Burke, who being well acquainted with most of the members, gave intimation that he would be one of their number, supposing that the least hint of such desire would be eagerly embraced. Dr. Johnson, though an early friend of Garrick, who had been one of his pupils when he kept his school at Lichfield, undervalued the actor's profession, and was offended at what he esteemed the presumption of an offer where he ought to have made a request. "He will be one of us! How does he know we will let him?" regarded Garrick with greater affection, and thought much more highly of theatrical talents, wished he might be introduced; but Johnson exclaimed, "He will disturb us with his buffoonery." Neither Burke nor others, who were disposed to let him in, dared insist on his immediate admission; but he was afterwards received, and he continued a member to his death. One evening Sir John Hawkins attacked Burke so rudely on the merit of Fielding's novels, which Burke advocated, that all the company testified their displeasure. At their next meeting they received Hawkins very coolly, and thus prevented his future visits. The club itself continued to increase, as it went on, in numbers and popularity. Burke owed his next advance in politics to the favourable impression he maintained at the club. An old and close ally of Dr. Johnson, a Mr. Fitz Herbert, struck with the varied and wondrous powers of Burke's intellect, had become his friend, and had not only the will but the power to serve him. A word or two about this patron. William FitzHerbert, Esq., of Tissington, in Derbyshire, elected M.P. for Derby in 1762 and in 1768, was, though himself a Protestant, sprung from the very ancient Catholic family of Fitz Herbert of Swinnerton, and was the grandfather of the present Sir Henry FitzHerbert, Bart., of Tissington. A younger son of Mr. William FitzHerbert, Alleyne FitzHerbert, had been created a peer by the title of Lord St. Helens, but had died unmarried. Mr. William FitzHerbert wedded Mary, eldest daughter of Littleton Poyntz Meynell, Esq., of Bradley, Derbyshire. Both the husband and wife were particular friends of Dr. Johnson. Their memories live in his observations about them. Of the lady he said she had the best understanding he ever met with in any human being. Touching the gentleman he was not quite so enthusiastic; yet he spoke thus: "There was no sparkle, no brilliancy in FitzHerbert, but I never knew a man who was so generally acceptable. He made every body quite easy; overpowered nobody by the superiority of his talents; made no man think the worse of himself by being his rival; seemed always to listen; did not oblige you to hear much from him, and did not oppose what you said;"—just, in fact, the kind of character the Doctor would be likely to admire. Mr. Fitz Herbert was a man of high political standing and influence, and a lord of trade and plantations under the Rockingham and other administrations of that period. Aware how valuable Mr. Burke's services would be to Government, he urged his claims on the notice of the then distinguished leader of the aristocratic section of the Whigs—the upright and amiable Marquess of Rockingham-who had just come into power with his party. Burke was introduced to the marquess, and won favour at once. The peer found his principles completely correspond with his own, and he determined to avail himself of his abilities. Lord Rockingham had become Prime Minister, for the first time, on the 10th July, 1765. He had Burke appointed his private secretary within a week afterwards. Another friend of Mr. FitzHerbert's, and a warm admirer of Burke's (Ralph, second Earl Verney), had Burke elected member of Parliament for his Buckinghamshire borough of Wendover, the very place that, in 1626, sent Hampden to the senate. Biographers follow one another in asserting that Lord Verney admitted Burke to the borough for the paltry consideration of being himself named a privy councillor. As his lordship really did not become one of the Council till some time after, is it not more fair to believe that he was led to the act because he felt, with Mr. Fitz Herbert, the vital importance of attaching so able a man as Mr. Burke to a party so feeble in talent as that of the Marquess BURKE AGAIN A SECRETARY. 49 of Rockingham then was? Edmund Burke had now got his foot upon the threshold of his fame: a curious circumstance threatened to put a fatal stop to his farther progress. The well-known peer and politician, Henry second Duke of Newcastle, who had accepted office as Lord Privy Seal, hearing of Burke's nomination, hurried down to Lord Rockingham, and urged his lordship to be on his guard against this adventurer, whose real name was O'Bourke, and whom his grace understood to be a wild Irishman, a Jacobite, a Papist, and a concealed Jesuit. The calumny was startling. The marquess, somewhat surprised, sent for his new secretary. Burke, with earnest indignation and a conscious spirit of rectitude, refuted the charges, stated he was a member of the Church of England, and declared his inviolable loyalty to the House of Brunswick. He had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and had never been in any way under Jesuit tutorship. There was no such name as O'Bourke. Lord Rockingham readily admitted the explanation; but after it was given, found a difficulty in preventing Burke from resigning his office, as doubt and suspicion had been cast upon his principles. The kind consideration the peer displayed in soothing Burke's agitated feelings won him the heart of the latter. Burke, as might be supposed, was true in what he said, and never swerved from his fealty; but gratitude drew him still nearer to the marquess. His devotion to Rockingham while living, and his eloquent sorrow for him when dead, remain on record among the brightest instances of his affectionate and noble nature. Most biographers of Burke have regarded this affair as a piece of pure folly on the part of the Duke of Newcastle, and have enlarged upon the absurdity of the general rumour that so long existed as to Burke's particular limits of political and religious faith; yet the duke's conduct was not quite so irrational as is surmised. Burke, like his friend Dr. Johnson, had, probably unknown to himself, a tinge of the Catholic and the cavalier. No doubt both he and Johnson were loyal supporters of the sovereigns whom the E Revolution had set upon the throne; they were both also stanch members of the established Church; yet they were not the sort of men to approve of dynasties changed by force, or the rights of kings invaded. They had elevated notions in matters of religion, and their spiritual creed had more in common with the highchurch notions of times previous, and the Puseyite doctrines of times subsequent to their own, than with the sober Whig theology of their day. Burke, at the actual period of the trials and executions that followed the battle of Culloden, does not hesitate, in a letter to Shackleton, to commiserate the cruel fate of many leaders of the insurrection. ""Tis indeed," he writes, "melancholy to consider the state of these unhappy gentlemen who engaged in this affair (as for the rest, they lose but their lives)-who have thrown away their lives and fortunes, and destroyed their families for ever, in what I believe they thought a just cause. As regards Burke, too, it should be remembered his first teacher (and one whose instructions the child never forgets) was his mother, and she was a Catholic. This accounts for his strong advocacy through life of the cause of Catholic emancipation; just as his after education among the Society of Friends and his marriage with a Presbyterian lady, explain his friendliness towards the Dissenters. Though not the least a bigot, he was a high churchman; though true to the tenets of the Revolution, he was a royalist. Expressions now and then in unison with innate sentiments might (such as the above-cited passage in his letter to Shackleton) have innocently raised the suspicion that Burke secretly inclined to the Catholic church and the Chevalier; and the very fact of his being introduced to government by Mr. FitzHerbert, a Protestant closely related to a Catholic race, would naturally lead the Duke of Newcastle to believe that the public report was not without foundation. When Burke was once launched into political life, he showed himself, beyond being religious and loyal, neither of the Society of Jesus nor of the Jacobite faction; yet the imputation of his being a member of the former, at least, long adhered to him. |