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BURKE. 235 actress; but it should be recollected that she was his country-woman, and that her society was no less courted by meh of genius than by men of pleasure. Although he was professedly studying the law, he by ho meahs confined himself to that science; there is reason to believe thät he never made it even à principal object of attention. If we may trušt his biographers, he ranged over the whole expanse of human knowledge; even when he narrowed the bounds of bis excursions, they appear almost too widé to be traversed by mortal ener- gies. "The studies to which he gave himself up with peculiar zeal (says Dr. Bissett), were those which unfolded human nature, history, ethies, politiès pheumatology, poetry, and eritieism. The conšequence of this application was a dangerous illness, and he resorted for medical advice to his country- man, Dr. Nagent, a physiciah of great skill and equal behevolence. The Doctor, considering that chambers are imuch better adapted for producing patients than curing them (an opinion which we hold from experience to be among the soundest in the profession), kindly offered him apartments in his own thouse, where the attention of this benevolent man and his family, gradually, with or without the assistance of medicine, restored his patient's health. Among the most attentive to young Burke, was the amiable danghter ofhs host.A warm and mutual attachment was förmed between the convalescent and his gentle nurse, and soon after his recovery they were married. With Miss Nugent, Bürke seems to have enjoyed uninterrupted happiness: "In all the anxious moments of my public life (he often said to his friends) every care vanishes whern . I enter my own house." In 1756 appeared the first of his productions which he has thoughit worthy of acknowledgment. It is a very happy imitation of Bolingbroke, entitled "A Vindication of Natural Society." It was a bold attempt for a young man, only in his twenty-seventh year, to impose upon the