Prominent in parliament, he took noble
ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother
country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic
eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one
of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings,
Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his
administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of its
noblest specimens; and the people of England learned more of their empire
in India from the learned, brilliant, and exhaustive speeches of Burke,
than they could have learned in any other way. The greatest of his written
works is: _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, written to warn
England to avoid the causes of such colossal evil. In 1756 he had
published his _Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful_. This has been variously criticized; and, although written with
vigor of thought and brilliancy of style, has now taken its place among
the speculations of theory, and not as establishing permanent canons of
aesthetical science.
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