HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM. 5 



stable, the publisher, had cheerfully acquiesced in the proposal that the articles, 

 at first gratuitous, should be paid for at the rate of 101. a sheet. Of all the con- 

 tributors during Jeffrey's long editorship, which began in 1803, and closed in 

 1828, and during which the rate of payment was more than doubled, Brougham 

 was the most industrious and versatile* 



In the second number, Brougham wrote a paper on Kepler's celebrated Pro- 

 blem, which he was led to after the discovery of the law which bears his name. 



In 1S07, Brougham removed from Edinburgh to London, where he qualified 

 himself for the English bar. The reasons of this change were various, for one 

 thing, as may be learnt from Lord Cockburn's account of the discouragements 

 under which Scottish Whiggism then laboured in Edinburgh, and particularly 

 within the precincts of the ' Parliament House' or Supreme Courts of Law, the 

 prospects of a young Whig lawyer in Scotland cannot have been very brilliant. 

 It is said, however, that a visit to London in 18(17, in order to plead before the 

 House of Lords in a case respecting the succession to the Scottish dukedom of 

 Roxburghe, was t he immediate cause of his resolution to come permanently to 

 England. At all events, in 180S, when he was in his twenty-ninth year, he was 

 called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and began to practise as an English barrister 

 at the Court of King's Bench and on the northern circuit. 



Mr. Brougham entered Parliament in 1810, and first sat for Camelford, at once 

 ranging himself with the Whig opposition. He next sat for Winchester, then 

 for Knaresborough, and lastly for the West Biding of Yorkshire, having in 

 the intervals strongly contested Liverpool, the Inverkeithing burghs, and 

 Westmoreland. He entered with spirit, energy, and consummate ability <>n the 

 discussion of all the great questions of the da)'. Slavery and the Slave Trade, 

 Agricultural Distress, Parliamentary Reform, Catholic Emancipation, the Holy 

 Alliance, Reduction of the Army, and the Corn Law monopoly, were all sup- 

 ported by his most fervid oratory. His support of Queen Caroline to claim her 

 rights as Queen Consort and wife of George IV., brought Mr. Brougham an 

 immense accession of popularity ; and men of all parties and opinions as to the 

 guilt of the Queen, acknowledged the intrepidity and splendid talents ot Mr. 

 Brougham on this memorable but painful occasion. 



That aeuteobserveraudcritic,\V'illiamHazlitt,hasleft this portrait-sketch, taken 

 about 1825 : — " Mr. Brougham writes almost as well as he speaks. In the midst of 

 aneleetion contest, he comes out to addressthe populace, andgoes back to his study 

 to finish an article for the Edinburgh Review, sometimes, indeed, wedging three or 

 four articles in the shape of refacciamentis of his own pamphlets or speeches in 

 Parliament in a single number. Such, indeed, is the activity of his mind, that 

 it appears to require neither repose nor any other stimulus than a delight in its 

 ■own exercise. He can turn his hand to anything, but he cannot be idle. There 

 are few intellectual accomplishments which he does not possess, and possess 

 in a very high degree. He speaks French (and, we believe, several other modern 

 languages), is a capital mathematician, and obtained an introduction to the cele- 

 brated Carnot in this latter character, when the conversation turned on squaring 

 the circle, and not on the propriety of confining France within the natural 

 ■boundaries of the Rhine. Mr. Brougham is, in fact, a striking instance of the 

 versatility and strength of the human mind, and also, in one sense, of the length 

 of human life ; if we make good use of our time, there is room enough to crowd 

 almost every art and science into it." 



The year 1828 was a memorable one in Mr. Brougham's parliamentary life. 

 Early in the session, in the debate upon the battle of Navarino, he expressed 

 his readiness to support the ministry as lo'ig as the members who composed it 

 showed a determination to retrench the expenditure of the country, to improve 

 its domestic arrangements, and to adopt a truly British system of foreign policy. 

 It was on this occasion that Mr. Brougham used the expression, since become 

 so familiar, " The schoolmaster is abroad." He next brought forward a motion 

 on the state of the Law, in a speech of six hours' delivery ; when the motion, in 

 an amended shape, was carried, requesting the King to cause " due inquiry to 



* Brougham was the predecessor of Lord Jeffrey in the editorship of the 

 'Edinburgh Review — a fact which is not generally known, but which is certain. 

 Brougham was not the first editor, having filled that office for a short time after 

 Sydney Smith withdrew from the situation. — (Metropolitan, edited by Thomas 

 Campbell.) 



