war, to be reason, show it to be common sense.  We have a measure of the reason and common sense of Burke’s attitude in the Regicide Peace, in the language which it inspired in Windham and others, who denounced Wilberforce for canting when he spoke of peace; who stigmatised Pitt as weak and a pander to national avarice for thinking of the cost of the war; and who actually charged the liverymen of London who petitioned for peace with open sedition.

It is a striking illustration of the versatility of Burke’s moods that immediately before sitting down to write the Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace he had composed one of the most lucid and accurately meditated of all of his tracts, which, short as it is, contains ideas on free trade which were only too far in advance of the opinion of his time.  In 1772 a Corn Bill had been introduced—­it was passed in the following year—­of which Adam Smith said that it was like the laws of Solon, not the best in itself, but the best which the situation and tendency of the times would admit.  In speaking upon this measure, Burke had laid down those sensible principles on the trade in corn, which he now in 1795 worked out in the Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.  Those who do not concern themselves with economics will perhaps be interested in the singular passage, vigorously objected to by Dugald Stewart, in which Burke sets up a genial defence of the consumption of ardent spirits.  It is interesting as an argument, and it is most characteristic of the author.

The curtain was now falling.  All who saw him felt that Burke’s life was quickly drawing to a close.  His son’s death had struck the final blow.  We could only wish that the years had brought to him what it ought to be the fervent prayer of us all to find at the close of the long struggle with ourselves and with circumstance,—­a disposition to happiness, a composed spirit to which time has made things clear, an unrebellious temper, and hopes undimmed for mankind.  If this was not so, Burke at least busied himself to the end in great interests.  His charity to the unfortunate emigrants from France was diligent and unwearied.  Among other solid services he established a school near Beaconsfield for sixty French boys, principally the orphans of Quiberon, and the children of other emigrants who had suffered in the cause.  Almost the last glimpse that we have of Burke is in a record of a visit to Beaconsfield by the author of the Vindiciae Gallicae.  Mackintosh had written to Burke to express his admiration for his character and genius, and recanting his old defence of the Revolution.  “Since that time,” he said, “a melancholy experience has undeceived me on many subjects, in which I was then the dupe of my enthusiasm.”  When Mackintosh went to Beaconsfield (Christmas, 1796) he was as much amazed as every one else with the exuberance of his host’s mind in conversation.  Even then Burke entered with cordial glee into the sports