Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event

London

James Dodsley

1790

"All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature."

But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.
(p. 114)

Dress::Drapery Dress::Wardrobe Container Body::Naked

Searching in Past Masters

At least 22 entries in the ESTC (1790, 1791, 1792, 1793).

See Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris (London: printed for J. Dodsley, 1790) <Link to ECCO><Link to ECCO-TCP>

Text from ECCO-TCP and Past Masters.

Reading Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987). [Pocock identifies the definitive edition of Burke's Reflections as William B. Todd's (Rinehart Books, 1959)].

05/03/2005

12/03/2008