BROUGHAM AND HIS EARLY FRIENDS.*
AN age which has ceased to be irritated by Brougham's, eccentricities is peepared to be interested even in small about that strange mixture of craziness and genius. Two (if these handsome volumes contain the letters Addressed to James Loch by certain of his friends, of whom Broughate was the most distinguished. They were discovered a short. time ago among some family papers, and the editors, Messri.. Atkinson and Jackson, have reprinted them in chronological order, and in a third volume of appendices have provided, full notes on the different persons referred to. With engaging. candour they print alio the names of the people they have, been unable to identify. James Loch of Drylaw Nyas- a Whig conveyancing counsel, who afterwards became the. Duke of Sutherland's Highland agent and a Member of Parliament. He was the father of Lord Loch, who was High Commissioner for South Africa. He seems to have done a. great deal of wirepuiling for his party, and these letters show- him to have been a much,valued and most accommodating. friend. Many of them a.re of small interest. Francis Horner- writes in- a vein of badinage which gives one a new impressioN of that young Marcellue of the Whigs. Andrew Clephane,. afterwards Sheriff of Fife, writes amusing letters which shed: some light on the bard-drinking life of the junior Scottish. Bar of the period. There is a good letter from the future. Sir Frederick Adam giving a graphic account of service in Egypt, and William Adam describes pleasantly a visit to. Charles James Fox at St. Anne's, and the literary projects of' that statesman. Gilbert Elliot, the second Earl of Mao,. gives us a curious glimpse of the Whig attitude to Sir Walter- Scott. But Brougham is the triton among these minnows, and hie correspondence shows us something of those unquiet. years while he was still hesitating between the Scottish and English Bars, and inclined often to east law to the winds for- Borne chance in diplomacy or letters.
Brougham's letters have a fine air of violence and generalt disreputability. He has no reticence about his habits, which,.
were not always decorous, or about his projects, which were- often absurd. Hie tone varies from extreme coarseness to. Wise and affectionate advice. At the age of twenty-two he- reveals himself as sink of law, and longs for some official appointment abroad. According to Clephane, be was very " Brougham and his Early .Prionds Lettere to James Loch, 1798-1809..
Collected and Arranged by B. H. K. Huddle Atkinson and A. Jackson.. 3 vols. London; Privately Printed.
idle, and slept over his books. Two years later he is in the Slough of Despond, considers the English Bar no better than the Scottish, despairs of a post in India, and would welcome the Army if he were not too old. Most eminent advocates have gone threugh a similar experience. To fill his time he wrote a book on Colonial policy, and employed the amiable Loch to collect materials. The grasp of the subject, as .shown by his suggested classification and the whole method of approaching the work, is remarkable, and gives one some idea of his immense mental energy. It has been too generally assumed that Brougham's career at the Parliament House was marked only by freaks and escapades. But these letters show that he had worked up a fair practice and made a very serious effort after success, though he was always on tiptoe for a wider career. " I know," he writes at the age of twenty-five, "I shall rise near the top in the end, but as for the meantime I shall be content if I do not sink to the muddy Bottom of Scots Law." His friends bear testimony to his restlessness, his energy, and his remarkable habits. Clephane, who reckoned "no man to be Drunk if he can lie on the floor without holding the carpet," hoped to mend his ways if only Brougham went to England. The same authority came to the conclusion that the law was not for his friend. "It is my own private opinion that he will never practise at any Bar whatever," he wrote of the man who seventeen. years later ascended the Woolsack. The correspondence closes when Brougham, aged thirty, was beginning to find his feet in Westminster Hall. These later letters show an advance in good sense and decorum. Brougham is very ready with advice and the most candid criticism, but there is always an undercurrent of genuine friendliness. Some of the letters written during his tour of the Continent are full of close observation and graphic description. On the whole, the volumes show that Brougham was uncommonly mature at aa early age, and that where his temperamental restlessness, which was not far distant from madness, did not pervert his judgment, he was capable of a shrewd wisdom which few young men have displayed. For all his pranks, he saw very clearly where he wanted to go to, and he had mastered the rules of the road, In the volume of appendices the editors have included a long critical and biographioal sketch of Brougham's career. On the whole, it is carefully and judiciously done, though we do not always agree with the comments. On p. 23, by some inadvertence, Wilde'a title is given as Lord Thurlow, instead of Lord Truro. "A Nr. Croker " is scarcely the way to refer to a man who was as famous in his day as Mr. Winston Churchill is in ours. "Lord Buchan of Dryburgli" is a misleading designation. We would suggest that the Mr.
Burt referred to may be properly Burnet, the name being contracted in a letter, for the estate of Barns with which he is credited wee a Burnet property. These are trifling matters.; but we sometimes find ourselves in disagreement with the editors on important episodes in Brougham's career.
It is impossible to accept Brougham's own account of the steps which led to the offer of the Woolsack. He wanted to remain in the House of Commons as its leader, and therefore he wanted to be Master of the Rolls—an irremovable office—and Member for Yorkshire. He says that the King refused him the post; but it is quite certain that the King had nothing to do with it. The opposition came from Althorp, who very properly declined to have Brougham in the House on such, terms. Ifr. Atlay is probably right in cenjecturing that the expedient of offering him the Woolsack oecarred to Grey when he had given up thoughts of approach- ing Lyndhurst. The editors, again, think the story of Brougham's informing the Tinto of the dismissal of the Ministry in 1834 incredible ; but we see no reason to doubt a fact which was believed by all his contemporaries, inoluding his warmest apologists. The Times was the chief journalistic Power of the day, and the fact that it was at war with the Chancellor made no difference if his aim was publicity. Nor can we see any reason to discredit the story that Brougham was privy to the announcement of his death in 1839. Mr. Sbafto stated the fact categorically in a letter to Mr. Alfred Montgomery, and though Brougham afterwards denied writing it, the general explanation was that he had dictated it. The editore admit that he wrote a letter, but urge that some one heard it read and misunderstood it. If this he so, it is difficult to account for the strange behaviour of the recipient, Mr. Montgomery, who dashed off in a post.ohaise to Fernhill to break the news to Lord Wellesley. There is much justice, however, in the final judgment which the editors pass on the subject of their labours. They find a key to his eccentricities in his Border blood. "Like the old Moss-trooper, he was never so happy as when fighting against odds ; like the old Moss-trooper, he was ever ready to quarrel with his friends) even to the ruin of a common cause. He lived fighting and by fighting."
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