juniors, whose arguments marred more than they helped the interests of their employers.  When, therefore, he either put them down, or was droned into a short nap, while the industrious advocate was earning his unnecessary fee, it was a specimen of “the arrogance of an upstart wholly unacquainted with Chancery Law,” or “of an eccentricity bordering on insanity, and wholly unfitting its exhibitor for the high and responsible situation he held.”  Posterity will do justice to Lord Brougham in this respect.  It will be felt to have been impossible that a man of such vast acquirements, who had been so successful in his profession, and who had, in all other branches of knowledge, evinced such clearness of intellect, could have been the inefficient lawyer his detractors have represented him to be.

There is another great department in which he has proved his excellence—­that of physical science.  With the principles of all the sciences, his works show him to be familiar.  His treatise “on the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science” is admirable, as a bird’s-eye view of the subject, while at the same time it is an enticing stimulant to study.  The work on “Natural Theology” necessarily touches upon the physical sciences, and their connection with the great mechanism of nature.  The geometrical and optical papers, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, when he was only fifteen years of age, show at least a firm groundwork of scientific knowledge.  And if it be said that Lord Brougham’s attainments are superficial only, we say that knowledge of detail does not of itself make a man competent.  The principles of all sciences are a sine qua non.

Lord Brougham is eminently clear-headed; and he is distinguished for his argumentative powers.  He has peculiarly the faculty of analysis; that of keeping in his own mind a comprehensive view of the whole bearings of a question, even while running at large into the minutest details; no man detects the fallacy of an opponent’s argument more easily; nor can any man be more skillful in concocting a fallacy to suit a temporary purpose.

Lord Brougham’s eloquence most distinguishes him from his contemporaries.  Learning may be acquired; the habit of reasoning may be induced by constant dialectic contest; but eloquence is far more than these the gift of nature.  Lord Brougham’s eloquence savors of the peculiar constitution of his mind.  It is eminently adapted for educated men.  He was never intended for a demagogue; for he never condescends to the art of pandering to the populace.  His speeches are specimens of argumentative eloquence; and their only defect arises from his fertility of illustration.  The extraordinary information he possesses has induced the habit of drawing too largely upon it; and he is apt to be led aside from the straight road of his argument, to elucidate some minor disputed point.  But the argumentative style of which we