SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE, ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS OF THANKS TO HIS MAJESTY (ON THE 28TH OF NOVEMBER, 1783) FOR HIS GRACIOUS COMMUNICATION OF A TREATY OF COMMERCE CONCLUDED BETWEEN GEORGE THE THIRD, KING, &C. AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
We were very apprehensive upon Mr. Burke's coming into administration, that this circumstance might have proved a bar to any further additions to the valuable collection of his speeches already in the hands of the public. If we imagined that our verdict could make any addition to the very great and deserved reputation in which they are held, we should not scruple to say that were Cicero our contemporary, and Mr. Burke the ancient, we are persuaded that there would not be a second opinion upon the comparative merits of their orations. In the same degree as the principles of the latter are unquestionably more unsullied, and his spirit more independent; do we esteem him to excel in originality of genius, and sublimity of conception.
We will give two extracts; one animadverting upon the preliminaries of peace concluded by the earl of Shelburne; the other a character of David Hartley, Esq.
"I know that it has been given out, that by the ability and industry of their predecessors we found peace and order established to our hands; and that the present ministers had nothing to inherit, but emolument and indolence, _otium cum dignitate._ Sir, I will inform you what kind of peace and leisure the late ministers had provided. They were indeed assiduous in their devotion; they erected a temple to the goddess of peace. But it was so hasty and incorrect a structure, the foundation was so imperfect, the materials so gross and unwrought, and the parts so disjointed, that it would have been much easier to have raised an entire edifice from the ground, than to have reduced the injudicious sketch that was made to any regularity of form. Where you looked for a shrine, you found only a vestibule; instead of the chapel of the goddess, there was a wide and dreary lobby; and neither altar nor treasury were to be found. There was neither greatness of design, nor accuracy of finishing. The walls were full of gaps and flaws, the winds whistled through the spacious halls, and the whole building tottered over our heads.