On Saturday last Lord Rosebery unveiled a memorial to Edmund
Burke which has been placed in the church of St. Mary and All Saints, Beaconsfield. At the necessary luncheon, held at Hall Barn (Sir Edward Lawson's house) Lord Rosebery, after pointing out that the approved pro- nunciation after the Dizzy peerages was Beaconsfield, not Beconsfield, gave a very pleasant, if slight, picture of Burke. There were many Burkes, but the one whom they were thinking of specially that day was the " farmer " Berke of Gregories. A contemporary account of Burke's daily life -had lately been published in a Scotch paper written by a Miss Shackleton. She described Burke compounding pills for his poorer neighbours. As he rolled his pills he said :—" I .am like an Irish Peer whom I used to know, who was also fond of dealing out remedies to his neighbours. One day that nobleman met a funeral, and asked a poorer neighbour whose funeral it was. 60h, my lord,' was the reply, ' that's Thady So-and-So, the man whom your lordship cured three days ago." We have dwelt elsewhere not too favourably nil Burke's personality, but his pleasant wholesome country life in Buckinghamshire should always be remembered by those who are disgusted at the violence and bad taste that marked a great part of his career as a politician.
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