The Rev. Dr. Robert H. Murray's Edmund Burke (Oxford University
Press, 15s.) is a serious attempt to supply the full biography which has long been needed of that remarkable man. He clears up some of the obscure points in Burke's life ; he is frank in regard to some of Burke's failings, notably his speculation m East India stock which ruined his friend Earl Verney and left himself heavily in debt to the end of his life. Dr. Murray treats the Warren Hastings episode judiciously, pointing out with truth that the Governor- General shared Burke's views of our duty to the Indians, but that Burke was trying to establish the principle of our trusteeship in India even if he chose the wrong scapegoat in Hastings. Opinions will always differ about Burke's attacks on revolutionary France, but there is general agreement upon the value of his constitutional doctrines for England, even if at times he prostituted his genius to serve some very shady
Whig politicians. Dr. Murray gives some pleasant glimpses of Burke's home life and of the cultured society in which he shone more brightly than in the House of Commons. Would that Dr. Murray, or another, could give the world a really complete edition of Burke's works, properly a and edited. It has for many years past been sorely need * * * *
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