this country against the acceptance or diffusion of theories which poison the heart and degrade the life of all who adopt them, and which could not fail to taint the purity and mar the happiness which hallow English homes. Under such influences the social and moral world, which has been for ages advancing in civilization and developing itself into forms of beauty, harmony, and order, must be dissolved into their original elements, and be thrown back into a state of chaotic confusion. This social leprosy would prove a more fatal curse than any that escaped from the fabled box of Pandora.

Lord Brougham has, down to the present day, persevered in the discharge of his public duties. He voluntarily undertook the arduous task of presiding at the meetings of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and he has been always ready to relieve the learned lord on the woolsack, whenever the latter happened to be called elsewhere, or through indisposition has been prevented from attending the House of Lords, from the labour of hearing appeals; and these functions he has discharged with a regularity, application, and skill which called forth eulogy from the entire Profession.

The aspect of European governments, since the period when Lord Brougham assailed the Holy Alliance, defended the rights of limited monarchy, and vindicated the liberties of the people, has been gradually, though very materially, changed, and from crowns is reflected a milder lustre over their various dominions. He has renounced no fundamental principle of his creed; he has formed no associations inconsistent with or unworthy of the dignity of the crown or the best interests of the people. Intent upon the establishment of free governments, as so many cradles of human progress and happiness, he still, as in early life, resists the demands of rabid democracy on the one hand, and would

though humbler classes of society. Many striking and instructive episodes are interwoven with the stormy and ever-changing scenes of the Italian republics; and still more are profusely strewed throughout the earlier annals of her native land, all tending to illustrate human character, and throw light upon the progress of social institutions; and, judging from this specimen of her talents and attainments, we believe that by the pencil of no other writer could such scenes be more pleasantly and vividly sketched than by that of Madame G. M. A volume of such episodes from such a pen could not fail to meet with success in England as well as in France.

stay the march of barbaric despotism on the other. England, he knows, rejoices not in the sound of the war-trump, or the neighing of the war-steed: she boasts not of being a military monarchy: our Island-Queen reigns over a people which would rather cultivate the arts of peace; and it is only, as recent events have proved, upon occasions of solemn pledges having been forfeited and international rights infringed by reckless ambition, that Britannia buckles on her armour, and, like the Amazon of ancient legend, rushes to the field in defence of freedom and the most precious rights of man.

By no protracted inquiry could we detect new motives by which Lord Brougham has been actuated; no feature of mind, hitherto concealed, could strike the eye: all the elements for deciding upon his character, whether the judgment is to be recorded by his cotemporaries or reserved for posterity, have been already brought prominently into view; and we would not trifle with our readers by luring them from the prolific soil which we have been treading to guide them over a comparatively barren waste. Here, then, let us pause and reflect.

On taking a retrospect of the multifarious topics to which our attention has been directed, we can only feel regret at having traversed too rapidly so rich and varied a field. Of many public men it is not difficult to trace the course: they have generally moved in one circle and been distinguished in one department of intellectual exertion. But the genius of Lord Brougham took a wider range, and, to mark even its outline, knowledge and reflection are required. We have not presumed to give expression to unjust censure, still less have we indulged in lavish panegyric; for "no ashes," truly remarked Walter Savage Landor, "are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner." Claiming, as Lord Brougham himself has always done, independence of thought and liberty of speech, we have written without party-spirit or prejudice, in the hope that all might appreciate, and some, at least, embrace the principles of action which he uniformly approved, and with few exceptions practically recognised. Adhering as much as possible to the chronological sequence of events, we have been at the same. time desirous of throwing such lights upon each successive era

as could be drawn from the scattered labours, and opinions of Lord Brougham at various times, though on kindred subjects and occasions. We have endeavoured to be copious without diffuseness, and accurate without encumbering our pages with wearisome details. This is a sketch, not a full-length portrait. That the picture might be complete, the artist would find it requisite to trace minutely the events of the era in which Lord Brougham lived. Our simple object has been to mark with discrimination his long career; and we have seen him moving on, from first to last, undaunted though unaided, to the joyous fulfilment of his destiny. In this delineation of his outward acts is, to a great extent, included a history of the mind by which he was, at every step, guided. Even from these scanty elements, the intellectual and moral qualities, the public and private character, of Lord Brougham may easily be estimated. We have only been able to set up, as it were, milestones on his journey, to mark the principal stages which, from time to time, he reached; but even these serve to point to us his unceasing progress, the steady development of his intellectual powers, the gradual augmentation of his knowledge, the silent growth of his energies, the expansion of the sphere of his exertions, and consequently the increase of his influence and usefulness. It is necessary, if we would even tolerably appreciate such a man, that we should have panted after and tasted those waters of literature and science of which Lord Brougham has quaffed so deeply.

No one appears to have been, from his first outset, more strongly impressed with a conviction of the importance of the simple and beautiful advice of Benjamin Franklin,-"O be wise, and let industry walk with thee in the morning, and attend thee until thou reachest the evening hour for rest." Favoured by no peculiar advantages, except his own natural capacity of intellect and energy of character, he mastered, even in early life, the first principles of moral and physical science, and pursuing his speculations with an exactness and caution which might be profitably imitated by mature philosophers, he fearlessly communicated to the world the result of his inquiries, thus inviting, on the one hand, the detection of error, and

challenging, on the other, an admission of the soundness of his conclusions. Availing himself of all the means of improvement which are inseparable from foreign travel, or could be secured by mingling in the society of many of the higher intellects of the day; gathering information from all sources which were open to him either through personal intercourse with the learned or in the pages of books,-pausing, no doubt, occasionally, in waywardness of temper,-he commenced a public life of usefulness and fame. The precocity which in most cases rapidly disappears was in that of Lord Brougham the first germ of a plant which was to live, grow, and flourish.

Admitted to the ranks of his chosen profession, he shone rather as an intelligent and intrepid advocate than as a profound lawyer. In England he has been regarded as being acquainted with the law of Scotland precisely, perhaps, as in Scotland he has been considered learned in the law of England. His knowledge of the details of pleading was not accurate, nor could he boast of nice scientific skill; he declined to burden himself with a load of precedents-the spoils, not unfrequently, of many a misspent hour-and accordingly he was no proficient in those minute details of form and practice which, though apparently trivial, are, it must be confessed, within proper limits, essential to the regular and effective administration of any system of jurisprudence. His thoughts turned with more delight to the philosophy of jurisprudence-the principles on which all law ought to be applied to a community-than to an examination of the particular enactments affecting this or that branch of the system, or to an analysis of the decisions out of which the various doctrines may have arisen. He was, by nature and habit, more adapted to the wide course in which he chose to move, than to the comparatively narrow and confined path prescribed to the strictly professional man in Courts of Law: all the tendencies of his mind, as well as the style and tone of his oratory, were more suitable to the former than to the latter sphere of action; for rarely could he attain to the closeness and conciseness of legal reasoning.

To the qualifications of Lord Brougham, as a Judge, presiding in the High Court of Chancery, we have already alluded. It

may be sufficient here to remark that, notwithstanding his great powers and varied attainments, his elevation to the woolsack brought to him, whether sitting as Chancellor in Lincoln's Inn Hall or presiding as Speaker in the House of Lords, no accession of honour: scanty knowledge and still more limited experience in the one capacity, constant want of tact and occasional arrogance in the other, materially impaired his usefulness and marred his fair renown.

It is chiefly by the benefits which he has, as a legislator, conferred upon society, and by his heroic struggles as a statesman, that Lord Brougham cannot fail to be long remembered and revered. Even his most elaborate orations at the Bar were, from want of legal knowledge, in effect neutralized; but in Parliament his speeches, being based on enlarged views of poli tical philosophy and an extensive familiarity with facts, produced a powerful and immediate effect. In Westminster Hall, his addresses were often the thunder without the bolt; but in St. Stephen's Chapel the lightning of his eloquence struck and scorched.

As a legislator, all his operations rested on accumulated information, the result of commissions issued, and witnesses examined. To sudden or hasty legislation he was a sworn enemy; and, rather than accede to the enactment of measures meant only to meet transient emergencies, he was impelled by the activity of his own nature to chalk out schemes which, if not always practicable to the extent which he anticipated, served to occupy a mind to which repose would have been sickness. In all his great schemes he displayed an extraordinary copiousness of resources; and his various materials having been once procured, his constructive faculty enabled him to design and complete vast plans of social and political improvement. The outline of each was first sketched on the tablet of his mind, and then he filled up in detail the various compartments of his design. This is the great distinction between Lord Brougham and the garrulous fraternity which is to be found within the walls of Parliament, the individuals of which are for ever babbling de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. Lord Brougham, at no period of his career, ever opened his mouth without speaking