fervent prayer of us all to find at the close of the
long struggle with ourselves and with circumstance,--a disposition to
happiness, a composed spirit to which time has made things clear, an
unrebellious temper, and hopes undimmed for mankind. If this was not
so, Burke at least busied himself to the end in great interests. His
charity to the unfortunate emigrants from France was diligent and
unwearied. Among other solid services he established a school near
Beaconsfield for sixty French boys, principally the orphans of
Quiberon, and the children of other emigrants who had suffered in the
cause. Almost the last glimpse that we have of Burke is in a record
of a visit to Beaconsfield by the author of the _Vindiciae Gallicae_.
Mackintosh had written to Burke to express his admiration for his
character and genius, and recanting his old defence of the Revolution.
"Since that time," he said, "a melancholy experience has undeceived me
on many subjects, in which I was then the dupe of my enthusiasm."
When Mackintosh went to Beaconsfield (Christmas, 1796) he was as much
amazed as every one else with the exuberance of his host's mind in
conversation. Even then Burke entered with cordial glee into the
sports of children, rolling about with them on the carpet, and pouring
out in his gambols the sublimest images, mixed with the most wretched
puns. He said of Fox, with a deep sigh, "He is made to be loved."
There was the irresistible outbreak against "that putrid carcase, that
mother of all evil--the French Revolution." It reminded him of the
accursed things that crawled in and out of the mouth of the vile hag
in Spenser's Cave of Error; and he repeated the nauseous stanza.
Mackintosh was to be the faithful knight of the romance, the
brightness of whose sword was to flash destruction on the filthy
progeny.

It was on the 9th of July 1797 that, in the sixty-eighth year of his
age, preserving his faculties to the last moment, he expired. With
magnanimous tenderness Fox proposed that he should be buried among the
great dead in Westminster Abbey; but Burke had left strict injunctions
that his funeral should be private, and he was laid in the little
church at Beaconsfield. It was a terrible moment in the history of
England and of Europe. An open mutiny had just been quelled in the
fleet. There had been signs of disaffection in the army. In Ireland
the spirit of revolt was smouldering, and in a few months broke out
in the fierce flames o