proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin. He was thus not only
Irish born, but Irish bred. His intellectual habit of mind exhibited
itself early. He belonged to the happy family of omnivorous readers,
and, in the language of his latest schoolmaster, he went to college with
a larger miscellaneous stock of reading than was usual with one of his
years; which, being interpreted out of pedagogic into plain English,
means that 'our good Edmund' was an enormous devourer of poetry and
novels, and so he remained to the end of his days. That he always
preferred Fielding to Richardson is satisfactory, since it pairs him off
nicely with Dr. Johnson, whose preference was the other way, and so helps
to keep an interesting question wide open. His passion for the poetry of
Virgil is significant. His early devotion to Edward Young, the grandiose
author of the _Night Thoughts_, is not to be wondered at; though the
inspiration of the youthful Burke, either as poet or critic, may be
questioned, when we find him rapturously scribbling in the margin of his
copy:

'Jove claimed the verse old Homer sung,
But God Himself inspired Dr. Young.'

But a boy's enthusiasm for a favourite poet is a thing to rejoice over.
The years that bring the philosophic mind will not bring--they must
find--enthusiasm.

In 1750 Burke (being then twenty-one) came for the first time to London,
to do what so many of his lively young countrymen are still doing--though
they are beginning to make a grievance even of that--eat his dinners at
the Middle Temple, and so qualify himself for the Bar. Certainly that
student was in luck who found himself in the same mess with Burke; and
yet so stupid are men--so prone to rest with their full weight on the
immaterial and slide over the essential--that had that good fortune been
ours we should probably have been more taken up with Burke's brogue than
with his brains. Burke came to London with a cultivated curiosity, and
in no spirit of desperate determination to make his fortune. That the
study of the law interested him cannot be doubted, for everything
interested him, particularly the stage. Like the sensible Irishman he
was, he lost his heart to Peg Woffington on the first opportunity. He
was fond of roaming about the country during, it is to be hoped, vacation-
time only, and is to be found writing the most cheerful letters to his
friends in Ireland (all of whom are persuaded that he is going some day
to be someb