of war are rendered very harmless; they are performed by some hundreds of sailors fighting harmlessly on the barren plains of the ocean, and some thousands of soldiers carrying on a scientific, and regular, and quiet system of warfare, in countries set apart for the purpose, and resorted to as the arena where the disputes of nations may be determined.  The prudent policy had been adopted of purchasing defeat at a distance rather than victory at home; in this manner we paid our allies for being vanquished; a few useless millions, and a few more useless lives were sacrificed; and the result was, that we were amply rewarded by safety, increased resources, and real addition of power.’ (Edinburgh Review, No.  II., and ascertained to be the writing of Mr. Brougham, by his having incorporated it in his Colonial Policy.)

The new Candidate challenges the strictest scrutiny into his public life, so that had we gone much farther than the above retrospect, we should only have been fulfilling his own wishes.  Personal enmity towards the Subject, the Writer has none; being, in all that concerns the feelings of private life, friendly to Mr. Brougham, rather than otherwise.  That his talents and habits of application entitle him to no common respect, must be universally acknowledged; but talents in themselves merely are, in the eyes of the judicious, no recommendation.  If a sword be sharp, it is of the more importance to ask—­What use it is likely to be put to?  In government, if we can keep clear of mischief, good will come of itself.  Fitness is the thing to be sought; and unfitness is much less frequently caused by general incapacity than by absence of that kind of capacity which the charge demands.  Talent is apt to generate presumption and self-confidence; and no qualities are so necessary, in a Legislator, as the opposites of these—­which, if they do not imply the existence of sagacity, are the best substitutes for it—­whether they produce, in the general disposition of the mind, an humble reliance on the wisdom of our Forefathers, and a sedate yielding to the pressure of existing things; or carry the thoughts still higher, to religious trust in a superintending Providence, by whose permission laws are ordered and customs established, for other purposes than to be perpetually found fault with.

These suggestions are recommended to the consideration of our new Aspirant, and of all those public men whose judgments are perverted, and tempers soured, by long struggling in the ranks of opposition, and incessant bustling among the professors of Reform.  I shall not recall to notice further particulars, because time, by softening asperities or removing them out of sight, is a friend to benevolence.  Although a rigorous investigation has been invited, it is well that there is no need to run through the rash assertions, the groundless accusations, and the virulent invectives that disfigure the speeches of this never-silent Member.