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456 BURKE Ellen Nagle, the wife of the eldest son of the poet Spenser. He entered Trinity college, Dub- lin, as a pensioner in 1744, Oliver Goldsmith being a fellow student. He took his bachelor's degree in 1748, and in 1750 went to London, where he had previously been entered as a law student of the Middle Temple. But he aban- doned the law, and after an unsuccessful appli- cation for the chair of logic in the university of Glasgow, devoted himself to literary labors. His father made ample allowance for his main- tenance, and there seems to be no foundation for the report of his having been at that time without any resources excepting his pen. He contributed political articles to the periodical press, but his first separate production, "A Vindication of Natural Society," purporting to have been written by " a late noble writer," did not appear till 1756 (new ed., 1765), and was ascribed to Bolingbroke, whose style was ad- mirably imitated, although it was written with a brilliancy and fervor to which Bolingbroke never attained. The " Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful " (1756), written when Burke was in his 27th year, secured for him the regard of Johnson, Reynolds, and other eminent men, and placed him at the head of the asthetical critics of his day. In 1757 he visited Bath for the improvement of his health, and lived in the house of his physician and remote kinsman, Dr. Christopher Nugent, whose daughter Jane Mary he married the same year. Speaking of her he long afterward said, " Every care vanish- ed the moment I entered under my own roof." She bore him two sons, one of whom died in infancy, and the other, Richard, in 1794. After his return to London appeared "An Account of the European Settlements in America" (2 vols., London, 1757). Burke's autograph receipt for 50 guineas to Dodsley, the publisher of this work, is still extant, and internal evi- dence indicates him as the author, although doubts have been expressed on the subject, and it is not included in the common editions of his works. The abbe Raynal made use of it in his work on the American revolution, and Du- gald Stewart and Prior praise it highly. He directed for many years the "Annual Regis- ter," established by Dodsley in 1759. Previous to this he had commenced for that publisher an " Essay toward an Abridgment of the English History " (London, 1757), bringing the narrative down to the time of King John. The reason for its discontinuance is not known. About this time Burke was introduced by the earl of Charlemont to William Gerard Hamilton, pop- ularly known as Single-Speech Hamilton, sec- retary to Lord -Halifax, the newly appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. In 1761 he became Hamilton's private secretary, and in 1763 re- ceived a pension of 300. Hamilton had been instrumental in procuring this pension, and con- ceived that he had thereby bound the recipient to him for life. Burke therefore resigned the ecretaryship and threw up the pension, which he had enjoyed only a year. Upon the fall of the Grenville administration in 1765, the mar- quis of Rockingham, the new prime minister, appointed Burke his private secretary, and he was soon afterward returned to parliament for Wendover, Buckinghamshire, a borough belonging to Lord Verney. The very day he took his seat, Jan. 14, 1766, he made remarks on the address of thanks to the throne in a strait, of eloquence which attracted the attention of Pitt, afterward earl of Chatham. He speedily became the animating spirit of the Rockingham administration, and in the stormy debates rela- ting to the American stamp act he was the most effective in urging moderate and conciliatory measures. Out of the house, as well as in it, his industry was indefatigable, while his knowl- edge of colonial affairs was exceedingly useful. On the dissolution of the Rockingham adminis- tration in July, 1766, Burke published anony- mously " A Short Account of a late Short Administration," in which he vigorously de- fended the policy of the whigs. In the com- promise cabinet which Lord Chatham under- took to form he was offered a place, which he declined, as he did a similar offer on the part of the duke of Grafton in 1767. The parlia- ment was dissolved in 1768, when Burke was again returned for Wendover. About the same time he purchased for 20,000 a fine estate near Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire ; a part of the purchase money having been advanced, at first as a loan, and afterward as a gift, by the marquis of Rockingham. In 1769 Burke published his " Observations on a late Publica- tion, entitled 'The Present State of the Na- tion ' " (5th ed., 1782), which latter was ascribed to Mr. Grenville or to his former secretary, Mr. Knox, and in 1770 his celebrated "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents." In November, 1771, he was appointed agent of New York to represent the interests of that colony in England, for which he received a salary of 700. During the sessions of 1 772-'3 he distinguished himself by his masterly and elaborate reviews of the affairs of the East In- dia company. Still more did he distinguish himself during the next session, 1774, on the state of the American colonies, then driven almost into insurrection by the course of the English government. His great speech on American taxation was delivered on April 19 of that year. On the dissolution of the par- liament he was nominated for the city of Bris- tol, for which he was returned on Nov. 3, af- ter a severe contest of 27 days. On March 22, 1775, ho delivered another remarkable speech in behalf of the Americans, which he sub- sequently published. His zealous support of the colonies rendered him unpopular with his constituents, and he was compelled to de- fend himself in " Two Letters to Gentlemen of Bristol." All the while the questions of the Catholic; disabilities and of the trade with Ireland occupied a large share of his atten- tion. On Feb. 11, 1780, he introduced his