sufficient space to enter more than cursorily into those transactions. That the head masters of public schools should dislike being summarily summoned up to London, and examined with little more ceremony than they used to their own scholars; that ill-regulated institutions should object to the examination of their charters; that the Quarterly (we must do it the justice to say, in a very able article,) should declare the Crown and Church to be threatened with danger, denounce Mr. Brougham as a Scotchman and a dissenter, and appeal to the romantic attachment of the nobility and gentry of England for the scenes of their early instruction, are all matters of course; but we think there were some parts in Mr. Brougham's plan, which a reasonable man might fairly object to; the reception of, or rather invitation to anonymous and malicious accusations, however justified for the sake of supplying a clue to inquiry. The principle set forth in the declaration, that there should exist a propensity to suspect abuses, is one-which for its immediate, but more particularly for its remote. evils, in the manner in which it might affect the national character and habits of our people-from which we entirely dissent. But to the general aim and scope of the bill that was introduced, to a fair and thorough investigation of all charitable and public institutions whatsoever; nay more, to the perpetual supervision of their management and accounts, we confess we see no reason for opposition, (to use the words of the writer of the Letter to Sir S. Romilly,) "save in a determined resolution to screen delinquents, to perpetuate negligence, and respect malversation."

În 1820, a year memorable to him in many respects, Mr. Brougham brought forward his celebrated plan of education; and here, though the object in view was so desirable, such were the difficulties in the way of its accomplishment, that almost every class of men was opposed to the only practical means of carrying it into effect. While a certain body, generally keen in discovering its own interests, felt at once that there was danger to itself in any plan of education whatsoever; others were dissatisfied with the means employed, and declared that they would much rather see the people remain in ignorance, than intrust to any particular, especially to any religious class of persons, the sole power over the method of their instruction. This was the cry of the dissenters, and as the same opinion is still very widely prevalent, we cannot too strongly enter our protest against so pernicious and illiberal a doctrine. What is it possible by any means that human ingenuity can devise, to forge out of the elements of knowledge a will to be misgoverned and misruled?-that will comes from ignorance, not information. Is it probable, is it possible, if you give men the means of acquiring a knowledge of their own interests, that they will not in the end derive from such means, consequences to their own advantage!

Set the people fairly into the road for discovering truth; we don't care who starts them upon it; as they travel on, they will acquire confidence in their own judgment and discretion. Their views will enlarge; the means will open to them of looking fairly on the different modes of government in church and state. They will not adopt violent, (moderation is the distinctive mark of knowledge,) but they will, we believe, adopt honest and correct opinions of both. With bigotry

and despotism on the one hand, and liberty and toleration on the other, they will judge, like ourselves, as to which they should eschew, which embrace; but even were it otherwise, friends to freedom as we are, in the forms of government which it has usually adopted, we have no hesitation in saying that more of freedom properly understooda greater security of property-a wiser system of laws-ay, a fairer field for the expression of opinion-will be found in an enlightened nation, the ruling authority of which is vested in one man, than among an ignorant people, who enjoy the satisfaction of misgoverning themselves. Nay, more; the grandest justification for establishing the Government of a country on a broad and popular basis, is, that the circle of its intelligence is proportionably extensive: the number of persons entrusted with power, and the share assigned to the greater multitude, must depend, or ought to depend, on their capability to exercise it: we recognize no right that people have to do themselves wrong; they cannot do wrong to themselves without injuring others: but we wish that they should be put in such a situation as that they can safely be entrusted with the management of their own affairs.

As the corner stone, then, of the temple of Freedom-as the only foundation on which it can rest-we are for knowledge-knowledge acquired by all means-obtained at all hands: nor are we likely to conclude that that blessing can be made a prop to the slavery of superstition, without which, not even the liberty of conscience can exist. According to the details brought forward in Lord Brougham's speech, it would appear that before the Lancastrian schools in 1803, only one-twentieth of the population was educated, while in 1820, not above one-fourteenth received education. The metropolis in this respect, was in a much worse condition than the country at large.

The following is a brief sketch of the outlines of Lord Brougham's plan:

The grand jury at the quarter sessions, the actual incumbent of the parish, any two justices, or any five resident householders, (or if two parishes or chapelries joined in the application, four householders of each,) were empowered to present to the quarter sessions, a complaint that there was no school in the parish or chapelry, or that there were not two schools, and in very extensive and populous districts, three schools where such a number was necessary. Due notice of the complaint was to be given a month before the first day of the quarter sessions, and at the request of five householders, the parish officers were obliged to resist the proceedings. An estimate of the expense of the school-house and garden was then to be furnished, and the decision of the quarter sessions was to be final.

The master was required to have a certificate of his qualification signed by the clergyman and three householders of the parish in which he had previously resided for twelve months, or by the clergyman and two householders of two parishes. He was to be a member of the Established Church. Furthermore, though the election of the master was in the inhabitant householders, paying the school rate, the parson after examination might refuse him. The school might be visited at any time by the Bishop of the diocese, and the master removed at his suggestion. No book of any kind was to be used in the school without the clergyman's permission, nor was any form of worship to be allowed

in it but the Lord's prayer and passages of the scripture. As an appendix to this plan, was one for making existing endowments more useful to the education of the poor.*

Receiving no encouragement from the government, and being unsupported by any party in the country, the scheme fell to the ground, and was altogether abandoned.

We pass by Lord Brougham's claim to the honour of founding the London University, which is disputed with great apparent justice by Mr. Campbell: neither is it necessary, after all we have said, to insist upon the share which he has taken in the publications for the diffusion of useful knowledge, (in which the design is greatly better than the selection of the subjects,) as well as in the establishment and promotion of those institutions which derive their origin from the experiment of Dr. Birkbeck.

It is now in a new character we are about to consider Lord Brougham. "Brougham is rather a heavy, laborious speaker! To me there appears something somewhat grotesque in his attempts at impassioned oratory, wherein he occasionally displays his zeal and warmth in contortions of face and figure nearly approaching to the ludicrous. He has an iron face, an iron figure, both equally divested of grace and majesty, nor does his action or expression make amends for these deficiencies of face and person; his eloquence is little more than special pleading. As the leader of a party in the House of Commons, he is at most, however, but second-rate. I have heard him occasionally on subjects of foreign policy, wherein the talents of a statesman are put to the test, and was surprised at his crudeness, as well as want of extent of idea and accuracy of information. I have certainly heard a member from our woods talk more sensibly, and display more statesman-like views."

We have quoted this passage, containing the opinion of an American contemporary, so that succeeding him as critics, our eulogies may produce greater effect, our censures require less excuse.

Whatever Lord Brougham may be, as compared with the great men who are no more; whatever posterity may decide respecting him, when he has ceased to exist in the eye of the present generation, to us who now hear him-by the side of those, and some not unworthy rivals near whom he stands, he is confessedly, and unequivocally, the Man of the Time, the superior spirit, whose word animates, awes, soothes, electrifies; to whom no one is ashamed to confess himself unequal in that art, which Cicero places just after that of arms; and which perhaps holds a still higher rank than military science in a commonwealth, peaceable and well-governed. To this, many circumstances, besides those which rise out of the intrinsic talent of the individual, have much contributed.

There was not in all probability that gigantic difference between Mr. Brougham in 1810, and Lord Brougham in 1831, which can justify the different reputation of the same individual at the two different periods: neither, perhaps, is there now that difference between Lord Brougham and Mr. Macaulay, which public opinion recognises. The rise from disputed fame to undisputed precedency, is, generally speaking, of a slow and gradual progress. Public talent is very much, and

The plan is open, at a glance, to great objection.-Ev.

very rightly measured by its public utility: as long as there are men whose opinion, from the experience which the country has had of their capacity-whose knowledge, from their long acquaintance with the practical details of office-is and ought to be of superior weight on matters of state policy, to that of others less known and less experienced;-so long, they will be more eagerly demanded -more willingly listened to-more cheerfully admired.

It generally happens then, that the old actors pass from the political stage, before the young are allowed to play the principal parts there. As one disappears, others come forward, and it is only when these have outlived the great persons of the age which preceded them, that they have a full scope for the display of their own abilities. Nor is this all: there is a certain current of common sense in this country, which sets strongly against the exhibitions of wit, where the real demand is for information. All those, or most of those powers of the higher order, by which an orator enchants and transports his hearers, with which he adorns and renders graceful the long and wearisome road to knowledge, are forbidden to him who has not given the most frequent and convincing proofs that it is really knowledge to which he is leading. The facts brought forward in one session, procure attention to the figures by which they are illustrated in the next. Certain of your powers to instruct, your audience is not offended by your pretension to amuse them. It was the memory of Lord Brougham's speeches on commerce, education, and law-it was the thorough conviction that he could have treated the question of reform after the gravest fashion of Legislative science, that procured him the liberty of running away with it into all the odd and extravagant corners into which wit, humour, and imagination could thrust their head. He is now, then, in a position in which he may give full scope to his genius, in which he may excite and encourage all the faculties which nature has given him and study perfectioned. He is now in a position, moreover, in which his energies may assume the nervous, masculine, and welldirected and regulated energies of power; in which he must feel, instead of that chilling conviction which damps the force of a leader of Opposition-the chilling conviction that all his efforts are to be overpowered, the full, the thrilling, almost godlike sensation that every word which falls from his lips-the enunciation of thoughts long conned and brooded over, will have an influence on the destinies of the world. It is in this position that we saw and heard him on the 7th of October, an event that we shall ever consider memorable in our lives. It was after a discussion of almost unexampled length and certainly of unexampled power, that the Chancellor rose to express his opinion on a subject which, for many months, had excited all the talent, exhausted, as it was to be supposed, all the eloquence of the sternest and subtlest minds; a subject on which had been collected and concentered the clearest expressions of reason, the most vivid conceptions of fancy; a subject which art and genius, every energy quickened by interest, every pulse throbbing for power, had taken as the arena of political contention. In such a struggle, it was necessary that Lord Brougham should surpass all others. His triumph was to be as imposing, or his failure was to be as signal, as the tone which he assumed, and the position in which he placed himself, were lofty and conspicuous.

That he succeeded under these circumstances, places him, beyond dispute, among the greatest of those men in modern times who are his rivals in the same art. And we might almost be tempted to exclaim, "Nolumus enim putare quenquam pleniorem et uberiorem ad dicendum fuisse," if in the midst of our eulogies we could not but feel the readiness with which the present is ever apt to glorify itself. We cannot but remember that Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, his rival Fox, and Mr. Canning in our own time, were all cheered on with the same cry, that each was the first man-the greatest orator that ever existed. We must not too easily accord that Lord Brougham is this. He is an orator of the first order, he has all the qualifications for being so copiousness of language-fulness and sweetness of voicean eloquent appearance ;-and even in the management of his robes, "et motu aque ipso amictu," there is something of that dignity, which though it would count for little in our estimation of the man, is in nowise to be considered unimportant in our judgment of the orator. But with all these qualifications-with all the qualifications which, if stated singly, would seem to comprehend every thing we could desiderate or describe, there does appear to us, we confess, that something wanting, which answers to Lord Bacon's definition of the best part of physical beauty, that something "which neither pen nor pencil can delineate; no, nor our first sight of the life." We say to Lord Brougham's facetious sallies, what exquisite humour! to his splendid perorations, what scholastic composition! the modulations of his voice, the strength and dignity of his action strike us with astonishment and admiration; his irony and sarcasm (there he is most powerful) thrill through us; the mastery he frequently displays, not only of hoarded lore, but of living and worldly knowledge, assures us at once that it is to a great and full mind we are delivering our attention; the various parts of his discourse (we speak of him in his best moments,) strike us as perfect in their way;- and yet when he has finished, we cannot say that nothing is wanting in the whole. We have been alternately amused, terrified, or instructed; but it is very rarely that we feel the effect of any one feeling in a permanent and irresistible degree! We should cry "The fine orator ! -we should not cry, "Let us go and fight Philip."

We will take the last, perhaps the best, of Lord Brougham's speeches, as an illustration of our criticism. We were convulsed with laughter at Lord Wharncliffe's solitary promenade on the south side of Berkeley Square. We shrank, with Lord Dudley, into insignificance at the comparison between the maker of Latin verse, and the manufacturer of philosophers for Manchester and Birmingham; the researches into constitutional and legal literature, convinced us of the learning of the Lord Chancellor; his remarks on the genius of the English people, on the necessity, the wholesome necessity, of consolidating and connecting the various parts of society, by adding to the firmness and strength of that link which kept its extremities together; convinced us that that learning had been poured into a mind capable of giving it a practical result: the concluding passage, or peroration, was powerful and impressive, even to preventing the genuflexion with which it closed from appearing ridiculous; yet, notwithstanding all this, we ask any one who enjoyed the felicity of hearing that remarkable speech, whether when Lord Brougham sate down, the