The Project Gutenberg eBook, International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850, by Various

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Title: International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850

Author: Various

Release Date: December 23, 2004 [eBook #14431]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY OF LITERATURE, ART AND SCIENCE, VOL. 1, NO. 3, OCT. 1, 1850***

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THE INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. 1. NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1850. No. 3.

[Illustration:
HENRY BROUGHAM, LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX.
FROM A SKETCH BY ALFRED CROWQUILL, MADE IN JULY, 1850.]

LORD BROUGHAM.

It is generally understood that this most illustrious Englishman now living, will, in the course of the present year, visit the United States. Whatever may be the verdict of the future upon his qualities or his conduct as a statesman, it is scarcely to be doubted that for the variety and splendor of his abilities, the extent, diversity and usefulness of his labors, and that restless, impatient and feverish activity which has kept him so long and so eminently conspicuous in affairs, he will be regarded by the next ages as one of the most remarkable personages in the age now closing—the second golden age of England. Lord Brougham is of a Cumberland family, but was born in Edinburgh (where his father had married a niece of the historian Robertson), on the 19th of September, 1779. He was educated at the University of his native city, and we first hear of him as a member of a celebrated debating society, where he trained himself to the use of logic. He was not yet sixteen years of age when he communicated a paper on Light to the Royal Society of London, which was printed in their transactions; and before he was twenty he had written discussions of the higher geometry, which, appearing in the same repository of the best learning, attracted the general attention of European scholars. In 1802, with his friends Jeffrey, Francis Homer, and Sidney Smith, he established the Edinburgh Review. In 1806 he published his celebrated "Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers," and soon after was called to the English bar, and settled in London, where he rapidly rose to the highest eminence as a counselor and an advocate. On the 16th of March, 1808, he appeared in behalf of the merchants of London, Liverpool, Manchester, &c., before the House of Commons, in the matter of the Orders in Council restricting trade with America, and greatly increased his fame by one of the most masterly arguments he ever delivered. In 1810 he became a member of Parliament, and he soon distinguished himself here by his speeches on the slave trade and against the Orders in Council, which, mainly through his means, were rescinded. Venturing, at the general election of 1812, to contest the seat for Liverpool with Mr. Canning, he was defeated, and for four years he devoted himself chiefly to his profession. In this period he made many of his most famous law arguments, and acquired the enmity of the Prince Regent by his defense of Leigh Hunt, and his brother, in the case of their famous libel in "The Examiner." In 1816 he commenced those powerful and indefatigable efforts in behalf of education, by which he is perhaps best entitled to the gratitude of mankind. As chairman of the educational committee of forty, he drew up the two voluminous and masterly reports which disclosed the exact condition of British civilization, and induced such action on the part of government as advanced it in ten years more than it had been previously advanced in a century. In 1820 he displayed in their perfection those amazing powers of knowledge, reason, invective, sarcasm, and elocution, on the trial of Queen Caroline, which more than anything else have made that trial so memorable among legal and forensic conflicts. In 1822 he made his unparalleled speech in the case of the Dean and Chapter of Durham against Williams, and in the following year was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. On the downfall of the Wellington administration, in 1830, and the consequent general election, he was returned to Parliament as one of the members for Yorkshire, and a few weeks afterward was made Lord High. Chancellor, and elevated to the peerage under the title of Lord Brougham and Vaux. He continued in the office of Lord Chancellor until the dissolution of the Melbourne cabinet, in 1834. In 1823 he wrote his "Practical Observations on the Education of the People," and was engaged with Dr. Birkbeck in the formation of the first Mechanics' Institution. In 1827 he was one of the originators of the London University, and in the same year he founded the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, of which he was the first president, and for which he wrote its first publication, the admirable "Treatise on the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science." In 1830 he was elected a member of the Institute of France, and about the time of his resignation of the chancellorship he published his "Discourse on Natural Theology." In 1840 he published his "Historical Sketches of the Statesmen who flourished in the Time of George the Third;" in 1845-6, "Lives of Men of Letters and Science who flourished in the Time of George the Third;" and he has since given to the world works on "The French Revolution," on "Instinct," "Demosthenes' Oration on the Crown," &c., &c. Collections of his Speeches and Forensic Arguments, and of his Critical Essays, as well as the other works above referred to, have been republished in Philadelphia, by Lea and Blanchard.

In the language of the Editor of his "Opinions", Lord Brougham is remarkable for uniting, in a high degree of perfection, three things which are not often found to be compatible. His learning is all but universal: his reason is cultivated to the perfection of the argumentative powers; and he possesses in a rare and eminent degree the gift of eloquence.

Of his learning it may be said that there is scarcely a subject, on which ingenuity or intellect has been exercised, that he has not probed to its principles, or entered into with the spirit of a philosopher. That he is a classical scholar of a high order, is shown by his criticisms on the internal peculiarities of the works of the ancients and their styles of composition. They evince an intimate acquaintance with the great master pieces of antiquity. The book-worms of Universities—those scholastic giants who are great on small questions of quantity and etymology,—who buckle on the ponderous armor of the commentators in the contest with more subtle wits, on the interesting doubt of a wrong reading; such men, in the