Profeasor Walter Raleigh gave an admirable lecture on Burke at
the Royal Institution last Saturday afternoon. Postponing the consideration of his style to a second lecture, Professor Raleigh asserted that among all English prose- writers Burke was most like Shakespeare, for he brought to politics an imagination that would have given him high rank among dramatists. It was not a misfortune that his political life had not been on the whole a success, judged by its effect on practical politics, " since no party was thus able to claim the sole right in him." The lecturer insisted on his long and fruitful preparation for public life. " He had the advantage of a mind practised and enriched by long
years of thought and study His knowledge was all vital, there was no dead matter in his mind." Again, polities to him were not simple. " He knew better than any man how vain it was to attempt to legislate for society on broad and simple principles, for the nature of man was intricate and the objects of society complex." Hence his hatred of theorists and abstract principles, and though this falsified his view of the nature and causes of the French Revolution, how he shone in his treatment of that great, political event beside other thinkers ! " All the problems he had to face were With us in some form to-da,y ; the doctrines he held regarding American independence had become part of the creed, of Empire. It was easy to be wise after the event ; Burke's greatness was that he was so often wise before the event." We welcome in Professor Raleigh a brilliant and whole-hearted supporter of the high estimate of Burke's genius which hiss always been maintained in these columns.
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