A few days later Edmund Burke made his first speech in parliament, recommending the house to receive a petition from the colonies, and was at once recognised as a new power. He was an Irishman, and was already known as a writer. He became Rockingham's secretary in 1765, and a seat was provided for him. Unsurpassed in his mastery of English prose, he exhibits to the full the splendour of the English language in his speeches and pamphlets. Nor is his thought unworthy of the gorgeous attire with which it is invested. His power and constant habit of discerning and expounding the principles which were involved in questions of the moment, give him a supreme place as a teacher of political wisdom. In character he was pure, generous, and tender-hearted. His fervid imagination extended the area of his sympathies, and sometimes prejudiced his opinions. As a speaker he was eloquent, and now and again carried his audience completely with him, but he never caught the tone of the house of commons; his longer speeches were too much of the nature of exhaustive treatises to be acceptable to its members; he had little tact, an impatient temper, and often spoke with execrable taste. The chief article in his political creed was his belief in the excellence of the constitution. He was an ardent reformer of abuses, but with the constitution itself he would have no meddling. Unlike Pitt, he saw that the only effectual check to corrupt influence was to be found in government by a party united for the promotion of national interests upon some common principle. Such a party might, he believed, be based on the whig families, if only they would keep themselves free from court intrigue and selfish jealousies. He was a whig of a different type from Newcastle and Bedford; he built his hopes on the Rockinghams and inspired their policy. That he never sat in a cabinet was chiefly because in those days such a distinction was confined to men of higher birth. [Sidenote: _REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT._]