n
disputed, and if he was rejected, it is matter of congratulation, that
his talents and time were not confined to so narrow a sphere. At that
period his mind was occupied by his theories on the Sublime and
Beautiful, which were finally condensed and published in the shape of
that essay which roused the world to admiration.

Mr. Prior says, and with every show of reason, "that Mr. Burke's
ambition of being distinguished in literature, seems to have been one of
his earliest, as it was one of his latest, passions." His first avowed
work was "The Vindication of Natural Society;" but he wrote a great deal
anonymously; and the essay on "The Sublime and Beautiful," triumphant as
it was, must have caused him great anxiety; he began it before he was
nineteen, and kept it by him for seven years before it was published--a
valuable lesson to those who rush into print and mistake the desire for
celebrity, for the power which bestows immortality.

The literature which is pursued chiefly in solitude, is always the best
sort: society, which cheers and animates men in most employments, is an
impediment to an author if really warmed by true genius, and impelled by
a sacred love of truth not to fritter away his thoughts or be tempted to
insincerity.

The genius and noble mind of Burke constituted him a high priest of
literature; the lighter, and it might be the more pleasurable enjoyments
of existence, could not be tasted without interfering with his pursuits;
but he knew his duty to his God, to the world, and to himself, and the
responsibility alone was sufficiently weighty to bend a delicate frame,
even when there was no necessity for laboring to live--but where an
object is to be attained, principles put forth or combated, God or man
to be served, the necessity for exertion always exists, and the great
soul must go forth on its mission.

That sooner or later this strife, or love, or duty--pursued
bravely--must tell upon all who even covet and enjoy their labor, the
experience of the past has recorded; and Edmund Burke, even at that
early period of life, was ordered to try the effects of a visit to Bath
and Bristol, then the principal resort of the invalids of the United
Kingdom.

At Bath he exchanged one malady for another, for he became attached to
Miss Nugent, the daughter of his physician, and in a very little time
formed what, in a worldly point of view, would be considered an
imprudent marriage, but which secured the happin