of poetry, and yet never fell over,
was Burke's. It has the solidity, and sparkling effect of the diamond; all
other _fine writing_ is like French paste or Bristol-stones in the
comparison. Burke's style is airy, flighty, adventurous, but it never
loses sight of the subject; nay, is always in contact with, and derives
its increased or varying impulse from it. It may be said to pass yawning
gulfs 'on the unsteadfast footing of a spear:' still it has an actual
resting-place and tangible support under it--it is not suspended on
nothing. It differs from poetry, as I conceive, like the chamois from the
eagle: it climbs to an almost equal height, touches upon a cloud,
overlooks a precipice, is picturesque, sublime--but all the while, instead
of soaring through the air, it stands upon a rocky cliff, clambers up by
abrupt and intricate ways, and browzes on the roughest bark, or crops the
tender flower."

P. 186. _the set or formal style_. See pp. 147-8.

P. 187. _Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents_ (1770), a
criticism of the ministerial policy of the English government under George
III.

_Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (1790), a severe arraignment of
the principles which inspired the revolution and a prophetic warning of
its consequences.

_Letter to the Duke of Bedford_. A Letter from the Right Hon. Edmund
Burke, to a Noble Lord, on the attacks made upon him and his pension, in
the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale,
early in the present session of Parliament. (1706.)

_Regicide Peace_. Three Letters addressed to a Member of the Present
Parliament, on the proposals for peace with the regicide Directory of
France. (1796.)

P. 188. _Fox_, Charles James (1749-1806), the famous Whig statesman who
was frequently the opponent of Burke and of the younger Pitt.

P. 189. _Dr. Johnson observed_, in his "Life of Pope" (ed. Birkbeck Hill,
III, 230): "In their similes the greatest writers have sometimes failed;
the ship-race, compared with the chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor
aggrandised; land and water make all the difference: when Apollo running
after Daphne is likened to a greyhound chasing a hare, there is nothing
gained; the ideas of pursuit and flight are too plain to be made plainer,
and a god and the daughter of a god are not represented much to their
advantage by a hare and a dog."

_a person_. Conjecturally Joseph Fawcett. In the essay "On Criticism"
("Table