that they were swept away by the force of his reason or the contagion of
his wit or his emotion. On such occasions, as in his first speech in the
impeachment of Hastings, he was irresistible.

From what has now been said it must be evident that while Burke's
temperament and mind were truly classical in some of their qualities, as in
his devotion to order and established institutions, and in the clearness of
his thought and style, and while in both spirit and style he manifests a
regard for decorum and formality which connects him with the
pseudo-classicists, nevertheless he shared to at least as great a degree in
those qualities of emotion and enthusiasm which the pseudo-classic writers
generally lacked and which were to distinguish the romantic writers of the
nineteenth century. How the romantic movement had begun, long before Burke
came to maturity, and how it had made its way even in the midst of the
pseudo-classical period, we may now consider.

THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT. The reaction which was bound to accompany the
triumph of Pseudo-classicism, as a reassertion of those instincts in human
nature which Pseudo-classicism disregarded, took the form of a distinct
Romantic Revival. Beginning just about as Pope's reputation was reaching
its climax, and gathering momentum throughout the greater part of the
eighteenth century, this movement eventually gained a predominance as
complete as that which Pseudo-classicism had enjoyed, and became the chief
force, not only in England but in all Western Europe, in the literature of
the whole nineteenth century. The impulse was not confined to literature,
but permeated all the life of the time. In the sphere of religion,
especially, the second decade of the eighteenth century saw the awakening
of the English church from lethargy by the great revival of John and
Charles Wesley, whence, quite contrary to their original intention, sprang
the Methodist denomination. In political life the French Revolution was a