Middletown transcript., 1868-05-16
The Death of Lord Broughsni.

The death of Lord Brougham, the vet
eran English statesman, is announced in
our cable dispatches. He died on Satur-
day last, at Cannes. in France, aged ninety
years. We give below sketch of his
life. as published in the InteHtgencer, in
April. 1867:
| Of that veteran anomaly in the House
of Lords, now completing his eighty-n ninth
year, tall, gaunt, bizarre, graceless, rough
in person, rude in speech, awkward in
manner, possessing neither the address Of
society nor the dignity of station, nor the
gravity of years, and yet who has achieved
more brilliant success and gained higher
honors than any member Of the British
forum the last two hundred years, it is
next to impossible to say anything ftly
and wise. Henry, Lord Brou CHAM, was
born in Edinburgh. in September. l77S.
In early life he was the companion of Jef-
frey. Murray, Scott, and Wilson, and one
Of the founders of the Edinburgh Review.
When that work had been published five
years he wrote to Mr.. Constable for a
thousand pounds, promising to repay it
by writing. in making which good he ac-
tuslly wrote all excepting two articles in
one of the numbers of Volume XVII. As
a lawyer he has managed more important
cases than all the rest of the bar. He
was the leading counsel for Lady Eliza
beth Ker, when she claimed the duke
dom of Roxburgh; of the English mer-
chants who resisted the Orders in Council;
of Queen Caroline, when, in 1920, she
sued for her right in the British crown
of Ambrose Williams, when the Church
h,o of LII c..
an article on the refusal to toll the bells
on the death of the Queen and for the
Dorcester laborers, when they resisted the
act of transportation. He has been fifty
seven years in Parliament lie acted on
the slavery question with Clsrkson, Will
berforce, and Grenville Sharp. He op-
posed the dragooning policy pursued by
ministers towards the thousands of hungry
men and women who protested against the
corn laws; he has attacked the hierarchy
with the bitterest irony and most cutting
gibes, and has fearlessly pleaded the cause
of freedom in the cases of Smith of De-
merara, the Catholics of Ireland, and the
victime of the Holy Alliance. His pow
or of invective has never been equslled-
He accused Canning of the most mons
tiouo ttuShlihS lul OnlSC thot thC WhoAS
history of political tergiyersation could
present." and while Indignantly alluding
to the Duke of Wellington's declaration
against reform, he exclaimed. pointing to
Sir Robert Peel, Him We scofn not
it il you we scorn-you, his mean.
base. fawning parasite" His history is
the history of law, government, literature,
science, morals, and reform in Great Bri-
tain the last half century. His sctivity
hardly seems moderated by age. On
every question of interest he still address
ses the lords, and though his voice has
the melancholy crack of age, his reason
ing is as cosent as in other days. Du-
ring the vacations of Parliament he re-
sides at his chateau in Cannes, in the
South of France, unvisited by troops of
friends, for he is pre-eminently uneocial
but engaged as earnestly in study az
sixty years ago.
In the year 1860, at some time between
the hours of twelve and four of almost any
day during the session of Parliament,
there might have been seen, by one who
patiently watched, walking through the
Westminster hail. where William Rufus
held his first court in 1909, whose timber
framed roof is the finost existing example
in the world of scientific construction. in
carpentry, aud which for more than seven
centuries has been the hall of justice for
all England, eight men, each past three
score years and ten, aud each notable as
having been at some formor time, in his
way, the first man in the United Kingdom.
Of those, Brougham and ST. Leonsrds
alOnn suryiya I,yndhnrSt Ellnnhorourb
Lansdowne, Grey, Dundonald, and Camp
bell, have passed away. Lord Palmer
ston might be added to the number; but
to the world, less even than to himself,
with his alacrity and optimism, and mod
ern dress, Lord Palmerston, even when
past his scventy-ffth year, did not seem
an old man. They were the giants in in
tellect whom the eighteenth century gave
England, unsurpassed yet by the men
who have succeeded them.