=1. His Life.= Born in Dublin, Burke was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and then removed to London to study law in the Middle Temple. He soon showed that his real bent lay toward politics and literature, and it was not long before he published some books that attracted a good deal of attention and admitted him into the famous Johnson Club. In politics he attached himself to the Whig party, obtained some small appointments, and became member for Wendover (1765). Both as an orator and as a pamphleteer he was a powerful advocate for his party, and very soon his splendid gifts won for him a leading place in the House of Commons. His style of oratory, often labored, rhetorical, and theatrical, exposed him to much censure and ridicule, and his speeches were frequently prolonged to the point of dullness. But at its best his eloquence was powerful in attack and magnificent in appeal, rising to the very summit of the orator’s art. When the Whigs attained to office in 1783 Burke was appointed Paymaster of the Forces. He was leader in the prosecution of Warren Hastings, making a speech of immense length and power (1788). On the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 he left his party and attacked the revolutionaries with all his great energy. In 1794, broken in health, he retired from Parliament, but continued to publish pamphlets till his death in 1797. =2. His Works.= The considerable sum of Burke’s achievement can for the sake of convenience be divided into two groups: his purely philosophical writings, and his political pamphlets and speeches. (_a_) His philosophical writings, which comprise the smaller division of his product, were composed in the earlier portion of his career. _A Vindication of Natural Society_ (1756) is a parody of the style and ideas of Bolingbroke, and, though it possesses much ingenuity, it has not much importance as an original work. _A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_ (1756) is his most considerable attempt at philosophy. As philosophy the book is only middling, for its theory and many of its examples are questionable, but it has the sumptuous dressing of Burke’s language and style. (_b_) His political works are by far his most substantial claim to fame. In variety, breadth of view, and illuminating power of vision they are unsurpassed in the language. The chief of the many works are _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_ (1770), a resounding attack on the Tory Government then in power; _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790), which marked his departure from his old party and his fierce challenge to the extreme revolutionary policy; _Letter to a Noble Lord_ (1796); and _Letters on a Regicide Peace_ (1797). In addition we have much purely oratorical work, such as the notable speeches on the American question and his great philippic against Warren Hastings.