produce odd results, when the persons summoned by their victory to assume office have been for many years in Opposition. The party cannot have acquired official habits; the traditions of business cannot be known to them; their long course of Opposition will have forced into leadership men hardly fitted for placid government. There is said to have been much of this feeling when Lord Grey's ministry were installed: it seemed as if that "old favorite of the public," Mr. Buckstone, were called to license plays; grave Englishmen doubted the gravity of the administration. To make Lord Brougham Chancellor was therefore particularly inconvenient: he was too mobile; you could not fancy him droning. He had attacked Lord Eldon during many years, of course; but did he know law? He was a most active person would he sit still upon the woolsack? Of his inattention to his profession, men circulated idle tales. "Pity he hadn't known a little law, and then he would have known a little of everything," was the remark of one who certainly only knows one thing. A more circumstantial person recounted that when Brougham had been a pupil of Sir Nicholas Tindal in the Temple, an uncle of his, having high hopes of his ability, asked the latter, "I hope my nephew is giving himself up, soul and body, to his profession?" "I do not know anything," replied the distinct special pleader, “as to his soul, but his body is very seldom in my chambers." Putting aside with contempt this surface of tales, it could not be denied that Mr. Brougham's practice at the bar, large and lucrative as it was, immense as was the energy required to maintain it at the same time with his other labors, had yet not shown him. to possess the finest discretion, the most delicate tact of the advocate. Mr. Scarlett stole verdicts away from him. "He strikes hard, sir," said an attorney; "but he strikes wrong." His appointment as Chancellor scarcely strengthened the ministry of the time: Mr. Brougham was a hero, Lord Brougham was a

"necessity," it was like Mr. Disraeli being Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After the lapse of years, and with the actual facts. before us, it is not difficult to see how far these anticipations have been falsified and how far they have been justified by the result. All the notions as to Lord Brougham's ignorance of law may at once be discarded: a man of his general culture and vigorous faculties, with a great memory and much experience in forensic business, is no more likely to be ignorant of the essential bookwork of law than a tailor to be ignorant of scissors and seams. A man in business must be brought in contact with it, a man of mind. cannot help grasping it: no one now questions that Lord Brougham was and is a lawyer of adequate attainments. But at the same time, the judgments which supply the conclusive proof of this-the complete refutation of earlier cavilers - also would lead us to deny him the praise of an absolutely judicial intellect. Great judges may be divided into two classes judges for the parties, and judges for the lawyers. The first class of these are men who always decide the particular case before them rightly; who have a nice insight into all that concerns it; are acute discerners of fact, accurate weighers of testimony, just discriminators of argument. Lord Lyndhurst is perhaps as great a judge in this kind as it is easy to fancy; if a wise man had a good cause, he would prefer its being tried before Lyndhurst to its being tried before any one else. For the "parties," if they were to be considered in litigation, no more would be needed. By law students, however, and for the profession, something more is desired: they like to find, in a judicial decision, not only a correct adjustment of the particular dispute in court, but also an ample exposition of principles applicable to other disputes. The judge who is peculiarly exact in detecting the precise peculiarities of the case before him will be very apt to decide only what is essential to

absolutely needed by - that case: his delicate discrimination will see that nothing else is necessary; he will not bestow conclusions on after generations; he will let posterity decide its own controversies. A judge of different kind has a professional interest in what comes before him: it is in his eyes not a pitiful dispute whether A or B is entitled to a miserable field, but a glorious opportunity of deciding some legal controversy on which he has brooded for years, and on which he has a ready-made conclusion. Accordingly, his judgments are in the nature of essays. They are in one sense applicable to the matter in hand, — they decide it correctly; but they go so much into the antecedents of the controversy, give so much of principle, that the particular facts seem a little lost, the general doctrine fills the attention. No one can read a judgment of the late Lord Cottenham without feeling that it fixed the law on the matter in hand upon a defined basis for future years; very likely he finds an authority for the case which has occurred in his practice: he does not stay to inquire whether the litigants appreciated the learning; perhaps they did not, possibly they would have preferred that a more exclusive prominence should be given to themselves. Now, Lord Brougham has neither of these qualities: his intellect wants the piercing precision which distinguishes the judge the unerring judge of the case then present; and though competently learned, he has never been absorbed in his profession as a judge of "principle" almost always must be. A man cannot provide a dogma suiting all the cases of the past, and deciding all the cases for the future, without years of patient reflection; his mind must be stored with doctrines: no one can fancy this of Lord Brougham. He is not to be thought of as giving still attention to technical tenets, years of brooding consideration to an abstract jurisprudence. Accordingly, though an adequate, and in his time-for his speed cleared off arrears a most useful judge, he cannot

be said to attain the first rank in the judicial scale; and such we believe is the estimation of the world.

Of the political duties of the Chancellor, and Lord Brougham's performance of them, it is not easy to speak. Many of them are necessarily secret, and the history of those times cannot yet be written. That he showed wonderful energy, zeal, and power, no one can doubt; nor that the essential defects of his character soon showed him but little qualified for an administrator. In the year 1802, Francis Horner anticipated that if an active career were opened to Brougham, he would show a want of prudence and moderation; * and it is curious to read, as a commentary on it, what the Duke of Wellington wrote to Sir R. Peel on the 15th of November, 1834:—“His Majesty . . mentioned that Lord Brougham† had threatened that he would not put the great seal to a commission to prorogue the Parliament;" and afterwards correcting himself, "It appears that Lord Brougham did not make the threat that he would not prorogue the Parliament, but that Lord Melbourne said here that he was in such a state of excitement that he might take that course." We must wait for Lord Brougham's memoirs before we know the exact history of that time; but all the glimpses we get of it show the same picture of wildness and eccentricity.

The times the most nearly revolutionary times which England has long seen - were indeed likely to try an excitable temperament to the utmost; but at the same time they afforded scope to a brilliant manager of men, which only such critical momentary conjunctures can do. Mr. Roebuck gives a curious instance of this:

Letter to James Loch, Nov. 7, 1802 ("Memoirs of Horner," Vol. i.): — "Should an active scene be opened to Brougham, . . . I should be afraid of his being deficient in prudence."

+ The editors of Sir R. Peel's Memoirs have left this name in blank; but if they had wished it not to be known, they should have suppressed the passage. Everybody knows who held the great seal at that time.-B.

Peel Memoirs, Part ii.

"The necessity of a dissolution had long been foreseen, and decided on by the ministers, but the King had not yet been persuaded to consent to so bold a measure; and now the two chiefs of the administration were about to intrude themselves into the royal closet, not only to advise and ask for a dissolution, but to request the King on the sudden - on this very day, and within a few hoursto go down and put an end to his Parliament in the midst of the session, and with all the ordinary business of the session yet unfinished. The bolder mind of the Chancellor took the lead, and Lord Grey anxiously solicited him to manage the King on the occasion. So soon as they were admitted, the Chancellor, with some care and circumlocution, propounded to the King the object of the interview they had sought. The startled monarch no sooner understood the drift of the Chancellor's somewhat periphrastic statement than he exclaimed in wonder and anger against the very idea of such a proceeding. How is it possible, my lords, that I can after this fashion repay the kindness of Parliament to the Queen and myself? They have just granted me a most liberal civil list, and to the Queen a splendid annuity in case she survives me.' The Chancellor confessed that they had, as regarded his Majesty, been a liberal and wise Parliament, but said that nevertheless their further existence was incompatible with the peace and safety of the kingdom. Both he and Lord Grey then strenuously insisted upon the absolute necessity of their request, and gave his Majesty to understand that this advice was by his ministers unanimously resolved on; and that they felt themselves unable to conduct the affairs of the country in the present condition of the Parliament. This last statement made the King feel that a general resignation would be the consequence of a further refusal. Of this, in spite of his secret wishes, he was at the moment really afraid; and therefore he, by employing petty excuses and suggesting small and temporary difficulties, soon began to show that he was about to yield. But, my lords, nothing is prepared; the great officers of state are not summoned.' 'Pardon me, sir,' said the Chancellor, bowing with profound apparent humility, we have taken the great liberty of giving them to understand that your Majesty commanded their attendance at the proper hour.' 'But, my lords, the crown and the robes, and other things needed, are not prepared.' 'Again I most humbly entreat your Majesty's pardon for my boldness,' said the Chancellor : 'they are all prepared and ready, the proper officers being desired to attend in proper form and time.' 'But, my lords,' said the King, reiterating the form in which he put his objection, 'you know the thing is wholly impossible: the guards, the troops, have had no

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