and other corporation charities of England, in respect of which he discovered and exposed practices the most scandalous and revolting. After several able speeches, which enlisted a large amount of public opinion in his support, an expensive commission was appointed to inquire into and report upon the alleged abuses. Little ultimate good was effected, if we are to believe Jeremy Bentham, who many years afterwards accused Brougham of allowing the subject to be frittered away, and declared that the only result was a batch of expensive Chancery suits. The utilitarian sage, it is well to remark, had no very great esteem or liking for Brougham. Bentham, a man of much originality of thought and considerable mental power, had one grand fixed idea, to which all others were subsidiary, and this was, that utilitarian 'codification' was the sovereign panacea for all human ills: a system whereby,' remarks Mr Carlyle with his usual caustic humour, any people, for a reasonable consideration, may be accommodated with a patent code-more easily than curious individuals with patent breeches, for the people does not need to be measured first.' Mr Brougham, although friendly to many of the law reforms suggested by the great master of codification, demurred to many of his suggestions, and a kind of civil enmity arose between them. Bentham thought, too, that Brougham had set the 'Edinburgh Review' upon him, and informed him of his suspicion. Mr Brougham indignantly denied the dishonouring imputation. How can you imagine,' he says in a note dated November 21, 1831, Hill Square, ‘that I could ever have let slip the dogs in E. R. at you?' A preposterous accusation truly: indeed it was declared in the same note that Lord Brougham-this was after he was chancellor had almost quarrelled with his friend Jeffrey for inserting the offensive article. Jeremy Bentham does not appear to have been withal effectually mollified; and for this supposed offence, or other more positive ones, he indited the following lines, which his editor, Dr Bowring, calls a jeu d'esprit: its more appropriate title is that of a jeu de mots; and not, to our judgment, a very brilliant one either :

'O Brougham! a strange mystery you are;
Nil fuit unquam sibi tam dispar :

So foolish and so wise, so great, so small,
Everything now-to-morrow nought at all.'

It is quite evident, therefore, that we must receive Mr Bentham's dictum upon the utter failure of Mr Brougham's exertions in the matter of corporation-charities with much reserve. The learned gentleman's letter to Sir Samuel Romilly upon the subject breathes a tone of earnest sincerity, of resolute indignation, which justifies the belief that nothing was neglected on his part to correct the evils which he so eloquently denounced. And a large allowance must be made for the powerful influences which, in those days especially, could be brought into successful opposition to the exertions of an individual member of parliament, however sincere, able, and earnest he might be.

A series of events which shook the kingdom to its centre, affording as they did a rallying-cry for all the otherwise discordant griefs, resentments, discontents of the people, occurred in 1820. We allude to the arrival in England of Queen Caroline, to claim the crown-matrimonial, legally devolved

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upon her by the demise of George III., and the subsequent proceedings before the House of Lords. Mr Brougham had been for some time lawadviser to the unfortunate lady when Princess of Wales: he was now her majesty's attorney-general — Mr, now Lord Denman, was the queen's solicitor-general-Mr Wilde, the present lord chancellor-Mr Tindal, who died chief-justice of the Common Pleas Mr Williams, who succeeded to the bench-and Dr Lushington, were also of counsel to her majesty. We have no wish to revive the painful memories connected with the prosecution of the queen—to recall what were on every account best forgotten. We have merely to remark that Mr Brougham and his able coadjutors displayed great professional talent and vigorous eloquence in the conduct of a case beset with unexampled difficulties, and urged with unscrupulous legal acumen and power. Mr Sergeant Copley (Lord Lyndhurst) was the king's solicitor-general: upon him fell the chief burden of the prosecution, and it cannot be denied that he sustained it with giant vigour and ability. The speech of Mr Brougham in defence, after the hearing of the king's witnesses in support of the Bill of Pains and Penalties, produced a great effect at the time out of doors; but read now, when emotions of compassion, sorrow, indignation, no longer colour and light up the speaker's periods, affects the mind but feebly. It displays much logical acuteness, skilful contrasts of evidence, abundance of the suppressio veri and suggestio falsi, ever freely indulged in by practised and successful counsel, but there are few bursts of the electric eloquence which one might have expected to leap from the burning lips of a fiery and indignant orator in presence of such an accusation. The peroration, which has been much praised, is short enough for quotation :-'My lords, I pray you to pause: I do earnestly beseech you to take heed. You are standing on the brink of a precipice -then beware. It will go forth your judgment if sentence shall go against the queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who gave it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe; save yourselves from this peril; rescue the country, of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer when severed from the people than the blossom when cut off from the roots and stem of the tree. Save the country, that you may continue to adorn it; save the crown, which is jeopardised the aristocracy, which is shaken ; save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne. You have said, my lords-you have willed-the church and the king have willed-that the queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has instead of that solemnity the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayer of mine; but I do now pour forth my humble supplication at the Throne of Mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice.'

The accessories of a crowded, eminent, and attentive auditory-the presence of the distinguished, ill-starred personage whose fate was trembling in the balance the breathless excitement of the people, gave a force and effect to this elaborate rhetoric which intrinsically it cannot be said to possess. Indeed the most successful speeches upon subjects of passing interest are generally the least readable in aftertimes, and for the very obvious

reason, that the personal allusions, the telling sneer, the veiled but bitter virulence, which elicit the applause of a contemporary audience, lose all point with the passing away of the circumstances and memories which gave them significance and power. It is this which renders Hansard such dismal reading, and has wrecked every effort made to force political speeches into the abiding literature of the country.

The shining phrases we have quoted were lost upon the Peers, who read the Bill of Pains and Penalties a second time by a considerable majority. In consequence, however, of the retention of the divorce-clause-voted for by the Whigs-several of the supporters of the bill divided against the third reading, which, being carried by a majority of nine only, the measure was abandoned amidst the jubilant exultation of the great majority of the nation, and Mr Brougham was a power in the state.

The obstreperous applause which greeted Mr Brougham's successful exertions in defence of his royal client drowned the murmurs which a remarkable bill he brought into parliament on the 28th of June 1820-with a view to provide gratuitous education for the poor of England and Wales -excited amongst dissidents from the established church, or 'squeamish sectaries,' as the learned gentleman politely termed them. It was nothing less than a scheme for placing the education of the people under the sole, irresponsible control of the established clergy. Schools were to be founded upon the recommendation or presentment of a grand jury—of a rector, vicar, perpetual curate or actual incumbent of a parish-or of two justices of the peace acting for an ecclesiastical district, the appeal as to the necessity of the school lying to the magistrates at quarter-sessions. The salary of the schoolmaster was to be not less than £20 nor more than £30 a year, and no one could be a candidate for the office without a certificate of character and ability from a clergyman of the establishment. The rate-payers might, however, at a properly-convened meeting presided by the senior parish-officer, raise the master's salary,' with the permission of the resident parson.' But the most extraordinary feature of the measure, coming from such a quarter, was the absolute veto given to the clergyman upon the appointment of the master, as well as a power of summary dismissal; and if the rate-payers elected a person whom he disapproved, he could peremptorily annul their choice, and order a fresh election. This, as Mr Brougham emphatically remarked, 'would give the parson a veto not nominal but real.' No question that it would; but why the ratepayers were to assemble and go through the farce of an illusive nomination is difficult of comprehension. The improvement of the old educational establishments of the country was also a professed object of the bill. The introductory speech was thoroughly an established-church speech. Mr Brougham's first principle was, that a religious education was the great desideratum-the indispensably one thing needful; and from this premise it followed, according to him, that that which could alone afford a security 'that this system would be a religious one, was placing it under the control of those who taught the doctrines of the church.' 'Let the House,' said the learned gentleman, 'look at the alacrity, the zeal, the established clergy manifested for the education of the poor. The clergy were the teachers of the poor-not only teachers of religion, but, in the eye of the law, teachers generally. What, then, he asked, could be more natural than that

they should have control over those who were elected to assist them? . . . . It did appear to him that the system of public education should be closely connected with the church of England as established by law. He stated this after mature consideration, and he was anxious to make the statement, because on a former occasion he did not go quite so far as he now did. He had then abstained from going so far, because he dreaded the opposition of the sectaries.'

In another passage of this curious speech he alludes to the high salaries of masters of grammar-schools upon ancient foundations, which he would not, if he had the power, by any means reduce, although contrasting so strangely with the bare existence allotted by his bill to the new schoolmasters. The disparity, he said, 'would be an advantage analogous to that which existed in the church. Many persons objected that in the church one individual should have £20,000 a year, while another laboured for £50 a year; but the good must be weighed with the bad, and this good would be found in the disparity of income, that by how much £20,000 was superior to £50, was the character improved and the class raised of the person who had £50, but who had a prospect of obtaining £20,000.'

We offer no opinion upon the wisdom or justice of the scheme of education proposed by Mr Brougham's measure, and illustrated by his speech. Many, very many sincere, estimable persons, we are quite aware, are of opinion that to the church, and to the church alone, as by law established, should the education of the people be confided. Many others, equally estimable and sincere, may, for aught we know, agree with Mr Brougham, that a splendidly-endowed hierarchy, in contrast with a wretchedly underpaid working clergy, is advantageous, and promotes the efficiency of humble, earnest, self-sacrificing pastors: that, in fact, according to the quotation from Burke, with which Mr Brougham enforced his proposition, 'the church raises her mitred head in palaces,' not to gratify and enrich the wearer of the mitre, the dweller in the palace-by no means; quite the reverse indeed-and solely for the sake of the poor curate vegetating upon £50 a year. We offer in this place, we repeat, no opinion upon the abstract truth, wisdom, and beauty of these dicta, but we do confidently affirm that they do not at all harmonise with the general idea entertained of Mr Brougham in his palmy and triumphant days; and for this amongst other reasons we think that he was from the first in a great degree misunderstood, and that his loss of popularity has been brought about, not so much because he has retrograded in liberality of sentiment, as because his former admirers have discovered their partial mistake.

There was ample excuse for the general error. In the year 1821 Mr John Ambrose Williams, the proprietor of the 'Durham Chronicle,' published an article in that paper upon the refusal of the Durham clergy to allow the church-bells to be tolled on occasion of the death of the 'murdered' queen, as she was frequently designated, which so offended those gentlemen that they caused a criminal information to be filed against Mr Williams for libel; and in 1822 the case came before a jury at Durham, Mr Scarlett, attorney-general for the palatinate, appearing for the prosecution. Mr Brougham was retained for the defence; and in a speech overflowing with the bitterest irony, regaled the public with quite another dissertation upon the advantages of a magnificently - endowed church

hierarchy from that which he had delivered in the House of Commons. The following passage cannot perhaps be equalled, certainly it cannot be surpassed, as a specimen of mocking persiflage: His majesty,' said Mr Brougham, 'almost at the time I am now speaking, is about to make a progress through the northern provinces of this island, accompanied by certain of his chosen counsellors-a portion of men who enjoy unenvied, and in an equal degree, the admiration of other countries and the wonder of their own. In Scotland the prince will find much loyalty, great learning, and some splendour-the remains of a great monarchy and the institutions which made it flourish; but, strange as it may seem, and to many who hear me incredible, from one end of the country to the other there is no such a thing as a bishop-not such a thing to be found from the Tweed to John o'Groat's House; not a mitre, no; nor so much as a minor canon, or even a rural dean, so entirely rude and barbarous are they in Scotland. In such utter darkness do they sit that they support no cathedral, maintain no pluralists, suffer no non-residence; nay, the poor, benighted creatures are ignorant even of tithes! Not a sheep nor a lamb, nor a pig nor the value of a plough-penny, do the hapless mortals render from year's end to year's end. Piteous as their lot is, what makes it infinitely more touching is to witness the return of good for evil in the demeanour of this wretched race. Under all this cruel neglect of their spiritual concerns they are actually the most loyal, contented, moral, and religious people anywhere perhaps to be found in the world. Let us hope (many indeed there are not far off who will with unfeigned devotion pray) that his majesty may return safe from his excursion to such a country— an excursion most perilous to a certain portion of the church should the royal mind be infected with a taste for cheap establishments, a working clergy, and a pious congregation.'

And when did irreverence indulge in more bitter jibing than the eulogist of the state establishment permitted himself in the following sentences?— 'If there is any part of England in which an ample licence ought to more especially be admitted in discussing such matters, I say without hesitation it is in this very bishopric where, in the nineteenth century, you live under a palatine prince-the Lord of Durham; where the endowment of the hierarchy, I may not call it enormous, but I trust I shall be permitted without offence to term it splendid; where the establishment, I dare not whisper proves grinding to the people, but I will rather say is an incalculable, inscrutable blessing, only it is prodigiously large; showered down in a profusion somewhat overpowering, and laying the inhabitants under a load of obligation overwhelming by its weight."

This irritating sarcasm could not have been necessary for the defence of Mr Brougham's client. It would rather insure a conviction from a Durham special jury, and a heavy sentence, if the judge had been as hotly zealous for the establishment as the counsel for the defendant shewed himself in his speech on the abortive Education Bill. In fact, John Ambrose Williams was found guilty, but owing to a technical defect in the proceedings he was never called up to receive judgment. We do not quote these widely - opposite speeches with any view to raise the cuckoocry of inconsistency against Mr Brougham. All wise men are necessarily inconsistent men-always with the exception of these highly-favoured