nistry which the King
accepted because he could get nothing better, and because he would have
welcomed something much worse so long as it delivered him from {95}
Grenville--the Ministry that provoked the derisive pity of most of its
critics was destined to attain an honorable immortality. The
heterogeneous group of men who called themselves or were called, who
believed themselves or were believed to be Whigs, had obtained one
recruit whose name was yet to make the cause he served illustrious.
Lord Rockingham had many claims to the regard of his contemporaries;
undoubtedly his greatest claim to the regard of posterity lies in the
intelligence which enabled him to discern the rising genius of a young
writer, and the wisdom which found a place by his side and a seat in
the House of Commons for Edmund Burke.

[Sidenote: 1765--The coming of Edmund Burke]

The history of a nation is often largely the history of certain famous
men. Great epochs, producing great leaders, make those leaders
essentially the expression of certain phases of the thought of their
age. The life of Walpole is the life of the England of his time
because he was so intimately bound up with the great movement which
ended by setting Parliamentary government free from the possible
dominion of the sovereign. The life of Chatham, the life of Pitt, the
life of Fox, each in its turn is a summary of the history of England
during the time in which they helped to guide its destinies. But to
some men, men possessing in an exceptional degree the love for humanity
and the longing for progress, this power of representing in their lives
the sum and purpose of their age is markedly characteristic. Just as
Mirabeau, until he died, practically represented the French Revolution,
so certain English statesmen have from time to time been representative
of the best life, the best thought, the best purposes, desires, and
ambitions of the country for whose sake they played their parts. Of no
man can this theory be said to be more happily true than of Edmund
Burke.

It would scarcely be exaggeration to say that the history of England
during the middle third of the eighteenth century is largely the
history of the career of Edmund Burke. From the moment when Burke
entered upon political life to the close of his great career, his name
was associated with every event of importance, his voice raised {96} on
one side or the other of every question that concerned the welfare o