The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-05-12
THE LATE LORD BRoUGHAM.

Henry Brougham, Baron Brougham and
Vaux, who died, according to London tele-
gram, at his estate near Cannes, in the south
of France, on the 9th inst, was almost
nonagenarian. Having been born in 1878,
September 10Th, he was in his ninetieth year,
which, with four months more of life, he
would have completed. Like Lord Palmer
ston, he adds to the number of eminent
Englishmen whose physical constitutions
seemed to be invigorated, rather than i'm
paired, by weighty public responsibilities
and prolonged and arduous public labors
But in respect to vigorous play of the intel
lectual faculties beyond the ordinary period,
the lives of the two were hardly parallel
Lord Brougham was a remarkably old
man ; while Lord Palmerston was both
of these. They entered public life
about the same time, near the beginning of
the present century. From that time up to
his death, period of about fifty years, Pal
merston was almost constantly in Office, usu-
ally ministerial position, and at last died as
prime minister without apparent decay of
youthful vivacity in either mind or body. In
1884, when, in consequence of the defeat of
the Wing ministry, Brougham lost the lord
chancellorship, conferred on him in 1880
with the title of Baron Brougham and Vaux
he terminated his official career, and in a
great measure his public life. For the last
twenty years, he could scarcely be said to
have taken an active part, or to have welded
perceptible influence, in English politics
and for the latter portion of this time his
mind betrayed symptoms of growing senility.
Although a native of Edinburgh, Lord
Brougham has been commonly regarded as
an Enghshman, having been a descendant of
an ancient Westmoreland family, and having
passed most of his mature life in England.
From the beginning of his career, he was
liberal and reformer, and generally acted with
the Wings, though hardly in full fellowship
with that party after 1884. He first intro
duced himself to favor with the Liberals by
his defense of Leigh Hunt, who, as editor of
the Examiner, was prosecuted for libel by the
government BE obtained his greatest popu-
larity, however, and linked his name with an
important historical event, by his speeches
and his success as chief legal adviser and adj
vocate of Queen Caroline, consort of George
~ and who claimed her privileges as such
before the Peers, in opposition to the
plea of the king that she had forfeited her
rights both as wife and queen by scandalous
and proAigate conduct. AS a reformer, the
great features of Lord Brougham's career
were his advocacy of Catholic emancipation,
of popular education, of the simplihcation
and cheapening of English law practice, and
his opposition to the corn laws, to the slave
trade and slavery. 1t is somewhat note
worthy in the last connection, that his zeal
for the general abolition of slavery did not
induce him TO approve the manner in which
the federal government undertook to emanci-
pate the Southern slaves during the late war.
His condemnation of this policy gave great
umbrage to English and American
abolitionists.
In the literary and scientific spheres, Lord
Brougham's labors were more numerous and
various than important and famous. Though
in respect to these his versatility was bewil-
derlng, they are likely to be remembered
more for the indefatigable and audacious
spirit Of the author than for the independent
merits of his productions. He once remarked
that the association of his name with that of
Lord Byron, by reason of his having evoked
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" by
his criticism of % Hours of Idleness in the
Edinburg Review, of which he was one of
the founders, would be a surer passport TO
future fame than the greatest of his own
speeches or writings The greatness of mind
evinced in this remark makes one regret that
it looks so prophetic.
Buy your fishing tackle at Rousset's hardware
az "