excitement of the speaker and the audience. If it did, it was undoubtedly a graceful and magnificent attitude; far better, certainly, than that absurd dagger of Burke, which some have professed to admire. Had Burke, indeed, worn, as was customary in his youth, a sword, and, as the climax of one of his anti-Gallican harangues, drawn and flourished it in the eyes of the astonished house, it had been a natural and noble conductor to the excited feelings of such a man; and one would have recalled the words of Milton He spake, and, to confirm his words, out flew Of mighty cherubim: the sudden blaze Far round illumined hell. But to purchase a weapon at a cutler's-to hide it in his breast -to watch his opportunity, and curve, in the majestic wave of his eloquence, to a point where he might, with some appearance of keeping, dash it down upon the floor-it was a hideous anticlimax-the trashiest clap-trap on record: unworthy of a Robespierre, how much more of a Burke! Altogether, though in the Houses of Parliament there are, or were, some deeper philosophers; two or three more accomplished debaters; several scholars more erudite; many lawyers more profound; more elegant rhetoricians; much wittier men; a few who excel him in bursts of imaginative eloquence; one or two who, in refinement, if not bitterness of sarcasm, approach very near him; as an orator-a mind-compeller-a wielder of Periclean thunders—a living power of irresistible influence, swaying the souls and bodies of intelligent men-Henry Brougham stands, or stood, alone. As an author, he has written books, pamphlets, and critiques. While very young, he produced a work on colonies, which, though little read now, showed his comprehensive grasp and reach of information. He is the author, too, of various papers on science, inserted in the Records of the Royal and other Societies; of a prefix to Paley, in which, amid many errors and inaccuracies, "and tares of haste," he discovers all his fertility of intellect, and abundance of knowledge on a subject which seemed out of his line; of an introduction to the "Library of Useful Knowledge," which is written in a style resembling Cobbett's best and most popular manner, being strongly simple in thought, and transparently clear and familiar, without coarseness in language; of many articles in the "Edinburgh Review;" and, finally, of that "Collectanea Majora"-the collection, by himself, of his leading speeches. Brougham in this has done what few of the mighty dead have been permitted to do what Demosthenes, Bolingbroke, Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and Canning did not, and, more fully what Cicero and Burke did, viz. corrected, condensed subjected to the revision of his own after eye, and illustrated from the resources of his own teeming mind, the oratory of his life-erected his monument before his death-arrested all the accents of his own floating breath into forms of marble beauty and marble permanence had the hardihood to anticipate the work of ages, by brushing away from his own speeches the delusive and enlarging haze of tradition and immediate effect, and leaving them as they are, in fixed proportions and solid greatness. Thus collected, his speeches unquestionably stand in the very first rank of oratorical masterpieces. They contain individual passages of high eloquence, rhetoric, debate, logic; besides condensed quantities of information brought powerfully to bear upon particular subjects, and a mass of masculine sense, variegated by sharp flings of sarcasm, and illustrated by a spray of wit, and seasoned by tart peculiarities of temper and language, which render them in their collected form one of the richest legacies which the genius of oratory ever bequeathed to the unborn time. Brougham is "nothing if not critical." His mind, turn it to law, literature, politics, or science, is essentially critical. His intellect is an universal tribunal, before which men, authors, jurists, mathematicians, poems, political treatises, pictures, books of travels, manuals of education, problems, &c., compear, are scrutinised, and pass on. Instead of profoundly exploring, he vigorously remarks. Like the Abyssinian cattle-drivers, he makes stern incisions, and cuts out quivering pieces from his subject, rather than dissects and disembowels the whole. He penetrates like a knife, he does not inter-penetrate like oil. His judgment of books is scarcely so much to be depended on as his verdicts on man. That is often hasty, harsh, and unconsidered, as witness his review of Byron's "Hours of Idleness;" these are generally true as they are vivid. His recent portraits of Fox, Pitt, Castlereagh, George IV., &c., prove him a bold, minute, faithful, stern, yet generous limner. Gall still holds its place in his box of colours, but is wondrously faded from its first fierce tints. His portraits are clear, direct, drawn with fearless fidelity of touch, and much fulness of characteristic detail. They resemble, both in the manner and the judgments pronounced, the criticisms published posthumously of Sir James Mackintosh, but are more energetic, and less encomiastic. As a barrister, Brougham enjoyed a place founded more upon his known abilities in other departments, than on any special adaptation to that somewhat jealous and exclusive sphere where sits the stern goddess of law. In all that concerned the minute and plodding details, the knowledge of precedents, the power of drawing subtle and almost invisible distinctions, he was surpassed by a large class, with Lord Abinger at their head. Law, more than any other science, from the multiplicity of its details, the technicality of its terms, the evasive nature of its distinctions, and the vast space which its records cover, demands the whole man. But, while Brougham has never narrowed down his wide mind to such an exclusive devotion as Themis would require, never shone as a special pleader, no barrister approached him in the rapid mastery with which he tore out the heart of a case, the dexterous energy with which he managed it, the clever charlatanism by which he made his wit, or his eloquence, or his ribaldry, or his abuse, supply the lack of his information, the pincer-like power of the machinery by which he squeezed out truth, or fun, or both, from witnesses, the lustre which his genius elicited from the dry wood and very rottenness of legal detail, or in his knowledge and application of the great leading principles of jurisprudence, gathered from the devout study of Bentham, the demigod of the science, but made his own by the workings of his restless understanding. A pleading in his hands, instead of being a cold and sapless document, full of quibbles, small sophistries, and other crooked things, became an animated and interesting production, crowded with information, passion, glancing lights, flung now back and now forward, and eloquence of a most masculine character. When chancellor, Brougham made up for the want of minute technical lore, by prodigious exertions, both of mind and body. His exercise of the patronage (lay and clerical) of that high office itself, sufficed to prove, that here was seated on the woolsack no cold cast-iron figure, but a man—a man of glorious impulses, and quick, warm, beating heart. It was great in him, upon reading a small volume of poems, to obey the instant impulse, and bestow a living upon the author of the "Village Poorhouse." "These are deeds which must not pass away." They blend a warm beam of love with our admiration. It needed this to cover his sins against the dignity of English law, personified in his office-the indiscreet personalities in which he indulged-the wild wit by which he shook the woolsack from its propriety, and the "strange fire" which he now and then presented on that solemn altar where he ministered as high priest. As a leader, he has laboured under a twofold disqualification. In the first place, he never served a regular training to the trade -passing from under the banners of Tierney to those of Canning, and afterwards of Grey, he only for a very short time led the opposition; and, like all men of impetuous impulse, he is too rapid in his motions, too fiery in his blood, too abrupt in his turns, too self-centred in his conscious might, too capricious in his temper, and too progressive in his opinions, to be a trustworthy guide. No man of exalted genius was ever a good leader, or ever had a powerful train behind him. Chatham was a dictator, not a leader. Burke, during his life, had no out and out followers, save Wind N ham, who was rather one of a constellation Gemini. Fox was better at attacking the other party, than in leading his own. Canning gained his richest trophies while Liverpool was at the helm. It is your acute, clear-headed, cautious, common-sense man, like Sir Robert Walpole, that weathers the storm. Besides all this, the versatile being under notice is, we are told, a great talker-the life and ornament of society. Manifold, be sure, the subjects of his conversation. Like Talkative in the "Pilgrim's Progress," he can speak about things terrestrial and things celestial, things moral and things profane. He has talked of law with Eldon, of literature with Jeffrey, of fluxions with Leslie, of astronomy with Arago, of bullion with Horner, of orthodoxy with Sidney Smith, of cause and effect with Thomas Brown, of the oriental tongues with Leyden, of border ballads with Scott, of jurisprudence with Bentham, of moral philosophy with Mackintosh, of the evidences of Christianity with Dr Andrew Thomson, who found him, it is said, on that subject alone disposed to shirk; of the voluntary question with Dr Harper of Leith; of humanity with Clarkson and Romilly, the latter of whom, when requested on one occasion to edit a book, pleaded want of time, but said— "Take it to that fellow Brougham; he has time for everything;" and of pulpit oratory with Robert Hall, whom Mackintosh took him to hear-whom he pronounced the most eloquent of orators -requested after sermon to be introduced to-proceeded to compliment on the discourse, till checked by Hall's asking"But what of the subject, sir? What think you of it, sir? Was it the truth of God, sir?"-words very characteristic of the great preacher, while still steaming with the excitement, and absorbed in the interest of his theme. Of Brougham's talk, we can speak only by report. It is said to be singularly abundant, lively and rapid, touching a vast variety of topics with light, firm, hurrying finger, at times flaming up into eloquence, and generally testifying a rich mind under rare excitement. He is not a lecturer, like Coleridge; nor a hatcher of bon-mots, like Sidney Smith; nor an elaborate discusser of given topics, like Mackintosh; nor a riotous spirit, pouring out its riches in splendid confusion, like Curran; nor an oracle coiled up in the corner of a drawing-room, like Wordsworth. Brougham's talk, like that of Burke and Wilson, is just the involuntary discharge of a full mind. His face is the "ugliest and shrewdest of human faces." Far from a fine, and scarcely a striking face, it has a uniqueness of expression seldom seen: thought, as of centuries of common minds, is written on it in worn characters-it scrutinises all, while defying scrutiny itself its famous twitch palpitates out the eternal restlessness of the man-intellect is inscribed upon the brow-passion lurks within the whole; and now and then, as we have often been told, from the soul within the eye darts forth an expression which has an almost withering, blinding, blasting effect upon the beholder. This is not the place, nor, in truth, is the time yet come, for forming a final judgment upon the character of Brougham, as a whole for fully estimating the influences which he has scattered around him during his careerr—for weighing his faults and excellencies in an even balance-or for settling the precise room he will fill up in the great general gallery of ages. We may, however, even as to these points, state our impressions. We deem him, then, notwithstanding all his inconsistencies and eccentric motions, to have been from first to last a sincere and honest man, animated by the great motives, and seeking the pure and lofty objects of a patriot, none the less that the activity of his mind, and the eagerness of his temper, have led him sometimes to pursue them by a tortuous policy. We believe, too, that his influence, though on no other than the two questions of slavery and education, has been co-extensive with the limits of the civilised world. As to his faults, looming now so largely to the eye of contemporary and crushed envy, what may be their bulk, when viewed beside his transcendent merits, through the vista of centuries? In what light do we now regard the poltroonery of Demosthenes, the duplicity of Themistocles, the vanity of Cicero, compared to their resplendent excellencies? So what, to a calm spectator in the twenty-second century, will the manœuvres and half-mad freaks of the Lord Chancellor seem, when balanced by the intellect, eloquence, learning, and positive achievements of Henry Brougham? And as to his future place in the grand picture exhibition of the world, we are safe in predicting, that if to the range of Plato, and Demosthenes, and Cicero, and Bacon, and Shakspere, and Milton, and Newton, and La Place, and Burke, and Coleridge, he be not admissible, he must, and will take place with such names as Clarendon, and Bolingbroke, and Chatham, and Pitt, and Fox, and Franklin, and Mirabeau, and Mackintosh; while, for versatility of powers, he will be held to surpass them all. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. THERE is nothing more remarkable about the literature of this age, than the harmony it has exhibited in many signal instances, between the analytic and imaginative powers; between the genius which combines, and the intellect which resolves-between an energie philosophy, and a most ideal and impassioned poetry. In former times, a profound disconnection between faculties so seemingly opposite was taken for granted; a gulf, great, fixed, and |