FATHER BURKE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 11, 14 March 1891, Page 19

FATHER BURKE.

The celebrated Dominican father, Tom Burke, the friend of Longfellow and an admired orator, had such unbounded popularity as a preacher, that, as an Irishman put it, in describing his large audiences, ‘ Bedad, the chuich is full within and without.’ His power over an audience was probably due, in great measure, to his wondeiful facial expression and speaking gestures. In his student days, says Temple Bar, lie employed his idle moments in trying to twist hie own features into the likeness of some caricature in Punch, and, when in Rome, would spend hours in the Vatican, imitating the pose of the statues there. On one occasion, he stood for a long time before the Laocoon, and then, looking round, and finding no one in sight, said to a friend, ‘ I’ll try him !’ In a moment, there was the Laocoon in flesh and blood, agonized and despairing. Just then, a party of ladies and gentlemen appeared, and gazed in amazement, first at the statue and then at its living copy. • I was only trying my hand at the statue,’ stammered Burke, and, greatly embarrassed, he disappeared irom the room as quickly as he could. At one time, an architect, knowing his power of facial contortion, asked him to give a few sittings for the faces and figures to be used as ornaments of a grand Gothic church. Burke was greatly amused at the idea of some lime finding his own features confront him from the capital of a column.

‘ I wan’t to be a pillar of the church,’ he replied laughing. ‘ You wish to make me only a grinning gargoyle.’ He was equally successful in his imitation of English subjects. During a session of the Vatican Council a large number of prelates were entertained by an Englishman in ■ Rome. Among the guests were several Oriental bishops, and for these a suite of apartments had been arranged, after the Eastern fashion, with divans, delicious coffee and tobacco.

Burke was sitting with the English guests, but when he noticed a mysterious baize door, through which came the fumes of flagrant coffee, he opened it, peeped in, and seeing some Oriental garments hanging near, put lhem over his shouldeis and slipped inside. Once there, he made.a pro.found salaam, and sat down cross-legged with the others.

Toward the end of the evening, the host came in, with his European guests, and Burke carried on a conversation with several of his intimate friends, who did not guess his identity. At length, one of them, an Irish bishop, detected him, after much study, and thereupon exclaimed : ‘ Why, Father Tom, is that yon ? What brought you here ?’

‘ Well, my lord,' said Burke, ‘ there was plenty of tobacco and coffee to be enjoyed here, and I saw no reason why these good things should be lesigned by a Western. I wanted also to show that there are wise men in the West as well as in the East.’