1778-1868
[Sidenote: Ticknor’s _Life and Letters_.]
“Brougham, whom I knew in society, and from seeing him both at his
chambers and at my own lodgings, is now about thirty-eight, tall, thin,
and rather awkward, with a plain and not very expressive countenance,
and simple or even slovenly manners. He is evidently nervous, and
a slight convulsive movement about the muscles of his lips gives
him an unpleasant expression now and then. In short, all that is
exterior in him, and all that goes to make up the first impression,
is unfavourable. The first thing that removes this impression is the
heartiness and good-will he shows you, whose motive cannot be mistaken,
for such kindness comes only from the heart. This is the first thing,
but a stranger presently begins to remark his conversation. On common
topics nobody is more commonplace. He does not feel them, but if the
subject excites him, there is an air of originality in his remarks
which, if it convinces you of nothing else, convinces you that you
are talking with an extraordinary man. He does not like to join in
a general conversation, but prefers to talk apart with only two
or three persons, and, though with great interest and zeal, in an
undertone. If, however, he does launch into it, all the little, trim,
gay pleasure-boats must keep well out of the way of his great black
collier, as Gibbon said of Fox. He listens carefully and fairly--and
with a kindness which would be provoking if it were not genuine--to
all his adversary has to say; but when his time comes to answer, it is
with that bare, bold, bullion talent which either crushes itself or its
opponent.... Yet I suspect the impression Brougham generally leaves is
that of a good-natured friend. At least that is the impression I have
most frequently found, both in England and on the Continent.”--1819.
[Sidenote: Newspaper cutting 1876.]
“Standing in the narrow Gothic railed-off place reserved for the
public--the throne at the opposite extremity of the House--you may see
on one of the benches to the right, almost every forenoon, Saturday and
Sunday excepted, during the session, a very old man with a white head,
and attired in a simple frock and trousers of shepherd’s plaid. It is a
leonine head, and the white locks are bushy and profuse. So, too, the
eyebrows, penthouses to eyes somewhat weak now, but that can flash fire
yet upon occasion. The face is ploughed with wrinkles, as well it may
be, for the old man will never see fourscore years again, and of these,
threescore, at the very least, have been spent in study and the hardest
labour, mental and physical. The nose is a marvel--protuberant, rugose,
aggressive, inquiring and defiant: unlovely, but intellectual. There is
a trumpet mouth, a belligerent mouth, projecting and self-asserting;
largish ears, and on chin or cheeks no vestige of hair. Not a beautiful
man this, on any theory of beauty, Hogarthesque, Ruskinesque,
Winclemenesque, or otherwise. Rather a shaggy, gnarled, battered,
weather-beaten, ugly, faithful, Scotch-collie type. Not a soft,
imploring, yielding face. Rather a tearing, mocking, pugnacious cast
of countenance. The mouth is fashioned to the saying of harsh, hard,
impertinent things: not cruel, but downright; but never to whisper
compliments, or simper out platitudes. A nose, too, that can snuff the
battle afar off, and with dilated nostrils breathe forth a glory that
is sometimes terrible; but not a nose for a pouncet-box, or a Covent
Garden bouquet, or a _flacon_ of Frangipani. Would not care much for
truffles either, I think, or the delicate aroma of sparkling Moselle.
Would prefer onions or strongly-infused malt and hops; something honest
and unsophisticated. Watch this old man narrowly, young visitor to the
Lords. Scan his furrowed visage. Mark his odd angular ways and gestures
passing uncouth. Now he crouches, very dog-like, in his crimson bench:
clasps one shepherd’s plaid leg in both his hands. Botherem, _q.c._,
is talking nonsense, I think. Now the legs are crossed, and the hands
thrown behind the head; now he digs his elbows into the little Gothic
writing-table before him, and buries his hands in that puissant white
hair of his. The quiddities of Floorem, _q.c._, are beyond human
patience. Then with a wrench, a wriggle, a shake, a half-turn and
half-start up--still very dog-like, but of the Newfoundland rather,
now--he asks a lawyer or a witness a question. Question very sharp and
to the point, not often complimentary by times, and couched in that
which is neither broad Scotch nor Northumbrian burr, but a rebellious
mixture of the two. Mark him well, eye him closely: you have not much
time to lose. Alas! the giant is very old, though with frame yet
unenfeebled, with intellect yet gloriously unclouded. But the sands
are running, ever running. Watch him, mark him, eye him, score him on
your mind tablets: then home, and in after years it may be your lot
to tell your children that once at least you have seen with your own
eyes the famous Lord of Vaux; once listened to the voice which has
shaken thrones and made tyrants tremble; that has been a herald of
deliverance to millions pining in slavery and captivity; a voice that
has given utterance, in man’s most eloquent words, to the noblest,
wisest thoughts lent to this man of men by heaven; a voice that has
been trumpet-sounding these sixty years past in defence of Truth, and
Right, and Justice; in advocacy of the claims of learning and industry,
and of the liberties of the great English people, from whose ranks he
rose; a voice that should be entitled to a hearing in a Walhalla of
wise heroes, after Francis of Verulam and Isaac of Grantham; the voice
of one who is worthily a lord, but who will be yet better remembered,
and to all time,--remembered enthusiastically and affectionately,--as
the champion of all good and wise and beautiful human things--Harry
Brougham.”
[Sidenote: _Temple Bar_, 1868.]
“The personal man, the bodily man, the private man, did not vary.
From 1830 to 1866,--the period between his brightest glow of fame and
his mental eclipse,--he was always the same gaunt, angular, raw-boned
figure, with the high cheek-bones, the great flexible nose, the mobile
mouth, the shock head of hair, the uncouthly-cut coat with the velvet
collar, the high black stock, the bulging shirt front, the dangling
bunch of seals at his fob, and the immortal pantaloons of checked
tweed. It is said that one of his admirers in the Bradford Cloth Hall
gave him a bale of plaid trousering ‘a’ oo’’[1] in 1825, and that he
continued until the day of his death to have his nether garments cut
from the inexhaustible store. I have seen Lord Brougham in evening
dress and in the customary black continuations; but I never met him by
daylight without the inevitable checks.”