F. P. Lock - Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: POLITICAL SCIENCE

BURKES REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

BURKES REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

By

F. P. LOCK

Volume 28

First published 1985

This edition first published in 2010

by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1985 F. P. Lock

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 10: 0-415-49111-8 (Set)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-49111-2 (Set)

ISBN 10: 0-415-55568-X (Volume 28)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-55568-5 (Volume 28)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in France

F. P. LOCK

Reader in English

University of Queensland

F. P. Lock, 1985

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No production without permission. All rights reserved.

George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,

40 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LU, UK

George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,

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Allen & Unwin, Inc.,

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George Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd,

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First published in 1985

British Library Catologuing in Publication Data

Lock, F. P.

Burkes reflections on the revolution in France.

(Unwin critical library; 13)

1. Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797. Reflections on the revolution in France. 2. France History Revolution, 1789

I. Title

944.041 DC161

ISBN 0-04-800036-1

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Lock, F. P.

Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in France.

(Unwin critical library)

Bibliography: p.

Includes Index

1. Burke, Edmund, 1729?-1797. Reflections on the

Revolution in France. 2. France History Revolution,

1789-1799 Causes. I. Title. II. Series.

DC150.B9L63 1985 944.04 84-24453

ISBN 0-04-800036-1 (alk. paper)

General Editors Preface

Each volume in this series is devoted to a single major text. It is intended for serious students and teachers of literature, and for knowledgeable non-academic readers. It aims to provide a scholarly introduction and a stimulus to critical thought and discussion.

Individual volumes will naturally differ from one another in arrangement and emphasis, but each will normally begin with information on a works literary and intellectual background, and other guidance designed to help the reader to an informed understanding. This is followed by an extended critical discussion of the work itself, and each contributor in the series has been encouraged to present in these sections his own reading of the work, whether or not this is controversial, rather than to attempt a mere consensus. Some volumes, including those on Paradise Lost and Ulysses, vary somewhat from the more usual pattern by entering into substantive critical discussion at the outset, and allowing the necessary background material to emerge at the points where it is felt to arise from the argument in the most useful and relevant way. Each volume also contains a historical survey of the works critical reputation, including an account of the principal lines of approach and areas of controversy, and a selective (but detailed) bibliography.

The hope is that the volumes in this series will be among those which a university teacher would normally recommend for any serious study of a particular text, and that they will also be among the essential secondary texts to be consulted in some scholarly investigations. But the experienced and informed non-academic reader has also been in our minds, and one of our aims has been to provide him with reliable and stimulating works of reference and guidance, embodying the present state of knowledge and opinion in a conveniently accessible form.

C.J.R.

University of Warwick,

December 1979

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the General Editor of the series, Professor Claude Rawson, for the invitation to embark on what proved an exciting book to write. The completed work benefited in a number of ways from his invaluable suggestions and advice. A Special Project Grant from the University of Queensland helped meet the cost of a visit to England to undertake research. I am grateful to Olive, Countess Fitzwilliams Wentworth Settlement Trustees and to the Director of Libraries and Information Services, Sheffield, for permission to consult the Burke papers among the Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments in the Sheffield City Libraries. I owe a number of particular improvements to the suggestions of Ian Higgins and Chris Tiffin, who read parts of the book in typescript.

A Note on References

Quotations from, and references to, Burkes writings, speeches and letters are identified by the following abbreviated citations:

Chapter 1

Burkes World

Burke was not primarily a writer or a thinker, but a party politician. It was to party politics that he devoted his main talents and energies. He entered politics in 1765 as private secretary to the second Marquis of Rockingham, whom he would serve faithfully until Rockinghams death in 1782. To the end of his own life, Burke remained loyal to what he believed to be the political ideas and ideals that Rockingham had represented. In 1790 he published his