with Pharisaical
ostentation.

The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far purer. Men unable to
understand the elevation of his mind have tried to find out some
discreditable motive for the vehemence and pertinacity which he showed
on this occasion. But they have altogether failed. The idle story that
he had some private slight to revenge has long been given up, even by
the advocates of Hastings. Mr. Gleig supposes that Burke was actuated by
party spirit, that he retained a bitter remembrance of the fall of the
coalition, that he attributed that fall to the exertions of the East
India interest, and that he considered Hastings as the head and the
representative of that interest. This explanation seems to be
sufficiently refuted by a reference to dates. The hostility of Burke to
Hastings commenced long before the coalition, and lasted long after
Burke had become a strenuous supporter of those by whom the coalition
had been defeated. It began when Burke and Fox, closely allied together,
were attacking the influence of the Crown, and calling for peace with
the American republic. It continued till Burke, alienated from Fox, and
loaded with the favors of the Crown, died, preaching a crusade against
the French republic. We surely cannot attribute to the events of 1784 an
enmity which began in 1781, and which retained undiminished force long
after persons far more deeply implicated than Hastings in the events of
1784 had been cordially forgiven. And why should we look for any other
explanation of Burke's conduct than that which we find on the surface?
The plain truth is that Hastings had committed some great crimes, and
that the thought of those crimes made the blood of Burke boil in his
veins. For Burke was a man in whom compassion for suffering and hatred
of injustice and tyranny were as strong as in Las Casas or Clarkson. And
although in him, as in Las Casas and in Clarkson, these noble feelings
were alloyed with the infirmity which belongs to human nature, he is,
like them, entitled to this great praise, that he devoted years of
intense labor to the service of a people with whom he had neither blood
nor language, neither religion nor manners, in common, and from whom no
requital, no thanks, no applause could be expected.

His knowledge of India was such as few, even of those Europeans who have
passed many years in that country, have attained, and such as certainly
was never attained by any public man who had not qu