nd obscure is the source from which Mr.
Burke labors! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his
declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and
soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a
vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr.
Burke's periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.

As I have introduced M. de la Fayette, I will take the liberty of adding
an anecdote respecting his farewell address to the Congress of America
in 1783, and which occurred fresh to my mind, when I saw Mr. Burke's
thundering attack on the French Revolution. M. de la Fayette went to
America at the early period of the war, and continued a volunteer in her
service to the end. His conduct through the whole of that enterprise is
one of the most extraordinary that is to be found in the history of a
young man, scarcely twenty years of age. Situated in a country that was
like the lap of sensual pleasure, and with the means of enjoying it, how
few are there to be found who would exchange such a scene for the woods
and wildernesses of America, and pass the flowery years of youth in
unprofitable danger and hardship! but such is the fact. When the
war ended, and he was on the point of taking his final departure, he
presented himself to Congress, and contemplating in his affectionate
farewell the Revolution he had seen, expressed himself in these words:
"May this great monument raised to liberty serve as a lesson to the
oppressor, and an example to the oppressed!" When this address came to
the hands of Dr. Franklin, who was then in France, he applied to Count
Vergennes to have it inserted in the French Gazette, but never
could obtain his consent. The fact was that Count Vergennes was an
aristocratical despot at home, and dreaded the example of the American
Revolution in France, as certain other persons now dread the example of
the French Revolution in England, and Mr. Burke's tribute of fear (for
in this light his book must be considered) runs parallel with Count
Vergennes' refusal. But to return more particularly to his work.

"We have seen," says Mr. Burke, "the French rebel against a mild and
lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than any people
has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most
sanguinary tyrant." This is one among a thousand other instances, in
which Mr. Burke shows that he is ignorant of the sp