We give a curious specimen of the daring criticism which this
applauded personage now and then ventured, even on the authorship of
Burke. In 1790, Burke had prepared his celebrated work on the French
Revolution for the press early in the year, and appears to have sent
fragments of it to several of his friends. Casual circumstances
delayed the work until October. Francis's letter was written in
February. It begins--"I am sorry you should have the trouble of
sending for the printed paper you lent me yesterday, though I own I
cannot much regret even a fault of my own, that helps to delay the
publication of that paper. [This was probably a proof sheet of the
_Reflections_.] It is the proper province, and ought to be the
privilege, of an inferior to criticise and advise. The best possible
critic of the Iliad, would be, _ipso facto_, and by virtue of that
very character, incapable of being the author of it. Standing as I do
in this relation to you, you would renounce your superiority, if you
refused to be advised by me. Remember that this is one of the most
singular, that it may be the most distinguished, and ought to be one
of the most deliberate acts of your life. Your writings have hitherto
been the delight and instruction of your own country. You now
undertake to correct and instruct another nation; and your appeal in
effect is to all Europe." After then objecting to Burke's exposure of
Price and his fellow pamphleteers, as beneath the writer and his
subject, he attacks him for his panegyric on the Queen of France. He
then sneeringly asks, "Pray, sir, how long have you felt yourself so
desperately disposed to admire the ladies of Germany?" This was an
allusion to Queen Charlotte, whom Burke's particular friends had long
regarded as one of their impediments to power. He proceeds--"The
mischief you are going to do yourself, is to my apprehension,
palpable. It is visible. It will be audible. I snuff it in the wind. I
taste it already. I feel it in every sense; and so will you
hereafter." This letter certainly wants the polish of Junius, but it
has the power of bitter thought, and it sneers with practised
piquancy. Of course, a broad line is to be drawn between a work of
study and the work of the moment--between the elaborate vigour which
prunes and purifies every straggling shoot away, and exhibits its
production for a prize-show, and the careless luxuriance which suffers
the tree to throw out its shoots under no direction