bly challenges, will go forward; you will shun your brethren, they will shun you. In the mean time gentlemen will avoid your friendship, for fear of being engaged in your quarrels: you will fall into distresses, which will only aggravate your disposition for farther quarrels: you will be obliged for maintenance to do any thing for any body; your very talents will depart, for want of hope and encouragement, and you will go out of the world fretted, disappointed, and ruined. Nothing but my real regard for you could induce me to set these considerations in this light before you. Remember we are born to serve and adorn our country, and not to contend with our fellow citizens, and that in particular your business is to paint, and not to dispute. EDMUND BURKE TO THE EARL OF MY DEAR LORD, CHARLEMONT. Westminster, June 4th, 1776. PERMIT me to make Mr. Young acquainted with you. To his works, and his reputation, you can be no stranger. I may add, that in conversing with this gentleman, you will find that he is far from having exhausted his stock of useful and pleasing ideas in the numerous publications with which he has favoured the world. He goes into our country to learn, if any thing valuable can be learned, concerning the state of agriculture, and to communicate his knowledge to such gentlemen as wish to improve their estates by such methods of enlightened culture as none but people of good fortune can employ, especially in the beginning. But examples may be given that hereafter will be useful, when you can prevail on yourselves to let the body of your people into an interest in the prosperity of your country. Your lordship will think it odd, that I can conclude a letter to you without saying a word on the state of public affairs. But what can I say that will be pleasing to a mind like yours? Ireland has missed the most glorious opportunity ever indulged by Heaven to a subordinate state,—that of being the safe and certain mediator in the quarrels of a great empire. She has chosen, instead of being the arbiter of peace, to be a feeble party in the war waged against the principle of her own liberties. But I beg pardon for censuring, or seeming to censure, what I perhaps so little comprehend. It certainly is much above me. Here we are, as we are. We have our little dejections for disappointments, our little triumphs for advantages, our little palliatives for disgraces, in a contest that no good fortune can make less than ruinous. I return to Mr. Young, whom I am sure you will receive with the hospitality which you always show to men of merit. Mrs. Burke joins me in our best compliments to Lady Charlemont. Your lordship, I trust, be lieves that I have the most affectionate concern in whatever relates to your happiness, and that I have the honour to be ever, my dear lord, your most faithful and obliged humble servant, EDM. BURKE. EDMUND BURKE TO THE EARL OF MY DEAR LORD, CHARLEMONT. Whitehall, June 12th, 1782. THE slight mark of your lordship's remembrance of an old friend, in the end of your lordship's letter to Lord Rockingham, gave me very great satisfaction. It was always an object of my ambition to stand well with you. I ever esteemed and admired your public and private virtues, which have at length produced all the effects which virtue can produce on this side of the grave, in the universal love of your countrymen. I assure you, my lord, that I take a sincere part in the general joy, and hope that mutual affection will do more for mutual help and mutual advantage, between the two kingdoms, than any ties of artificial connexion whatsoever. If I were not persuaded of this, my satisfaction at the late events would not be so complete as it is. born as I was in Ireland, and having received what is equal to the origin of one's being, the improvement of it there, and therefore full of love, and I might say of fond partiality for Ireland, I should think any benefit to her, which should be bought with the real disadvantage of this kingdom, or which might tend to loosen the ties of connexion between them, would be, even to our native country, a blessing of very equivocal kind. But I am convinced that no reluctant tie can be a strong one, and that a natural, cheerful alliance will be a far securer link of For, connexion than any principle of subordination borne with grudgings and discontent. All these contrivances are for the happiness of those they concern, and if they do not effect this, they do nothing. Go on, and prosper; improve the liberty you have obtained by your virtue, as a means of national prosperity, and internal as well as external union. I find that Ireland, among other marks of her just gratitude to Mr. Grattan (on which your lordship will present him my congratulations), intends to erect a monument to his honour, which is to be decorated with sculpture. It will be a pleasure to you to know, that at this time a young man of Ireland is here, who, I really think, as far as my judgment goes, is fully equal to our best statuaries, both in taste and execution. If you employ him, you will encourage the rising arts in the decoration of the rising virtue of Ireland; and though the former, in the scale of things, is infinitely below the latter, there is a kind of relationship between them. I am sure there has been ever a close connexion between them in your mind. The young man's name, who wishes to be employed, is Hickey. I have the honour to be, with the highest sentiments of regard and esteem, my lord, your lordship's most obedient servant, EDM. BURKE. EDMUND BURKE TO THE EARL OF CHARLEMONT. MY DEAR LORD, Gerrard Street, June 1, 1787. I HAVE a high respect for your lordship of old, as I trust you know; and as I have the best wishes for my friend, Mr. Francis, I am exceedingly desirous that he should have an opportunity of paying his compliments to the person in Ireland the most worthy the acquaintance of a man of sense and virtue. Mr. Francis has not been in Ireland since the days of his childhood, but he has been employed in a manner that does honour to the country that has given him his birth. When he sees your lordship, he will perceive that ancient morals have not yet deserted at least that part of the world which he revisits, and you will be glad to receive for a while a citizen that has only left his country to be the more extensively serviceable to mankind. May I beg your lordship to make my most respectful and most affectionate compliments, and those of Mrs. Burke and my son, and all that are of our little family, to Lady Charlemont. I hope that Mr. Francis will send back such an account of the health of your lordship, and all yours, as may make us happy. I have the honour to be, my dear lord, with the most cordial attachment, your most affectionate and obliged friend, and faithful servant, EDM. BURKE, |