The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-08 00:00:00

gxtittnts alt effnuts.

A VIOLENT Exmotnott in Woolwich Arsenal, oc
curred on Monday morning, just before noon. In a
moment it was perceived that the rocket•shed had•
blown up, and the whole of the fire-brigade of the
establishment were at once directed to the spot *o
suppress the fire. The explosion originated from a
very simple, one of the workmen engaged in paintit g
the rockets incautiously used a gimlet to clear out
the little holes at the cap of the tube, in working tl e
gimlet round the iron got heated, and exploded the
rocket which ignited several more, and in a momet.t
blew up the whole shed. Seven of the men were
seriously burnt and otherwise injured, two died the
same evening and a third is not expected to survive.
MR. LARDNER, assistant librarian to the British
Museum, committed suicide under singular circum
stances last week. It appears that the deceased was
of a highly irritable temperament, and having with
his brougham run over a man, en route to the
museum on Tuesday week, b-came so exited that
medical advice was sent for. Having returned to his
house in Cornwall .villas, the unfortunate gentlemen
was confined to his room, and placed under the im-
mediate care of a domestic. However, he suddenly
ordered the servant to quit the room, he suddenly
arose and flung himself out of the window, receiving
such frightful injnries that he died shortly afterwards.
An inquest was held on Saturday last, and the jury
returned a verdict of insanity.

FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE.
Tveaday, Dec. 4.

BANKRUPTCY ANNULLED.—WILLIAM BAGLEY, Fulham.
fields and Dawley-wall, Middlesex, market•gardener and fruiterer
BANKRUPTS.—THOMAS AncHnurr,.oakley-square, Chelsea.
builder—HENßY DALLIMORE, Newport, Isle of Wight, grocer and
dealer in prOViII,ORB—EDWARD 013E11, North-street, Brigh-
ton, ironmonger, Human, and blEZIer —.l ()NATHAN SAWYER,
Mary Ann-place, Crisp-street. East India-road, Middlesex,
builder and beer-shop keeper—Wmu %Id FratneNn Cf, Ber-
ners-street, Oxford-street. Middlesex, tailor—JOHN W/NTERROV
TOM, Keraley, Lancaster, provision dealer and brickmaker--Auc!
DEAN and ADAM DEAN, Bolton, Lancaster, millwrights, and
ironfounders —JANE HARTLEY, Middle ton, Lancaster, joiner,
builder, add licensed victualler—THOMAS KIRKHAM, Albert-mill
Livesey, Blackburn, spinner and inanutieturer—Jiiiim Ktl IMAM
Bank Top-terrace. Blackburn, cotton manufacturer.
SCOTCH SEQUESTRATIONS.—Groaoe ORMISTON,
house, Jock's-lodge, near Edinburgh, jobber, contractor, carter,
and road contractor—WlLLlAM Hato (deceased), 0, West Regent-
street, Glasgots, writer had procurator-fiscal of the Burgh of
Glasgow.

DECEMBER 8, 1.855

Siterature.

Contributions to the "Edinburgh Review." By
Henry Lord Brougham. Three Vols. Glas-
gow : Griffin and Co.
Tiling volumes are an evidence of the
energy, the extent, and the versatility of Lord
Brougham's genius. They comprise essays
on oratory, ancient and modern; on history
and biography ; on general principles and
particular questions of foreign policy ; on con
stitutional practice and reforms ; on political
economy and finance ; on criminal law ; on
physical science ; and on a number of literary,
political, and historical subjects. To master
any one of those departments would be the work
of a lifetime, and we can therefore expect
from the essays o f Lord Brougham, often very
hurriedly written, only such reflections as
naturally occur to a keen and practised intel-
lect on a primil-facie view of any particular
question which is brought before it. The image
often employed to represent the value of con-
centrated as opposed to diffuse thought is
true,—the solid diamond far surpasses in
value the same gem when shattered into a
thousand sparks. Lord Brougham's was an
admirable working intellect He took a lead-
ing part in the active business of the world,
and was rarely at fault ; but he was much too
busy a man to originate principles, or to com-
pose any works which—except for the infor
mation, and especially the personal informa-
tion, they embody—could not easily be spared.
The criticisms in these volumes are, with
very few exceptions, an expanded kind of
journalism : they are very long " leading
articles," which, though no doubt effective
at the time, seem extremely flat at the present
day. Nothing is more tedious than the parti•
sanship of stale politics.
The labours of Lord Brougham—after ad-
mitting the extreme activity of his intellect—
would yet appear next to incredible, if he had
not himself favored us with a key to explain
the diversity of his thought and the rapidity
of his composition. In his brief, but just and
graceful, character of Sir William Follett he
enlightens us on the secret of Sir William's
success upon all occasions :
Though moderately provided with political knowledge,
he never was deficient in the supply required by the
exigency of the occasion, whether the subject of discus-
sion was foreign or domestic policy, economical and finan-
cial science, or the learning of constitutional law; for he
had the happy facility possessed by the Nisi Prins advo-
cate of gaining information for the special emergency—
the artist who must make himself acquainted with the
machinery of a patent one day, the nature of a chemical
process another, the tackle and steerage of a ship a third,
that he may explain these matters clearly to a jury as
ignorant of them when he begins his lecture as he was
himself two days before, and will again be two days after,
the cause has been tried.
It is the facility— we question the word
" happy," except in a purely professional
sense—of a Nisi Prius advocate, which is con-
spicuous in these selections from the Edinburgh
Review They are vastly clever and abundantly
eloquent, but they contain very few original
ideas, and afford little food for thought.
The most obvious characteris,ic of these
compositions is their eloquence. As regards
the mina fandi of an orator—the flow, anima-
tion, and sustained vigour of language, often
running into excess, but always effective—he
had no equal in his day, and perhaps never
was excelled ; but his eloquence was almost
totally deficient in wit, in imagery, in refine-
ment, and in all those higher qualities of
imaginative intellect without which no man
can ever rise to the first rank of oratory.
The articles with which this collection open
are, largo intervalio, the best. The papers on
Cicero and Demosthenes were probably com-
posed with unusual care. They are close,
critical, and scholarly, and tend to show how
high Lord Brougham would certainly have
risen as an author had his life been cast in a
less active sphere. The article on Demosthe-
nes is especially written with a nice perception
of the peculiar qualities of genius and style
which, after an interval of more than two
thousand years, still make the orations of the
great Athenian unapproachable in excellence.
Lord Brougham makes a great descent
when he leaves classic for English ground—
the Pap of Adieu* for Westminster•hall.

THE PRESS.

Immediately following " Demosthenes " is a
character of Lord Erskine, in which the au-
thor's devotion to advocacy sadly perverts his
judgment. He quotes as an example of ex-
alted eloquence a passage from Erskine's
speech in a crim. con. case commencing,
I will begin with drawing op the curtains of this
marriage-bed.
This crim. con. style of eloquence is less
esteemed now than it was when the article was
written, more than forty years ago. As an
example of' Erskine's success, we are told that
on one occasion, when he was counsel for the
plaintiff, he obtained " seven thousand pounds
" damages, supposed to be the value of the
" defendant's whole property" ; while in another
case, in which he appeared for the defendant.
the jury gave only " five hundred pounds,
" barely enough to cover an application for
" a divorce bill." From this, says Lord
Brougham, the reader may judge whether
Erskine was successful or not. It does not
strike us that mere sordid advocacy can ever
deserve the admiration which is due to the
eloquence that springs from a sense of justice,
right, or patriotism. Did the eloquence of
Erskine pervert justice or not? If it did,
what are we to think of its moral character ?
if' it did not, why are we called on to admire
the success of the advocate ? Fortunately,
the finest examples of our forensic oratory can
be separated from mere mercenary pleading—as
when high political or constitutional questions
are in debate, and the advocate views in the
triumph of his client the triumph of his own
principles.
In the next article, on pulpit eloquence,
Lord Brougham shows a very imperfect ap-
preciation of the peculiar merits of French
oratory. Bossuet, in the notice of his
" Oraisons Funebres," is described as a
" clumsy preacher," and as talking " intolerable
" nonsense." On this point we must allow the
French critics to be much more competent
judges than Englishmen, with ideas and a
language essentially different, possibly can be.
To show how the preacher " sickens us with
" the subject and the artist," that passage is
quoted in which Bossuet apostrophises the
Queen of Charles I. in his oration on her
death :
Grande Reins ! je satisfais k vos plus tendres desirs,
quand je célèbre ce monarque ; et ce cam, qui n's jamais
vecu pour lui, se reveille, tout poudre est, et devient
sensible, mime sous ce drap mortuaire, au nom d'un
epoux 8i cher.
This passage is very bold ; but the French
have always admired it as sublime, and we
think it impossible for any one acquainted
with the genius of their language, and posses-
sing a spark of poetic sensibility, to read it
without a thrill of wonder and delight.
In his political articles, and especially in those
on the war with France, Lord Brougham gave to
the Whigs the support of his powerful talents.
With them he held that Wellesley's expedition
to the Peninsula was a capital error. In a
paper written in 1809 he says :
It is the conviction of many persons, whose judgment
commands peculiar respect, and the more so because later
events appear to support it, that there was at no time any
reasonable chance of driving the French out of the Penin-
sula ; and that, consequently, no British army should ever
have been sent there at all.
The first operations of Wellington in Spain,
and his glorious victory of Talavera, are
criticised in no friendly spirit :
The British general was attacked in front by a superior
force. A rare mistake of the French general, his own
firmness and skill, and the extreme gallantry of English
soldiers, not only saved him from destruction, but enabled
him to repulse the enemy. A large army, however, the
very same that he had somewhat whimsically boasted of
having dedroyed a few weeks before, came down npon his
rear, and he was compelled to fall back upon Portugal with
the utmost rapidity. Scarcely hoping to carry off the vic-
torious English, he left the invincible Spaniards to get one
more beating; and was in this plight driven ont of the
country which he came to save by one army which he had
completely beaten, and another which he had entirely de-
stroyed.
These paragraphs may serve to show the
spirit in which Lord Brougham deals with the
party politics of his time. His advocacy is so
determined, that it would be as irrational to
look in these articles for a fair statement of
political questions, as it would be to expect an
equitable view of a cause from a Nisi Prius
barrister retained on one side of it.
From this censure, however, must be ex-
cepted the paper at the commencement of the

1171

second volume on the " Balance of Power,"
published in 1803. It is written in an impartial
spirit, its views are large, and its principles
sound ; and the whole argument shows that
when Lord Brougham gas e his capacious in-
tellect fair play, he could feel as a patriot and
reason as a statesman. The object of the
article is to defend the principle of " the
" Balance of Power" from the objections
urged against it ; and as much of the reason-
ing is applicabld to the present situation of
affairs, we are tempted to make a few extracts.
Far from condemning the wars of the
eighteenth century, undertaken to curb the
power of France, as unnecessary, he lauds
them as happily distinguishing the " proudest
" era in the annals of the species." He views
the general security of Europe as due to
that perfect knowledge of the arts of administration
which has established certain general rules of conduct
among nations; has prevented the overthrow of empires,
and the absorption of weak States into the bodies of devour-
ing neighbours ; has set bounds to the march of conquests,
and rendered the unsheathing of the sword a measure of
the last adoption ; whereas, in other times, it was always
resorted to in the first instance.
The partition of Poland, he contends, was not
attributable to the inefficiency of the balancing
system, but to the internal rottenness of that
kingdom :
The case of Poland, as it appears to us, is one of the
very few instances, which have ever occurred, of a nation
being placed in such unnatural circumstances of embarrass-
ment, turbulence, and degradation of every sort, that scarce
any change of affairs could render it worse, and scarce any
revolution, by domestic violence, or foreign invasion, could
fail to alter it for the better. Setting apart the high-sound•
ing phrases of patriotism and national spirit, and the feel-
ings of admiration which the very natural emotions of pity
have taught us to couple with the name of Poland, it is
impossible for a sober minded observer not to perceive,
that ages of the most debasing servitude had utterly dis-
qualified the Polish boors for enjoying the privileges of
tree subjects ; that a lifetime divided between unceasing
tumult in public, and the revellings of a boisterous, bar-
barons hospitality, had unfitted the rest of the State from
cooperating in the formation of a constitution which
should possess either energy or regularity ; and that
greater part of the country has gained by a dismemberment,
wept over and declaimed upon by those who had no ex-
perience of its necessity, or need of its benefits. Those
benefits have most undoubtedly been the pacification of
that unhappy kingdom, by the only means which could
have been devised for accomplishing this end, without en-
dangering the security of the other States, namely, a divi-
sion of the country among the neighbouring and rival
powers, and a consequent communication of the inestimable
blessings which their ancient subjects enjoyed under a
system of peaceful government and regular police.
On the principles which justify interference
with a State which from great increaso of
power threatens the security of other States,
it is observed :
No one would think of asserting the right of interference
to be applicable in the case of gradual improvement, how-
ever great, in any nation ; nor in the case of that more
sudden amelioration which national resources may is-
receive from the operation of a salutary reform—or a useful
law—or a beneficial change of rulers. We only think the
right competent in cases of sudden and great aggrandise-
ment, such as that of France in 1790; and then, we main-
tain, that, if it endangers the safety of the neighbouring
powers, no manner of importance should be attached to
the nature of those circumstances from whence the danger
has originated.
In the following paragraph, attempting to de-
fine the circumstances which constitute
natural enmity or natural alliance, there is
not, we think, sufficient distinction drawn be-
tween rivalry and hostility :
The circumstances which are found to constitute natural
enmity between nations are threefold ; proximity of situa-
tion, similarity of pursuits, and near equality of power.
From the opposite causes arise the natural indifference or
relative neutrality of States; a reasonable distance, diver-
sity of objects, and considerablo inequality of resources;
while natural alliance results from the common enmity pro-
duced by a concurrence of the three causes first mentioned
in the relations of two or more posers towards the earns
third power.
It is too broadly stated in other passages that
France is the natural enemy, and Austria the
natural ally, of England. The concluding
passage of this able article is one of the finest
and most thoughtful that ever proceeded from
Lord Brougham's pen:—
It appears that, by the modern system of foreign policy,
the fate of nations has been rendered more certain, and
the influence of chance, of the fortune of war, of the
caprices of individuals upon the general affairs of men, has
been exceedingly diminished. Nations are no longer of
transient or durable existence in proportion to their in-
ternal resources, but in proportion to the place which they
occupy in a vast and regular system, where the moat
powerful States are, for their own ukes, constantly
watching over the safety of the most insignificant. A
flourishing commonwealth is ofnt liable to lose its d2z
deuce or its prosperity by the aof one battle.