A recent writer has summed up the situation just after the publication of the Reflections: Thus Burke had no immediate success either with Government or with Opposition. The general feeling in political circles was that Burke, though eloquent and ingenious, went too far in this opinions; too far in his total and systematic opposition to the French revolution; too far in his attack on the dissenters and reformers; too far in his apprehensions of danger to the English constitution; too far in making public scenes, and breaking friendships, on an issue that need never have been publicly debated
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