Thomas Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux

“ Then Morven sighed heavily.
“To me only the word was given. Summon instantly, O councilors of the king! summon the armed men, and all the youth of the tribe, and let them take the sword and the spear, and follow thy servant. For lo! the star hath announced to him that the foe shall fall into our hands as the wild beast of the forests.”
The son of Osslah spoke with the voice of command, and the elders were amazed.
“Why, pause ye?” he cried. “Do the gods of the night lie? On my head rest the peril if I deceive ye.” ”

“ Therefore his own ideas must have been the communication of happiness to the creature. He could only desire to exercise his attributes without, or eternally to himself, which before creating other beings he could not do. But this could only gratify his nature, which wants nothing, being perfect in itself, by communicating his goodness and providing for the happiness of other sentient beings created by him for this purpose. Therefore, says King, “it manifestly follows that the world is as well as it could be made by infinite power and goodness ”

“ Of Lord Brougham's family, in connexion with Brougham Castle, in Westmoreland, there were many conflicting statements at the period of his lordship's elevation to the peerage towards the close of last year. The Chancellor is said to have had a latent claim as heir-general to the Barony of Vaux, (whose arms are to be seen on the tower of Brougham Castle,) and hence his creation by that title. ”

“ The supposition that he made them as happy as he could, and that not being able to make them less miserable, he yet perceived that upon the whole their existence would occasion more happiness than if they never had any being at all, will just account for the phenomena as well as the Manichean theory, and will as little as that theory assume any malevolence in the power which created and preserved the universe. ”

“ BROUGHAM, Henry, first Lord Brougham and Vaux, man of letters, man of science, advocate, orator, statesman, and Lord High Chancellor of England, was born at Edinburgh on the 19th September 1778, and died at Cannes in France on the 7th May 18G8. During a great portion of a life extended to the unwonted term of ninety years, but espe cially in the third and fourth decades of the present century, from 1820 to 1840, no Englishman in any civil career played so conspicuous a part in public affairs or enjoyed so wide a fame as Henry Brougham. ”

“ Nobody then can give so much effect to it in reading aloud as the Lord Chancellor Brougham and Vaux, he having made a speech of nine hours long upon the state of the law and thereby proved himself to be the most long-winded of living men. And fit it is that he should be so; for there are very few men to whom whether he be right or wrong, it can be so well worth while to listen. ”

“ BROUGHAM, William Brougham, 2 Baron (brother of the preceding) . b. 26 Sep. 1795; ed. at Edin. and Jesus coll. Cam., B.A. 1819, M.A. 1822; barrister L.I. 9 May 1823; master in chancery 29 March 1831 to 2 Nov. 1852, when granted pension of £3225 on abolition of his office by 15 and 16 Vict. cap. 80; M.P. for Southwark 29 April 1831 to 29 Dec. 1834; contested Leeds 9 Jany. 1835; succeeded 7 May 1868. d. Brougham hall near Penrith 3 Jany. 1886. Law Times lxxx, 175 (1886) . ”

“ Slowly it moved in its huge strength along, and its burning eyes glittered through the gloomy shade: its jaws, falling apart, showed the grinders with which it snapped asunder the young oaks of the forest; and the vast tusks, which, curved downward to the midst of its massive limbs, glistened white and ghastly, curdling the blood of one destined hereafter to be the dreaded ruler of the men of that distant age.
The livid eyes of the monster fastened on the form of the herdsman, even amidst the thick darkness of the pine. ”

“ The fell and thrilling crimes that stalk abroad when the world sleeps—the parricide with his stealthy step, and horrent brow, and lifted knife; the unwifed mother that glides out and looks behind, and behind, and shudders, and casts her babe upon the river, and hears the wail, and pities not—the splash, and does not tremble!
These the starred kings behold—to these they lead the unconscious step; but the guilt blanches not their lustre, neither doth remorse wither their unwrinkled youth. ”

“ Byron's first intention was to insert seven stanzas after stanza clxxxix., descriptive and highly depreciatory of Brougham, but for reasons of "fairness" (vide infra) he changed his mind. The casual mention of "blundering Brougham" in English Bards, etc. (line 524, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 338, note 2) , is a proof that his suspicions were not aroused as to the authorship of the review of Hours of Idleness (Edin. Rev., January, 1808) , and it is certain that Byron's animosity was due to the part played by Brougham at the time of the Separation. ”

“ The destinies of men and empires are then portioned forth for the coming year, and, unconsciously to ourselves, our fates become minioned to the stars.
A hushed and solemn night is that in which the dark gates of time open to receive the ghost of the dead year, and the young and radiant stranger rushes forth from the clouded chasms of eternity. On that night, it is said that there are given to the spirits that we see not, a privilege and a power; the dead are troubled in their forgotten graves, and men feast and laugh, while demon and angel are contending for their doom. ”

“ Is, then, the question wholly incapable of solution, which all these learned and ingenious men have so entirely failed in solving? Must the difficulty remain forever unsurmounted, and only be approached to discover that it is insuperable? Must the subject, of all others the most interesting for us to know well, be to us always as a sealed book, of which we can never know anything? ”

“ Quick without wit, and violent without strength—
A disappointed Lawyer, at full length.
VII.
"A strange example of the force of Law,
And hasty temper on a kindling mind—
Are these the dreams his young Ambition saw?
Poor fellow! he had better far been blind!
I'm sorry thus to probe a wound so raw—
But, then, as Bard my duty to Mankind,
For warning to the rest, compels these raps—
As Geographers lay down a Shoal in Maps."
[ [A] For Brougham's Fabian tactics with regard to duelling, vide post, Canto XIII. stanza lxxxiv. line 1, p. 506, note 1.]
[ [B] Vide post, Canto XIII. stanza lxxxiv. ”

“ The preamble of this patent stated that this unusual mark of honour was conferred upon him by the crown as an acknowledgment of the great services he had rendered, more especially in promoting the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of the negro race. The peerage was thus perpetuated in a junior branch of the family, Lord Brougham himself being without an heir. He had married in 1821 Mrs Spalding (d. 1865) , daughter of Thomas Eden, and had two daughters, the survivor of whom died in 1839. Brougham's last days were passed at Cannes, in the south of France. ”

“ But, again, while we are ignorant of this, perhaps the most sublime truth in all science, we were always arguing as if the system had an imperfection, as if the disturbing forces of the different planets and the sun, acting on one another, constantly changed the orbits of each planet, and must, in a course of ages, work the destruction of the whole planetary arrangement which we had contemplated with so great admiration and with awe. ”

“ No feeling in life was more deeply rooted in the heart of Lord Brougham than his intense affection and veneration for his admirable mother. He repaid her early care and judicious guidance by the most ardent and unvarying demotion. He will ingly laid all the triumphs of his career at her feet ; and she lived to see him attain the proudest heights of fame and power. ”

“ Behold, I am created less glorious than my fellows, and the archangel apportions not to me the same lordly destinies. Not for me are the dooms of kings and bards, the rulers of empires, or, yet nobler, the swayers and harmonists of souls. Sluggish are the spirits and base the lot of the men I am ordained to lead through a dull life to a fameless grave. ”

“ But it is the greatest mistake to suppose that Lord Brougham is inattentive to the ceremonies with which his high place is surrounded. A careful observer will see clearly that imposing forms are [pg xiii] perfectly agreeable to his mind; nobody could ridicule form better, so long as he held no situation which required the observance of customary rules; but elevated to his present distinction, it is plain that he enjoys all the little peculiarities of his office. Somebody said that he presided in the House of Lords in a bar whig, and instanced the fact as a proof of his reforming temper ”

“ 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 ”

“ I have neither honor nor command, and men bow not the head as I pass along; yet do I feel within me the consciousness of a great power that should rule my species—not obey. My eye pierces the secret hearts of men—I see their thoughts ere their lips proclaim them ”

“ There was a "scene," which ended in an exchange of explanations and quasi-apologies, and henceforth, as a rule, parliamentary insults were given and received without recourse to duelling. Byron was not aware that the "old order" had passed or was passing. Compare Hazlitt, in The Spirit of the Age, 1825, pp. 302, 303: "He [Brougham] is adventurous, but easily panic-struck, and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity of self-preservation ... himself the first to get out of harm's way and escape from the danger;" ”

“ Without doubt his harangues fatigue him as much as they do those who listen to him; he does not spare himself, bawling and gesticulating without any regard to his own person; he bends and twists himself like a posture master; he dances and leaps with his words; he perspires and grows heated, but he leaves the hearer cold; his is not the eloquence which inflames the blood.
I would censure Lord Brougham more severely as a writer than as a speaker; for Lord Brougham is also a writer, and a good deal too much of one. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The truth was, that Lord Brougham was more remarkable as an ingenious advocate than as an able lawyer, and made a much better leader of the opposition than he has since made a Lord Chancellor. There are many abler lawyers now presiding at his bar, and the decrees of his master of the rolls are more respected than his own.
In our country every one must, to some extent, be informed on the subject of politics, that he may be enabled to discharge his duty as a citizen; and history and general literature should certainly receive from all a due share of attention. ”

“ On this melancholy and desperate atrocity of republicanism, Lord Brougham makes the following remark, which, though natural in the lips of any human being, has double force as coming from one who has seen the operation of the revolutionary spirit on so large a scale, and during so extended a portion of his public career. ”

“ The only two people I have seen this week have been Lord Brougham and Sir C. Wood. [586] Lord Brougham was only in town for two nights on his way to Cannes. He is quite enthusiastic about my father’s papers, and has written something about them in the Law Review, and he was rather good-humoured and pleasant. ”

“ His pursuit of facts must of necessity be for the purpose of illustrating general principles in political or moral science; and where more than a certain amount of knowledge is not laid claim to, the absence of more is no imputation.
Lord Brougham is thoroughly individualized as regards his talents and all that constitutes idiosyncratic difference, even while he is identified with the political and moral advancement of the people. During all the agitations of a period almost unparalleled, he has remained untainted by the influence of party spirit. ”

“ He brings a degree of good nature to the office, which no event, however untoward, can ruffle;—his calmness never forsakes him: he is the same easy, dignified chairman at all times. The Commons are a truly turbulent body, but they are not impatient of his sway. In all emergencies he is vigorously supported: [pg xv] in his hands, the authority of his office, though rarely exercised, has lost none of its force. Brougham himself was one of the most fiery spirits in this hot region ”

“ The least calm of these men who debated upon what we were worth, and just what should become of us, was Brougham. Like most who love to torment, he himself was easily tormented. How does this champion of liberty look as he rises to condemn the policy on the Canadian question as “vacillating, imbecile, and indolent;” as he puts his awkward questions to those whom he calls his “noble friends” or “the noble lords,” all looking marvellously uncomfortable when their names are in that merciless mouth. ”