Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 17 No. 496 June 27 1831 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 69 lines and 16719 words, and 2 pages

THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

THE

MIRROR

LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT,

AND

INSTRUCTION:

CONTAINING

ORIGINAL ESSAYS;

HISTORICAL NARRATIVES; BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS; SKETCHES OF SOCIETY; TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS; NOVELS AND TALES; ANECDOTES;

SELECT EXTRACTS

FROM

NEW AND EXPENSIVE WORKS;

THE SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS;

DISCOVERIES IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES;

&C. &C. &C.

LONDON:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. LIMBIRD, 143, STRAND,

PREFACE

Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles

of the heroines of their verse.

SEVENTEEN is a promising time in life: it is redolent of youth, and hope, and joy; may not the context hold good in art and literature. Strictly speaking, we are but in our ninth year, although our volumes number seventeen. If we continue to partake as largely of the gale of public favour as hitherto, we shall not despair of an evergreen old age. We know the value of this favour, and shall strive to maintain it accordingly. It is to us like the Queen of Chess:

Lose not the Queen, for ten to one, If she be lost, the game is gone.

Sterne, who delighted in large type and blanks, would probably call this, as he did all life, "a mingled yarn;" and so we have done.

MEMOIR

BARON BROUGHAM AND VAUX,

LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN, &C.

The illustrious subject of this Memoir is the eldest son of a gentleman of small fortune, but ancient family, in Cumberland, His mother was the daughter of a Scotch clergyman; in the mansion of whose widow, on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, the father of Lord Brougham lodged when prosecuting his studies at the University there. Chambers, the laborious topographical historian of the Modern Athens, says that Lord Brougham was born in St. Andrew's Square, in that city, though this has been disputed. The family of the late Mr. Brougham consisted of four sons:--Henry John, an extensive wine-merchant in Edinburgh, who died at Boulogne, about two years since; James, the Chancery Barrister, who formerly sat with Baron Abercromby in parliament, for Tregony, and sits at present for Downton, Wilts; and William, who has recently been appointed a Master in Chancery, and elected Member for the Borough of Southwark.

Although professionally a lawyer, Mr. Brougham's ambition soon became directed to the senate; and, observes a clever contemporary, "it is an instructive example of the working of our admirable system of representation, that, up to the 16th of October last, Henry Brougham, the greatest orator and statesman that perhaps ever enlightened Parliament, was indebted for his seat to the patronage of a borough-holding Peer." He first took his seat for Camelford, a borough in the interest of the Duke of Bedford. In 1812, he contested Liverpool with Mr. Canning, and failed; and, in the same year, he was nominated for the Inverkeithing district of Boroughs, and failed there also. He was, however, subsequently returned for Winchelsea, in Sussex. During the discussions in parliament respecting the Princess of Wales, Mr. Brougham, we believe, was honoured with the confidence of her Royal Highness, and espoused her cause with much effect. His earliest efforts as a British senator were likewise distinguished by the same regard to the rights of individuals, and the liberties of the country, which he has uniformly manifested to the present time. Nor was he then less firm in opposition to what he deemed the encroachments of the crown, and the extravagances and abuses of the government, than he has since proved. His bold denial of the sovereign's right to the droits of the Admiralty, in 1812, will not soon be forgotten.

In the early part of 1816, Mr. Brougham brought forward a motion for preserving and extending the liberty of the press, for which the ministers, particularly Lord Castlereagh passed on him the highest encomiums; and miscalculating the firmness of the bepraised, some persons thought the minister's eulogy a lure for the member's vote; but the result proved that Mr. Brougham was above all temptation. In the same year he made a tour on the continent: in France he was the object of much attention; and he afterwards visited the residence of the Princess of Wales, in Italy, as was supposed, on a mission of some importance.

"My lords, I call upon you to pause. You stand on the brink of a precipice. You may go on in your precipitate career--you may pronounce against your Queen, but it will be the last judgment you ever will pronounce. Her persecutors will fail in their objects, and the ruin with which they seek to cover the Queen, will return to overwhelm themselves. Rescue the country; save the people, of whom you are the ornaments; but severed from whom, you can no more live than the blossom that is severed from the root and tree on which it grows. Save the country, that you may continue to adorn it--save the crown, which is threatened with irreparable injury--save the aristocracy, which is surrounded with danger--save the altar, which is no longer safe when its kindred throne is shaken. You see that when the church and the throne would allow of no church solemnity in behalf of the Queen, the heartfelt prayers of the people rose to heaven for her protection. I pray heaven for her; and I here pour forth my fervent supplications at the throne of mercy, that mercies may descend on the people of this country richer than their rulers have deserved; and that your hearts may be turned to justice."

The result need scarcely be alluded to. Men of all parties, however discordant might be their opinions upon the point at issue, acknowledged and admired the intrepidity and splendid talents of Mr. Brougham on this memorable occasion.

Brilliant as has been the parliamentary career of Mr. Brougham from this period, our limits will allow us only to advert to a few of its brightest epochs. Whether advocating the rights and liberties, and a spirit of social improvement, at home, or aiding the progress of liberal opinion abroad, we find Mr. Brougham exercising the same uncompromising integrity and patriotic zeal. Spain, in 1823, became a fitting subject for his masterly eloquence. His remarks on the French government, on April 14, in the House of Commons, on the consideration of the policy observed by Great Britain in the affairs of France and Spain, will not soon be forgotten: "I do not," said Mr. Brougham, "identify the people of France with their government; for I believe that every wish of the French nation is in unison with those sentiments which animate the Spaniards. Neither does the army concur in this aggression; for the army alike detests the work of tyranny, plunder, cant, and hypocrisy. The war is not commenced because the people or the army require it, but because three or four French emigrants have obtained possession of power. It is for such miserable objects as these that the Spaniards are to be punished, because they have dared to vindicate their rights as a free and independent people. I hope to God that the Spaniards may succeed in the noble and righteous cause in which they are engaged."

In 1824, , we find Mr. Brougham in the House of Commons, moving an address to the King, relative to the proceedings at Demerara against Smith, the missionary; but, after a debate of two days, the motion was negatived.

During the period of Mr. Canning's ministry, his liberality gained Mr. Brougham's support: this is the only instance of Mr. Brougham's not being opposed to the minister of the day; and, observes a political writer, "he has been as much above the task of drudging for a party as drudging for a ministry."

The year 1828 is a memorable one in Mr. Brougham's parliamentary life. Early in the session, upon the debate of the battle of Navarino, we find him expressing his readiness to support the ministry as long as the members who composed it showed a determination to retrench the expenditure of the country, to improve its domestic arrangements, and to adopt a truly British system of foreign policy. It was on this occasion that Mr. Brougham used the expression which has since become so familiar--"The schoolmaster is abroad." On Feb. 7, Mr. Brougham brought forward a motion on the State of the Law, in an elaborate speech of six hours delivery. The debate was adjourned to February 29, when Mr. Brougham's motion, in an amended shape, was put and agreed to, requesting the King to cause "due inquiry to be made into the origin, progress, and termination of actions in the superior courts of common law in this country;" and "into the state of the law regarding the transfer of real property." Even the heads of this speech would occupy one of our pages. A passage much quoted at the time of its publication is a good specimen of Mr. Brougham's forcible style of illustration: "He was guilty of no error--he was chargeable with no exaggeration--he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said, that all we can see about us, King, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system and its varied workings, end simply in bringing twelve good men into a box." In the same month, Mr. Brougham spoke at great length in support of Lord John Russell's motion for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. On March 6, Mr. Brougham spoke in support of Mr. Peel's motion for Catholic Emancipation, which he described as going "the full length that any reasonable man ever did or ever can demand; it does equal justice to his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects; it puts an end to all religious distinctions; it exterminates all civil disqualifications on account of religious belief. It is simple and efficacious; clogged with no exceptions, unless such as even the most zealous of the Catholics themselves must admit to be of necessity parcel of the measure."

In the session of 1829, Mr. Brougham explained the proceedings of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into Public Charities, who, it appeared, had examined sixteen counties, and partially examined ten; altogether amounting to more than 19,000 charities, being more than half the number in the whole kingdom.

In 1830, Mr. Brougham supported Lord John Russell's plan for Parliamentary Reform, as an amendment to a motion of Mr. O'Connell; in which Mr. Brougham opposed universal suffrage and vote by ballot. In the same week also, he spoke at some length on the punishment of Forgery by death. The opinions which he expressed, Mr. Brougham said, he had learned from his great and lamented friend, Sir Samuel Romilly; and he concluded by expressing his hope that he should live to see the day when this stain should be removed from our statute-book. In the following month Mr. Brougham brought in a bill for local jurisdictions in England, for diminishing the expense of legal proceedings. On June 24, Mr. Brougham spoke at great length upon the inadequacy of the ministerial bill for the reform of the Court of Chancery. On July 13, he moved for the abolition of West India Slavery, and expatiated at great length and with extreme earnestness--first, on the right of the mother country to legislate for the colonies, and next on the legal and moral nature of slavery.

Soon after the assembling of the new parliament, Mr. Brougham, in connexion with the topic of the recent revolutions on the continent, and parliamentary reform in this country, concluded an interesting debate by saying--"He was for reform--for preserving, not for pulling down--for restoration, not for revolution. He was a shallow politician, a miserable reasoner, and he thought no very trustworthy man, who argued, that because the people of Paris had justifiably and gloriously resisted lawless oppression, the people of London and Dublin ought to rise for reform. Devoted as he was to the cause of parliamentary reform, he did not consider that the refusal of that benefit, or, he would say, that right, to the people of this country would be in the slightest degree a parallel case to any thing which had happened in France."

Mr. Brougham's elevation to the exalted station which he now fills need be related but briefly, since the particulars must be fresh in the recollection of our readers. Upon the resignation of the Wellington ministry--with the title of BARON BROUGHAM AND VAUX, he took the oaths as Lord Chancellor, November 22, and his seat in the Chancery Court on November 25, 1830.

In the House of Lords, in reply to some censurable observations on his acceptance of office which had been made elsewhere, his lordship explained his motives with great candour. After an allusion to his difficulty in resigning his high station as a representative for Yorkshire, Lord Brougham said, "I need not add, that in changing my station in parliament, the principles which have ever guided me remain unchanged. When I accepted the high office to which I have been called, I did so in the full and perfect conviction, that far from disabling me to discharge my duty to my country--far from rendering my services less efficient, it but enlarged the sphere of my utility. The thing which dazzled me most in the prospect which opened to my view, was not the gewgaw splendour of the place, but because it seemed to afford me, if I were honest--on which I could rely; if I were consistent--which I knew to be matter of absolute necessity in my nature; and if I were as able as I knew myself honest and consistent--a field of exertion more extended. That by which the Great Seal dazzled my eyes, and induced me to quit a station which till this time I deemed the most proud which an Englishman could enjoy, was, that it seemed to hold out the gratifying prospect that in serving my king I should be better able to serve my country."

Of Lord Brougham's qualifications as a barrister we have already spoken. To the hearing of appeals in the House of Lords, an important section of the public business, his Lordship brings qualifications not possessed by any of his predecessors. Seven years' practice at the Scotch bar, and a very extensive employment in appeals from that country have made him familiar with the machinery of the law on which his decisions bear; and he therefore undertakes his judicial task with professional confidence.

"To the Working Classes I would say, that this is the time when by a great effort they may secure for ever the inestimable blessing of knowledge. Never was the disposition more universal among the rich to lend the requisite assistance for setting in motion the great engines of instruction; but the people must come forward to profit by the opportunity thus afforded, and they must themselves continue the movement once begun. Those who have already started in the pursuit of science, and tasted its sweets, require no exhortation to persevere; but if these pages should fall into the hands of any one at an hour for the first time stolen from his needful rest after his day's work is done, I ask of him to reward me by saving threepence during the next fortnight, buying with it Franklin's Life, and reading the first page. I am quite sure he will read the rest; I am almost quite sure he will resolve to spend his spare time and money, in gaining those kinds of knowledge which from a printer's boy made that great man the first philosopher, and one of the first statesmen of his age. Few are fitted by nature to go as far as he did, and it is not necessary to lead so perfectly abstemious a life, and to be so rigidly saving of every instant of time. But all may go a good way after him, both in temperance, industry, and knowledge, and no one can tell before he tries how near he may be able to approach him."

We may here mention that in 1825, Lord Brougham was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; his opponent, Sir Walter Scott, lost the election by the casting vote of Sir James Mackintosh, in favour of Lord Brougham.

Among the originators of the London University, Lord Brougham occupies a foremost rank, and partly by the aid of his indefatigable talents, that establishment was opened, in 1828, within seventeen months from the day on which the first stone was laid.

In the preceding outline of the political life of Lord Brougham, we have quoted but few points of his personal character. This has been so well drawn, and so recently too, that we are induced to adopt the following traits from a contemporary Magazine. The paper whence these are extracted, purports to be a description of the Lord Chancellor's first levee:--

Of the eloquence and general character of Lord Brougham, we have the following excellent portraiture by a master-hand:--

Lord Brougham married, in 1816, Mary Anne, relict of John Slade, Esq., of Hill street, Berkeley-square; by whom he has one daughter. Lady Brougham's maiden name was Eden: she is nearly related to the Auckland and Handley families. At her marriage with Mr. Slade, in 1808, she was accounted an extremely beautiful young woman; and she was still possessed of great personal charms at the period of her second union. Lady Brougham had by her former marriage a son, who inherits his father's estate, and is an. officer in the army, and a daughter. Lady Brougham brought no property to her husband but her jointure of ?1,500 a-year, and the house No. 5, Hill-street.

Lord Brougham was born in 1779, and is, consequently, in his fifty-second year.

Abernethy, the late Mr., 397 Academy, The Silent, 4 Actor, How to roast, 287 Ada, Lines to, 374 Addison, Death of, 419 AEolian Harp, Sonnet to, 404 AEolophon, the, 52 Al Amin at Chess, 36 Album, Character of a good one, 355 Albion, Origin of, 306 Alison, Archibald, his Autograph, 145 Ambiton, Simple, 340 Ampthill House described, 353 America, First English Colony in, 55 Anatomical Subjects, 432 Anatomy of Society, 249 Ancestry, 224-425 Andr?, Major, Account of, 184 Anglo-Saxon History, 301 Anson, Lord, 144 Antiquarian Scraps, 99 Apsley House, Origin of, 192 Arcana of Science for 1831, 312 Arch Poetry, 79 Architecture of Birds, 279 Ariosto, Relics of, 193 Arqu?, Petrarch's House at, 1 Arun, Sonnet to the, 227 Arundel House, Strand, 67 Ascot-place Grotto, 225 Atherton, a Tale, 393 Auberge on the Grimsel, 41 Autocrat's Prayer, the, 236 Autographs of Eminent Persons, 145-264

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet