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Article: Burke, Edmund (1729–1797)
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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BURKE, EDMUND (1729
–
1797)
BURKE, EDMUND
(1729
–
1797), British statesman and orator. Born in Arran Quay, Dublin, Edmund Burke was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied law briefly at the Inns of Court in London. He published two early books,
A Vindication of Natural Society
(1756) and
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
(1757; expanded 1759), which caught the eye of David Hume, Samuel Johnson, and other illustrious contemporaries and established him as an author. Burke had shown from the first a strong interest in politics, informed by copious knowledge, and this led to his appointment in 1759 as private secretary to ...