It has frequently struck us as strange, the morbid avidity with which the world seizes upon the slightest evidence of abstraction in great men, to declare that their minds are fading, or impoverished: the public gapes for every trifle calculated to prove that the palsied fingers can no longer grasp the intellectual sceptre, and that the well-worn and hard-earned bays are as a crown of thorns to the pulseless brow. It was, in those days whispered in London that the great orator had become imbecile immediately after the publication of his "_Letter to a Noble Lord_;" and that he wandered about his park kissing his cows and horses. A noble friend went immediately to Beaconsfield to ascertain the truth, and was delighted to find Mr. Burke anxious to read him passages from "A Regicide Peace," which he was then writing; after a little delicate manoeuvring on his part, to ascertain the truth, Mr. Burke told him a touching incident which proved the origin of this calumny on his intellectual powers. An old horse, a great favorite of his son's, and his constant companion, when both were full of life and health, had been turned out at the death of his master, to take his run of the park for the remainder of his life, at ease, with strict injunctions to the servants that he should neither be ridden, nor molested by any one. While musing one day, loitering along, Mr. Burke perceived this worn-out old servant come close up to him, and at length, after some moments spent in viewing his person, followed by seeming recollection and confidence, he deliberately rested his head upon his bosom. The singularity of the action itself, the remembrance of his dead son, its late master, who occupied so much of his thoughts at all times, and the apparent attachment, tenderness and intelligence of the creature towards him--as if it could sympathize with his inward sorrow--rushing at once into his mind, totally overpowered his firmness, and throwing his arms over its neck, he wept long and loudly. But though his lucid and beautiful mind, however agonized, remained unclouded to the last, and his affections glowed towards his old friends as warmly as ever, his bodily health was failing fast; one of the last letters he ever dictated was to Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of his old friend and master, Shackleton; this lady was subsequently well known in Ireland as the author of "Cottage Dialogues." The first literary attempt, we believe, made towards the improvement of the lower order of Irish, was by her faithful and earnest pen; to this letter, congratulating her on the birth of a son, is a PS. where the invalid says:--"I have been at Bath these four months to no purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield to-morrow, _to be nearer to a habitation more permanent, humbly_ and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better mansion!"