John Brougham Macready

“ The great agitator had made his power felt long before the stormy debates in favor of reform took place, which called out the energies of Brougham,--the only man in England to be compared with O'Connell in genius, in eloquence, in intellect, and in wrath, but inferior to him in the power of moving the passions of an audience, yet again vastly superior to him in learning. ”

“ Brougham in turn hated Macaulay, whom he calls the third or greatest bore in society that he has ever known. He is furious—and here Brougham was certainly not wrong—over the "most profligate political morality" of Macaulay's essay on Clive.
"In my eyes, his defence of Clive, and the audacious ground of it, merit execration. It is a most serious, and, to me, a painful subject. No—no—all the sentences a man can turn, even if he made them in pure taste, and not in Tom's snip-snap taste of the lower empire,—all won't avail against a rotten morality. ”

“ Brougham writes almost as well as he speaks. In the midst of an election contest he comes out to address the populace, and goes back to his study to finish an article for the Edinburgh Review, sometimes indeed wedging three or four articles in the shape of rifacimenti of his own pamphlets or speeches in Parliament in a single Number. Such indeed is the activity of his mind, that it appears to require neither repose nor any other stimulus than a delight in its own exercise. He can turn his hand to any thing, but he cannot be idle. ”

“ I do not believe that any man can do his best at the first heat. See how the great poets revise and rewrite. Brougham rewrote his celebrated peroration on the trial of Queen Caroline seventeen times. Carlyle had to rewrite his book, but his materials remained; his great pictures were all in his mind. In this second writing there may have been less emotion,--less fire in his descriptions; but there was fire enough, for his vivacity was excessive. Even his work could be pruned, not by others, but by himself. "The household at Chelsea was never closer drawn together than in those times of trial." ”

“ Peel was odd, in the contrast of a familiar first address, with slackness of manner afterwards. The Duke of Wellington took the greatest interest in the poor around him at Strathfieldsay, had all of eloquence except the words. Mr. Rogers quoted a saying about Brougham that he was not so much a master of the language as mastered by it. I doubt very much the truth of this. Brougham's management of his sentences, as I remember the late Lady Canning observing to me, is surely most wonderful. He never loses the thread, and yet he habitually twists it into a thousand varieties of intricate form. ”

“ Duff, if you please, allygorically; did ye ever see a few dhrops of sperrets flung into a blazin' fire? a murdherin' lot of dhrowndin' there is about it; bedad, the fire only burns with greater strength."
"Then, of coorse, your honor, it stands to good sense that it's foolish to take only a few dhrops," she replied, with a sly look at the Squire, that made the laugh bubble all over his ruddy face.
"One would a'most suppose that you loved this Dan of yours," said he.
"Love him, sir! do the spring flowers love the sun? does the young mother love her new-born babby?" ”

“ The first slash of the whip and dig of the spur changed the nature of Dan's emotions most effectually. He roared, he raged, he twisted about like an eel on a spear. Still fiercely and unmercifully the little jockey plied the lash and the goad. Still he shouted, "Hurrah! jump, you devil, jump!"
Now, Dan swore like a rapparee; now, he called upon every saint in the calendar; but there was no cessation to his torture. In the extremity of his fury, he flung the whisky-bottle at the little rider's head; but as it struck his own foot, it only augmented the terrible agony. ”

“ I'll be on me Bible oath I won't offend you again."
"Are you in earnest this time?"
"Bad luck attend me if I'm not."
"Well, then, I'll trust you, though you don't deserve it," replied the little schemer, and, after two or three tugs, he succeeded in pulling out one of the spurs. "Do you feel easier?" inquired he, with a grin.
"It's like getting half-way out of purgatory," said the Squire, with a sigh of relief. "There's a fine fella, lug out the other, won't you?" ”

“ Listen to me. Dost thou see yonder piled up mass of rainbow-tinted clouds. Do they not look gloriously, as the rising sun flings his beams through them, as though revelling in their embrace? Wouldst thou not like to behold such magnificence closer?"
"Nothing in life betther, yer majesty," said Corney.
"Then away; a wish will place you in their midst—a thought return you here."
So with the wish and thought Corney went and came back.
"Well, what didst thou see?" inquired the Fairy King.
"The divil a haperth," replied Corney, "but a mighty black and most unwholesomely damp cloud." ”

“ He would listen to the recital of the thrilling adventures with the Maoris with breathless interest. A story told of the madcap days of Brougham's youth gives some idea of the welcome he would extend to Rutherford. One evening, after Brougham and some other gay spirits had supped together in London, they saw a mob of idle scoundrels beating an unfortunate woman with brutal ferocity. The young fellows went to her rescue. Their interference increased the tumult, and all the watchmen in the neighbourhood were soon about their ears. ”

“ Napier:—"He is not a malignant or bad-hearted man, but he is an unscrupulous one, and where his passions are concerned or his vanity irritated, there is no excess of which he is not capable." Of Brougham's strong and manly sense, when passion or vanity did not cloud it, and even of a sort of careful justice, these letters give more than one instance. The Quarterly Review, for instance, had an article on Romilly's Memoirs, which to Romilly's friends seemed to do him less than justice. Brougham took a more sensible view. ”

“ Nonsense! He has luck enough; we had better wish ourselves a slice. Money's money, Moll; a fairy groat would pay for a pot of porther just as aisily as Father Fogarty's. It isn't that I'm over covetious, but I can't help envyin' Phil."
"An' you see what harm even the first beginnin' of such a feelin' does. All this blessed day, you've hardly done a stitch of work; instead of makin' the lapstone echo with the sound of your merry voice, you've been lookin' as disthracted as a sthray pig; why, you haven't even kissed the babby sence dinner. Go to work, Corney, while I get a cup of tay ready. ”

“ So Brougham was left out, Pepys was made Chancellor, and the Premier compared himself to a man who has broken with a termagant mistress and married the best of cooks. Mr. Napier was not so happy. The termagant was left on his hands. He had to keep terms with a contributor who hated with deadly hatred the very government that the Review existed to support. No editor ever had such a contributor as Brougham in the long history of editorial torment since the world began. He scolds, he storms, he hectors, he lectures; he is for ever threatening desertion and prophesying ruin ”

“ However, she had done her duty, and was satisfied. "Temper, temper, Pether," she ejaculated, as he heaved a groan of impatience from one of the twinges. "Suffer patiently; it is good for the flesh to be mortified; think of the worse that is to come."
"Oh! you're a comforter if ever there was one," sighed the Squire. "How the mischief can I be patient with a coal of fire on every toe of me? It's mighty aisy for thim that doesn't feel it to keep gabblin' about patience. I'll roar if I like; it does me good to swear at the murdherin' thing, and I will, too." ”

“ No, I surrender my case and that of my clients into His hands who never suffers the guilty to triumph to the end. The avalanche falls sometimes on the fruitfullest vineyards, as well as on the most sterile waste."
"By Heaven! you exhaust my patience," roared the other, as he rung the servants' bell impetuously; "since you will not go of your own accord, I must indignantly thrust you forth into the street like a cur."
"There shall be no need of that," meekly replied the clerk, turning to leave the apartment, just as the servant entered, bringing a letter for Mr. Granite on a silver waiter. ”

“ Sometimes he would crouch in his chair, muffled in his wig and robes, like a man asleep ; at other times he would burst into restless activity, writing letters, working problems, interrupting counsel, Mortal offence he gave to Sugden, then the leader of the Equity bar, who detested his person and despised his law. But upon the whole Brougham was a just and able judge ”

“ Oh, for the sinfulness that surrounds us," replied the other.
"Have you been drinking, sir?" demanded the Squire, in a justice-of-peace tone.
"What right have you to ax?" said Dan, boldly. "You owe me a shillin'; that's all I want."
"He has a right, depraved creature that you are," interposed the meek and Christian-like disseminator; "rich people always have a right to ask such questions of their poorer neighbors; but you don't deserve the care we take of your unhappy souls." ”

“ The very dew-drops on the grass glittered like rubies, while the noisy little mountain-fall, where it broke white against the rocks, flashed and sparkled in the rosy light, like jets of liquid gold, filling the air with living gems.
"Be jabers, an' this is Fairy-land, sure enough," said Terry; "an' if the little blaggards has got anything agin' me, it's in a murdherin' bad box I am, the divil a doubt of it. I've nothin' for it, anyway, but to take it aisy." ”

“ These words apply, with a painful degree of exactness, to the career of Lord Brougham. Few men have been more richly endowed by nature. Few men have exhibited a greater plasticity of intellect, a greater affluence of mental resources. He was a fine orator, a clear thinker, a ready writer. It is seldom that a man who sways immense audiences by the power of his eloquence attains also to a high position in the ranks of literature. Yet Brougham did this; while, as a lawyer, he gained the most splendid prize of his profession, the Lord Chancellorship of England ”

“ Terry's bright thoughts vanished in an instant, and indignation took their place; for filial reverence is the first of Irish virtues. "The murdherin' Turk!" he exclaimed, angrily, "if I had a howld of him now, I'd squeeze the sowl out of his vagabone carcass, for disgracin' the counthry that's cursed with such an unnatural reprobate."
"It was the money that made him do it," said the fairy.
"You don't tell me that, sir!"
"Indeed but I do, Terry. When the love of that takes possession of a man's heart, there's no room there for any other thought. ”

“ Barney trembled to the heels of his brogues. "Talk to him, Peg," said he, in an agitated whisper, "while I make meself scarce; don't be afeared," he added, as he stole quietly off. "A woman's voice softens him down like a sun-ray on a snowball."
"Hallo there," shouted the Squire. "Am I obligated to keep continuitously requestin' an elucidation of that rumbunctiousness outside; who's there?"
"If ye plaze sir, it's only me," replied Peggy, "wid ye honor's honorable 'tops' that wanted heel-piecin'."
"Oh! Ah!" wheezed Bulworthy. "Wait, my good woman ”

“ There was a perfect tempest of rage in Mark's breast, as he quitted Kathleen; plans of revenge, deadly and horrible, suggested themselves to him, and he nursed the devilish feeling within his heart until every humanizing thought was swallowed up in the anticipation of a sweeping revenge. On reaching the village, his first care was to find Luke; upon seeing him, he started as though a serpent stood in his path.
"Keep away from me, Mark Dermot," he sternly exclaimed. "If you are come to triumph in your success, be careful, for there may be danger in it." ”

“ Brougham himself would have preferred the advancement of Sir John Leach to the Woolsack, which would have left the Rolls at his own disposal, and enabled him to retain his seat in the House of Commons. But this suggestion was by no means welcome to Lord Grey, and Lord Althorp at once declared that he could not undertake the leadership of the House of Commons if Brougham was to remain in it in any official position to domineer over him. ”

“ Peggy replied, with a queer expression. "Faith, then, it wasn't for the want of chances enough."
"I mean—don't bother—it's famished I am, and crazy a'most; is there a dhrop of dhrink in the house?"
"Not as much as would make a tear for a fly's eye," said Peg.
"No! then what the Puck are we to do?"
"Bear it, I suppose, as well as we can; we've often done it afore, an' what's worse, will have to do it agin, unless the hearts of the rich changes towards us."
"Oh! if ever I get back to myself again," muttered the hungry Squire. ”

“ But Brougham had at least started the question, and he never ceased to keep it moving during his long life. Other reformers, too, as well as Mackintosh and Brougham, were making their voices heard above, or at all events through, the din and clamor of the controversy between the friends of the King and the champions of the Queen. Lord John Russell may be said to have then begun his noble career as reformer of the system of parliamentary representation, and Mr. Lambton, afterwards to be better known as Lord Durham, made more than one bold effort in the same direction. ”

“ Hollo, Squire!" adding, sotto voce, "you murdherin' Turk in top boots; long life to you—you concated ould vagabone."
These expressions, of which the most polite alone reached his ear, as it may be imagined, grated harshly upon the aristocratic nerves of the prodigious Bulworthy; "What's that fellow making such a magniloquent hulla-balloo about," said he, grandly.
"Athin, may-be you'd do my drawin'-room the honor of a sit down, yourself, and her ladyship," said Dan, to the dismay of poor Peggy, who exclaimed: "Don't, Dan, don't; I'm ashamed of you, indeed, I am;" ”