He said himself that he had now arrived at the pinnacle of his fame; and so he had. Amidst all the popular delight and admiration, there was no great confidence that he would fulfil the expectations generally avowed. It was beginning to be understood that antagonism was his element; and it was suspected that, as usually happens with that class of minds, there was a strong personal Conservatism at bottom. There were men at that time who doubted whether Brougham would not die a Tory, and whether he would fulfil any of his virtual pledges to the people. His services were so undeniable, that men were ashamed of their doubts; but the doubts existed, and they were justified by the evidences of passion, of jealousy, of vanity, of thorough intemperance of mind, which manifested themselves more and more. Now, however, he was at the head of the representation of Great Britain, and it would be seen at last what he could and would do. It was not long before all the world agreed with him that the day of his election for Yorkshire was, as he said, that of his highest glory.

When the announcement was made, the next November, that Brougham was to be the Lord Chancellor in the Grey Administration, everybody laughed. Much of the laughter was pleasant, with exultation in it, as well as amusement; but curiosity and amusement prevailed. He had said that he would not take office, and that he was no Equity lawyer; so the anti-reformers quizzed him on account of his new trammels, and said it was a pity the new Lord Chancellor had no law; for then he would know a little of everything. His appointment was excused only on the ground of political exigency; but he disappointed expectation as

much on the political as he possibly could on the legal grounds. He was Chancellor for four years; and during those four years he made no available attempts to accomplish any of the popular objects about which he had said so much before he was able to act. In the autumn of 1834, he ruined his political reputation and his prospects for life by a series of eccentricities during a journey in Scotland. He mortally offended the King, and made a declaration at a public dinner at Edinburgh against strenuous reform which overthrew the last hope of his admirers. At that dinner began his feud with Lord Durham, whom he persecuted to death. No sort of excuse has ever, we believe, been attempted for his conduct towards that faithful reformer, nor for the temper and language which he thenceforth indulged in towards his old friends and colleagues. So vindictive and fierce were that temper and language that even Lord Melbourne, with his easy good-humour, was cowed; and the whole Ministry were fairly bullied by Lord Brougham into desertion of Lord Durham, after having upheld and thanked him for the very acts for which they extinguished him at the bidding of his cruel foe. It was a shameful chapter in the history of the Whig Government; and Lord Brougham was ever after without political character and social influence. He incurred universal reprobation by the strange offer he made to take the office of Chief Baron under Lord Lyndhurst as Chancellor. He pleaded that, as he should not take the salary, he should thus save the country 12,000l. a year; but the plea was a new offence. It supposed that the nation cared more for 12,000l. a year than for the political integrity and consi ney of its high legal functionaries. Brougham

He

had, however, already gone over to the Tories. was on the most intimate terms with Lord Lyndhurst and the other Conservative leaders: and it was natural, for they made much of him, and nobody else did now.

His Law reforms were thenceforth his only titles to honour; and very great honour they deserve. We owe to him much of the reform which has taken place in the Court of Chancery; he gave us those local courts which go some good way towards bringing justice to every man's door. It is with these reforms that posterity, in a mood of gratitude and good-nature, will connect the name of Henry Brougham. For the last twenty years or more of his life he sighed for that simple name as for a great good that he had thrown He longed, as he said at public meetings, and far more pathetically in private, to undo the patent of his nobility; but if he could have become a Commoner again, he could never have recovered the popular confidence and admiration which endeared to him the days which he had spent in Opposition.

away.

When he was still a youth, his friend Horner requested a correspondent's opinion of his physiognomy. That singular physiognomy was soon familiar to all the world, in all civilized countries. Those who saw it alive and at work could not doubt that his faults had a constitutional origin which it would have required strong moral force to overcome. That moral force he had not. One of the noblest traits in his character was his attachment to his venerable mother. Ste deserved everything from him; and he never failed in duty and affection to her. During the busiest days of his Chancellorship he wrote to her by every post. Happily, she died before his deepest descents were

made. He married a widow lady, Mrs. Spalding, by whom he had two children-one of whom died in early infancy, and the other, a daughter, in early youth, after a short life of disease. His peerage and estates, therefore, pass to the family of his brother, William Brougham, late Master in Chancery; the former under special remainder in the Patent of Creation.

Lord Brougham was at his chateau at Cannes when the first introduction of the daguerreotype process took place there; and an accomplished neighbour proposed to take a view of the chateau, with a group of guests in the balcony. The artist explained the necessity of perfect immobility. He only asked that his Lordship and friends would keep perfectly still for five seconds;" and his Lordship vehemently promised that he would not stir. He moved about too soon, however; and the consequence was a blur where Lord Brougham should be; and so stands the daguerreotype view to this hour. There is something mournfully typical in this. In the picture of our century, as taken from the life by History, this very man should have been a central figure; but now, owing to his want of stedfastness, there will be for ever-a blur where Brougham should have been.

DAVID GARRI C K. *

[Quarterly Review, July, 1868.]

DAVID Garrick was born at the Angel Inn, Hereford, on the 19th February, 1716. He was French by descent. His paternal grandfather, David Garric, or Garrique, a French Protestant of good family, had escaped to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, reaching London on the 5th of October, 1685. There he was joined in the following December by his wife, who had taken a month to make the passage from Bordeaux in a wretched bark of fourteen tons, 'with strong tempests, and at great peril of being lost." Such was the inveteracy of their persecutors, that, in effecting their own escape, these poor people had to leave behind them their only child, a boy called Peter, who was out at nurse at Bastide, near Bordeaux. It was not till May, 1687, that little Peter was restored to them by his nurse, Mary Mougnier, who came over to London with him. By this time a daughter had been born, and other sons and daughters followed; but of a numerous family three alone survived-Peter,

*The Life of David Garrick; from Original Family Papers, and numerous published and unpublished sources. By Percy Fitzgerald, M.A., F.S.A., Author of the Life Sterne,' &c. 2 vols. London, 1868.