a grant from Parliament for their benefit. Flood remarked of him: "He did not live to be ennobled by patent—he was ennobled by nature." Lord Temple wrote: "No one had that steady decided weight which he possessed in the judgment and affections of his country; and no one had more decidedly that inilexible and constitutional integrity which the times and circumstances peculiarly call for." His grandson held the family estates in 1868, and was High-Sheriff of Kildare in 1839-40. 22 53 141 154 196
Burke, Edmund, was born in the house now numbered 12 Arran-quay, Dublin, 1st January 1728-'9. His father, Richard Burke, a respectable solicitor, about 1725 married Mary Nagle, descended from Sir Richard Nagle, Attorney-General for Ireland in the time of James II.—a family connected by marriage with Edmund Spenser the poet. She was a Catholic. Edmund was the second son. Of a delicate constitution, he was sent at an early age to his maternal relatives at Balliduffe, in the County of Cork. They were Burke, Edmund kind and affectionate in their treatment of him. In May 1741, he was sent with his elder brother Garret and his younger brother Richard, to a school at Ballitore, kept by Abraham Shackleton, a member of the Society of Friends. There he formed a lifelong intimacy with Richard Shackleton, the son of his master, who thus writes of him at this period: "Edmund was a lad of the most promising genius; of an inquisitive and speculative turn of mind. He read much, and accumulated a stock of learning of great variety. His memory was extensive; his judgment early ripe. He would find in his own mind, reasoning and comparing in himself, such a fund of entertainment that he seemed not at all to regret his hours of solitude; yet he was affable, free, and communicative, as ready to teach as to learn. He made the reading of the classics his diversion rather than his business. He was particularly delighted with, history and poetry, and while at school performed several exercises in the latter with manly grace." He is described by another observer as "then full of genial humour, and with an instinctive and invincible hatred to oppression, his leading characteristic through life." In April 1744 he was removed to Dublin, and entered Trinity College. There he does not appear to have specially distinguished himself in the recognized paths of study; but he revelled in the expansive field of literature the Library opened to him; and his letters to his friend Shackleton show the growing energy of his intellect, the increase of his general knowledge, and the genial goodness of his heart. In May 1746 he obtained a scholarship. On 21st April 1747, a club was formed, the germ of the Historical Society. It met in George's-lane. Burke was one of the four original members. "Here," in the records of the society, says Sir Joseph Napier, "we can trace Burke from week to week—busy in speech, diligent in composition—now an essay on society, afterwards on painting—at times speaking in an historic character—again the critic of Milton. … It is easy to trace his earnest and persevering disposition—that pouring out of the very fulness of his heart, without regard to the temper of his audience, which afterwards made him so unmanageable in debate." His life after leaving college was desultory and aimless for several years. Nominally he was studying law at the Middle Temple. Although he was not on good terms with his father, of whose temper and bearing towards him he at times complained to his friends, he appears to have had a fair allowance, as he was able to reside in London, to move about from place to place in England, and even to visit France. In one letter we are told that his trouble of mind at this period was at times so great that he formed desperate resolutions; in another, that he contemplated emigration to America. In 1756 he published anonymously the small but celebrated work, entitled A Vindication of Natural Society. It was a successful imitation of Bolingbroke's style; and the design was, as he afterwards declared, to show " that without the exertions of any considerable forces, the same engines which were employed for the destruction of religion might be employed with equal success for the subversion of government; and that specious arguments might be used against those things which they who doubt of everything else will never permit to be questioned." In 1756 his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful was given to the world. It exhibited much excellence of style and deep thought, and attracted considerable attention. Johnson spoke highly of it, and Blair, Hume, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other eminent men signified their approbation. To the second edition Burke prefixed an introductory chapter on Taste. On receipt of a copy of this work, his father sent him £100 as a substantial token of his gratification and approval. Early in 1757 Burke married a Catholic lady, the daughter of Dr. Nugent, a physician whom he had consulted regarding his health, and who had taken him to his own residence to have him under his immediate and vigilant care. "His marriage proved a happy one; all who afterwards came in contact with
