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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
There is nothing surprising in finding that a part of Edmund Burke's life still remains obscure. With the exception of his political activities within the walls of the House of Commons, almost all of his life is obscure. Such simple vital facts as the date of his birth, the place of his marriage, even the exact place of his burial, are still subjects of doubt. (See N. & Q.,clxxii, 441; 6th ser., v, 274 f.; cxlix, 80).) Almost nothing is known about his first ten years in London. Mr. Dixon Wecter's recent article entitled “The Missing Years in Edmund Burke's Biog-graphy,” PMLA (December, 1938), shows clearly how little is yet known about this period. There are uncertainties as to the times of writing, dates of publication, and even the authorship of works generally considered his. There are uncertainties as to the part he may have taken in several works ascribed to other people. There is a most embarrassing mystery surrounding the sources of his income. Indeed, almost anywhere one looks in his private life, there is some element of mystery.
1 Letter to Richard Shackleton, February 15, 1745–16, printed in A. P. I. Samuels' Early Life Correspondence and Writings of Edmund Burke (Cambridge, 1923), p. 88. See also for a fuller explanation of Burke's reasons for secrecy a letter to Shackleton April 19, 1770, ibid., p. 398 f.
2 The nearest approach I have found to a contemporary statement that Burke was known to be its editor is in a letter of Samuel Denne the antiquary, September 12, 1795: “For many years it was surmised that Mr. Burke took the lead in that miscellaneous work . . .” (Nichols's Literary History, vi, 649).
3 The nearest approach to an acknowledgment by Burke of authorship of any part of the magazine is perhaps recorded in the Annual Register itself in its notice of Burke's death (1797, p. 41), which thus describes his work upon the historical department of the magazine: “In 1757 he engaged with Dodsley to compile the History of Europe in the Annual Register. This work he did not always acknowledge; but Dr. Leland [doubtless Thomas Leland of Trinity College, Dublin, one of Burke's earliest and closest friends], accidentally or by design, by criticizing the offspring, discovered the genuine fondness of the parent.“
4 Prior, James, Memoir of the Life and Character of Edmund Burke (London, 1824), p. 61. The “R. and T. Dodsley” in the second receipt is a mistake: it should be “R. and J. Dodsley.“Google Scholar
5 Prior, Life of Burke, p. xx.
6 Prior, James, Life of Oliver Goldsmith (London, 1837), i, 1309.Google Scholar
7 McCormick, Charles, Memoirs of Edmund Burke (London, 1797), p. 30.Google Scholar
8 Murray, Robert, Edmund Burke (Oxford, 1931), p. 83.Google Scholar
9 Straus, Ralph, Robert Dodsley (London, 1910), pp. 257 f.Google Scholar
10 BU Addn MSS, 22130, f. 10. This letter does not specifically mention the Annual Register, but again from its date and the sum, Ł50, for which a receipt is given, I think it is probably evidence that the first agreement was still being carried out. We know of no other work of Burke being published by Dodsley at this time; and on the other hand we do have record of a receipt similar to those Prior printed, but for the Register for 1763, which would be the one in question (see below, article cited in N. & Q. [1st ser.] iii, 441). The Dr. Nugent mentioned in the letter is no doubt Dr. Christopher Nugent, Burke's father-in-law.
11 Notes and Queries (1st ser.), iii, 441.
12 Annual Register, 1797, p. 456.
13 Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed. Charles Fitzwilliam and Richard Bourke (London, 1844), ii, 39.
14 London Chronicle, August 29, 1775.
15 McCormick, Memoirs, p. 36 f.; Prior, Life, p. 61 f.
16 Murray, Edmund Burke, pp. 83, 114, 161, 222.
17 N. & Q. (1st ser.), xii, 62.
18 McCormick, Memoirs of Burke, pp. 30 f.
19 Bisset, Robert, Life of Edmund Burke (London, 1798), p. 50.Google Scholar
20 Prior, Life, 1st ed., (London, 1824), pp. 60 f.; 3rd ed. (London, 1839), p. 51; 4th ed. [?] (Boston, 1854), i, 114.
21 Prior, Life, 5th ed., p. 55.
22 Prior, Life, 3rd ed., p. 552 n.
23 Murray, Edmund Burke, p. 83.
24 Ibid., p. 86.
25 Who later became Archbishop of York. See Clements Markham Memoir of Archbishop Mar***ham (Oxford, 1906), where among other details of the intimacy of the churchman with Burke, it is said (p. 12) : “He also assisted and advised Burke in his work connected with the Annual Register.“ This probably refers to the early years of the magazine, for it immediately follows the statement that Markham corrected the Sublime and Beautiful— published in 1757—and precedes another statement that in 1758 Markham stood godfather to Burke's son.
26 Gentleman's Magazine (1798), i, 448 f.
27 At least as early as 1765. Burke's friend James Barry, who left England in that year, sent back remembrances to English in a letter to Burke. (See the Correspondence of Edmund Burke, i, 92.) The editors of the Correspondence describe English as an “intimate friend” of Burke (i, 405 n.).
28 N. & Q. (1st series), xii, 171.
29 Who later became Bishop of Rochester. The fullest biographical account of him is the obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine (1827), i, 269 f. There is some further information in Foster's Alumni Oxoniensis, 1715–1886, ii, 796; in Foster's Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn (London, 1889), p. 501; and in Burke's Landed Gentry, 15th ed., p. 1294.
30 Correspondence, i, 405 and note.
31 The variations in length of the Historical Article of the Annual Register are as follows in the period of Burke's editorship:
| Year | Pages | Year | Pages | Year | Pages | Year | Pages |
| 1758 | 77 | 1766 | 48 | 1774 | 78 | 1782 | 244 |
| 1759 | 56 | 1767 | 45 | 1775 | 158 | 1783 | 180 |
| 1760 | 64 | 1768 | 84 | 1776 | 192 | 1784–5 | 192 |
| 1761 | 58 | 1769 | 73 | 1777 | 188 | 1786 | 177 |
| 1762 | 64 | 1770 | 95 | 1778 | 236 | 1787 | 232 |
| 1763 | 49 | 1771 | 94 | 1779 | 214 | 1788 | 202 |
| 1764 | 44 | 1772 | 105 | 1780 | 234 | 1789 | 259 |
| 1765 | 56 | 1773 | 108 | 1781 | 202 |
32 Since we pointed out that English's first engagement fell very close to the time of a severe nervous breakdown of Burke's, which might have convinced him that he could not get on without assistance, it may be permissible here to refer again to his other severe illness in 1775, which has already been mentioned as having delayed the publication of the Annual Register that year. Was this perhaps also the occasion of Burke's being forced to admit that he would have to have more help?
33 We find him, for example, writing personal letters for Burke in 1782, with the explanation that Burke was so busy that he was obliged to correspond through King as a substitute. (Correspondence, ii, 476 ff.)
34 Gentleman's Magazine (1809), i, p. 282. This gives a reasonably full account of French Laurence; the article in the Annual Register (1809), pp. 605 f. gives much the same account; the article in the Dictionary of National Biography is fuller than either; the Preface of his brother's edition of his correspondence with Burke, referred to below, gives the fullest account of him we have.
35 Epistolary Correspondence of Edmund Burke and French Laurence (L., 1827), p. iv.
36 In a letter to a relation, Laurence boasted of being sole author of one of the charges against Warren Hastings which Burke had presented to the House of Commons, and which had been printed in 1786.—See Correspondence of Burke and Laurence, xii f.
37 Correspondence of Burke and Laurence, p. xxiii.
38 Gentleman's Magazine (1829) i, 282.
39 London Chronicle (1792), i, 58.
