She had the qualities which best fitted and disposed her to soothe the vehemence and irritability of her companion.

Though she afterwards conformed to the religion of her husband, it was no insignificant coincidence that in two of the dearest relations of his life the atmosphere of Catholicism was thus poured round the great preacher of the crusade against the Revolution.
About the time of his marriage, Burke made his first appearance as an author.

It was in 1756 that he published _A Vindication of Natural Society_, and the more important essay, _A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful_.

The latter of them had certainly been written a long time before, and there is even a traditional story that Burke wrote it when he was only nineteen years old.

Both of these performances have in different degrees a historic meaning, but neither of them would have survived to our own day unless they had been associated with a name of power.