k us as strange, the morbid avidity with which
the world seizes upon the slightest evidence of abstraction in great
men, to declare that their minds are fading, or impoverished: the public
gapes for every trifle calculated to prove that the palsied fingers can
no longer grasp the intellectual sceptre, and that the well-worn and
hard-earned bays are as a crown of thorns to the pulseless brow. It was,
in those days whispered in London that the great orator had become
imbecile immediately after the publication of his "_Letter to a Noble
Lord_;" and that he wandered about his park kissing his cows and horses.

A noble friend went immediately to Beaconsfield to ascertain the truth,
and was delighted to find Mr. Burke anxious to read him passages from "A
Regicide Peace," which he was then writing; after a little delicate
manoeuvring on his part, to ascertain the truth, Mr. Burke told him a
touching incident which proved the origin of this calumny on his
intellectual powers.

An old horse, a great favorite of his son's, and his constant companion,
when both were full of life and health, had been turned out at the death
of his master, to take his run of the park for the remainder of his
life, at ease, with strict injunctions to the servants that he should
neither be ridden, nor molested by any one. While musing one day,
loitering along, Mr. Burke perceived this worn-out old servant come
close up to him, and at length, after some moments spent in viewing his
person, followed by seeming recollection and confidence, he deliberately
rested his head upon his bosom. The singularity of the action itself,
the remembrance of his dead son, its late master, who occupied so much
of his thoughts at all times, and the apparent attachment, tenderness
and intelligence of the creature towards him--as if it could sympathize
with his inward sorrow--rushing at once into his mind, totally
overpowered his firmness, and throwing his arms over its neck, he wept
long and loudly.

But though his lucid and beautiful mind, however agonized, remained
unclouded to the last, and his affections glowed towards his old friends
as warmly as ever, his bodily health was failing fast; one of the last
letters he ever dictated was to Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of his old
friend and master, Shackleton; this lady was subsequently well known in
Ireland as the author of "Cottage Dialogues." The first literary
attempt, we believe, made towards the improvement of the