The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
My Lords, we produce this letter to your Lordships, because it is a
letter which begins with "_Dear Sir Elijah_," and alludes to some family
matters, and is therefore more likely to discover the real truth, the
true genius of a proceeding, than all the formal and official stuff that
ever was produced. You see the tenderness and affection in which they
proceed. You see it is his _dear Sir Elijah_. You see that he does not
tell the dear Sir Elijah, the Chief-Justice of India, the pillar of the
law, the great conservator of personal liberty and private property,--he
does not tell him that he has been able to convict these eunuchs of any
crime; he does not tell him he has the pleasure of informing him what
matter he has got upon which a decision at law may be grounded; he does
not tell him that he has got the least proof of the want of title in
those ladies: not a word of the kind. You cannot help observing the soft
language used in this tender billet-doux between Mr. Middleton and Sir
Elijah Impey. You would imagine that they were making love, and that you
heard the voice of the turtle in the land. You hear the soft cooing, the
gentle addresses,--"Oh, my hopes!" to-day, "My fears!" to-morrow,--all
the language of friendship, almost heightened into love; and it comes at
last to "_I have got at the secret hoards of these ladies_.--Let us
rejoice, my dear Sir Elijah; this is a day of rejoicing, a day of
triumph; and this triumph we have obtained by seizing upon the old
lady's eunuchs,--in doing which, however, we found a great deal of
difficulty." You would imagine, from this last expression, that it was
not two eunuchs, with a few miserable women clinging about them, that
they had to seize, but that they had to break through all the guards
which we see lovers sometimes breaking through, when they want to get at
their ladies. Hardly ever did the beauty of a young lady excite such
rapture; I defy all the charms this country can furnish to produce a
more wonderful effect than was produced by the hoards of these two old
women, in the bosoms of Sir Elijah Impey and Mr. Middleton. "We have
got," he exultingly says, "we have got to the secret hoards of this old
lady!" And I verily believe there never was a passion less dissembled;
there Nature spoke; there was truth triumphant, honest truth. Others may
feign a passion; but nobody can doubt the raptures of Mr. Hastings, Sir
Elijah Impey, and Mr. Middleton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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