cherishes honor and honorable things, will endure the
degradation of ignoble persons or ignoble thoughts; no one ever achieved
a great purpose who did not plant his standard on high ground.

A little before the commencement of the present century, England was
rich in orators, and poets, and men of letters; the times were favorable
to such--events called them forth--and there was still a lingering
chivalric feeling in our island which the utilitarian principles or
tastes of the present period would now treat with neglect, if not
contempt.

The progress of the French Revolution agitated Europe; and men wondered
if the young Corsican would ever dare to wield the sceptre wrenched from
the grasp of a murdered king; people were continually on the watch for
fresh events; great stakes were played for all over Europe, and those
who desired change were full of hope. It was an age to create great men.

Let us then indulge in visions of those, who, in more recent times than
we have yet touched upon,--save in one or two PILGRIMAGES,--illumed the
later days of the last century; and, brightest and purest of the galaxy
was the orator, EDMUND BURKE. Ireland, which gave him birth, may well be
proud of the high-souled and high-gifted man, who united in himself all
the great qualities which command attention in the senate and the world,
and all the domestic virtues that sanctify home; grasping a knowledge of
all things, and yet having that sweet sympathy with the small things of
life, which at once bestows and secures happiness, and, in the end,
popularity.

EDMUND BURKE was born on Arran Quay, Dublin, January the 1st, 1730; his
father was an attorney: the name, we believe, was originally spelt
Bourke.

The great grandfather of Edmund inherited some property in that county
which has produced so many men of talent--the county of Cork; the family
resided in the neighborhood of Castletown Roche, four or five miles from
Doneraile, five or six miles from Mallow--now a railroad station--and
nearly the same distance from the ruins of Kilcolman Castle, whose every
mouldering stone is hallowed by the memory of the poet Spenser and his
dear friend, "the Shepherd of the Ocean," Sir Walter Raleigh. There can
be little doubt that Edmund--a portion of whose young life was passed in
this beautiful locality--imbibed much thought, as well as much poetry,
from the sacred memories which here accompanied him during his
wanderings.

Nothing so thoroughl