Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland Part 7

The qualifications of electors were essentially modified, and the aggregate more than doubled. Property, in most cases, still continued to be the basis of the right of suffrage. The greatest change was in the cities and burghs. In those, throughout the United Kingdom, the occupier of a building of the yearly value of 10, whether he owned or rented it, could vote for the local members. The ancient rights of voters, in burghs not disfranchised, were partially preserved, but provision was made for their gradual extinction. It was supposed that the bill added more than half a million to the number of Parliamentary electors. In 1838, the number of electors registered was 978,816. It has since exceeded a million.

The sweeping character of the bill surpa.s.sed public expectation, and produced an electric effect upon the country; the reformers hailing it with enthusiasm, whilst the champions of old abuses were stricken with horror. Mr. Hume, the leader of the radicals, declared that "it far exceeded his highest hopes." Sir Charles Wetherell, the oracle of the legal formalists, denounced it as "a corporation robbery." Mr. Macaulay, the organ of the philosophic reformers, p.r.o.nounced it "a great, n.o.ble, and comprehensive plan." Sir R. H. Inglis, the representative of the bigotry of Oxford University, said, "the plan of ministers meant revolution, not reformation."

All parties girded themselves for such a conflict as England had not witnessed for a century. After an inveterate contest of three weeks, the English bill (one for each kingdom was introduced) pa.s.sed its second reading in the House by a majority of only one. A day or two afterwards, an amendment was carried against ministers, by a majority of eight.

Immediately thereupon ministers announced that they should dissolve Parliament, and appeal to the people. At this suggestion, the Opposition broke through all restraint, and denounced them as revolutionists and traitors. They dreaded the appeal, for they knew the country was with the ministry. The Tory Peers resolved on the desperate measure of preventing the dissolution, by arresting the reading of the king's speech. The day came, and brought with it a scene of uproar in both Houses, which baffles description. A cotemporary writer says:

"A hope had remained, that the project of stopping the king's speech, and interposing an address, might succeed. That hope rested entirely upon the speech being read by the Chancellor, (Brougham,) and not by the king in person. Suddenly the thunder of the guns was heard to roar, breaking the silence of the anxious crowds without, and drowning even the noise that filled the walls of Parliament. In the fullness of his royal state, and attended by all his magnificent Court, the monarch approached the House of Lords.

Preceded by the great officers of state and of the household, he moved through the vast halls, which were filled with troops in iron mail, as the outside courts were with horse, while the guns boomed, and martial music filled the air. Having stopped in the robing chamber in order to put on his crown, he entered the House and ascended the throne, while his officers and ministers crowded around him. As soon as he was seated, he ordered the usher of the black rod to summon the Commons; and his Majesty, after pa.s.sing some bills, addressed them. By those who were present, the effect will not soon be forgotten, of the first words he p.r.o.nounced, or the firmness with which they were uttered, when he said that 'he had come to meet his Parliament in order to prorogue it, with a view to its immediate dissolution, for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of his people in regard to such changes in the representation as circ.u.mstances might appear to require.' He then, with an audible voice, commanded the Lord Chancellor to prorogue; which being done, the Houses dispersed, and the royal procession returned amidst the hearty and enthusiastic shouts of thousands of the people."

Great praise is due to the "Sailor King" for the firmness with which he stood by his reform ministers in this crisis, despite the clamors of alarmists in Church and State.

At the elections, the friends of the bill swept the country. They carried nearly all the counties, and all the cities and large towns. Its opponents obtained their recruits chiefly from close corporations and rotten boroughs. The English bill was proposed in the New House on the 24th of June, and, after a running fight of three months, pa.s.sed the Commons by 109 majority, and was sent to the Lords. The greatest anxiety was felt for its fate in that refuge of ancient conservatism. The debate on the second reading continued four nights. On the last evening, October 7th, Lord Brougham spoke five hours in its support, making the great effort of his remarkable life. His speech was an era in the history of that House.

He replied _seriatim_ to the opponents of the measure, dissecting this lord with keen logic, scathing that marquis with impa.s.sioned rebuke, holding this duke's ignorance up to ridicule, putting down the effrontery of that viscount, basting this earl with the oil of flattery while he roasted him with intense reasoning, and bringing to the defense and elucidation of the bill those rich stores of learning, argument, eloquence, wit, sarcasm, denunciation, and appeal, which have given him an undying name. The radical boldness of his doctrines, and the _abandon_ with which he demolished "ill.u.s.trious dukes," or tore the drapery from "n.o.ble lords," were no less remarkable features of this speech, than its transcendent ability. Lord Dudley, probably the first scholar and the most polished orator in the House, had sneered at "the statesmen of Birmingham, and the philosophers of Manchester." Brougham repelled the sneer, and, in a pa.s.sage of keen severity, contrasted Lord Dudley's accomplishments with the practical sense of the men he had traduced, closing it by saying, "To affirm that I could ever dream of putting the n.o.ble earl's opinions, aye, or his knowledge, in any comparison with the bold, rational, judicious, reflecting, natural, and, because natural, the trustworthy opinions of those honest men, who always give their strong sense fair play, having no affectations to warp their judgment--to dream of any such comparison as this, would be, on my part, a flattery far too gross for any courtesy, or a blindness which no habits of friends.h.i.+p could excuse."

He brought his great speech to a close, by uttering this solemn warning:

"My lords, I do not disguise the intense solicitude I feel for the event of this debate, because I know full well that the peace of the country is involved in the issue. I cannot look without dismay at the rejection of this measure. But, grievous as may be the consequences of a temporary defeat--temporary it can only be--for its ultimate, and even speedy success, is certain. Nothing can now stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded that, even if the present ministers were driven from the helm, any one could steer you through the troubles which surround you, without reform. But our successors would take up the task in circ.u.mstances far less auspicious. Under them, you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with which, the one we now proffer you is moderate indeed. Hear the parable of the Sybil; for it conveys a wise and wholesome moral.

She now appears at your gate, and offers you mildly the volumes, the precious volumes of wisdom and peace. The price she asks is reasonable; to restore the franchise which, without any bargain, you ought voluntarily to give. You refuse her terms, her moderate terms. She darkens the porch no longer. But soon, for you cannot do without her wares, you call her back. Again she comes, but with diminished treasures. The leaves of the book are in part torn away by lawless hands; in part defaced with characters of blood. But the prophetic maid has risen in her demands--it is Parliaments by the Year--it is Vote by the Ballot--it is Suffrage by the Million! From this, you turn away indignant, and for a second time she departs.

Beware of her third coming; for the treasure you must have; and what price she may next demand, who shall tell? It may be even the mace which rests upon that woolsack. What may follow your course of obstinacy, if persisted in, I cannot take upon me to predict, nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I well know--that, as sure as man is mortal, and to err is human, justice deferred enhances the price at which you must purchase safety and peace; nor can you expect to gather in another crop than they did who went before you, if you persevere in their utterly abominable husbandry, of sowing injustice and reaping rebellion.... You are the highest judicature in the realm. It is a judge's first duty never to p.r.o.nounce sentence, in the most trifling case, without hearing. Will you make this the exception? Are you really prepared to determine, but not to hear, the mighty cause upon which a nation's hopes and fears hang? You are! Then beware of your decision! Rouse not a peace-loving but resolute people. Alienate not from your body the affections of a whole empire. I counsel you to a.s.sist with your uttermost efforts in preserving the peace, and upholding and perpetuating the Const.i.tution. Therefore I pray and exhort you not to reject this measure. By all you hold dear--by all the ties that bind every one of us to our common order and our common country, I solemnly adjure you, I warn you, I implore you, yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate you, reject not this bill!"

The warning and the appeal were in vain. The bill was thrown out on the second reading by 41 majority. The struggle for the mastery between the people and the n.o.bility had now come. The Commons adopted a strong vote of confidence in ministers, and ministers resolved to stand by the bill.

Parliament was prorogued till December. In the vacation, reform meetings a.s.sembled in unprecedented numbers. On one of these occasions, at Taunton, Sydney Smith first brought to notice a venerable matron whose name is likely to be immortal in both hemispheres. In the course of his speech, the witty divine said:

"I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs.

Partington on the occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town--the tide rose to an incredible hight--the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop and squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pus.h.i.+ng away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest.

Gentlemen, be at your ease--be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs.

Partington."

A few riots gave diversity to the scene. At Derby, the mob demolished the property of some anti-reformers--they terribly frightened Sir Charles Wetherell, at Bristol--they burnt the Duke of Newcastle's turreted seat, at Nottingham--they smashed the windows of Apsley House, the town residence of the Duke of Wellington. The country was profoundly agitated, and the firmness of ministers averted a revolution.

Parliament met in December. The king's speech urged reform. Lord John introduced the English bill, slightly improved. A factious opposition, and an adjournment for the holidays, kept it suspended till the 22d of March, 1832, when it pa.s.sed the Commons, and was sent to the Lords.

After a hot debate, it pa.s.sed the second reading, when a hostile amendment, which destroyed its utility, was sprung upon the House and adopted, on the 7th of May. The next day, Lord Grey asked, according to a previous understanding, for the creation of a sufficient number of Peers to carry the bill. The King declined. Ministers instantly resigned. The Commons addressed the King in behalf of ministers, with rare boldness. The people a.s.sembled _en ma.s.se_, and pet.i.tioned the Commons to stop the supplies. Many meetings resolved to pay no more taxes till the bill became a law. The King requested Wellington to form a compromise administration. At this proposal, the popular indignation was kindled afresh. Things were approaching a fearful crisis. The Duke tried to execute the royal wish--the ultras of both parties were not invited to seats in the Cabinet--the half-and-half reformers would not come through fear--and he gave up the task in despair. The King recalled Grey, with a pledge to create new Peers, if necessary. This brought the refractory Lords to terms. Dreading the introduction of so large a body of liberals into their ancient hall, whose votes would avail the reformers in future contests, a sufficient number of Tories absented themselves from the Peers to insure the pa.s.sage of the bill. Those who remained concentrated, in their dying denunciations, the venom of the entire opposition. The English bill received the royal a.s.sent on the 7th of June, 1832. The Scotch and Irish bills speedily followed, and the month of July, after a two years' contest, which had shaken the empire to its center, saw the new Const.i.tution of the House of Commons established.

Though the Reform bill has not proved to be so large a concession to the popular demands as was intended, nor as beneficial to the country as was antic.i.p.ated, it was the greatest tribute to the democratic principle which the nation had paid since the Commonwealth. Its defects will be discussed when we examine the Chartist movement.

CHAPTER XVI.

Henry Lord Brougham--His Life, Services, and Character.

In connection with the pa.s.sage of the Reform bill, it is proper to notice one of the foremost Englishmen of this century--HENRY BROUGHAM.

Nothing strikes one more forcibly in the life of this extraordinary person than the number and variety of the subjects upon which he has exerted his powers. His published speeches and writings on either one of several of the political measures he has advocated, if viewed merely as intellectual efforts, might satisfy the ambition of an honorable aspirant after forensic or literary fame. The aggregate const.i.tutes hardly a t.i.the of his achievements in the cognate departments of public affairs. From his entrance into the House of Commons down to the present time, his name glows on every page of England's parliamentary history; and his posterity will permit but few of the myriad rays that encircle it to be effaced or obscured. As an advocate and a jurist, many of his speeches at the bar and opinions on the bench will live long after the law of libel and the court of chancery cease to oppress and vex mankind.

His services in the cause of popular education, whether we regard the time expended, the ability displayed, or the results attained, surpa.s.s the labors of many persons who have been a.s.signed to a foremost place among the eminent benefactors of their age. His contributions to the Edinburgh Review, covering its whole existence, and a large circle of literary, scientific, political, social, legal, and historical subjects, would cla.s.s him with the highest rank of periodical essayists. His more substantial works, as Sketches of Eminent Statesmen, History of the French Revolution, Lives of Men of Letters and Science, Discourse on Natural Theology, Political Philosophy, composed amidst the cares of public official station, would suffice to give him an enduring name in the republic of letters.

Great as are his mental achievements, it is as the early advocate of social progress and political reform--the champion of liberty and peace, the friend of man--that he is worthy of all his cotemporaneous fame, and all the applause which coming generations will bestow on his memory.

Inconsistency, the common infirmity of mortals, has checkered his course--eccentricity, "the twin brother of genius," has been his frequent companion--independence, whose adjacent province is obstinacy, he has largely exhibited; but, while the history of England, during the first third of the nineteenth century, remains, it will display to the impartial eye few names to excite more grateful admiration in every lover of his race than that which, from the abolition of the slave trade in 1806, to the abolition of slavery in 1834, was synonymous with intelligent progress and useful reform.

I believe Brougham was born about the year 1779. We first hear of him, when twenty years old, in Edinburgh, communicating some papers on geometry to the Royal Society in London, which were highly applauded, and translated into foreign tongues. In 1808, he appeared as counsel at the bar of Parliament, in behalf of the commercial and manufacturing interests, against the celebrated _Orders in Council_, which followed the Berlin Decree of Napoleon, and preceded the American Embargo. His examination of witnesses, extending through several weeks, and his closing argument, gave him a high reputation in England, and a name both in Europe and the United States. In 1809-10, he entered the theater where, for forty years, he has displayed his extraordinary gifts. His first published speech in Parliament, delivered in 1810, was a powerful appeal in favor of addressing the Throne for more effectual measures to suppress the slave trade. His next great effort was in 1812, when, a.s.sisted by Mr. Baring, (Lord Ashburton,) he examined witnesses for several weeks before the House of Commons, to prove that the still unrescinded Orders were ruining the trade and manufactures of the country, and provoking a war with the United States. At the close, he supported an address to the Throne for their repeal, in a speech replete with information, ably defending the policy of unrestricted commerce, and eloquently vindicating the superiority of the arts of peace over the glories of war. The motion prevailed--but too late to avert hostilities.

Congress declared war the very day the speech was delivered.

His services in the cause of the people from this time downward, have been referred to in these chapters, as various subjects have pa.s.sed under consideration. During the long and almost hopeless struggle of Liberty with Power, from 1810 to 1830, when he was removed from the theater of his greatest fame, he led the forlorn hope in the House of Commons. Unlike his great prototype, Fox, he never for a moment retired from the field in disgust and despair, but was ever at his post, stimulating the drooping spirits of his friends, hurling defiance at his foes, and rising from every defeat with renewed courage and strength.

Though cla.s.sified among the heads of the Opposition in the House, he never was--he never would be, in the strict sense, a party "leader."

Nor, on the contrary, did he surround himself with a "clique" or "interest," whose oracle he was. Supporting the measures of the Whigs, he was ever in advance of them, cheering on the ma.s.ses, as the Tribune of the people, and fighting the partisan battles of Reform as the guerrilla chief of Liberty.

In an evil hour, he was transplanted from his "native heath" to the conservatory of the aristocracy. Though surrounded by uncongenial spirits, and haunted with the nightmare of conservatism, the soul of McGregor retained for years much of its original fire in a place whose chilling atmosphere made the lion blood of a Chatham to stagnate and curdle. Some of his mightiest efforts in the good cause were put forth after he _descended_ to the upper House of Parliament.

Had Brougham coveted and obtained "leaders.h.i.+p" in its party sense, in either House, he must have failed. Too original, independent, wayward, and dogmatical, to be implicitly trusted and obeyed by his equals; too incautious and pus.h.i.+ng; too impatient of dullness; too much of a genius, to be always appreciated and confided in by his inferiors, though he would have been applauded by the ma.s.ses; yet his premiers.h.i.+p, had he accepted the offer of King William, could not have long survived the pa.s.sage of the Reform bill. With the exception of taking the great seal, he has chosen to be what he is--a rare comet, created to move in no orbit but its own--beautiful and l.u.s.trous in the distance, but grand and terrible in proximity.

The public measures with which he is most closely identified are--the advocacy of the manufacturing and commercial interests, as opposed to Orders in Council and other restrictions on trade; hostility to the continental combinations of the successors of Pitt, and their legitimate offspring, exhausting wars and the Holy Alliance; the vindication of Queen Caroline, in the struggle with her libertine husband; the freedom of the press, attempted to be overawed by prosecutions for libels on the Government and the church; the education of the middle and lower orders; religious toleration for dissenters and Catholics; reform in the civil and criminal law; parliamentary reform; munic.i.p.al reform; poor laws reform; the abolition of the slave trade and slavery; retrenchment in Government expenditures; the independence of the Canadian Legislature, and the repeal of the corn laws. What a catalogue have we here! Upon all these measures, each of which was an era in British history, Brougham has acted a leading, and upon many, a controlling part. His speeches upon most of them surpa.s.sed those of any other of their advocates, whether we consider the extent of the information displayed, the depth and energy of the reasoning, the scope and vigor of the style, the eloquence of the appeals to justice and humanity, or the majesty and splendor of the higher pa.s.sages.

Lord Brougham's fame, as an orator, has filled two hemispheres. We will look at him in the two aspects of matter and manner.

The four volumes of his speeches, with others gleaned from the Parliamentary reports, prove that his reputation is well founded. Their leading characteristic is power--crus.h.i.+ng power--as distinguished from beauty and grace. They are not so gorgeous as Burke's, nor so compact as Webster's. But they contain more information and argument, and less philosophy and fancy, than the former's--more versatility and vigor, and less staid grandeur and studied method, than the latter's. As _speeches_, rather than _orations_, addressed to a deliberative body of friends and foes, who are to _act_ upon the subject under discussion, they are more practical and to the matter in hand than Burke's; more hearty and soul-stirring than Webster's. Their style is a mixture of Burke and Webster--less extravagant anywhere than some pa.s.sages of the former; frequently more slovenly than any pa.s.sage of the latter; with more of bitter personal taunt and lofty rebuke of fraud, meanness, and oppression, than either. Viewed as literary productions, regardless of the immediate fruits they produced, they will hardly stand the test of posthumous fame like Burke's. Less universal in their application, less penetrated with principles adapted alike to all times, they often betray the advocate instead of the statesman, the partisan rather than the philosopher, the leader and champion of cotemporaries rather than the instructor and mentor of posterity. But it still remains a question, whether they were not the more valuable on that very account. Their immediate effect in moving ma.s.ses of men, and molding public measures, far surpa.s.sed that of Burke's. And though the _words_ of the latter may outlive those of the former, we have the highest authority for saying, blessed are those whose _works_ survive them.

Lord Brougham's speeches deal little in mere declamation, even of the highest order, but are pregnant with apposite facts and arguments, giving the reader or hearer an unusual amount of information upon the matters under discussion. He excels, when he tries, in a plain, lucid statement of his subject; as witness, his speech on law reform, in 1828, when, for seven hours, he held the close attention of the unprofessional House of Commons, while he sketched the absurdities and abuses of every branch of the common law, and detailed the amendments he proposed in its principles and administration. But this is not his _forte_, and for that very reason his dexterity and self-control excite our admiration the more. If you would see him in his greatest moods, you must give him a person or a party to attack, which shall arouse his combative propensities, and bring his invective and sarcasm into full play; or some giant abuse to anathematize and demolish, which shall inflame his indignation and abhorrence.

We gather from his own statements that the garb and colors in which he attires the main body of a speech--the mere style and diction--are the impulse of the occasion; as most of the sarcasms and rebukes are flung out in the heat of delivery. But, where time for preparation is afforded, no speaker is more careful in arranging the general drift of the argument, and digesting the facts to ill.u.s.trate and sustain it; whilst certain pa.s.sages, such as the exordium or peroration, are the result of the most pains-taking labors of the closet. He has recorded that the peroration of his speech in the Queen's case was written no less than ten times before he thought it fit for so august an occasion.

The same is probably true of similar pa.s.sages in Webster's speeches; it is known to be so of Burke's.

No orator of our times is more successful in embalming phrases, full of meaning, in the popular memory. The well-known talismanic sentiment, "_The schoolmaster is abroad_," is an instance. In a speech on the elevation of Wellington, a mere "military chieftain," to the premiers.h.i.+p, after the death of Canning, Brougham said: "Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington may take the army--he may take the navy--he may take the great seal--he may take the miter. I make him a present of them all. Let him come on with his whole force, sword in hand, against the Const.i.tution, and the English people will not only beat him back, but laugh at his a.s.saults. In other times, the country may have heard with dismay that 'the soldier was abroad.' It will not be so now. Let the soldier be abroad if he will; he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage abroad--a personage less imposing--in the eyes of some, perhaps, insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad; and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array."

Turning from the matter to the manner of the orator, (if we have not already pa.s.sed the boundary,) Brougham stood unrivaled as a debater in the House of Commons. For twenty years he swayed the intellect and pa.s.sions of the House, by his muscular and courageous eloquence, whilst Castlereagh, Canning, and Peel controlled its majorities and dictated its measures, by the wave of their official wand. Castlereagh was more self-possessed and matter-of-fact than he; Canning more brilliant and cla.s.sical; Peel more dexterous and plausible. But, in weight of metal, he surpa.s.sed them all. His oratory was not the brawl and foam of a das.h.i.+ng mountain torrent, but the steady roar of the deep, broad cataract. In ability to inflame friends and foes, and shake the House till it quaked, he equaled either Chatham or Fox. When thoroughly roused, with all his elements in full play, he thundered and lightened till the knights of the s.h.i.+re clung to the Benches for support, the Ministers cowered behind the Speaker's chair for shelter, and the voting members started from their slumbers in the side galleries, as if the last trump were ringing in their ears.

Chatham introduced the style of the House of Commons into the debates of the House of Lords. Brougham's appearance there const.i.tuted almost as new an era in its oratory as the advent of Chatham. It was my good fortune to hear him two or three times in the Lords, several years ago--once when his best powers were put in action for a brief hour.

We enter the House of Peers. The lions--Brougham, Grey, Wellington, Lyndhurst, Melbourne--are in their places. An exciting debate is going forward, which has taken rather a personal turn. Yonder is Brougham, stretched out half his length on one of the Ministerial benches; now listening to a clumsy Earl on the floor, whom he eyes with a portentous scowl; anon whispering a hurried word to the Peer at his elbow. What an ungainly figure! Those long legs and arms, loosely hung in their sockets, give him a slouching air. Human face could hardly look more ugly or intellectual. His iron-gray hair bristles over his forehead like the quills of the fretful porcupine. His restless eye peers through eyebrows that seem alive with nerves. He must be agitated with the debate, for he writhes as though his red cus.h.i.+on were a sheet of hot iron. He suddenly starts up, (who ever knew him to sit still five minutes?) walks with long strides toward the door, and while chatting with the ladies, his tormentor stops, and the ex-Chancellor cries, with startling emphasis, (lest some one get the floor before him,) "My Lords!" and slowly advances to the table in front of the woolsack. An audible _hush_ runs round the chamber; for they had been antic.i.p.ating a reply from the mercurial lord. Every whisper ceases, and all eyes are fixed on the towering intellect before them. The Peeresses leave their damask chairs, and approach the bar, to get a better view of the orator.

Members of the House of Commons, till now chatting round the bar, lean forward in silence. The loungers in the lobbies enter the Hall, the word having pa.s.sed out, "Brougham is up!" The unt.i.tled spectators rise from their seats on the carpet, where fatigue had sunk them, and stand on tiptoe, to catch every glance of the eye and wave of the hand of the scholar and statesman, whilst the crowded galleries forget their la.s.situde in listening to one whose name and fame are the property of mankind.

But to the speech. Listen to that first sentence! How it plunges into the very center of the subject. Every word is an argument--every period a demonstration. The first blow knocks the keystone from his last antagonist's speech, and tumbles the whole structure on his affrighted head and shoulders. And the dandy young Lord, over in the corner, who, in the puny oration he recited so prettily an hour ago, went out of his way to sneer at Brougham--see the blood fly from his cheeks when his nice little piece of rhetoric comes rattling in bits round his ears. As the lion fixes his eye on him, he would give his coronet and his curls if he could slink into a nutsh.e.l.l. A fiery glance or two having withered him, the monarch of the debate grapples with worthier antagonists. What a sweep does he give to the argument--what redundancy of facts--what fertility of ill.u.s.tration. How large the field of his comprehension--how exhaustless and varied its resources. What execution is done by those long-drawn sentences, with parenthesis within parenthesis, each a logical syllogism, or a home-thrust fact, or a blighting sarcasm, wound round and round his victims, till they are crushed in their folds! Great in matter, his speech is equally powerful in manner; violating every law of rhetoric and oratory promulgated by the schools, he is a law unto himself--original, commanding, majestic.

Brougham, having demolished his antagonists, took a seat at the clerk's table, and began to write a letter, when the Chancellor (Cottenham) rose and commenced a conciliatory speech. His calm, slow, cool manner contrasted strongly with the tempest which had just pa.s.sed over our heads, reminding us of those dewy showers which follow smilingly in the trail of a dark cloud, after its thunder and lightning and torrent have raged and blazed and poured, and pa.s.sed away.

This great man has been described so often, that not only his public history and mental character, but his personal peculiarities--yea, the nervous twitching of his eyebrows--are as familiar to Americans as to the reporters in the gallery of the House of Lords. As an orator or debater, he is sometimes compared to Webster. The very attempt is unjust to both. You might as well compare the repose of Lake Erie to the thunder of Niagara. Each has his own sphere of greatness. The Bostonian rarely enters the arena of debate, unless clad in mail to his fingers'

ends--a safe and strong debater. Not so the Londoner. He sometimes rushes, sword in hand, without scabbard or s.h.i.+eld, into the thickest of the fight, and gets sorely galled. Little arrows do not pierce Webster, nor do ordinary occasions summon forth his heaviest weapons. But Brougham, why, he will fight with anybody, and on any terms. The smallest Lilliput in the House can sting him into paroxysms with his needle-spear. But wo to the a.s.sailant! The bolt which annihilates the Earl of Musketo is equally heavy with that which strikes down the Duke of Wellington. As a whole, Brougham is unlike any of our public men.

Could we mix into one compound the several qualities of Webster, Clay, Choate, Benton, and the late John Quincy Adams, and divide the ma.s.s into four or five parts, we might, by adding a strong tincture of John C.

Calhoun, make four or five very good Henry Broughams.

I have spoken of the versatility of Brougham's talents and acquirements.

Sir E. B. Sugden was arguing a cause before him in chancery. The Chancellor was not very attentive to the argument, employing part of the time in writing letters. This greatly piqued Sugden; and on retiring from the court, he drily said to a friend, "If Brougham only knew a little of Chancery law, he would know a little of everything."

Undoubtedly he knows something about everything, and much about most things. Somebody has compared him to a Scotch Encyclopedia, without alphabetical arrangement. If he has not reached the highest place in any department of knowledge, it is because, in traversing so vast a field, he must here and there be necessarily only a gleaner. His success in so many departments proves that had he cultivated but one or two, he might have surpa.s.sed all cotemporary compet.i.tion. Looking to the variety and extent of his acquisitions and labors, posterity will regard him as one of the most extraordinary men of his time. He reached his eminent position by no royal road. He is among the most laborious and diligent of men. Well known facts attest his wonderful activity.

His able work, "Practical Observations upon the Education of the People," published in 1825, was composed, he says, during hours stolen from sleep. Combe states of him, that he was once engaged in a court of law all day, from which he went to the House of Commons, and mingled in the debate till two o'clock in the morning; he then retired to his house, and wrote upon an article for the Edinburgh Review till it was time to go to the court, where he was actively employed till the hour for the a.s.sembling of the Commons; thither he went, and partic.i.p.ated in the discussion as vigorously as usual till long after midnight--taking no rest till the morning of the third day! The witty Hazlitt, alluding, at the time, to his speeches on commercial and manufacturing distress, said, "He is apprised of the exact state of our exports and imports, and scarce a s.h.i.+p clears out its cargo from Liverpool or Hull, but he has a copy of the bill of lading." It will be remembered, that while performing his political and miscellaneous labors, he was surrounded by a large circle of professional clients. His inaugural discourse, as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, thickly strown with Greek and Latin quotations, was, as the preface informs us, written during the business of the Northern Circuit. Sydney Smith says, in one of his graphic Reform speeches, "See the gigantic Brougham, sworn in at twelve o'clock, [as Chancellor,] and before six, has a bill on the table abolis.h.i.+ng the abuses of a Court which has been the curse of the people of England for centuries."

A full share of the preparation and defense of the measures of Earl Grey's Administration devolved on him; while at the same time he did the work of an ordinary man in writing rudimental articles for the Penny Magazine, and scientific tracts for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, lecturing to Mechanics' Inst.i.tutes, and contributing essays to the Edinburgh Review. An English friend informed me that during one of the busiest periods of his official life, a fatal accident happened to some laborers in excavating a deep well. Forthwith, out came a tract from the Lord Chancellor, on the best and safest mode of digging wells! Though his numerous publications and addresses on learned subjects, and his partic.i.p.ation in the proceedings of the Royal Society and French Inst.i.tute showed their author to be a scientific man, his later Lives of Men of Letters and Science exhibited an acquaintance with the sciences in his old age, for which his friends were hardly prepared.