Читать книгу International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1 - Various - Страница 1

It is generally understood that this most illustrious Englishman now living, will, in the course of the present year, visit the United States. Whatever may be the verdict of the future upon his qualities or his conduct as a statesman, it is scarcely to be doubted that for the variety and splendor of his abilities, the extent, diversity and usefulness of his labors, and that restless, impatient and feverish activity which has kept him so long and so eminently conspicuous in affairs, he will be regarded by the next ages as one of the most remarkable personages in the age now closing—the second golden age of England. Lord Brougham is of a Cumberland family, but was born in Edinburgh (where his father had married a niece of the historian Robertson), on the 19th of September, 1779. He was educated at the University of his native city, and we first hear of him as a member of a celebrated debating society, where he trained himself to the use of logic. He was not yet sixteen years of age when he communicated a paper on Light to the Royal Society of London, which was printed in their transactions; and before he was twenty he had written discussions of the higher geometry, which, appearing in the same repository of the best learning, attracted the general attention of European scholars. In 1802, with his friends Jeffrey, Francis Homer, and Sidney Smith, he established the Edinburgh Review. In 1806 he published his celebrated "Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers," and soon after was called to the English bar, and settled in London, where he rapidly rose to the highest eminence as a counselor and an advocate. On the 16th of March, 1808, he appeared in behalf of the merchants of London, Liverpool, Manchester, &c., before the House of Commons, in the matter of the Orders in Council restricting trade with America, and greatly increased his fame by one of the most masterly arguments he ever delivered. In 1810 he became a member of Parliament, and he soon distinguished himself here by his speeches on the slave trade and against the Orders in Council, which, mainly through his means, were rescinded. Venturing, at the general election of 1812, to contest the seat for Liverpool with Mr. Canning, he was defeated, and for four years he devoted himself chiefly to his profession. In this period he made many of his most famous law arguments, and acquired the enmity of the Prince Regent by his defense of Leigh Hunt, and his brother, in the case of their famous libel in "The Examiner." In 1816 he commenced those powerful and indefatigable efforts in behalf of education, by which he is perhaps best entitled to the gratitude of mankind. As chairman of the educational committee of forty, he drew up the two voluminous and masterly reports which disclosed the exact condition of British civilization, and induced such action on the part of government as advanced it in ten years more than it had been previously advanced in a century. In 1820 he displayed in their perfection those amazing powers of knowledge, reason, invective, sarcasm, and elocution, on the trial of Queen Caroline, which more than anything else have made that trial so memorable among legal and forensic conflicts. In 1822 he made his unparalleled speech in the case of the Dean and Chapter of Durham against Williams, and in the following year was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. On the downfall of the Wellington administration, in 1830, and the consequent general election, he was returned to Parliament as one of the members for Yorkshire, and a few weeks afterward was made Lord High. Chancellor, and elevated to the peerage under the title of Lord Brougham and Vaux. He continued in the office of Lord Chancellor until the dissolution of the Melbourne cabinet, in 1834. In 1823 he wrote his "Practical Observations on the Education of the People," and was engaged with Dr. Birkbeck in the formation of the first Mechanics' Institution. In 1827 he was one of the originators of the London University, and in the same year he founded the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which he was the first president, and for which he wrote its first publication, the admirable "Treatise on the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science." In 1830 he was elected a member of the Institute of France, and about the time of his resignation of the chancellorship he published his "Discourse on Natural Theology." In 1840 he published his "Historical Sketches of the Statesmen who flourished in the Time of George the Third;" in 1845-6, "Lives of Men of Letters and Science who flourished in the Time of George the Third;" and he has since given to the world works on "The French Revolution," on "Instinct," "Demosthenes' Oration on the Crown," &c., &c. Collections of his Speeches and Forensic Arguments, and of his Critical Essays, as well as the other works above referred to, have been republished in Philadelphia, by Lea and Blanchard.

In the language of the Editor of his "Opinions", Lord Brougham is remarkable for uniting, in a high degree of perfection, three things which are not often found to be compatible. His learning is all but universal: his reason is cultivated to the perfection of the argumentative powers; and he possesses in a rare and eminent degree the gift of eloquence.

Of his learning it may be said that there is scarcely a subject, on which ingenuity or intellect has been exercised, that he has not probed to its principles, or entered into with the spirit of a philosopher. That he is a classical scholar of a high order, is shown by his criticisms on the internal peculiarities of the works of the ancients and their styles of composition. They evince an intimate acquaintance with the great master pieces of antiquity. The book-worms of Universities—those scholastic giants who are great on small questions of quantity and etymology,—who buckle on the ponderous armor of the commentators in the contest with more subtle wits, on the interesting doubt of a wrong reading; such men, in the spirit of pedantry, have refused to Lord Brougham the merit of profundity, while they allow that he possesses a sort of superficial knowledge of the classics; they say that he can gracefully skim the surface of the stream, but that its depths would overwhelm him. Now, while this may be true as regards the fact, we dissent from it as regards the inference. It is a question to be decided between the learned drones of a by-gone school and the quicker intellects of a ripening age, which is the better thing,—criticism on words—on accidental peculiarities of style—or a just and sympathizing conception of the feelings of the poet or the wisdom of the philosopher. Men are beginning to disregard the former, while they set a high value upon the latter: so much laboriously-earned learning is at a discount, and allowance should be made for the petty spite, the depreciating superciliousness, of disappointment. Lord Brougham's classical knowledge partakes more of that intimate regard and appreciation which we accord to the great writers, than of this pedantry of the schools. Hence the cry of want of depth, that has been raised against him. Like many other great men of his age, he has read the authors of Greece and Rome in a spirit that has identified him with their thoughts and feelings, by taking into account the circumstances of their times; and the result has been, that he has exchanged the formalities and critical sharp-sightedness of acquaintance for the intimacy of friendship.

In point of general political knowledge, and particularly of that branch called political economy, Lord Brougham stands prominently among his contemporaries. In his speeches and writings will be found the first principles of every new view of these subjects that has been taken by the moderns. Of not a few he has himself been the originator. In the party history of the last century he is well versed, as many of his speeches show; and no public man of the present day is so well acquainted with the theory and practice of the constitution, whether as regards the broad principles of liberty on which it is based, or its gradual formation during the different periods of our history. It may not be amiss here to observe, that notwithstanding his long connection with the movement party, and the countenance he has from time to time given to measures of a decidedly liberal cast, he never was, and is still as far from being, a Democrat. Throughout his career he has been a consistent Liberal: always advocating such measures of reform as were calculated to remove abuses, while they in no way affected the stability and integrity of the institutions of the country. While, on the one hand, he has declared his most unequivocal opposition to the ballot and universal suffrage, on the other he has advocated popular education, as the ultimate panacea for all the evils to be feared from the extension of popular influence.

The legal knowledge of Lord Brougham has been questioned by the members of the profession whose abuses he desired to reform. It was even said, that while his elevation to the Chancellorship was the unjustifiable act of a party to serve party purposes, it was at the same time desirable to Mr. Brougham in a pecuniary point of view, from a falling off in his professional practice, caused by his hostility to those abuses. Now, although this is a question really of more interest to lawyers, than to the public in general, and one which might, therefore, be left to their decision, yet there was an animus at the time among this class of men, that rendered them not disinterested judges. Their opinion therefore must be taken with a qualification, as well on the score of particular immediate drawbacks, as on the score of their general professional prejudices. Lord Brougham respected too much the principles of justice, and he too little regarded the technicalities of law, to be agreeable to that body. He had a faculty too, for giving speedy judgments, and a determination to prevent unnecessary expenses, that were particularly disagreeable to men imbued with a conscientious desire that justice should not be prejudiced by an unprecedented and informal haste in its dispensation, or by a reduction of the number of its advocates. The new Lord Chancellor, too, thought that when one or two intelligent barristers had been engaged at a large expense, and had well stated the case of their client, it was quite unnecessary that the same ground should be again gone over by juniors, whose arguments marred more than they helped the interests of their employers. When, therefore, he either put them down, or was droned into a short nap, while the industrious advocate was earning his unnecessary fee, it was a specimen of "the arrogance of an upstart wholly unacquainted with Chancery Law," or "of an eccentricity bordering on insanity, and wholly unfitting its exhibitor for the high and responsible situation he held." Posterity will do justice to Lord Brougham in this respect. It will be felt to have been impossible that a man of such vast acquirements, who had been so successful in his profession, and who had, in all other branches of knowledge, evinced such clearness of intellect, could have been the inefficient lawyer his detractors have represented him to be.

There is another great department in which he has proved his excellence—that of physical science. With the principles of all the sciences, his works show him to be familiar. His treatise "on the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science" is admirable, as a bird's-eye view of the subject, while at the same time it is an enticing stimulant to study. The work on "Natural Theology" necessarily touches upon the physical sciences, and their connection with the great mechanism of nature. The geometrical and optical papers, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, when he was only fifteen years of age, show at least a firm groundwork of scientific knowledge. And if it be said that Lord Brougham's attainments are superficial only, we say that knowledge of detail does not of itself make a man competent. The principles of all sciences are a sine qua non.

Lord Brougham is eminently clear-headed; and he is distinguished for his argumentative powers. He has peculiarly the faculty of analysis; that of keeping in his own mind a comprehensive view of the whole bearings of a question, even while running at large into the minutest details; no man detects the fallacy of an opponent's argument more easily; nor can any man be more skillful in concocting a fallacy to suit a temporary purpose.

Lord Brougham's eloquence most distinguishes him from his contemporaries. Learning may be acquired; the habit of reasoning may be induced by constant dialectic contest; but eloquence is far more than these the gift of nature. Lord Brougham's eloquence savors of the peculiar constitution of his mind. It is eminently adapted for educated men. He was never intended for a demagogue; for he never condescends to the art of pandering to the populace. His speeches are specimens of argumentative eloquence; and their only defect arises from his fertility of illustration. The extraordinary information he possesses has induced the habit of drawing too largely upon it; and he is apt to be led aside from the straight road of his argument, to elucidate some minor disputed point. But the argumentative style of which we speak is almost peculiar to himself. There is a ripeness, a fruitfulness, in his mind, that places him above the fetters of ordinary speakers. Such men, from the difficulty of clearing their heads for the contest, too often present a mere fleshless skeleton, as it were, very convincing to the judgment, but powerless over the feelings; so that no lasting impression is produced. But Lord Brougham, from being a master in argument, is free to pursue his bent in illustration, and thus conjures up a whole picture that dwells on the mind, and is remembered for its effect on the feelings or the imagination, even by men whose levity or dullness precluded their being fixed by the argument. The very structure of his sentences is more adapted for this kind of speaking than any other. They sometimes appear involved, to an ordinary mind, from their length, and the abundance of illustration and explanation which they embrace; but the extraordinary vigor with which the delivery is kept up, and the liveliness of fancy or of humor that flashes at every turn of the thought, soon dispel the temporary cloud.

In irony and in sarcasm, Lord Brougham is unrivaled among the public men of the day. That his exuberant power of ridicule led him while Lord Chancellor, into some excess of its use, cannot be denied, although a ready excuse can be found in the circumstances of his situation. He might be held to be the representative of liberal principles in a place where almost the name of Liberal had, till then, been proscribed; and the animosity toward the new Chancellor, evinced by many peers, was calculated to induce reprisals. The eccentricities, too, of men of genius are of such value that they may well be said to atone for themselves.

A quality of Lord Brougham's mind, that is almost as extraordinary as his extent of information, is its singular activity. His energies never seem to flag—even for an instant; he does not seem to know what it is to be fatigued, or jaded. Some such quality as this, indeed, the vastness and universality of his acquirements called for, in order to make the weight endurable to himself, and to bear him up during his long career of political excitement. Take the routine of a day for instance. In his early life he has been known to attend, in his place in court, on circuit, at an early hour in the morning. After having successfully pleaded the cause of his client, he drives off to the hustings; and delivers, at different places, eloquent speeches to the electors. He then sits in the retirement of his closet to pen an address to the Glasgow students, perhaps, or an elaborate article in the Edinburgh Review. The active labors of the day are closed with preparation for the court business of the following morning; and then instead of retiring to rest, as ordinary men would, after such exertions, he spends the night in abstruse study, or in social intercourse. Yet he would be seen as early as eight next morning, actively engaged in the Court, in defense of some unfortunate object of government persecution; astonishing the auditory, and his fellow lawyers no less, with the freshness and power of his eloquence.

A fair contrast with this history of a day, in early life, would be that of one at a more advanced period; say in 1832. A watchful observer might see the Lord Chancellor in the Court over which he presided, from an early hour in the morning until the afternoon, listening to the arguments of counsel, and mastering the points of cases with a grasp that enabled him to give those speedy and unembarrassed judgments that have so injured him with the profession. If he followed his course, he would see him, soon after the opening of the House of Lords, addressing their Lordships on some intricate question of Law, with an acuteness that drew approbation even from his opponents, or, on some all-engrossing political topic, casting firebrands into the camp of the enemy, and awakening them from the complacent repose of conviction to the hot contest with more active and inquiring intellects. Then, in an hour or so, he might follow him to the Mechanics' Institution, and hear an able and stimulating discourse on education, admirably adapted to the peculiar capacity of his auditors; and, toward ten perhaps, at a Literary and Scientific Institution in Marylebone, the same Proteus-like intellect might be found expounding the intricacies of physical science with a never tiring and elastic power. Yet, during all these multitudinous exertions, time would be found for the composition of a discourse on Natural Theology, that bears no marks of haste or excitement of mind, but presents as calm a face as though it had been the laborious production of a contemplative philosopher.

It would be a great mistake that would suppose the man who has thus multiplied the objects of his exertion to be of necessity superficial; superficial, that is, in the sense of shallowness or ignorance. Ordinary minds are bound by fetters, no doubt. Custom has rendered the pursuit of more than one idea all but impossible to them, and the vulgar adage of "Jack of all trades, master of none," applies to them in full force. But it must be remembered that a public man like Lord Brougham, who has chosen his peculiar sphere of action, and who prefers being of general utility to the scholar-like pursuit of any one branch of science exclusively, is not bound to present credentials of full and perfect mastership, such as are required from a professor of a university. 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. That he has entered, and hotly too, into almost every question of any moment that has come before the Legislature during many years is true; but he has never appeared in the character of a partisan; he has always been the consistent supporter of liberal measures per se, and not because they were the means adopted by a party to gain political power. With his political steadfastness he has preserved his intellectual integrity from profanation. For although, had he early devoted his powers to the study of abstract or practical science, as a leading and not a subsidiary pursuit, the acuteness of his mind was such, that he must have risen to eminence upon the basis of discovery, yet it is no slight proof how little the struggles of the world affect superior intellects, that he has all along turned aside, with a never cloying avidity, to the pursuits of mind—to science, to literature, and to philosophy.

* * * * *