A
good critic (there is no better than Mr. Fox) would say, that this is a
master?stroke, and marks a deep understanding of nature in the father of
poetry. He would despise a Zoilus, who would conclude from this passage
that Homer meant to represent this man of affliction as hating, or being
indifferent and cold in his affections to the poor relics of his house,
or that he preferred a dead carcass to his living children.
"Mr. Burke does not stand in need of an allowance of this kind, which,
if he did, by candid critics ought to be granted to him. If the
principles of a mixed constitution be admitted, he wants no more to
justify to consistency everything he has said and done during the course
of a political life just touching to its close. I believe that gentleman
has kept himself more clear of running into the fashion of wild,
visionary theories, or of seeking popularity through every means, than
any man perhaps ever did in the same situation.
"He was the first man who, on the hustings, at a popular election,
rejected the authority of instructions from constituents; or who, in any
place, has argued so fully against it. Perhaps the discredit into which
that doctrine of compulsive instructions under our constitution is since
fallen, may be due, in a great degree, to his opposing himself to it in
that manner, and on that occasion.
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