reasons of his own, an idea that had originated with himself.  Burke’s constancy of spirit was momentarily overclouded.  “Sometimes when I am alone,” he wrote to Lord Rockingham (September 15, 1774), “in spite of all my efforts, I fall into a melancholy which is inexpressible, and to which, if I give way, I should not continue long under it, but must totally sink.  Yet I do assure you that partly, and indeed principally, by the force of natural good spirits, and partly by a strong sense of what I ought to do, I bear up so well that no one who did not know them, could easily discover the state of my mind or my circumstances.  I have those that are dear to me, for whom I must live as long as God pleases, and in what way He pleases.  Whether I ought not totally to abandon this public station for which I am so unfit, and have of course been so unfortunate, I know not.”  But he was always saved from rash retirement from public business by two reflections.  He doubted whether a man has a right to retire after he has once gone a certain length in these things.  And he remembered that there are often obscure vexations in the most private life, which as effectually destroy a man’s peace as anything that can occur in public contentions.

Lord Rockingham offered his influence on behalf of Burke at Malton, one of the family boroughs in Yorkshire, and thither Burke in no high spirits betook himself.  On his way to the north he heard that he had been nominated for Bristol, but the nomination had for certain electioneering reasons not been approved by the party.  As it happened, Burke was no sooner chosen at Malton than, owing to an unexpected turn of affairs at Bristol, the idea of proposing him for a candidate revived.  Messengers were sent express to his house in London, and, not finding him there, they hastened down to Yorkshire.  Burke quickly resolved that the offer was too important to be rejected.  Bristol was the capital of the west, and it was still in wealth, population, and mercantile activity the second city of the kingdom.  To be invited to stand for so great a constituency, without any request of his own and free of personal expense, was a distinction which no politician could hold lightly.  Burke rose from the table where he was dining with some of his supporters, stepped into a post-chaise at six on a Tuesday evening, and travelled without a break until he reached Bristol on the Thursday afternoon, having got over two hundred and seventy miles in forty-four hours.  Not only did he execute the journey without a break, but, as he told the people of Bristol, with an exulting commemoration of his own zeal that recalls Cicero, he did not sleep for an instant in the interval.  The poll was kept open for a month, and the contest was the most tedious that had ever been known in the city.  New freemen were admitted down to the very last day of the election.  At the end of it, Burke was second on the poll, and was declared to be duly chosen (November 3, 1774).  There was a petition against his return, but the election was confirmed, and he continued to sit for Bristol for six years.