It is now nearly forty years since this was written, and it is almost as applicable as ever. In 1828, in a debate in Parliament, Mr. Brougham used the memorable words, “The schoolmaster is abroad.” He next, in a speech of six hours’ delivery, moved for an inquiry into the state of the Law; the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Catholic Emancipation, and the Charities Commission, were next advocated by him; and then, Parliamentary Reform, the Abolition of Punishment of Forgery by Death, Local Courts, and the Abolition of Slavery. In 1830 he was raised to the high office of Lord Chancellor. Mechanics’ Institutes, and the foundation of University College, and the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, were next advocated by Lord Brougham. His Chancellorship was brief. But he continued to labour for the next thirty years in Law Reform and Social Science, and in aiding the progress of liberal opinion.
The universal energy which has marked Lord Brougham was thus ably summed up, on the publication of his volume of scientific Tracts, in 1860:
If the fact of his scientific researches were less well known, there would be something quite startling in the announcement of a volume of mathematical tracts from the hand of a man who has had half a score of other occupations, each sufficient to engross the whole mind of an ordinarily constituted mortal. To be great as a circuit leader, all-powerful as a popular chief, triumphant as a reforming Chancellor—to be the prominent figure in the Anti-Slavery movement, the promoter of education, the concocter of law-reforming statutes almost without number—the statesman of all parties, the citizen of two countries, and the orator of a thousand platforms—might have sufficed most ambitions, without the renown of literary success and scientific effort. But, not content with the public achievements of his life, or the obscure glory of anonymous literature, Lord Brougham has striven to reproduce in an English dress the eloquence of Demosthenes, and to correct the real or supposed errors of no less a philosopher than Newton himself.... Philosophical theories may survive Lord Brougham’s attacks, and savans may forget his speculations; but generations of Englishmen will long remember the career of a man who has exhibited in a thousand forms an amount of mental vitality which it would be difficult to parallel in the history of the most restless and eager aspirants to the glory of universal genius.
It is impossible to reflect upon the politico-legal position of Lord Brougham when he sat upon the woolsack, without remembering that Brougham and Denman, at the trial of Queen Caroline, attacked with virulence, then generally condemned, the Prince from whose hands, as sovereign, ten years later, both received high legal office. This change in feeling is alike creditable to all.
One of the most remarkable men of our day was Professor Wilson, the Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine, in the pages of which he is thus characterised, from his bust in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham: he was born at Paisley, in Scotland, in 1785; and died at Edinburgh, in 1854.
The head tells the story of the whole man. It is the head of an athlete, but an athlete possessing a soul, the grace of Apollo sitting on the thews of Hercules. Such a man, you would say at once, was none of your sedentary litterati, who appear to have the cramp in their limbs whenever they move abroad, but one who could, like the Greeks of old, ride, run, wrestle, box, dive, or throw the discus at need, or put the stone like Ulysses himself, or one who could do the same things, and in addition to them steer, pull an oar, shoot, fish, follow hounds, or make a good score at cricket, like a true Briton of modern times, in spite of all our physical and intellectual degeneracy, about which, indeed, we have a right to be sceptical, when we know that such an unmistakable man as Wilson was living in the reign of Queen Victoria. It is an honour to Scotland that she produced such a critic on Homer, only second to that which is hers in having produced that poet who, of all the moderns, has composed poetry the most Homeric—even Walter Scott.
[112]. Such a room as Mr. Egg has painted in his masterly picture of “The Death of Chatterton;” and, curiously enough, the house above referred to was nearly upon the same spot.
[113]. This was William, first Marquis of Lansdowne, who, as Earl of Shelburne, was Prime Minister in 1782; the date of Mr. Britton’s visit was 1798. By the Marquis’s kindness, he tells us that he left Bowood for Chippenham loaded with books, and a copy of a large Survey of Wiltshire, in eighteen folio sheets. The Marquis was a liberal patron of Art, and commenced at Bowood and Shelburne House the formation of a gallery of modern art; and his fine taste was amply inherited by his son Henry, the third Marquis, who died at Bowood in January 1863.
[114]. We remember a similarly gratifying incident in early life. We had scarcely reached twenty-one, when we had occasion to wait upon Mr. Chamberlain Clark, to request of him some particulars of the house of Cowley the poet, at Chertsey, which was then in Mr. Clark’s tenancy. The bland old Chamberlain inquired if we had ever written a book; to which the reply was, that we had a volume of topography in the press. “Then please to put down my name for a copy,” kindly rejoined the Chamberlain, although the work was merely of local interest. What kindness in one who was the chastener of refractory apprentices and the terror of evil-doers!