It is this characteristic of his style which has led to the common comparison of his writing with Shakespeare's; both seem to be preternaturally endowed with more information, to have a wider sweep of interest than ordinary men.

Both were not only, as Matthew Arnold said of Burke, "saturated with ideas," but saturated too in the details of the business and desire of ordinary men's lives; nothing human was alien from them.

Burke's language is, therefore, always interesting and always appropriate to his thought; it is also on occasion very beautiful.

He had a wonderful command of clear and ringing utterance and could appeal when he liked very powerfully to the sensibilities of his readers.

Rhetoricians are seldom free from occasional extravagance, and Burke fell under the common danger of his kind.