the first feminine efforts that were received with enthusiasm: thus
it is that, without being of the first order of merit, they mark a
distinct era in English letters.

_Edmund Burke_, 1730-1797: he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity
College. He studied law, but soon found his proper sphere in public life.
He had brilliant literary gifts; but his fame is more that of a statesman
and an orator, than an author. Prominent in parliament, he took noble
ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother
country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic
eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one
of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings,
Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his
administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of its
noblest specimens; and the people of England learned more of their empire
in India from the learned, brilliant, and exhaustive speeches of Burke,
than they could have learned in any other way. The greatest of his written
works is: _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, written to warn
England to avoid the causes of such colossal evil. In 1756 he had
published his _Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful_. This has been variously criticized; and, although written with
vigor of thought and brilliancy of style, has now taken its place among
the speculations of theory, and not as establishing permanent canons of
aesthetical science. His work entitled _The Vindication of Natural Society,
by a late noble writer_, is a successful attempt to overthrow the infidel
system of Lord Bolingbroke, by applying it to civil society, and thus
showing that it proved too much--"that if the abuses of or evils sometimes
connected with religion invalidate its authority, then every institution,
however beneficial, must be abandoned." Burke's style is peculiar, and, in
another writer, would be considered pompous and pedantic; but it so
expresses the grandeur and dignity of the man, that it escapes this
criticism. His learning, his private worth, his high aims and
incorruptible faith in public station, the dignity of his statesmanship,
and the power of his oratory, constitute Mr. Burke as one of the noblest
characters of any English period; and, although his literary reputation is
not equal to his political fame, his accomplishments in the field of