The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-27 00:00:00

JUNE 27, 1857. yittraturt. Speeches on Social and Political Subjects. With Historical Introductions. By Henry Lord Brougham, F.R.S. Two Vols. London: Griffin and Co. THE period in which we are living might be called the age of revivals. Frequenters of Parliament and the Opera have cause for astonishment at finding that some of the old familiar voices still retain their power. The musical connoisseurs are all in raptures at the wonderful rejuvenescence of Grisi, whose organ has burst forth this season with singular freshness and purity ; while, to pass from the histrionic to the political stage, it has been the remark of all who heard him, that Lord Brougham has spoken in this session with much of the fire and commanding elo quence of his early years. The octogenarian energies of Lord Lyndhurst are a constant theme for wonder; and the sight of a frisky, volatile Premier at seventy-three is a spectacle unique of its kind. The army in Ireland, and the new defences intended for that country, AFC intrusted to the gallant Lord Seaton, who carries eighty winters. Our Primate of Eng land is seventy-seven; the Primate of Ireland was consecrated Bishop of Cork and Ross in the year 1806 ! The Lord Chief Justice of England, according to the latest accounts (for there has been much variance on the point), is in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and he has brought out a new volume this season ! Unfortunately, the amazing energy of our old folk is not balanced by 3qual activity in those of younger rank. There never was a period in our recollection when there was so little of fresh or rising talent. There are no young orators in the Senate or at the Bar. Congreve and Sheridan had produced the comedies which conferred literary immor tality on their names before either of them were twenty-five years of age. Before ho was twenty-six years old Mackintosh, in the " Vindicim Gallicte," grappled with Burke's greatest performance, with extraordinary force of reflection and argument. Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Moore were all eminent us young men. Sir Edward Lytton, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Dickens had all signalised themselves in the dawn of manhood. But these times have passed away, and as we have heard of " a novel without a hero," so our descendants may talk of the present time as an age without a young man of genius, and we shall have learned disquisitions to show that the age of "Political Economy" and " Organisation " was fatal to political genius. Sydney Smith, in indicating the unpractical character of Mr. Macaulay as a politician, and in illustrating the brilliant historian's want of power as a man of action, called him " a hook in breeches," and the term is descriptive of our time. Our young men stuff themselves with the contents of books, and neglect the formation of that character and system of manners which gain ascendancy over others. To read books and to know them is one kind of talent, and as reviewers we shall assuredly not disparage its importance ; but to read men and to know them is still a higher and far more useful quality. The man who can do both is of course truly formidable ; but the man who can only do the first, even if gifted with position, pedigree, and fortune, never will make a statesman. For that high function, vigorous volition that comes from masculine qualities is absolutely required. " Mad in a foxchase, wise in a debate," was the character given to our senators in other days, and we must say that the rising politi cian, who could ride well to hounds, and reply rapidly and boldly in debate, has seldom dis appointed his friends in the long run. (We mean no pun.) We wish that some of our pedantic young politicians could be induced to take our prescription of " foxhunting" to cure them of their insipidity. Mr. Frederic Peel would be much the better of a winter in Leicestershire. Ho could be tied on with red tape at first, so as not to insure his neing spilt ; and by beginning with " little-goes 'he might at last be able to achieve a rasper at stroke. Once that he could accomplish so THE PRESS. much, his friends might entertain hopes of him. But we must come back to these speeches of Lord Brougham. Henry Brougham, when a young man, was noted for his extraordinary powers. He was better than a "book in breeches." He had fiery passion, and a burning desire to dis tinguish himself. His mind was versatile and acute ; his constitution was amazingly strong ; his eloquence was facile, forcible, and bold; his attainments were great, and his ardour of character was still greater. In his own qualities, apart from any training, young Brougham had vast resources. How well he justified the expectations formed of him by Wilberforce, who knew him in early life, the history of the last fifty years records. The first volume of these speeches contains some splendid specimens of Lord Brougham's eloquence, and wo recommend this edition to those who desire to have models of impas sioned oratory before them. The faults of Lord Brougham as a speaker are also visible on a critical perusal. As a forensic orator, as a proficient in the qualities required for gain ing a verdict from twelve men in a jury -box, we think that Lord Brougham could never be compared with Saarlett or Follett, and we would add with Sir F. Thesiger or Sir A. Cockburn. He used to overpaint his case, and he often took the wrong tone. He had no oily persuasiveness; lie had no practical ac commodation of commonplace sentimentalism fur the minds of an ordinary jury. He hurled thunderbolts of declamation over their heads, but he wanted vollies of small shot. As a forensic orator he never could rank in the first class. He wanted imagination and pathcs. He could not dazzle the mind and melt the heart like Erskine and Curran. The tribute of tears was never paid to his power, anti in this respect he was greatly below the extraordinary powers of O'Connell. He was often maladroit in his mode of defend ing a case. Nothing could well be worse in this, way than the exordium of his speech in the case of the Hunts: — May it please your Lordships,—Gentlemen of the Jury, —ln rising to support the cause of these defendants, I feel abundantly sensible of the difficulties under which they labour. 1t is not that they have to contend, with such unequal force on my part, against the talents and learning of the Attorney-General, and the high influence of his office ; nor is it merely that they stand in the situation of defendants prosecuted by the Crown, for in ordinary cases they would have the common presumption of innocence to work in their favour ; but the hardship of their case origin ates in the nature of the charge on which they are brought before you,—a charge of libel, at a time when the licentious ness of the press has reached to a height which it certainly never attained in any other country, nor even in this at any other time. That licentiousness, indeed, has of late years appeared to despise all the bounds which had once been prescribed to the attacks on private character, inso much that there is not only no personage so important or exalted—for of that I do not complain—but no person so humble, harmless, and retired, as to escape the defama tion which is daily and hourly poured forth by a venal tribe to gratify the idle curiosity, or the less excusable malignity, of the public. To mark out for the indulgence of that propensity individuals retiring into the privacy of domestic life—to hunt them down for the gratification of their elle ' mks, and drag them forth as a laughing-stock to the vulgar—has become in our days, with some men, the road even to popularity, but with multitudes the means of earning a base subsistence. Gentlemen, the nature and the causes of this evil it is unnecessary for me to point out. Indeed, lam far from saying that there is nothing to extenuate it. lam ready even to admit that this abuse of the press in defaming private characters does derive no small apology from the insatiable love of publicity which preys upon a great part of the community, leading them scarcely to value existence itself if it is not passed in the eyes of the world, and to care but little what they do so they he only stared at or talked of. It furnishes some what of excuse, too, that the public itself is insatiable in its thirst for slander; swallows it with a foul, indiscrimi nate appetite ; and, liberal at least in its patronage of this species of merit, largely rewards those whom it sends forth to pander for those depraved tastes. lint in whatever way arising, or however palliated, the fact of the abuse of the press is certain, and the consequences are fatal to the press itself; for the licentiousness of which I complain has been the means of alienating the affections of those who had ever stood forward as its fastest friends and its firmest defenders. Sir W. Follett or Sir F. Thesiger would never have fallen into this fault. Here we have the advocate painting the licentiousness of the press (which should only have been glanced at in a sentence or two, if mentioned at all), and suggesting to the jury such a train of reflec tions as these,—" \Vell, you see what a case " the Government is in ! Mr. Brougham ad " mits tho licentiousness, of the press, and the 631 " Hunts have been holding up the Prince " Regent to ridicule. Examples must be " made. If so, is it not fairer for the Govern " ment to come down on the Hunts, who are " men of literary station, and whose example " may be contagious, than on their humbler " brethren? &c. &c." Reflections of such a kind would be sure to influence an ordinary London jury. The (speech on the Queen's case was not a fine piece of eloquence. It wanted arrange ment, and play of light and shade. Its tone was defiant and arrogant ; it was deficient in plausibility, and its interest is lost in petty details. Here is its exordium : May it please your Lordships,—The time is now come when I feel that I shall truly stand in need of all your indulgence. It is not merely the august presence of this assembly which embarrasses me, for I hays oftentimes had experience of its condescension,—nor the novelty of this proceeding that perplexes me, for the mind gradually gets reconciled to the strangest things,—nor the magnitude of this cause that oppresses me, for 1 am borne up and cheered by the conviction of its justice, which I share with all mankind; but, my lords, it is the very force of that con viction, the knowledge that it operates universally, the feeling that it operates rightly, which now dismays me with the apprehension that my unworthy way of handling it may, for the first time, injure it; and, while others have trembled for a guilty client, or been anxious in a doubtful case, or crippled with a consciousness of some hidden weakness, or chilled by the influence, or dismayed by the hostility, of public opinion, 1, knowing that here there is no guilti ness to conceal, nor anything, save the resources of perjury, to dread, am haunted with the apprehension that my feeble discharge of this duty may for the first time cast that cause into doubt, and may turn against me for condemnation those millions of your lordships' countrymen whose jealous eyes are now watching us, and who will not fail to impute it to me, if your lordships should reverse the judgment which the case for the charge has extorted from them. And I feel, my lords, under such a weights° troubled, that I can hardly at this moment, with all the reflection which the indulgence of your lordships has accorded me, compose my spirits to the discharge of my prof. asional duty; under the pressure of the grave responsibility which accompanies it. It is no light addition to this feeling that I foresee, though happily at some distance, that before these pro ceedings close, it may be my unexampled lot to discharge a duty in which the loyalty of a good subject may, among the ignorant, among the thonghtless,—certainly not for a moment with your lordships,—suffer an impeachment. And its peroration is as follows : Such, my lords, is the case now before you. Such is the evidence in support of this measure. Evidence inade quate to prove a debt—impotent to deprive of a civil right —ridiculous to convict of the lowest offence—scandalous if brought forward to support a charge of the highest nature which the law knows—monstrous to ruin the honour, to blast the name of an English Queen ! What shall 1 say, then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legis lation, a parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed against this defenceless woman? My lords, I pray you to pause. Ido earnestly beseech you to take heed! You are standing upon the brink of a pre cipice—then beware ! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the Queen ; but it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who give it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe—save yourselves from this peril—rescue that country of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and the stem of the tree. Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it—save the Crown, which is in jeopardy—the aria tocracy, which is shaken—save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne ! You have said, my lords, you have willed—the Church and the King have willed—that the Queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has instead of that solemnity the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine ; but I do here pour forth my humble supplica tions at the Throne of Mercy that that mercy may be poured down upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of their rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice ! It is as a political orator that Lord Brougham will have lasting fame. His most perfect speech was on the war with Spain in l8:23. It is the finest thing that ever came from his tongue or pen, and is a finished whole. Here is a passage in which all the Broughainie qualities of eloquence aro seen brought toge ther What, I ask, are the grounds on which the necessity of this war is defended? It is said to be undertaken because an insurrection has broken out with success at Madrid. I deny this to be the fact. What is called an insurrection, was an attempt to restore the lawful Constitution of the country—a Constitution which was its established govern. ment, till Ferdinand overthrew it by means of a mutiny in the army ; and therefore, when a military movement enabled the friends of liberty to recover what they had lost, it is a gross perversion of language to call this recovery, this restoration, by the.name of insurrection, —an insidious confusion of terms, which can only be intended to blind the. reason, or play upon the prejudices, of the honest part of mankind. Let the pretext, however, tor the war be what it may, the real cause of it i s not hard to conjecture. I It is not from hatred to Spain or to Portutol that tlio amid I ... . . i