hat in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it...I was I
confess, discouraged, and had not the war at that time been breaking out
between France and England, I had certainly retired to some provincial
town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and never more have
returned to my native country.' _Ib_. p.6. Only one of his works, his
_Political Discourses_, was 'successful on the first publication.' _Ib_.
p.5. By the time he was turned fifty, however, his books were selling
very well, and he had become 'not only independent but opulent.' Ib. p.
8. A few weeks before he died he wrote: 'I see many symptoms of my
literary reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre.'
_Ib_. p.10.

[77] _Psalms_, cxix. 99.

[78] We learn, _post_, Oct. 29, that Robertson was cautious in his talk,
though we see here that he had much more courage than the professors of
Aberdeen or Glasgow.

[79] This was one of the points upon which Dr. Johnson was strangely
heterodox. For, surely, Mr. Burke, with his other remarkable qualities,
is also distinguished for his wit, and for wit of all kinds too: not
merely that power of language which Pope chooses to denominate wit:--

(True wit is Nature to advantage drest;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest.)

[Pope's Essay on Criticism, ii. 297.] but surprising allusions,
brilliant sallies of vivacity, and pleasant conceits. His speeches in
parliament are strewed with them. Take, for instance, the variety which
he has given in his wide range, yet exact detail, when exhibiting his
Reform Bill. And his conversation abounds in wit. Let me put down a
specimen. I told him, I had seen, at a _Blue stocking_ assembly, a
number of ladies sitting round a worthy and tall friend of ours,
listening to his literature. 'Ay, (said he) like maids round a
May-pole.' I told him, I had found out a perfect definition of human
nature, as distinguished from the animal. An ancient philosopher said,
Man was 'a two-legged animal without feathers,' upon which his rival
Sage had a Cock plucked bare, and set him down in the school before all
the disciples, as a 'Philosophick Man.' Dr. Franklin said, Man was 'a
tool-making animal,' which is very well; for no animal but man makes a
thing, by means of which he can make another thing. But this applies to
very few of the species. My definition of _Man_ is, 'a Cooking animal.'
The beasts have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and pa