American taxation, as well as in the _Letter to the
Sheriffs of Bristol_ in 1777, we see the all-important truth conspicuously
illustrated that half of his eloquence always comes of the thoroughness
with which he gets up his case. No eminent man has ever done more than
Burke to justify the definition of genius as the consummation of the
faculty of taking pains. Labour incessant and intense, if it was not the
source, was at least an inseparable condition of his power. And magnificent
rhetorician though he was, his labour was given less to his diction than to
the facts; his heart was less in the form than the matter. It is true that
his manuscripts were blotted and smeared, and that he made so many
alterations in the proofs that the printer found it worth while to have the
whole set up in type afresh. But there is no polish in his style, as in
that of Junius for example, though there is something a thousand times
better than polish. "Why will you not allow yourself to be persuaded," said
Francis after reading the _Reflections_, "that polish is material to
preservation?" Burke always accepted the rebuke, and flung himself into
vindication of the sense, substance and veracity of what he had written.
His writing is magnificent, because he knew so much, thought so
comprehensively, and felt so strongly.

The succession of failures in America, culminating in Cornwallis's
surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, wearied the nation, and at length
the persistent and powerful attacks of the opposition began to tell. "At
this time," wrote Burke, in words of manly self-assertion, thirteen years
afterwards, "having a momentary lead (1780-1782), so aided and so
encouraged, and as a feeble instrument in a mighty hand--I do not say I
saved my country--I am sure I did my country important service. There were
few indeed at that time that did not acknowledge it. It was but one voice,
that no man in the kingdom better deserved an honourable provision should
be made for him." In the spring of 1782 Lord North resigned. It seemed as
if the court system which Burke had been denouncing [v.04 p.0830] for a
dozen years was now finally broken, and as if the party which he had been
the chief instrument in instructing, directing and keeping together must
now inevitably possess power for many years to come. Yet in a few months
the whole fabric had fallen, and the Whigs were thrown into opposition for
the rest of the century. The story cannot be omitted in