XXIII. 1830. nature with talents of a very high order, he possessed, at CHAP. the same time, that quality of still rarer occurrence, but which, when it does exist, seldom fails to lead to early shipwreck or ultimate greatness-moral courage, and invincible determination. His political life was consistency itself. He shared with his party their early hostility to the French war, and must bear with them the obloquy, in the eyes of posterity, of having defended the French Revolution long after its atrocities had discredited it in the eyes of all impartial men, and resisted the contest with it when it had become apparent that it was waged by this country for the liberty and independence of mankind. But this was the result of the firmness and consistency of his character, which, having once embraced an opinion, adhered to it for good or for evil through all the mutations of fortune. On the subject of reform he was the same throughout. Unlike the greater part of the Whig aristocracy, who supported it in public, and in secret deprecated it as the most dangerous innovation alike to the country and themselves, he was its advocate from his first entrance into public life; and the plan of reform which he brought forward in the House of Commons, 1See Hist. without success, in 1797, differed in no material degree from c. xxii. §9. that which he brought to a triumphant issue in 1832.1 of Europe, 8. ter as an in private. As a public speaker he must be assigned a very high place-second, perhaps, only to Pitt and Fox in the His characAugustan age of English oratory. He had not the power orator, and of lucid exposition of the former, nor the impetuous flow of the latter, but in condensed expression, cogent argument, and sarcastic power, he was equal to either. He had not the poetic fancy or playful expression of Canning, but he was more thoroughly, and at all times, in earnest the great secret for moving and permanently ruling the hearts of men. His well-known philippic against that celebrated orator, when he succeeded to power in April 1827, is deservedly placed amongst the most brilliant specimens of rhetorical power which the English XXIII. 1830. CHAP. language can boast. In society, his manner, though somewhat reserved and stately, had all the courtesy which belongs to real high-breeding, and in domestic life he was simplicity itself—the sure sign of a mind superior to any station, how lofty soever, to which its possessor may be elevated. 9. and errors, but noble use of power when acquired. The great fault of Earl Grey, as of most men of his His defects rank who are called to the general direction of affairs, was a want of practical acquaintance with mankind in all grades. He shared this defect with his whole cabinet, when arranged in 1830, which was almost entirely composed of the nobility; and so conspicuous did this deficiency immediately become, that, as will appear in the sequel, he was saved from early overthrow only by identifying himself with the extreme movement party, and advancing a measure which entirely and for ever changed the institutions of the nation. He did great service to his country by taking the direction of that movement, and preventing it from falling into other and less scrupulous hands, and deserves its lasting gratitude for the use which he made of the vast power he enjoyed when the victory was gained. There was much to condemn in the mode in which, in its latter stages, he carried on the contest, but nothing save to admire in the conduct he pursued after it was over. He then boldly confronted menaced rebellion in Ireland, coerced its wildest excesses, and when he had the power to have carried innovation in Great Britain to any imaginable length, stopped short with one organic change, and observed henceforward the landmarks of the constitution. 10. Although the practical results of the Reform Bill, which He was mis- he carried through, have been widely different from what he either intended or desired, yet this is not so much to be effect of the ascribed as a fault to Earl Grey, as it was the unfortunate led by others as to the Reform Bill. result of the elevated position he occupied, and the sphere in which he had moved in society. In the framing of that measure itself he was as completely misled by the XXIII. 1830. representations of others of inferior rank about him, who CHAP. possessed the practical knowledge which he wanted, and had their own ends in view in their representation, as he had been in early life as to the tendency of the French Revolution by the declamations of the philosophers and Girondists. He said it was the most aristocratic measure ever brought forward in Parliament, when it was a measure, as experience has now proved, which took the government of the country entirely out of the hands of the aristocracy. He declared he would stand or fall by his order, and yet he exerted all his talent and influence to carry through a measure which politically nullified that order, and substituted that of shopkeepers, with whom assuredly his aristocratic feelings had nothing in common, in its room. In this there was no duplicity or disingenuousness on the part of this proud and straightforward nobleman. He believed all he said, and acted accordingly; but his measures, being founded on no practical acquaintance with the community to which they referred, had a directly contrary tendency to what he intended, and ere long precipitated himself from power, and his order from the dominant position it had so long held in English society. * Second only to Earl Grey in influence and station, and 11. superior to him in versatile power, LORD BROUGHAM now Character stood prominently forward in a totally different sphere Brougham. and position from that in which he had first moved and * In the course of the debates on the Reform Bill in the House of Peers, Lord Sidmouth, who supposed Lord Grey to have been carried by circumstances far beyond his original intention, said to him, " I hope God will forgive you on account of this bill; I don't think I can.” To which Lord Grey replied, "Mark my words: within two years you will find that we have become unpopular from having brought forward the most aristocratic measure that ever was proposed in Parliament." Lord Althorpe, too, did not conceal his opinion; he avowed it," that the Reform Bill was the most aristocratic act ever offered to the nation; and the wonder is, who can doubt it, while the new county representation preponderates over the addition to the towns."-See Sidmouth's Life, iii. 439; and Miss MARTINEAU, ii. 28-29. The truth is, that there was much plausibility in the reason thus advanced to prove the aristocratic tendency of the Reform Bill; and without doubt these noble lords were perfectly sincere in the opinion thus advanced. But what they did not see, though of Lord XXIII. 1830. CHAP. risen to such eminence. A tribune of the people, he was suddenly made a senator; a brilliant and successful advocate, he was at once, and without having gone through any of the intermediate stations, elevated to the very highest judicial station; a common lawyer, chiefly known in political or popular cases at nisi prius, he was put at the head of the Court of Chancery, and immersed in all the subtleties of conveyancing, and the niceties of the law of equity. He was the first barrister, if we except perhaps Lord Erskine, who was made Lord-Chancellor, and put at the head of the court of last resort, entirely from political considerations, and to avoid a difficulty in the formation of an administration, without any regard to his competency to discharge the important duties with which he was intrusted. 12. as a Judge. He was no common man who could stand such a change His merits of position, not only with no diminution, but in some respects with an increase of reputation. It is reported to have been said of him, when he was elevated to the Woolsack, by a very great lawyer, "It is a pity Lord Brougham does not know a little of English law, for then he would know something of everything ;" and certainly his judgments in the Chancery Court will never be placed on a level with those of Lord Eldon, or Lord St Leonards, or the other great masters of the law of equity. But it is a mistake to imagine that he proved a failure on the bench. It was not to be supposed that a man of his their followers did, was, that these aristocratic tendencies were entirely neu. tralised and overpowered by three circumstances, the action of which has now been completely demonstrated by experience. These were-1. The working of the ten-pound clause, which in all the boroughs (that is, three-fifths of the House of Commons) vested the returns in one class-that of small shopkeepers; 2. The operation of the monetary laws, which, by adding 50 per cent to the value of money, and taking as much from the remuneration of industry, has rendered these small shopkeepers chiefly dependent on the monied and commercial, instead of the landed and aristocratic class; 3. The vast extension of the commerce and manufactures of the country, which rendered the greater part of the boroughs, and many of the counties in the manufacturing districts, dependent on the employment furnished by the great manufacturing cities, not the purchases made by the impoverished landlords in their vicinity. XXIII. 1830. extraordinary versatility of talent and variety of infor- CHAP. mation should have acquired the vast store of precedents which can be mastered only by a powerful mind exclusively devoted to their acquisition; still less that he should be on a level with experienced equity lawyers, when the first time he entered the Chancery Court was in advanced years as its head. But his example, and the great ability which he has shown now for a quarter of a century in determining cases in the House of Peers, proves that an extensive acquaintance with precedents is not an indispensable requisite for a great Judge; and that strong natural talents, and habits of forensic debate, in a different branch of jurisprudence, may, when the cases are fully laid before him, sometimes enable the Judge to supply the want of early acquaintance with another branch of law. Lord Eldon's judgments on Scotch cases are universally regarded with the utmost respect by the Scotch bar, and yet he never practised at it, and had little experience of appeal cases from that part of the island before being put on the Woolsack. 13. ter as a statesman. If the legislative measures in which Lord Brougham took an interest, or has been mainly instrumental in pro- His characmoting, are considered, we shall have more cause to admire the variety of his acquirements, the versatility of his powers, than the length of his vision or the solidity of his judgment. He did not foresee the real tendency of the measures which he so powerfully advocated, and in consequence brought about results the very reverse of what he intended and desired. He professed to "stand upon the ancient ways of the constitution" in all his projects of reform; and yet he strenuously supported, or besought the House of Peers, " on his bended knees," to pass a bill on that subject, which entirely altered those ways, because, in lieu of the old representation of classes and interest, it introduced the new representation of mere numbers. He was the uncompromising foe through life of West India slavery, and the generous advocate of the |