WHATEVER faults may be laid to the charge of Henry, Lord Brougham, none will dispute his title to rank among public benefactors. The untiring energy of his restless and versatile mind would not allow him to content himself with a single field of reform wherein to labour. He was one of the most active of those who forwarded the abolition of slavery; he was a powerful advocate of parliamentary reform; he cleared the Court of Chancery of abuses without number; and he stood prominently forward as the champion of Popular Education. In all these capacities his achievements were great and splendid, and might have been yet greater and more splendid but for his many failings, which would have utterly ruined a lesser man, and which threw a cloud over even his extraordinary intellect and powers of labour. By rapid steps he raised himself to a dizzy height, from which he speedily tumbled, never again to rise. His flighty and impetuous nature told constantly against him, and finally led him into such imprudence and indiscretion as cut short his career as a statesman. At one time he was undoubtedly the most popular man in England, and the leading orator of the Whig party; a few short years later he was obliged to resign his high office, and was never again admitted into the confidence of any Government. By many of the most eminent of his contemporaries he was held in something very closely approaching to con

tempt; by many more he was regarded with a hatred which only their fears of his abilities prevented them from expressing. By the people at large, on the other hand, if we except some few brief periods, Brougham, as long as his public life lasted, was held in high honour and affection, being regarded, rightly or wrongly, as the most able and most vigorous champion of popular rights then living. We can now estimate his character more justly than his contemporaries could do; and if we do not rank him so high as did some of his extravagant admirers, we shall, on the other hand, be far from placing him so low as did his more strenuous detractors. With great faults he united great excellences; and few men can be mentioned who have laboured more earnestly in the good work of sweeping away abuses and advancing the cause of progress.

Of his ancient descent Lord Brougham was not a little proud; and with reasor. He came of a good, Border family which had been settled at Brougham in Westmoreland before the Conquest. None of his ancestors, he says, were ever remarkable for anything; and he traces his distinction to the Celtic blood which his mother, Eleanor Syme, a niece of Dr. Robertson, the historian, brought from the clans of Struan and Kinloch Moidart. He was born in Edinburgh on the 19th of September, 1778, and there he received his education. As may be supposed, he was a remarkably precocious boy, picking up knowledge with great facility, and early distinguishing himself by a presence of mind and dauntless self-confidence which must often have made his company somewhat disagreeable. To his maternal grandmother he says it was that he owed his success in life. She instilled into him from his cradle the strongest desire for information, and, he adds, 'the first principles of that persevering energy in the pursuit of every kind of knowledge which, more than any natural talents I may possess, has enabled me to stick to and to accomplish, how far successfully it is not for me to say, every task I ever undertook.' At a later period of his life he received valuable assistance in his studies from his distinguished kinsman, Dr.

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Robertson, whose memory he never ceased to cherish with respect and affection. As a means of improving his style, Robertson recommended translation in preference to original composition; and advised him to exercise himself in it in much the same way as we have seen Romilly did when engaged in his laborious course of self-education.

At seven years of age, Brougham was sent to the High School of Edinburgh, of which the head-master at that time was Dr. Adam, a model pedagogue, and one of the most guileless and lovable of men. He was a considerable scholar, with a genuine enthusiasm for learning, which he often succeeded in imparting to his pupils. On Brougham's entry into the High School, he was placed under the care of Luke Fraser, one of the masters, in whose class he remained for four years, before being transferred to that of Dr. Adam, the rector. While attending Fraser's class, Brougham had a dispute with him on some point of Latinity, regarding which he strenuously insisted that he was right and Fraser wrong. He was punished for his impertinence, but next day he appeared loaded with books, and before the whole class compelled Fraser to acknowledge that he had made a mistake. When he had attended the High School for six years, Brougham left it, having attained the proud position of head-boy of the class and school, although he had been absent nearly a year from illness. He then remained at home for about fourteen months under the care of a tutor.

On his return to Edinburgh

in October, 1792, he entered the University, where he speedily distinguished himself as a mathematician, attending with eager interest the lectures of Playfair and Dr. Black. So precocious were his attainments, that he was little more than seventeen when he transmitted to the Royal Society a paper describing a series of experiments in optics, which was honoured with a place in the Philosophical Transactions' of 1796. In this paper he had inserted a note containing a discovery of the principle of photography, but the secretary of the Royal Society, considering that the matter referred more to art than to

science, unfortunately omitted the passage. Brougham observes, that had the note containing the suggestion appeared in 1796, in all probability it would have set others on the examination of the subject, and given us photography half a century earlier than we had it.

As he was destined for the bar, Brougham early inured himself to the practice of public speaking, for which he possessed a great natural faculty. When only fourteen years of age, he originated a debating club, called the Juvenile Literary Society, which discussed the various subjects generally dealt with at such institutions. Once the question was whether the lawyer or the divine is more useful to society. The decision was given in favour of the divine-all the lawyers voting in the majority. In 1797, he joined a more ambitious association, the Speculative Society, which was established in 1704 for the purpose of discussing, by written essays and oral debates, questions in history, politics, legislation, and general literature, and which still flourishes with unabated vigour. There he came into contact with all the most rising young men of Edinburgh ; no contemptible assemblage, comprising amongst others Murray, Moncreiff, Miller, Loch, Adam, Cockburn, Jardine, and Lord Webb Seymour. At this period of his life Brougham studied hard, not disdaining, at the same time, to diversify his labours by recreations of a kind which would very much astonish the present budding barristers of the Modern Athens. Some of these he relates with pleasing complacency in his 'Autobiography.' 'The child is father of the man,' and he would be an unnatural parent who should not speak with lurking kindness of his own juvenile peccadilloes. After the day's work was over, he and some of his companions would adjourn to the Apollo Club, where the orgies were more of the 'high jinks' than of the calm and philosophical debating order; or to Johnny Dow's, famous for oysters. 'I cannot tell,' he goes on to say, 'how the fancy originated; but one of our constant exploits, after an evening at the Apollo or at Johnny's, was to parade the streets of the New Town, and wrench the brass