the Irish establishment, and then the simple 'Single-
speech' thought the transaction closed. He had bought his poor man of
genius, and paid for him on the nail with other people's money. Nothing
remained but for Burke to draw his pension and devote the rest of his
life to maintaining Hamilton's reputation. There is nothing at all
unusual in this, and I have no doubt Burke would have stuck to his
bargain, had not Hamilton conceived the fatal idea that Burke's brains
were _exclusively_ his (Hamilton's). Then the situation became one of
risk and apparent danger.

Burke's imagination began playing round the subject: he saw himself a
slave, blotted out of existence--mere fuel for Hamilton's flame. In a
week he was in a towering passion. Few men can afford to be angry. It
is a run upon their intellectual resources they cannot meet. But Burke's
treasury could well afford the luxury; and his letters to Hamilton make
delightful reading to those who, like myself, dearly love a dispute when
conducted according to the rules of the game by men of great intellectual
wealth. Hamilton demolished and reduced to stony silence, Burke sat down
again and wrote long letters to al