Letters on a Regicide Peace: Volume 3

Notes

BurkeV3_351-400.indd 395 5/2/12 9:35 AM NOTES The references to "vol. i." and "vol. ii." are to the "Select Works" of Burke. For many of the notes which follow, as in the case of those two volumes, the editor has to tender his best thanks to John Frederick Boyes, Esq. LETTER I PAGE 62, LINE 2. Our last conversation. Burke assumes for his correspondent the same point of view as his own. Cp. post, p. 77, I. 8. The letters are therefore not controversial in form. The Monthly Review , April, 1815, describes them as "addressed to those advocates of the peace who had originally been partizans of the war: and it was only with persons of this description that Mr. B. deigned to enter into controversy." This is true of the ultimate public whom he hoped to influence , but not of the ostensible correspondent. L. 4· unpleasant appearances. The continued manifestations of a desire for peace with France. L. 8. disastrous events. The military disasters of the allies on the Continent, beginning with the battle of Fleurus in 1794, and followed by the separate treaties of peace successively made with the Republic by Tuscany, Prussia, Sweden, Holland, and Spain, leaving only Great Britain and Austria at war with it. L. 23. in its aphelion, i.e. in its deviation from its normal path. Burke would have hailed the returning popularity of the war in 1798 as a return to this normal path. L. 33· sameperiods ofinfancy, &c.The allusion is to an ever-popular but false theory of history, which may be traced as early as Polybius. In Burke's time this theory was put forth in many forms. Churchill, Gotham, Book iii: Let me not only the distempers know Which in all states from common causes flow: But likewise, those, which, by the will offate, 395 BurkeV3_351-400.indd 396 5/2/12 9:35 AM NOTES On each peculiar mode of Empire wait: Which in its very constitution lurk, Too sure at last to do their destin'd work. [354] So Young, Second Letter on Pleasure: "It has often been observed that it is with states as with men. They have their birth, growth, health, distemper, decay, and death. Men sometimes drop suddenly by an apoplexy, states by conquest; in full vigour both .... On the soft beds of luxury most kingdoms have expired. Casti, Animali Parlanti, Canto iv: E tutti li politici systemi In se di destruzion racchiudon' semi." As to England, Mr. Hallam remarks that it differs from all free governments of powerful nations which history has recorded by manifesting, after the lapse of several centuries, not merely no symptoms of decay, but a more expansive energy. Middle Ages, val. ii. chap. viii. P. 63, L. 3· similitudes-analogies. The hint has been developed by Mill, in his account of Fallacies of Generalization, Logic, Book 5· "Bodies politic," says Mr. Mill, "die; but it is of disease, or violent death. They have no old age." L. 10. moral essences. Cp. post, p. 139, 1. 28. L. 14. There is not, &c. Specific attempts to create a "philosophy of history" have at length ceased with the extinction of the German schools ofspeculative philosophy. Burke's criticism thoroughly agrees with the general spirit of the best historians. L. 29. It is often impossible, in these political enquiries, &c. Burke derived his observations from a favourite author: "La conservation des estats est chose qui vraysemblablement surpasse nostre intelligence: c'est comme diet Platon, chose puissante et de difficile dissolution, qu'une police civile; elle dure souvent contre les maladies mortelles et intestines, contre les injures des loix injustes, contre la tyrannie, contre le desbordement et ignorance des magistrats, license et sedition des peuples." Montaigne, Liv. iii., chap. 9· In an earlier chapter of Montaigne, and in Bolingbroke, we have the duration of states compared with that of individuals. P. 64, L. 1. remained nearly as they have begun. e.g. China. L. 3· spent their vigour, &c. e.g. the Mahomedan Caliphate, the monarchy of Charlemagne, &c. L. 4· blazed out, &c. The allusion is clearly to the Mogul Empire BurkeV3_351-400.indd 397 5/2/12 9:35 AM LETTER I in the time of Aurungzebe. "Most nations," says Young, in the letter above quoted, "have been gayest when nearest to their end, and like a taper in the socket have blazed as they expired." L. 5· meridian of some. Ancient Rome, Venice, Holland...