BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS (1784-1817).—­Traveller, b. at Lausanne and ed. in Germany, came to England in 1806 and wrote his books of travel in English.  He travelled widely in Africa and in Syria, and the adjoining countries, became a great oriental scholar, and, disguising himself, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and obtained access to places not open to Christians.  He wrote accounts of his travels, and a book on Arabic proverbs.  He d. of dysentery at Cairo when about to start on a new journey into the interior of Africa.

BURKE, EDMUND (1729-1797).—­Statesman, orator, and political philosopher, was the s. of an attorney in Dublin, where he was b. His f. was a Protestant, but his mother, whose maiden name was Nagle, was a Roman Catholic.  He received his early ed. at a Quaker school at Ballitore, and in 1743 proceeded to Trinity Coll., Dublin, where he graduated in 1748.  His f. wished him to study for the law, and with this object he, in 1750, went to London and entered the Middle Temple.  He, however, disliked law and spent more time in literary pursuits than in legal study.  In 1756 his first pub. work appeared, A Vindication of Natural Society, a satire on the views of Bolingbroke, but so close was the imitation of that writer’s style, and so grave the irony, that its point as a satire was largely missed.  In the same year he pub. his famous treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful, which attracted universal attention, and three years later (1759) he projected with Dodsley the publisher The Annual Register, for which he continued to write the yearly Survey of Events until 1788.  About the same time he was introduced to W.G.  Hamilton (known as Single-speech H.) then about to go to Ireland as Chief Sec., and accompanied him in the capacity of private sec., in which he remained for three years.  In 1765 he became private sec. to the Marquis of Rockingham, the Whig statesman, then Prime Minister, who became his fast friend until his death.  At the same time he entered Parliament as member for Wendover, and began his brilliant career as an orator and philosophic statesman.  The first great subject in which he interested himself was the controversy with the American colonies, which soon developed into war and ultimate separation, and in 1769 he pub., in reply to G. Grenville, his pamphlet on The Present State of the Nation.  In the same year he purchased the small estate of Gregories near Beaconsfield.  His speeches and writings had now made him famous, and among other effects had brought about the suggestion that he was the author of the Letters of Junius.  It was also about this time that he became one of the circle which, including Goldsmith, Garrick, etc., had Johnson for its central luminary.  In 1770 appeared Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontent, directed against the growth of the Royal power on the one hand,