Good and observant men will feel that no misty benevolence or vague sympathy, but the positive reality of experience, inspired such passages as that where he says,—­“Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries I have found much human virtue.  The age unquestionably produces daring profligates and insidious hypocrites?  What then?  Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that is in it?...  Those who raise suspicions of the good, on account of the behaviour of evil men, are of the party of the latter....  A conscientious person would rather doubt his own judgment than condemn his species.  He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.  In truth, I should much rather admit those whom at any time I have disrelished the most, to be patterns of perfection, than seek a consolation to my own unworthiness in a general communion of depravity with all about me.”  This is one of those pieces of rational constancy and mental wholeness in Burke which fill up our admiration for him—­one of the manifold illustrations of an invincible fidelity to the natural order and operation of things, even when they seemed most hostile to all that was dear to his own personality.

CHAPTER V

ECONOMICAL REFORM—­BURKE IN OFFICE—­FALL OF HIS PARTY

Towards 1780 it began to be clear that the Ministers had brought the country into disaster and humiliation, from which their policy contained no way of escape.  In the closing months of the American war, the Opposition pressed Ministers with a vigour that never abated.  Lord North bore their attacks with perfect good-humour.  When Burke, in the course of a great oration, parodied Burgoyne’s invitation to the Indians to repair to the king’s standard, the wit and satire of it almost suffocated the Prime Minister, not with shame but with laughter.  His heart had long ceased to be in the matter, and everybody knew that he only retained his post in obedience to the urgent importunities of the king, whilst such colleagues as Rigby only clung to their place because the salaries were endeared by long familiarity.  The general gloom was accidentally deepened by that hideous outbreak of fanaticism and violence, which is known as the Lord George Gordon Riots (June 1780).  The Whigs, as having favoured the relaxation of the laws against popery, were especially obnoxious to the mob.  The Government sent a guard of soldiers to protect Burke’s house in Charles Street, St. James’s; but after he had removed the more important of his papers, he insisted on the guard being despatched for the protection of more important places, and he took shelter under the roof of General Burgoyne.  His excellent wife, according to a letter of his brother, had “the firmness and sweetness of an angel; but why do I say of an