The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-24 00:00:00

(From the Times.)
1 The intelligence of Lord Brougham's death, be-
lieved so generally, and with so much confidence,
throughout the whole of Monday last, and on At!.
thority supposed to be so unquestionable, °we'd no
part of its circulation to this journal, the only one
among the Morning New papers of Tuesday by which
the disastrous incident was not assumed for fact, and
made the occasion of some sort of obituary article.
That there was an accident, and a fearful one,
i is perfectly true. The axle of the Noble and
Learned Lord's carriage having broken, the
horses kicked out and ran away. But his Lord-
ship and his companions, one of whom was his
E niece, Miss Eden, were happily extracted from their
perilous condition, and walked back several miles
to Brougham Hall. It is necessary to add, that
there must have been at, work a shameful spirit
of impudence and inhumanity to send forth from
any quarter a statement so positive, so detailed, and
circumstantial, as that which in our Tuesday's num-
ber, and after minute inquiry, we found ourselves
justified in treating as a fabrication. That man's
ifeelings are not to be envied, still less his moral
character respected, who could offer an outrage thus
cruel to the very numerous personal friends of
I Lord Brougham (than whom no man in society
has more, if so many), and above all, who could
give cause to the remotest risk of a tale so dreadful
making its way to the ears of the Learned Lord's
wife r.nd daughter, separated from him by at least
400 miles, and therefore cut off from the means of
speedy relief to their anxieties.
Had a man with the attributes of Lord
Brougham, and filling his position in the eyes of
men, been really destroyed by such an abrupt,
and, what we may almost term, unworthy casualty,
the shock would scarcely have confined itself
to the bosoms of his friends. Those political
adversaries who deeply censured his eccentrici-
ties, or even who looked upon him as an agent
and a statesman with the utmost distrust or con-
tempt, would have been startled by the contempla-
tion of so large a mass of living activity and vivacity
struck motionless by the mechanical violence of a
moment.
Should Lord Brougham have even sunk under
the more ordinary visitations of disease and suffering
by which God's creatures are for the most part re-
moved from earth, the political world must have
toted down, and for some time, though perhaps no'
long remembered, the disappearance of one of its
busiest and most stirring. members.
Our Contemporaries have made the late inhuman
a falsehood (whether a written forgery, or a verbal mis-
representation, it matters little) the text for laboured
commentaries on the Learned Lord's procedings, his
life, and public character. To expatiate at length
Upon such topics would require an exercise of
• pen or speech, almost as cumbrous as his Lord--
ship's own productions. He has been for a period
equal to that of an entire generation the most
vokminous of writers, the most voluble of debaters,
and of actors, if not the most efficient and suc-
cessful, at any rate the most restless and indefa-
tigable.
Had he abstained from writing, speaking, and
attempting, nine-tenths of • that with which he has
loaded the name of Brougham, he might have ac-
complished in each department whereon his multi-
farious efforts were, in a great measure, worsted, a
success as signal as his failures have been noto-
rious and memorable, and have enrobed himself
with a graceful and flowing reputation—not one
composed of shreds and patches, here exposing his
nakedness, and there oppressing him with a griev-
ous and unwholesome weight.
There is scarcely a subject on which Lord
Brougham has not put himself forward as the
*author of one or more publications—history, theo-
logy, metaphysics, mathematics, political economy,
literary criticism, biographical criticism, constitu-
tional dissertation, partry controversy without end.
" Omne fere scribendi genus tetigit." Alas Iwe
are unable to add, " nullum quod tetigit non orna-
vit ." In fact, there is no one general topic dis-
cussed by Lord Brougham with regard to which he
has contributed either substance or beauty to the
thoughts which preceding writers had expended on
it, Where any radiance appears to burst from him,
it is but a stream of sparkles from a firework—there
is neither steady light no animating warmth. For
I discoveries in science, moral or physical, none who
know or study this itinerant would ever dream of
rBenrehing in any of his numerous productions. For
racy illustrations of the nature or cha-
' rireaeste and
rofman, even where nought but illustration
of some truth previously recognised and acquiesced
In Might be needful, we must refer elsewhere than
.to the declamatory effusions of Lord Brougham,
whose faculty is that of mere expression. To him
the creative is not given. He is an advocate, and
nothing more—an advocate who gains attention
without inspiring any deep or enduring interest—
an advocate who entertains his audience, who
strives to cut away objections or obstructions by
the edge of sarcasm, not by the force of reason—
an advocate who can be vehement, but never ear-
nest, who exhibits heat of temper but not of pas-
sion, and could as rarely win the sympathy of
jurors as he could the sober sanction of the judge.
Lord Brougham has been in a perpetual whirl-
Pool, created by the velocity of his own movement
round his own centre. Nothing, however, has been
sucked into the vortex thus formed by him but the
weakest, craziest, and most diminutive craft that
floated. For a man of Lord Brougham's untiring
restlessness and noise and tumult, like unto the
rushing of mighty waters, no man has ever failed so
Palpably in the accomplishment of any one de-
cided effect, beyond that of deafening the world,
and keeping people alive to the circumstance that
there was within their hearing an indefatigable
and incessant paper-mill. Instead of being able
to make himself a standard on which men's
hopes and confidence should be fixed, and round
which, in times of danger and perplexity, they
should rally, this being of various vivacity and bustle
has been compelled to stand, or rather to pirouette,
alone—not because people have felt no want of
leaders, for never was there a period when superin-
tending wisdom was acknowledged to be so ines-
timable, or a mind framed for the government of
other minds would have commanded such submis-
sive and devout obedience—but because, after long
experiment, men have found that Lord Brougham
has the gift of speech, but not of action—because
they cannot rely upon his fickle and wayward spirit
----because his co-operation is precarious, his spirit
of intrigue incorrigible, his ambition wild and in-
definite, his absence of fixed principle and steadfast
Purpose as conspicuous as it is terrible, both to
followers and to colleagues.
• In society, as one of the most agreeable, amus-
ing, witty, kindly, and convivial of associates, there
is no individual capable of filling the space which
would have been left void by Lord Brougham's un-
timely exit. There are a multitude of friends who
loved him for what he was and is, as there are of
observers who have admired him for what he might
have been. But solid post in the great political
world he has none--followers he has none—reason-
able prospects of influence or power, or gratified
ambition, he has none. There is no party, whe-
ther ~ Movement" or Conservative, that would
venture to employ him otherwise than as a transient
ally—as a partner, or a colleague, never. Setting
aside all affectionate or private feelings, those mein-
hers of both parties who are best acquainted with
Lord Brougham, and have tried him, would, after a
little while, have felt his removal a lightening of
many cares and a release from many imminent em-
barrassments. For it is by impulse of temper or of
Pique, more of a selfish than even a capricious na- '
tore, and abstracted from all broad or distant consi- '
derations of national or general good, that the
course of this impetuous, and in some respects
formidable, adventurer on the scenes of public life
.has hitherto been shaped and directed.

conse

(From the Morning Post.)
in Our paper of Tuesday last, we stated that we
had- On the preceding evening despatched a special
reporter into Westmoreland, who should furnish us
,with the authentic details of the accident that had
happened to Lord Brougham.
Sueh a step on our part may now appear to have
been, premature and unnecessary ; yet at the time we
tinought we had good arounds for adopting it, nor
"a ve subsequent events induced us to alter our opi-
nion. We knew that a letter had been received
from Mr. Shafto : we believed then, and we still
.believe, that letter to have been genuine. At
least Mr. Montgomery, to whom it was addressed,
,considered it authentic, and he has long been fami-
-8117 r.with the handwriting and signature of Mr.
alt is quite true that the information con-
tained io that letter has since proved to have been