BROUGHAM'S SPEECHES AND INTRODUCTIONS. lean BROUGHAM has availed himself of

his enforced leisure during the last few years, to select for publication such of his speeches as tnay be considered the most important, either from

ir

subjects, their intrinsic value, or perhaps their applicability the

existing circumstances. These great oratorical efforts have to

been subjected to a revisal ; classified according to their nature, sI as to bring orations upon kindred topics together without re- gard to the period of their delivery ; and these divisions are pre- faced by introductions, containing a brief historical view of the questions discussed, and portraits, often very elaborate, of the public men connected with them. The revision does not appear to us invariably successful, warmth and raciness seeming now and then sacrificed to compression ; the arrangement, in a second edition, might easily be improved by adhering to a stricter chro- nology, which is sometimes departed from without any obvious advantage or purpose ; but the introductions are planned with remarkable skill, and possess very considerable interest. As historical sketches, they brinee' under the mind's eye the great events of the last thirty or forty years : they present, if not the true likeness, yet Lord BROUGHAM'S striking, broad, and vigorous portraiture, of what he deems the true likeness of the most eminent men of thought or action who were his contemporaries or companions : without the appearance of art or effort, they connect their author with the most arduous struggles for civil and religious liberty, and with some of its greatest triumphs ; whilst, in a manner quite as natural, they connect several of the "Reform Ministry —the Lord PALMKR- S'FONS, the WILLIAM LAM BS, the CHARLES GRANTS of other times—not only with opposition to all " reform,' but with the support of Tory measures of an oppressive kind. It is difficult, too, in inspecting the contents and casually glancing over the pages of the volumes—much less in perusing them—to avoid bearing an inward testimony to the many labours, the mighty powers, and the great public services of HENRY BROUGHAM. From 1810 to 1838, (for to so late a period do the speeches come down,) he has been constantly striving for the people, in the courts, on the hustings, and in the senate. We see him contending for the liberty of the press against the arbitrary nature of ELLENI10- ROUGH and the keen legal acumen with the sour tyrannical temper of GUIRS. For ten years he is beheld struggling manfully —notagainst the Toryism of our days, so polite and so cottforminw that it is difficult to perceive in what it differs from courtly Whiggery—but agaiust rampant and insolent Toryism, flushed with the spoils and triumphs of a " glorious " war; led on by the resolute courage of CASTLEREAGH, supported by the wit and polished eloquence of CANNING, the official skill and business- like knowledge of Husitissote, and the unscrupulous morality of SIDMOUTH; with unscrutiuized accounts at its disposal, and prompt to bribe, to bully, or to butcher, as best would answer its purpose. And BROUGHAM struggled in Parliament, against this power and these men, not only on matters of broad policy, but on subjects which showed the versatility of his faculties and extent of his ac- quirements—the commerce, the manufactures, and the agriculture of the country. He is next found fighting the good light against the nuptial tyranny of GEORGE the Fourth, the dark conspiracy of his tools, and the cowardly subservience of his Ministers. From 1820 to 1830, we see him striving with equal zeal and con- stancy in favour of large and general principles of liberty, or questions of particular policy, or individual cases of oppression. In 1930, he accepted office—in a luckless hour ; and, fettered by the ties and entanglements of official connexion, he not only assented to questionable measures, but, instigated by his evil genius, the habit of advocacy, and prompted by his natural confidence and restless egotism, he threw himself into the gap which his more wily comrades avoided, and took to his single self the odium of unpopular acts and an unwise policy. For a few years, with the exception of an occasional display on sme particular question, he was apparently idle,—partly from broken health, partly, he says himself, at the request of the MEL- Boum Ministry, who felt there was danger in his presence. During the session now closing, he has risen like a giant refreshed battling as boldly as he did in the days of CASTLEREAGH, against measures, some of which it may be questioned if the " plain sense" Of CASTLEREAGH would have allowed that Minister to propose flow; and exerting himself more effectively from the greater Powers which time and experience have given him, and from the greater confidence which lie seems to feel in dealing With the puny whipsters, who in his early days were mostly ;roomed to a silent vote, or were only listened to when some necessity constrained them to rise. What motives—whether personal disappointment, as the Ministerial hacks allege, or conscientious opposition, as he himself asserts—have prompted his conduct, can- not be told ; but here is his own story,—from the introduction to certain speeches at Liverpool delivered in 1835.

" The follovting speeches were delivered on the occasion of founding anew Mechanics Institute at Liverpool. Beside the topics more immediately con- nected with the solemnity, the second of the speeches touched upon Lord Brougham's position with relation to the new Ministry. He distinctly stated, that he did not in any sense belong to their party ; that his party was the people and the country ; that he should support the Government as loo' as it abided by its professed principles ; and that when it deserted those principles, he should abandon its support, and see whether the people would stand by the Minis- ters or by him. lie particularly specified two questions upon which he pro- mised to support them—the Municipal Reform, and the Reform of the Irish. Church. In the month following this speech, he fully redeemed the first of these pledges. It has been out of his power, or any other man's, to redeem the other ; because the Irish Church Reform no longer rests at all upon its. former principles.

"But although notice was most plainly given by Lord Brougham, that he should be found among the friends of the Ministry no longer than they adhered to their popular principles, and, above all, no longer than they showed a dis- position to make the 'Reform Bill bear its appointed fruit of a good and cheap government, the senseless advocates of the Ministers have betokened much surprise at his openly and strenuously opposing them when they took a course infinitely beyond any thing that in 1835 could be even imagined; when, as soon as the accession of the Queen threw the whole Court into their hands, they ostentatiously avowed themselves hostile to all improvement of the Reform Bill, even to the correction of its most manifest defects; when they made war upon the rights and liberties of the whole Canadian people, suvetiding their free constitution, and proclaiming a Dictatorship, because a revolt had broken out in the corner of one or two parishes, occasioned by acts of gross legislative violence and injustice ; when they framed their new Civil List upon the mos; exploded and unreasonable principles, and without the least regard to the eco- nomy which the people have an unquestionable right to demand ; finally, when they refused to comply with the voice of the whole people, by emancipating the slaves, encouraged even a revival of slave-trading, and exercised their abso- lute control over the arrangements of the Queen's household, by dismissing Lord Charles Fitzroy from her Majesty's service, as a punishment for con- scientiously voting against the continuance of slavery. It is confidently believed, that no person of ordinary discernment, and the most limited portion of fairness, can read the notice so plainly given in the second Liverpool speech, of the terms on which alone Lost Brougham would continue a supporter of Government, and say that lie could now be found among their fmien,ls without an utter abandonment of all the principles which he pro- fessed in 1835, and which indeed were those of his whole public life. It is equally clear, from his supporting the Ministry in 1835—from his giving them no opposition in 1836—from his only opposing them upon their Canada Bill in 1837—and from his beginning the opposition which he has given them during the present session (1838) as soon as they declared against Reform, and Etnancipation, and also against Economy—that their own conduct alone has caused the separation ; and that no falsehood was ever uttered, even in the utmost heats of political discord, with so audacious a disregard of the most notorious facts, nay, of the most recent and best.known dates themselves, as that insinuation which would connect his opposition with the fact of his bolding no office in the present Ministry, lie ceased to hold office in the Ministry, April 1835: he strenuously supported them all that year. Another Chancellor was appointed in 1836: Lord Brougham abstained from opposing them even when they abandoned his Plurality Bill, and brought forward a Chancery Reform so utterly ridiculous that every party gave it up, and its authors themselves speedily abandoned it to universal scorn. He even ab- stained from attending in Parliament that session, because he was apprized by the Ministers that his doing so would be fatal to the Government. In 1837, he pursued the same friendly course wherever he could; and only gave a reluc- tant opposition to the uticonstitutional bill for seizing the Canadian money without the people's consent. When, secure in Court favour by the entire pos- session of the Queen's whole authority, they proceeded to abandon almost every one important ground on which he had ever agreed with them—then, and not before, his opposition began."

It will be easier to assail this defence either for skilful foresight or for an artful use of circumstances as they have arisen, than to convict it of untruth. Against "the people and the country," however, this defence avails nothing, for they have no case against Lord BROUGHAM since 1835-6. Their charge refers to a previous date—to the time when he defended the worst acts of Lord GREY'S Ministry, and to the period when he quailed before the re- buke of the Earl of DuRHvl at Edinburgh. It is true, indeed, that he prints his own speech upon that occasion, and also quotes his censor's; and that, wanting the atmosphere which surrounded it, and explained by the coinmentary of BROUGHAM, with quiet allusiuns to " the Bowsnv Letter,- the Durham speech at Edin- burgh does not read in 1838 as it read in 1834. But truth de- pends not upon the conduct of' Earls and Barons; and the truth is, that from 1830 to 1835, Lord BROUGH AM was in a false posi- tion. In accepting office, he forgot his mission or mistook his powers : he was in an unnatural condition—in a state for which he was unfitted by his genius and his habits—which not only damaged his moral, but served to eclipse his intellectual cha- racter. The lapses of a few years, indeed, should not avail against the services of a whole life; and we admit that his pro- gress in regaining a position which he seemed to have lost for ever, has been wonderful—such as no one else could have accom-

p!ished. But it is equally true, that had his old colleagues done what was honest—had they known that in human affairs the right

course only is the safe one in the long run—he never, despite his genius, could have effected this recovery. The most important conclusion of all is, that (Octal place is not the place for HENRY BROUGHAM.

Passing from the man to his book, we shall prefer novelty, in our remaining extracts, and chiefly confine ourselves to the Intro-

ductions; beginning with part of the character of Mr. CREEVY, Mr. BROUGHAM'S fellow candidate at the contested Liverpool election of 1812, in which an opportunity is afforded him to bring in a picture of the Old Whigs.

MR. CREEVV'S OPINIONS

Coincided with those of the Whig, aristocracy on questions of Parliamentary lltsform ; being friendly to that policy, but not carrying it to any great length, and regarding many abuses in the elective system—such as the bribery and ex- penises of elections where there are two or three hundred voters—as far worse in themselves, and mnmnth more pernicious in their consequences both to the cha- racter of the voters and to the structure of the Parliament, than those flaws of rotten and nomination boroughs, which look far worse, and on all but abstract principle are much more difficult to defend. But on other matters he had many wide differences with the regular leaders of his party. He despieed the timidity which so often paralyzed their movements ; be disliked the jealousies, the personal predilections and prejudices which so frequently distracted their councils ; he abhorred the spirit of intrigue which not rarely gave some infe. rim man, or some busy meddling woman, probably unprincipled, a sway in the destiny of the party, fatal to its success, and all but fatal to its character ; he held in utter ridicule the equeatnishness both as to persons and things which emasculated an many of the genuine, regular Whigs; and no considerations of interest, no relations of friendehip, no regard for party discipline, (albeit in other respects a decided and professesl party man, and one thoroughly sensible of the value of party concert) could prevail with him to pursue that course so ruinous to the Whig Oppoeition, of balf.andsbalf resistance to the Government ; march. ing to the attack with one eye turned to the Court and one askance to the country, nor ever making war upon the Ministry without regarding the time when themselves might occupy the position now the object of assault. This manly, straightforward view of thing, not unaccompanied with ex. pressione both as to men and measure% in which truth and strength seemed emote studied than courtesy, gave no little offence to the patrician leaders of the party, who never could learn the difference between 1b10 and 1780, still fancied they lived '• in times before the flood" of the French Revolution, when the Leads of a few great families could dispose of all matters according to their own good pleasure; and never could be made to understand how a feeble mo. tion, prefaced by a feeble speech, if made by an elderly lord and seconded by a younger one, could fail to satisfy the country and shake the Ministry. The public character of JEREMY BENTHAM, introduced, with MILL and DUMONT, under the head of " Law Reform," is distin- guished by breadth and a general spirit of fairness; though it wants the profoundness, refinement, and critical discrimination which characterize an article upon the Utilitarian Patriarch in the last number of the Landon and Westminster Review.* The portrait of ALEXANDER of Russia is happy, but harsh ; that of MACKINTOSH just in the main, though favourably tempered by the memory of friendship. STEPHEN, DUMONT, And HORNER, are good, and not so much overrated in themselves, as in being compared with greater men, on whose level they are necessarily placed. 'rho character of Lord SvowELL is distinguished by nice discrimination. (The greater part of that of ROMILLY is wanting in our copy.) But the gems of the whole are the, four following, and the sketch of BENTHAM in old age. Amongst the politicians, however, (as in the case of the more elabo- rate portrait of the Edinburgh Review,) personal friendship, and probably the knowledge of capabilities not brought out to public view, have contributed to give the sketch of Lord DUDLEY and WARD an air of exaggeration.

LORD CASTLEREAGH.

Few men of more limited capacity, or more meagre acquirements than Lord Castlereagh possessed, had before his time ever risen to any station of eminence in our free country ; fewer still have long retained it in a state where mere court intrigue and princely favour have so little trade with men's advance- ment. But we have lived to see persons of more obscure merit than Lord Castlereagh rise to equal station in this country. Of sober and industrious habits, and become possessed of business-like talents by long experience, he was a person of the most commonplace abilities. Ile had a reasonable quickness of apprehension and clearness of understanding ; but nothing brilliant or in any way admirable marked either his conceptions or his elocution. Nay, to judge of his intellect by his eloquence, we should certainly have formed a very unfair estimate of its perspicacity. For, though it was hardly possible to underrate its extent or comprehensiveness, it was very far from being confused and per- plexed in the proportion of his sentences; and the listener who knew how din. tinctly the speaker could form his plans, and how clearly his ideas were known to himself, might, comparing small things with great, be reminded of the pro- digious contrast between the distinctness of Oliver Cromwell's understanding and the hopeless confusion and obscurity of his speech. No man, besides, ever attained the station of a regular debater in our Parliument with such an entire want of all classical accomplishment, or indeed of all literary movision what- soever. While he never showed the lea.t symptoms of an information extenil. ing beyond the more recent volumes of the Parliamentary Debates, or possibly the tiles of the newspapers only, his diction set all imitation, perhaps all de- scription, at defiance. It was with some an amusement to beguile the tedious hours of their unavoidable attendance on the poor, tawdry, ravelled thread of his sorry discourse, to collect a kind of aria from the fragments of mixed, in- congruous, and disjointed images that frequently appeared in it. "The features of the clause"—" the ignorant impatience of the relaxation of taxation "— " sets of circumstances coming up and circumstances going down"—." men turn- ing their backs upon themselves "—" the honourable and learned gentlemen's wedge getting into the loyal feelings of the manufacturing classes ".--•• the con- stitutional principle wound up in the bowels of the monarchical principle"— " the Herculean labour of the honourable and learned Member, who will find lams& quite disappointed when he has at last brought forth his Hercules "—(by a slight confounding of the mother's labour, who produced that hero, with his own exploits which gained him immortality)—these are but a few, and not the richest samples, by any means, of a theturic which often battled alike the gra- vity of the Treasury Bench and the art of the reporter, and left the wondering audience at a loss to conjecture how any one could ever exist endowed with humbler pretensions to the name of orator. Wherefore, when the Tory party "having a devil," preferred him to Mr. Canning for their leader, all men na- turally expected that he would entirely fail to command even the attendance of the House while he addressed it ; and that the benches, empty during his time, would only be replenished when his bighly-gifted competitor row. They were greatly deceived ; they underrated the effect of place and power; they forgot that the representative of a Government speaks 'as one having authority, and not as the scribes.' But they also forgot that Lord Castlereagh hail some qua. lities well-fitted to conciliate favour, and even to provoke admiration, in the absence of every thing like eloquence. He was a bold and fearless man; the very courage with which he exposed himself unabashed to the most critical audience in the world, while incapable of uttering two sentences of any thing but the meanest matter, in the most wretched language—the gallantry with which he faced the greatest difficulties of a question—the unflinching per- severance with which he went through a whole subject, leaving untouched not one of its points, whether he could grapple with it or na, and not one of the adverse arguments, however forcibly and felicitously they bad been urged, • Art. XI. "The Works of Jeremy Bentham." Our praise applies to the abi- lity, temper, and philosophical catholicity of the writer in the London, hut does .not bind us to implicit concurrence in every item of opinion; in some respects we incline to think his estimate too depreciatory. Neither can we subscrita to Lord BROUGHA M'S dictum, that Bettro.tar in his private character was 41 rather to be respected than beloved."

TIIE TRIUMVIRATE OF ANTI-REFORMERS—CANN/NG, W RD, AND HUSKISSON.

It is difficult to overrate the effects of this resistance in obstructing the pro. giess of Reform. Mr. Canning and Lord Dudley especially, the men of the greatest talents in the party, were truly formidable antagonists. Possessing in an equal degree all the resources of accurate and extensive information, ell the powers of acute reasoning and lively fancy, and all the accomplishments of the most finished classical education, they differed rather in the degrees to which habit and accident had fitted them for actual business, and in the strength of their understandings as influenced by their inclinations, than in the genius or the acquirements which might inspire or had bailie(' their oratory. Mr. Can. Fling was the more powerful declaimer, Lord Dudley had the more original fancy nnd the sharper wit ; although in every kind of wit and humour Mr. Canning, too, greatly excelled most other tneu. Lord Dudley could fillow in argument with more sustained acuteness, while Mr. Canning possessed a skill in statement which frequently disposed of the matter in dispute before his adver. sary was aware that his flank had been, as it were, turned, and thus spared I himself the labour of an elaborate attack by argumentation. Huth prepared for their greater exhibitions with extreme care, and wrote more than almost any other modern orators; but Mr. Canning had powers of extempore debating which Lord Dudley had either never acquired or hardly ever ventured to exert; and he used those powers with the practised dexterity which long and constant exercise can alone bestow, sometimes in pronouncing the whole of a speech, and at other times in the far more difficult task, the last attainment of rhetori- cal art, of weaving the extemporary up with the prepared passages, and deli- awing the whole so as to make the transition from the previous composition to the inspiration of the moment wholly imperceptible even to the most experie ecced eye. In habits of business, and the faculties which these whet, or train, or possibly bestow, Mr. Canning had of course all the advantage which could be derived from a long life in office acting upon abilities of so high an order. But that Lord Dudley only wanted such training to equal him in these respects, was apparent from the masterly performance of his official duties which marked his short administration of the Foreign department in 1827. Here, however, all parallel between these eminent individuals carols. In strength of mind, in that firmness of purpose which makes both a man and a statesman, there was, indeed, little comparison between them. Both were of a peculiarly sensitive and even irritable temperament; and this, while it affected their mare ner and followed them into debate, quitted them not in the closet or the Cabinet. But in Mr. Canning the weakness had limits which were not traced in the nervous temperament of Lord Dudley. He suffered all his life under what afterwards proved to be a diseased state of the system ; and, after making the misery of part of his existence, and shading the happiness even of its brightest portions, it ended in drawing a dark and dismal curtain over his whale facultim towards the close of his life. The result of the sae= morbid temperament wet a want of fixed inclination, a wavering that affected his judgment as well as his feelings, an incapacity to form, or, after forming, to abide by any fixed resole. Con; so that a man more amply endowed with the gifts both of nature and fortune than any other in any age, although he rose to great station, enjoyed.= enviable share of renown, and never appeared in any capacity without raising an admiration great in proportion to the discernment of the beholders, pass through life with less effect upon the fate of his fellow creatures than hundred, of the most ordinary men on whom, as lie was well entitled, he daily looked down. The article in which his power has been the most felt, was certainly that of Parliamentary Reform, of which he was, with all his party, the con- stant and uncompromising adversary; and on which the last and perhaps greatest efforts of his genius were made. With these men was joined Mr. Huskisson, than whom few have ever it- tamed as great influence in this country, with so few of the advantages which are apt to captivate senates or to win popular applause, and, at the frame time, with so few of the extrinsic qualities which in the noble and the wealthy can always make up for such natural deficiencies. He was nut fluent of speech natio rally, nor had much practice rendered him a ready speaker ; he had none of the graces of diction, whether he prepared himself, (if Inc ever did so,) or trusted to the moment. His manner was peculiarly ungainly. His statements were calculated rather to excite distrust than to win confidence. Yet, with all this, he attained a station in the House of Commons which made him as much listened to as the most consummate deb ttera ; and upon the questions to which he, generally speaking, confined himself—the great matters of commerce and finance—he delivered himself with almost oracular certainty of effect. This success he owed to the thorough knowledge which he possessed of his subjects, the perfect clearness of his understanding, the keenness with which he could apply his information to the purpose of the debate, the acuteness with which he could unravel the argument and expose an adversary's weakness, or expouod his own doctrines. In respect of his political purity, he did not stand very high with any party. He had the same intense love of office which was and is the vice of has whole party, and to which they have made such sacrifices ; Int diming indeed into a principle what was only a most pernicious error, the source of all unworthy cornpliances, the cloak for every evil proceeding, that no one can effectually serve the state in a private station. One immediate result of this heresy was to make Mr. Huskieson, like his leader, mistake place for power, and ding to the possession of mere office when the authority to camel those measures which alone make office desirable to a patriot, was either with. neither daunted by recollecting the impreesion just made by his antagonists brilliant display, nor damped by consciousness of the very rags in which he now presented himself—all this made him upon the whole rather a favourie with the audience whose patience he was taxing mercilessly, and whose grays, he ever and anon put to a very severe trial. Nor can any one have forgoer; the kind of pride that mantled on the fronts of the Tory phalanx, when being overwhelmed with the powetful fire of the Whila, Opposition, orDiet by the fierce denunciations of the Mountain, or harasser: by the splendia ss. plays of Mr. Canning, their chosen leader stood forth, and presenting mit graces of his eminently patrician figure, flung open his coat, displayed an arse riband traversing a snow white-chest, and declared "his high satisfaction tie he could now meet the charges against him face to face, and repel with Pees nation all that his adversaries had been bold and rash enough to advance." • Such he was in debate ; in council he certainly had far more resources, possessed a considerable fund of plain sense, not to be misled by any refinement of speculation, or clouded by any fanciful notions. He went straight toles point ; he was brave politically as well as personally. Of this, his conduct on the Irish Union had given abundant proof; and nothing could be more just than the rebuke which, as connected with the topic of personal courage, we may recollect his administering to a great man who had passed the limiters Parliamentary courtesy—" Every one must be sensible," he said, "that if ss, personal quarrel were desired, any insulting language used publicly, where ft could not be met as it deserved, was the way to prevent and not to produce earl a rencounter." No one after that treated him with disrespect. The complaing made of his Irish administration were perfectly well grounded as regarded the corruption of the Parliament by which he accomplished the Union; but they were entirely unfounded as regarded the crueltiee practised during and after the Rebellion. Far from partaking in these atrocities, he uniformly and strenuously set his face against them. Ile was of a cold temperament and determined chit. meter, but not of a cruel disposition ; and to him, more than perhaps to thy one else, was owing the termination of the system stained with blood.

fect and unblemished. His honesty was unimpeachable, and hi

word might, upon any s droll" per subject, be taken as absolutely conclusive, whatever he might have for distorting or exaggerating the truth. But be was, 14ectivieally of late years, of a somewhat jealous disposition ; betrayed impatience if to another was ascribed any part whatever of the improvements in jurispru- dence which all originated in his own labours, but to effect which different kinds of men were required, and even showed some disinclination to see any one interfere, although as a coadjutor, and for the furtherance of his own deigns, It is said that he suffered a severe mortification in not being brought 1. in life into Parliament ; although he must have felt that a worse service au ) Dever Could have been rendered to the cause be had most at heart, than to remove him from his own peculiar sphere to one in which, even if be had ex- eeelled, lie vet never could have been nearly so useful to mankind. It is certain that he showed, upon ninny occasions, a harshness as well as coldness of dispo- sition towards individuals to whose unremitting friendship he owed great obli- gations; and his impatience to see the splendid reforms which his genius hail o'incted accomplished before his death, increasing as the time of his departure itnigh, made him latterly regard even his most familiar friends only as instru. soots of reformation, and gave a very unamiable and indeed a revolting aspect of callousness to his feeling's towards them. For the sudden and mournful death of one old and truly illustrious friend, he felt, as he expressed, no pain at all; towards the person of a more recent friend he never concealed his respect, because be disappointed some extravagant lumen which be had formed that the bulk of a large fortune, acquired by honest industry, would be ex Fended in promoting Parliamentary influence to be used in furthering great political ',homes. Into all these unamiable features of his character, every furrow of which was deepened and every shade darkened by increasing years, there entered nothing base or hypocritical. If he felt little for a friend, he pre- Medd to no more than he felt. If his sentiments were tinged with asperity sad edged with spite, he was the first himself to declare it ; and no one formed a less favourable or a more just judgment of his weaknesses than he himself did, nor did any one pronounce such judgments with a severity that exceeded the confessions of his own candour. Upon the whole then, wit le; in his public capacity he presented an °Nem of admiration and of gratitude, in his private character he was formed rather to he respected and studied, than beloved.

In going over the Speeches, however cursorily, one is struck with great changes, not only in the orator, but apparently in the audience. In the earlier addresses, notwithstanding his vehe- mence, BROUGHAM found it incumbent to speak of authorities of any kind with a respectful caution, which men of a much colder temperament would not now feel necessary. There is also something more of trammel or constraint in the orations—or, if this is too strong a term, more of that cautious attention to rule, which gives to productions a mechanical air—than is now visible in his greater efforts. This drawback was soon removed : the last very striking traces of laborious art being shown in the mag- nificent exordium—so apt and artful in topics, so closely classical in style—of the speech on Queen CAROLINE'S trial ; after which, he began to adopt a more bold, unrestrained, and masterly man- ner, that seems now matured—to the great gain of his " noble friends" in the Upper House.

Considered merely as printed speeches—as intellectual composi- tions—this collection will bear comparison with any in a modern language; though there are several which they do not surpass, and one or two which they do not equal. In depth, universality, brilliancy of eloquence, and above all in justness of view, they are inferior to those of BURKE ; though the stirring nature of many of BacmonAst's subjects, and their relation to events within our own experience, may render them more generally attractive than Bumf s productions. In sustained finish of composition and in pungent delicacy of wit, they roust be rated somewhat below the best efforts of CANNING; who in kind, though not in degree, ap- proaches nearer than any speaker of modern times to the great Roman orator. Some passages have the force, but want the quiet strength, of the gems of SHERIDAN, and perhaps of ERSKINE : nor —taking a refined and abstract view of the speeches throughout— putting aside any thing which they may derive from their subjects, or from our closer connexion with them—can they be held as other than deficient in fulness of matter, in narrative lucidly complete, and in that proof or semblance of proof which convinces by its reasons, or better still by its statements,—for it cannot be denied that the orator is too constantly the one-sided partisan or the thick- and-thin advocate. Advocacy is indeed the "devil" of Rao u GH A al ; but it is a genial devil—one that renders him so useful in a good muse, and resting not upon hired art, but natural impulse, may, after all, give him his peculiar character—be the idiosyncrasy which distinguishes him among orators. Thus far we have been considering these speeches as orations, in the sense which antiquity forces us to attach to the word—as Mental enlists, in which, by the philosophical or poetical powers of the orator, universal examples were deduced from particular cases, or individual instances were embalmed by the art and pas- sion of the artist. In an elaborate "Disquisition on the Oratory of the Ancients," affixed to his Speeches, Lord BROUGHAM argues, that the ancients regarded an oration as an intellectual display, (like a drama or an opera,) instead of a real discussion of business, as with us. This theory might he received, with- out in any way accounting for modern deficiency ;* inasmuch as it resolves itself at last into a difference of mode; and no one will argue that SHAKSPEARE surpassed "The True Chiv- e The whole paper is based upon, or at least resembles, an article which for- merly appeared in the Edinburgh Revitie. In some points the author is right, in others wrong; in some his statements are true, but his inferences false. When a fit occasion offers, we may return to this euhject, and endeavour to dis- cover the reasons ; which are more deeply seated than the noble and learned Writer appears to see. leid or removed fordpreferment's sake. Yet whoever has known either of theme a ts his ete on those followers whom the have left be- mayLenecu.stInfied.c heaving a sigh exclaims, s, " Eheuy, quam multo

minus est cum reliquis versari, quam meant:um .

twrivuaat IN OLD ACE.

Tte moral character of this eminent person was, in the most important par- nick History of King Leir and his three Daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Conlella," by mere formal changes. But, if we look at these speeches in the light in which all harangues may

be more or less considered, as addresses to serve a present pur- pose,—not to teach people what they do not know ; not to

convince them of that about which they are altogether sceptical ;

not to induce them to take some steps, to do something respect- tog which they are totally unprepared ; but to furnish those who

have come to a " foregone conclusion " with strong reasons or motives for a conduct to which they are inclined ; to determine minds which are trembling in the balance; to stimulate to action

the acquiescence of indifference or the fears of timidity ; to sting and to shame opponents, and to weaken their power by acting upon the opinion of their followers,—viewed in this light, Lord BROUGHAM is without a rival. With much of surplusage, lumber- big and useless when the occasion is passed, and with some things that would not at any time stand the test of calm and exact exa- mination, he is unequal's d as an advocate, bold, unscrupulous, and seemingly self-convincel. He states his own view of his own case, strikingly, forcibly, clinchingly ; he pushes a false argu- ment of his adversary to its extreme extent, and shows by ana- logous examples its utter absurdity; he possesses a power of sar- casm, or of irony, which, though it tramples on all conventional delicacy, rarely transgresses any formal bounds, but scathes or withers the victim, without emotion on the part of the victimarius —who wields his weapon as if the object were not death, but an- nihilation by torture. Wilt reading and scientific acquirements almost without example in men of active pursuits, he is rarely at fault in point of facts or information, and is enabled to draw his illustrations and images from time whole range of art and na- ture. What, in a popular view, is more important, he possesses a power of dramatic personification, which can embody a prin- ciple in a person. Thus, in the passage already quoted—of the old Oppositiern fancying,. that " a feeble motion, prefaced by a feeble speech, if made by an elderly lord, and seconded by a younger one," must shake a Min try—who does not see, as in a broad comedy, the silly old and the self-sufficient young Whig,. impressed with the idea that Whiggety is an essential of social nature, awl that nought is wantit g to the rolitical but that " the party " should be " in power to govern for the people?"

A mere " orator " is not, however, the true character of HENRY BROUGHAM, though many fancy so. Still less is he to be con- sidered as a " statesman ; " in which capacity he has really had no opportunity of exercising his powers, and would doubtless fail. if he had. Nor is he to he censured, as some watild have it, be- cause he has not originated or consummated any great question. Such is not his function. He plays a part which is non-existent in Continental Europe ; and, though some traces of it may be found in the ancient republics, it has enly been perfectly developed in England, and that perhaps in the person of IluotiGsesis him- self. Ile is an active politician,—or, more truly, the people's partisan. Ile fills an intermediate station between thos.o higher Genii, who from time silence of the closet expound truths essen- tial to the wellbeing of maekind, and those Slaves the Lamp, who at last effectuate them, grudgingly arid unwillingly, as the price of their official existence. Such a twan cannot originate measures, for he has not time to discover original truths : if he did, no mixed audience would listen to him ; and a published oration would not answer the purpose, for didactic writing, not speech, is the proper and natural mode of disseminating such doctrines, at least since the invention of printing. A man, too, fitted for the task we speak of, has rarely the temper, the patience, or the accommodating disposition, adapted to trim and shape mea- sures at once practically and successfully. From his very nature, he cannot possess that thorough knowledge of details which offi- cial training alone gives. His task, and a great one, is to im- press the public mind—to stimulate the people—to compel the executive. He takes up questions when they are ripening ; when the masses are ready to receive them ; when more thoughtful and influential individuals have received them, but want encourage- ment to move in them ; when they can be mooted in Parliament without appearing abstract, arid the larger division of the press, which subsists by common traffic, most notice the subjects. For this post of nation-leader BROUGHAM is fitted beyond all others.. His oratory—always striking and readable, frequently impressive or amusing in the highest degree—forces itself conspicuously into every journal, and is read in some form or other by every man who reads politics. His dexterity in debate, his readiness in reply, the crushing severity or contemptuous bitterness of his retort, and above all, a confidence which never deserts him, enabling him to. say the last worth, and to say it well, conibine to make his side of a question appear a good one, unless to the few logicians with whom reasoning analysis is a habit. Other faculties equally serve him.. To talk is a law of his nature. The presence of foes cannot terrify him; let a " reporter " be present, the absence both of friend* and foes cannot depress him ; the apparent apathy or opposition. of a nation cannot silence him. He thunders and flashes on till he rouses. In history, SHAFTF:SBURY alone seems exactly to re- semble him ; but SHAFTESBURY fell upon times whose condi- tion and appliances were unfavourable to the development of his. powers. In the present day, no man approaches BROUGHAM. For a vulgar audience, O'CONNELL has a mare coaxing way, and some- times a tenderness of feeling and a delicacy of satire which BROUGHAM does not aim at : but there is no comparison be- tween them in all the higher qualities of eloquence—in largeness of view, in general comprehension, in acquired knowledge. O'Cosr- weet„ too, reads badly : his reasoning narrow, or local r his pathos, maudlin ; his praise, blarney ; his invective, abuse ; and his general spirit showing a low caste of mind. For an audience of lords or lawyers, and for some particular purposes, LYNDHURST may sur- pass BROUGHAM but he is unfitted to act with effect upon the people; still less could he do what BROUGHAM—starting alone, without friend or followers—has accomplished within the last six months. PEEL, with position, a strong party to back him, and in a regular fight, might maintain his ground ; but unas- sisted by adventitious aid, the first " rough and tumble " would finish him : and it is the drawback of both LYNDHURST and FEEL, that the value of their speeches departs as the occasion passes which produced them. With the rest—the si 9roUos of Peers and M.P.s—no comparison can be instituted: not merely do they dwarf beside HENRY BROUGHAM, they seem like crea- tures of another species.