Burke family

“ The spirit of our time and of our country knows no such thing, but the habitue of "society" hears constantly of "a good family." It means simply, the collective mass of children, grand-children, nephews, nieces, and descendants, of some man who deserved well of his country, and whom his country honors. But sad is the heritage of a great name! The son of Burke will inevitably be measured by Burke. The niece of Pope must show some superiority to other women (so to speak) , or her equality is inferiority. ”

“ The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends hereditary possession, (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission. ”

“ Burke could certainly show cause for setting store by them; each family ran to two full pages, fairly bristling with peers and baronets and Lady Charlottes and Lady Sophias; and yet, to their mother's grief, these three heretics, Mary, Silvia, and Otto, generally known as the Prince, took pleasure in developing the theory that it was mere Victorianism for Burke or anyone else to flaunt such a pride in the Colthursts and the Pridmores.
"Because," said Mary, "it is not as though either family has ever produced anybody at all first-rate in anything." ”

“ Burke's best-known work was done on fresh editions of his father's books; the 'Peerage' was annually re-edited under his supervision from 1847 to his death. Various improvements and greater detail were gradually introduced into the work, but it continued to be marred to some extent by the readiness with which doubtful pedigrees were accepted and unpleasing facts in family histories excluded (cf. Round, Peerage and Family History, 1901, passim) . The same criticism applies to the 'Landed Gentry,' which he edited from its third edition (1843 and 1849, 2 vols.) to the seventh edition in 1886 ”

“ I'll tell you of a boy who will, in my opinion, beat him in the race of life."
"Who is that?"
"Andy Burke."
"Andy is a good boy, but I am afraid the family is doing poorly now."
"So I fear. The, fact is, there doesn't appear to be much opening for a lad like Andy in this village."
"I hear that Mr. Graves, the storekeeper, who is getting old, wants to get a boy, or young man, with a small capital to take an interest in his business, and, eventually, succeed him."
"That would be a good chance for Andy, if he had the small capital; but he probably hasn't ten dollars in the world." ”

“ He continued his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1756 succeeded his father as master of Ballytore school. He paid a visit to Burke nearly every year, and sixty-four letters from Burke to him are printed in ‘The Leadbeater Papers.’ Their only difference was in 1770, when a short account of Burke’s family and education, written by Shackleton, accidentally found its way into the newspapers. Burke says: ‘I am sure I have nothing in my family, my circumstances, or my conduct that an honest man ought to be ashamed of. ”

“ Burke is the only son and heir to the late Matthew Burke, of Cremore, county of Galway. His family have been long distinguished for their steady, uncompromising loyalty; nor is the hereditary glory of their house likely to suffer in the person of the illustrious youth, who, we learn, is now to be raised to the baronetcy under the title of Sir Thomas Bubbleton Burke, the second name assumed to commemorate the services of Captain Bubbleton, whose—'Of course I dilated a little here to round the paragraph. ”

“ He had no nephew, no cousin, or cousin's son, to succeed him in the lands that had been in his family since the wars of Bruce and Wallace—yea, since Norwegian Haco's banner fell on the field of Largs; and he began to fear that his title would become extinct, when, in the 'Landed Gentry of Grat Britain and Ireland,' he found that Sir Bernard Burke had assigned a place to a certain Mr. Hew Montgomerie, then broiling in the Indian Civil Service, proving that he was the nearest living relative of the line of Eaglescraig. ”

“ Betty.
“Oh well,” Mrs. Burke replied, “I always believe that two young married people should start out by themselves, you know; and then if they get into a family row it won’t scandalize the parish. The only new thing about the furnishings is paint and varnish. I drove around and held up the parish, and made them stand and deliver the goods, and Jonathan Jackson and I touched it up a little; that’s all.”
“We ought to acknowledge each gift personally,” Maxwell said. “You must tell us who’s given what.” ”

“ Thus, by preserving the method of Nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new, in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood: binding up the Constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections ”

“ When everything was quiet in and about the yard, Mrs. Burke began to look up, not only her own children, but all the careless young people about.
"Where is Tom?" was the mother's first cry. Dick and Jane had made her know that they were not far off, by the noise they were both making.
"Tom is quite safe," replied someone.
"And Master Fairchild?" said Mrs. Burke.
Every one then ran different ways to look for Henry, and when he was found, all covered in blood, in the kitchen, Mrs. Burke was, as she said, ready to faint away. ”

“ The wives are generally faithful, obedient, and industrious. The children are spoiled, and a nuisance to all red visitors. Fortunately the white man, the “bugaboo” of their baby days, is yet such an object of terror as to keep them at a respectful distance. Among themselves the members of the family are perfectly easy and unrestrained. It is extremely rare that there is any quarreling among the women. ”

“ Mr. Fairchild and Henry next crossed the corner of a common, where they saw several huts built of clay, with one brick chimney each, and very ragged thatch; and going a little farther, they saw Mr. Burke's house before them. It was a large farmhouse, with a square court before it, and behind it a quantity of buildings and many ricks. Mr. Burke was the steward of the estate, and he was also a farmer, and he was reckoned to be a rich man; but he and his wife were very plain sort of people, and though they had got up in the world, they carried with them all their old-fashioned ways. ”

“ Thirdly, the right of settlement was taken away, that no such persons should, from the moment the act passed, be enabled to advance themselves in fortune or connection by marriage, being disabled from making any disposition, in consideration of such marriage, but what the law had previously regulated: the reputable establishment of the eldest son, as representative of the family, or to settle a jointure, being commonly the great object in such settlements, which was the very power which the law had absolutely taken away. ”

“ The law by which this royal family is specifically destined to the succession is the act of the 12th and 13th of King William. The terms of this act bind "us, and our heirs, and our posterity, to them, their heirs, and their posterity," being Protestants, to the end of time, in the same words as the Declaration of Right had bound us to the heirs of King William and Queen Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance. ”

“ The grandmother and mother have robbed the son, and kept him out of his rightful inheritance. They then produce the Hedaya to show you what proportion of the goods of a Mussulman, when he dies, goes to his family; and here, certainly, there is a question of law to be tried. But Mr. Hastings is a great eccentric genius, and has a course of proceeding of his own: he first seizes upon the property, and then produces some Mahometan writers to prove that it did not belong to the persons who were in possession of it. ”

“ The ladies followed her advice, and about ten at night went back into the zenanah. The nest morning the Begum waited upon the mother of Sujah Dowlah, and related to her all the circumstances of the disturbances. The mother of Sujah Dowlah returned for answer, that, after there being no accounts kept of crores of revenues, she was not surprised that the family of Sujah Dowlah, in their endeavors to procure a subsistence, should be obliged to expose themselves to the meanest of the people. ”

“ In every society of this sort the natural connections are the same as in others, though the political ties are weak. Among such barbarians, therefore, though there is little authority in the magistrate, there is often great power lodged, or rather left, in the father: for, as among the Gauls, so among the Britons, he had the power of life and death in his own family, over his children and his servants.
But among freemen and heads of families, causes of all sorts seem to have been decided by the Druids: they summoned and dissolved all the public assemblies ”

“ His abnormal wealth, and a certain amount of cleverness, had been his sole passports to society. Among Burke's Landed Gentry there was no trace of the Wooster family, nor had Mr. Wooster ever been heard to allude to a grandfather. ”

“ Your Lordships know that Mr. Hastings, by his guaranty, had secured their jaghires to the Nabob's own relations and family. One would have imagined, that, if the estates of those who were without any security were to be confiscated at his pleasure, those at least who were guarantied by the Company, such as the Begums of Oude and several of the principal nobility of the Nabob's family, would have been secure. He, indeed, says that pensions shall be given them ”

“ I thought I was seizing this unjustly, and that the pretence of rebellion was necessary; but my counsel have found out a book, since published, and from it they produce the law upon that subject, and show that the Nabob had a right to seize upon the treasures of his mother." But are your Lordships so ignorant— (your Lordships are not ignorant of anything) —are any men so ignorant as not to know that in every country the common law of distribution of the estate of an intestate amongst private individuals is no rule with regard to the family arrangements of great princes? ”

“ He supposes her to be reduced to want by the cruel orders of the Company, who retain from her money which they were never obliged to give her. This representation, which he makes with as much fairness as he represents himself to be in a state of the most miserable poverty and distress, he alone made to the Company, because his colleagues would not countenance him in it; and we find, upon looking over Lord Cornwallis's last examination into the whole state of this unhappy family, that this woman was able to lend to Mobarek ul Dowlah twenty thousand pounds. ”

“ Mrs. Colvin having given Miss Darwell a hint, she went to speak to Mrs. Burke, and invited her and her daughters to come and assist in serving the people, and seeing that everyone had as much as they wished.
Kind Mrs. Burke was the very person to like to be asked to do such a thing, and the Misses Burke could not be offended when they saw Miss Darwell as busily engaged as she possibly could be.
"Now," said she to Lucy, and Emily, and Henry, "now you are to come with me; look at that little party under that oak; there is a very old woman and two children. ”

“ FEW practices of the Church have been productive of more good to society than that concerning Christian marriage. The Christian family is the foundation of Christian society, and Christian marriage is the basis of the Christian family. Without marriage neither the family nor society could exist. Marriage was instituted by God before society existed, and, as a natural consequence, it is subject not to the laws of society, but to the laws of God and His Church. The principal law and necessary condition of Christian marriage is its unity and indissolubility. ”

“ They sever the marriage tie inasmuch as the law of man can do it. If the marriage tie is loosened, the family is dissolved; and if the family is dissolved, society, the state, falls to ruin. Divorce destroys conjugal love, causes unhappiness, renders the proper education of children impossible, and often leads to terrible crimes. ”

“ Rip. Here's your [go-to-hell] ,66 and your family's and may you live long and [prosper] 67. [Drinks from the bottle; Alice, in the interim, proceeds to the closet and brings Knickerbocker out, who is making for the door, when, hearing some one approach, he again escapes to his retreat.
Alice. [At door.] Oh, aunt! aunt! here's the burgomaster coming up the garden.
Dame. Odds bodikins and pins! the burgomaster! what's to be done now? Coming for the rent! What's to be done now, I say?
Rip. I'll go to bed and [think] 68. ”

“ Such was the comedian who next undertook the rï¿1⁄2le of Rip. How often his own phrase, “Are we so soon forgot,” has been applied to the actor and his art! The only preservative we have of this art is either in individual expressions of opinion or else in contemporary criticism. Fortunately, John Sleeper Clarke, another estimable comedian of the Jefferson family, has left an impression of how Burke read that one famous line of his. He has said:
No other actor has ever disturbed the impression that the profound pathos of Burke's voice, face, and gesture created ”