Edmund Burke: Appraisals and Applications

332 Pages·2017·1.72 MB·English

by  Daniel E. Ritchie

The Library of Conservative Thought
Victor A. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom with a new introduction by
Rett R. Ludwikowski 1988. ISBN: 0-88738-754-3
Victor A. Kravchenko, I Chose Justice with a new introduction by
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John J. Stanlis, Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution
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Orestes Brownson, Selected Political Essays with a new introduction
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Dan E. Ritchie, Edmund Burke: Appraisals and Applications. 1990.
ISBN: 0-88738-328-9
Francis Graham Wilson, The Case For Conservatism with a new intro-
duction by Russell Kirk. 1990. ISBN: 0-88738-322-X

First paperback printing 2016.
Copyright © 1990 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick,
New Jersey.
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 89-28010
ISBN: 0-88738-328-9 (cloth); 978-1-4128-6292-9 (paper)
eBook: 978-1-4128-2219-0
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edmund Burke: Appraisals and Applications/edited by Daniel E.
Ritchie. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-88738-328-9
1. Burke, Edmund, 1729–1797—Contributions in political science.
2. Burke, Edmund, 1729–1797—Language. I. Ritchie, Daniel E.,
JCI76.B83C75 1990 89-28010
320.5’2’092—dc20 CIP
Dedicated to the generation of Burke scholars
who revived and redirected our knowledge
of Edmund Burke after World War II

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following copyright
holders for permission to use their work:
Matthew Arnold: Lectures and Essays in Criticism. Vol. 3 of The
Complete Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, edited by R. H. Super.
Copyright © 1962 by the University of Michigan Press.
“Burke and the Moral Imagination,” by Irving Babbitt. Copyright
© 1924 by Irving Babbitt. Copyright © 1952 by Esther Babbitt Howe.
Reprinted from Democracy and Leadership by permission of the
National Humanities Institute, Washington, D.C.
The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, edited by Norman St. John-
Stevas, Vol. 1, Literary Essays. Copyright © 1965 by The Economist,
London.
Walter Jackson Bate, “Introduction” to Edmund Burke: Selected
Works. Copyright © 1960 by Random House, Inc.
“Reconsideration: Edmund Burke,” by Alexander Bickel. Reprinted
by permission of The New Republic. Copyright © 1973 by The New
Republic, Inc.
“Burke and the Fall of Language,” by Steven Blakemore. Reprinted by
permission of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
Edmund Burke: Prescription and Providence by Francis Canavan.
Copyright © 1987 by Francis Canavan. Published by Carolina Academic
Press, Durham, N.C.
Edmund Burke: The Practical Imagination, by Gerald W. Chapman.
Published by Harvard University Press. Copyright © 1967 by the Pres-
ident and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission.
The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Kathleen
Coburn and Bart Winer, Bollingen Series 75. Vol. 4: The Friend, edited
by Barbara E. Rooke, Copyright © 1969 by Routledge and Kegan
Paul, Ltd. Excerpts reprinted with permission of Princeton University
Press, Vol. 7: Biographia Literaria, parts I and II, Copyright © 1983 by
Princeton University Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul. Reprinted
by permission.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, “Introduction” to Reflections on the Revolution
in France, Introduction Copyright © 1968 Penguin Books Ltd.
Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, edited by David Masson,
published by A. & C. Black.
The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, edited by P. P. Howe. Copy-
right © 1934 by J. M. Dent—Everyman’s Library.
“A Revolution Not Made, But Prevented,” by Russell Kirk. Copyright
© 1985 by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Reprinted from Modern
Age by permission of the publisher.
Statesmanship and Party Government: A Study of Burke and Boling-
broke, by Harvey Mansfield. Copyright © 1965 by The University of
Chicago. All rights reserved.
Conservatism by Robert Nisbet. Copyright © 1986 by Open Uni-
versity Press.
Edmund Burke and the Practice of Political Writing by Christopher
Reid, Copyright © 1985 by St. Martin’s Press, and Gill and Macmillan
Ltd. Reprinted by permission.
Edmund Burke and the Natural Law by Peter Stanlis. Copyright ©
1958 by The University of Michigan Press. Copyright © 1985 by Peter
Stanlis. Reprinted by permission of Peter Stanlis.
“Burke’s Conservative Revolution,” by George Watson. Copyright
© 1984. Reprinted by permission of George Watson and Critical
Quarterly.
Culture and Society, by Raymond Williams. Copyright © 1980 by
Columbia University Press and Chatto & Windus. Reprinted by per-
mission of the Estate of Raymond Williams.
Contents
Foreword xi
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction xvii
Important Dates in the Life of Edmund Burke xxvii
Short Titles xxxi
Part One. Burke and the Literary Imagination
1 Coleridge’s Fragments on Burke, 3
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
2 Hazlitt’s Criticism of Burke, William Hazlitt 7
3 Rhetoric, Thomas De Quincey 17
4 Macaulay’s Comments on Burke, 21
Thomas Babington Macaulay
5 Mr. Macaulay, Walter Bagehot 27
6 The Function of Criticism at the Present Time, 29
Matthew Arnold
7 Burke and the Sense of Process, Walter Jackson Bate 33
8 Burke and the Fall of Language: The French
Revolution as Linguistic Event, Steven Blakemore 37
9 The Politics of Taste, Christopher Reid 61
Part Two. Burke and Revolution
10 Burke’s Conservative Revolution, George Watson 79
11 A Revolution Not Made, but Prevented, Russell Kirk 95