insisted on, under the style and title of _Irish Eloquence_: there is
another class which it is not absolutely unfair to oppose to this, and
that is the Scotch. The first of these is entirely the offspring of
_impulse_: the last of _mechanism_. The one is as full of fancy as it is
bare of facts: the other excludes all fancy, and is weighed down with
facts. The one is all fire, the other all ice: the one nothing but
enthusiasm, extravagance, eccentricity; the other nothing but logical
deductions, and the most approved postulates. The one without scruple,
nay, with reckless zeal, throws the reins loose on the neck of the
imagination: the other pulls up with a curbbridle, and starts at every
casual object it meets in the way as a bug-bear. The genius of Irish
oratory stands forth in the naked majesty of untutored nature, its eye
glancing wildly round on all objects, its tongue darting forked fire:
the genius of Scottish eloquence is armed in all the panoply of the
schools; its drawling, ambiguous dialect seconds its circumspect
dialectics; from behind the vizor that guards its mouth and shadows
its pent-up brows, it sees no visions but its own set purpose, its own
_data_, and its own dogmas. It "has no figures, nor no fantasies," but
"those which busy care draws in the brains of men," or which set off its
own superior acquirements and wisdom. It scorns to "tread the primrose
path of dalliance"--it shrinks back from it as from a precipice, and
keeps in the iron rail-way of the understanding. Irish oratory, on the
contrary, is a sort of aeronaut: it is always going up in a balloon, and
breaking its neck, or coming down in the parachute. It is filled
full with gaseous matter, with whim and fancy, with alliteration and
antithesis, with heated passion and bloated metaphors, that burst the
slender, silken covering of sense; and the airy pageant, that glittered
in empty space and rose in all the bliss of ignorance, flutters and
sinks down to its native bogs! If the Irish orator riots in a studied
neglect of his subject and a natural confusion of ideas, playing with
words, ranging them into all sorts of fantastic combinations, because in
the unlettered void or chaos of his mind there is no obstacle to their
coalescing into any shapes they please, it must be confessed that the
eloquence of the Scotch is encumbered with an excess of knowledge, that
it cannot get on for a crowd of difficulties, that it staggers under
a load of topics, that it is so environed in the forms of logic and
rhetoric as to be equally precluded from originality or absurdity, from
beauty or deformity:--the plea of humanity is lost by going through the
process of law, the firm and manly tone of principle is exchanged for
the wavering and pitiful cant of policy, the living bursts of passion
are reduced to a defunct _common-place_, and all true imagination
is buried under the dust and rubbish of learned models and imposing
authorities. If the one is a bodiless phantom, the other is a lifeless
skeleton: if the one in its feverish and hectic extravagance resembles a
sick man's dream, the other is akin to the sleep of death--cold, stiff,
unfeeling, monumental! Upon the whole, we despair less of the first than
of the last, for the principle of life and motion is, after all, the
primary condition of all genius. The luxuriant wildness of the one may
be disciplined, and its excesses sobered down into reason; but the dry
and rigid formality of the other can never burst the shell or husk of
oratory. It is true that the one is disfigured by the puerilities and
affectation of a Phillips; but then it is redeemed by the manly sense
and fervour of a Plunket, the impassioned appeals and flashes of wit of
a Curran, and by the golden tide of wisdom, eloquence, and fancy, that
flowed from the lips of a Burke. In the other, we do not sink so low in
the negative series; but we get no higher in the ascending scale than
a Mackintosh or a Brougham.[A] It may be suggested that the late Lord
Erskine enjoyed a higher reputation as an orator than either of these:
but he owed it to a dashing and graceful manner, to presence of mind,
and to great animation in delivering his sentiments. Stripped of these
outward and personal advantages, the matter of his speeches, like that
of his writings, is nothing, or perfectly inert and dead. Mr. Brougham
is from the North of England, but he was educated in Edinburgh, and
represents that school of politics and political economy in the House.
He differs from Sir James Mackintosh in this, that he deals less in
abstract principles, and more in individual details. He makes less use
of general topics, and more of immediate facts. Sir James is better
acquainted with the balance of an argument in old authors; Mr. Brougham
with the balance of power in Europe. If the first is better versed in
the progress of history, no man excels the last in a knowledge of the
course of exchange. He is apprised of the exact state of our exports and
imports, and scarce a ship clears out its cargo at Liverpool or
Hull, but he has notice of the bill of lading. Our colonial policy,
prison-discipline, the state of the Hulks, agricultural distress,
commerce and manufactures, the Bullion question, the Catholic question,
the Bourbons or the Inquisition, "domestic treason, foreign levy,"
nothing can come amiss to him--he is at home in the crooked mazes of
rotten boroughs, is not baffled by Scotch law, and can follow the
meaning of one of Mr. Canning's speeches. With so many resources, with
such variety and solidity of information, Mr. Brougham is rather a
powerful and alarming, than an effectual debater. In so many details
(which he himself goes through with unwearied and unshrinking
resolution) the spirit of the question is lost to others who have not
the same voluntary power of attention or the same interest in hearing
that he has in speaking; the original impulse that urged him forward is
forgotten in so wide a field, in so interminable a career. If he can,
others _cannot_ carry all he knows in their heads at the same time; a
rope of circumstantial evidence does not hold well together, nor drag
the unwilling mind along with it (the willing mind hurries on before it,
and grows impatient and absent)--he moves in an unmanageable procession
of facts and proofs, instead of coming to the point at once--and his
premises (so anxious is he to proceed on sure and ample grounds) overlay
and block up his conclusion, so that you cannot arrive at it, or not
till the first fury and shock of the onset is over. The ball, from
the too great width of the _calibre_ from which it is sent, and from
striking against such a number of hard, projecting points, is almost
spent before it reaches its destination. He keeps a ledger or a
debtor-and-creditor account between the Government and the Country,
posts so much actual crime, corruption, and injustice against so much
contingent advantage or sluggish prejudice, and at the bottom of the
page brings in the balance of indignation and contempt, where it is due.
But people are not to be _calculated into_ contempt or indignation on
abstract grounds; for however they may submit to this process where
their own interests are concerned, in what regards the public good we
believe they must see and feel instinctively, or not at all. There is
(it is to be lamented) a good deal of froth as well as strength in the
popular spirit, which will not admit of being _decanted_ or served out
in formal driblets; nor will spleen (the soul of Opposition) bear to be
corked up in square patent bottles, and kept for future use! In a word,
Mr. Brougham's is ticketed and labelled eloquence, registered and in
numeros (like the successive parts of a Scotch Encyclopedia)--it
is clever, knowing, imposing, masterly, an extraordinary display of
clearness of head, of quickness and energy of thought, of application
and industry; but it is not the eloquence of the imagination or the
heart, and will never save a nation or an individual from perdition.
Mr. Brougham has one considerable advantage in debate: he is overcome
by no false modesty, no deference to others. But then, by a natural
consequence or parity of reasoning, he has little sympathy with other
people, and is liable to be mistaken in the effect his arguments will
have upon them. He relies too much, among other things, on the patience
of his hearers, and on his ability to turn every thing to his own
advantage. He accordingly goes to the full length of _his tether_ (in
vulgar phrase) and often overshoots the mark. _C'est dommage_. He has no
reserve of discretion, no retentiveness of mind or check upon himself.
He needs, with so much wit,
"As much again to govern it."
He cannot keep a good thing or a shrewd piece of information in his
possession, though the letting it out should mar a cause. It is not
that he thinks too much of himself, too little of his cause: but he is
absorbed in the pursuit of truth as an abstract inquiry, he is led away
by the headstrong and over-mastering activity of his own mind. He is
borne along, almost involuntarily, and not impossibly against his better
judgment, by the throng and restlessness of his ideas as by a crowd
of people in motion. His perceptions are literal, tenacious,
_epileptic_--his understanding voracious of facts, and equally
communicative of them--and he proceeds to
"--------Pour out all as plain
As downright Shippen or as old Montaigne"--
without either the virulence of the one or the _bonhommie_ of the other.
The repeated, smart, unforeseen discharges of the truth jar those
that are next him. He does not dislike this state of irritation and
collision, indulges his curiosity or his triumph, till by calling for
more facts or hazarding some extreme inference, he urges a question to
the verge of a precipice, his adversaries urge it _over_, and he himself
shrinks back from the consequence--
"Scared at the sound himself has made!"
Mr. Brougham has great fearlessness, but not equal firmness; and after
going too far on the _forlorn hope_, turns short round without due
warning to others or respect for himself. He is adventurous, but easily
panic-struck; and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity
of self-preservation. He is too improvident for a leader, too petulant
for a partisan; and does not sufficiently consult those with whom he is
supposed to act in concert. He sometimes leaves them in the lurch,
and is sometimes left in the lurch by them. He wants the principle of
co-operation. He frequently, in a fit of thoughtless levity, gives an
unexpected turn to the political machine, which alarms older and more
experienced heads: if he was not himself the first to get out of harm's
way and escape from the danger, it would be well!--We hold, indeed, as
a general rule, that no man born or bred in Scotland can be a great
orator, unless he is a mere quack; or a great statesman unless he turns
plain knave. The national gravity is against the first: the national
caution is against the last. To a Scotchman if a thing _is, it is_;
there is an end of the question with his opinion about it. He is
positive and abrupt, and is not in the habit of conciliating the
feelings or soothing the follies of others. His only way therefore to
produce a popular effect is to sail with the stream of prejudice, and
to vent common dogmas, "the total grist, unsifted, husks and all," from
some evangelical pulpit. This may answer, and it has answered. On the
other hand, if a Scotchman, born or bred, comes to think at all of the
feelings of others, it is not as they regard them, but as their
opinion reacts on his own interest and safety. He is therefore either
pragmatical and offensive, or if he tries to please, he becomes cowardly
and fawning. His public spirit wants pliancy; his selfish compliances
go all lengths. He is as impracticable as a popular partisan, as he
is mischievous as a tool of Government. We do not wish to press
this argument farther, and must leave it involved in some degree of
obscurity, rather than bring the armed intellect of a whole nation on
our heads.
Mr. Brougham speaks in a loud and unmitigated tone of voice, sometimes
almost approaching to a scream. He is fluent, rapid, vehement, full of
his subject, with evidently a great deal to say, and very regardless
of the manner of saying it. As a lawyer, he has not hitherto been
remarkably successful. He is not profound in cases and reports, nor does
he take much interest in the peculiar features of a particular cause, or
shew much adroitness in the management of it. He carries too much weight
of metal for ordinary and petty occasions: he must have a pretty large
question to discuss, and must make _thorough-stitch_ work of it. He,
however, had an encounter with Mr. Phillips the other day, and shook all
his tender blossoms, so that they fell to the ground, and withered in an
hour; but they soon bloomed again! Mr. Brougham writes almost, if not
quite, as well as he speaks. In the midst of an Election contest he
comes out to address the populace, and goes back to his study to finish
an article for the Edinburgh Review; sometimes indeed wedging three or
four articles (in the shape of _refaccimentos_ of his own pamphlets
or speeches in parliament) into a single number. Such indeed is the
activity of his mind that it appears to require neither repose, nor any
other stimulus than a delight in its own exercise. He can turn his
hand to any thing, but he cannot be idle. There are few intellectual
accomplishments which he does not possess, and possess in a very
high degree. He speaks French (and, we believe, several other modern
languages) fluently: is a capital mathematician, and obtained an
introduction to the celebrated Carnot in this latter character, when the
conversation turned on squaring the circle, and not on the propriety of
confining France within the natural boundary of the Rhine. Mr. Brougham
is, in fact, a striking instance of the versatility and strength of the
human mind, and also in one sense of the length of human life, if we
make a good use of our time. There is room enough to crowd almost every
art and science into it. If we pass "no day without a line," visit no
place without the company of a book, we may with ease fill libraries or
empty them of their contents. Those who complain of the shortness of
life, let it slide by them without wishing to seize and make the most of
its golden minutes. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we
are, the more leisure we have. If any one possesses any advantage in a
considerable degree, he may make himself master of nearly as many more
as he pleases, by employing his spare time and cultivating the waste
faculties of his mind. While one person is determining on the choice of
a profession or study, another shall have made a fortune or gained a
merited reputation. While one person is dreaming over the meaning of a
word, another will have learnt several languages. It is not incapacity,
but indolence, indecision, want of imagination, and a proneness to a
sort of mental tautology, to repeat the same images and tread the same
circle, that leaves us so poor, so dull, and inert as we are, so naked
of acquirement, so barren of resources! While we are walking backwards
and forwards between Charing-Cross and Temple-Bar, and sitting in the
same coffee-house every day, we might make the grand tour of Europe, and
visit the Vatican and the Louvre. Mr. Brougham, among other means of
strengthening and enlarging his views, has visited, we believe, most of
the courts, and turned his attention to most of the Constitutions of the
continent. He is, no doubt, a very accomplished, active-minded, and
admirable person.
Sir Francis Burdett, in many respects, affords a contrast to the
foregoing character. He is a plain, unaffected, unsophisticated English
gentleman. He is a person of great reading too and considerable
information, but he makes very little display of these, unless it be to
quote Shakespear, which he does often with extreme aptness and felicity.
Sir Francis is one of the most pleasing speakers in the House, and is a
prodigious favourite of the English people. So he ought to be: for he is
one of the few remaining examples of the old English understanding and
old English character. All that he pretends to is common sense and
common honesty; and a greater compliment cannot be paid to these than
the attention with which he is listened to in the House of Commons. We
cannot conceive a higher proof of courage than the saying things which
he has been known to say there; and we have seen him blush and appear
ashamed of the truths he has been obliged to utter, like a bashful
novice. He could not have uttered what he often did there, if, besides
his general respectability, he had not been a very honest, a very
good-tempered, and a very good-looking man. But there was evidently no
wish to shine, nor any desire to offend: it was painful to him to hurt
the feelings of those who heard him, but it was a higher duty in him not
to suppress his sincere and earnest convictions. It is wonderful how
much virtue and plain-dealing a man may be guilty of with impunity, if
he has no vanity, or ill-nature, or duplicity to provoke the contempt or
resentment of others, and to make them impatient of the superiority he
sets up over them. We do not recollect that Sir Francis ever endeavoured
to atone for any occasional indiscretions or intemperance by giving
the Duke of York credit for the battle of Waterloo, or congratulating
Ministers on the confinement of Buonaparte at St. Helena. There is no
honest cause which he dares not avow: no oppressed individual that he
is not forward to succour. He has the firmness of manhood with the
unimpaired enthusiasm of youthful feeling about him. His principles are
mellowed and improved, without having become less sound with time: for
at one period he sometimes appeared to come charged to the House with
the petulance and caustic sententiousness he had imbibed at Wimbledon
Common. He is never violent or in extremes, except when the people or
the parliament happen to be out of their senses; and then he seems to
regret the necessity of plainly telling them he thinks so, instead of
pluming himself upon it or exulting over impending calamities. There
is only one error he seems to labour under (which, we believe, he also
borrowed from Mr. Horne Tooke or Major Cartwright), the wanting to go
back to the early times of our Constitution and history in search of the
principles of law and liberty. He might as well
"Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."
Liberty, in our opinion, is but a modern invention (the growth of books
and printing)--and whether new or old, is not the less desirable. A man
may be a patriot, without being an antiquary. This is the only point
on which Sir Francis is at all inclined to a tincture of pedantry. In
general, his love of liberty is pure, as it is warm and steady: his
humanity is unconstrained and free. His heart does not ask leave of his
head to feel; nor does prudence always keep a guard upon his tongue or
his pen. No man writes a better letter to his Constituents than the
member for Westminster; and his compositions of that kind ought to be
good, for they have occasionally cost him dear. He is the idol of the
people of Westminster: few persons have a greater number of friends
and well-wishers; and he has still greater reason to be proud of his
enemies, for his integrity and independence have made them so. Sir
Francis Burdett has often been left in a Minority in the House of
Commons, with only one or two on his side. We suspect, unfortunately for
his country, that History will be found to enter its protest on the same
side of the question!
[Footnote A: Mr. Brougham is not a Scotchman literally, but by
adoption.]
* * * * *
LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE.
Lord Eldon is an exceedingly good-natured man; but this does not prevent
him, like other good-natured people, from consulting his own ease or
interest. The character of _good-nature_, as it is called, has been a
good deal mistaken; and the present Chancellor is not a bad illustration
of the grounds of the prevailing error. When we happen to see an
individual whose countenance is "all tranquillity and smiles;" who
is full of good-humour and pleasantry; whose manners are gentle and
conciliating; who is uniformly temperate in his expressions, and
punctual and just in his every-day dealings; we are apt to conclude from
so fair an outside, that
"All is conscience and tender heart"
within also, and that such a one would not hurt a fly. And neither would
he without a motive. But mere good-nature (or what passes in the world
for such) is often no better than indolent selfishness. A person
distinguished and praised for this quality will not needlessly offend
others, because they may retaliate; and besides, it ruffles his own
temper. He likes to enjoy a perfect calm, and to live in an interchange
of kind offices. He suffers few things to irritate or annoy him. He has
a fine oiliness in his disposition, which smooths the waves of passion
as they rise. He does not enter into the quarrels or enmities of others;
bears their calamities with patience; he listens to the din and clang of
war, the earthquake and the hurricane of the political and moral world
with the temper and spirit of a philosopher; no act of injustice puts
him beside himself, the follies and absurdities of mankind never give
him a moment's uneasiness, he has none of the ordinary causes of
fretfulness or chagrin that torment others from the undue interest they
take in the conduct of their neighbours or in the public good. None of
these idle or frivolous sources of discontent, that make such havoc
with the peace of human life, ever discompose his features or alter the
serenity of his pulse. If a nation is robbed of its rights,
"If wretches hang that Ministers may dine,"--
the laughing jest still collects in his eye, the cordial squeeze of the
hand is still the same. But tread on the toe of one of these amiable and
imperturbable mortals, or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney and
spoil their dinners, and see how they will bear it. All their patience
is confined to the accidents that befal others: all their good-humour
is to be resolved into giving themselves no concern about any thing but
their own ease and self-indulgence. Their charity begins and ends at
home. Their being free from the common infirmities of temper is owing to
their indifference to the common feelings of humanity; and if you touch
the sore place, they betray more resentment, and break out (like spoiled
children) into greater fractiousness than others, partly from a greater
degree of selfishness, and partly because they are taken by surprise,
and mad to think they have not guarded every point against annoyance or
attack, by a habit of callous insensibility and pampered indolence.
An instance of what we mean occurred but the other day. An allusion was
made in the House of Commons to something in the proceedings in the
Court of Chancery, and the Lord Chancellor comes to his place in the
Court, with the statement in his hand, fire in his eyes, and a direct
charge of falsehood in his mouth, without knowing any thing certain
of the matter, without making any inquiry into it, without using any
precaution or putting the least restraint upon himself, and all on no
better authority than a common newspaper report. The thing was (not that
we are imputing any strong blame in this case, we merely bring it as an
illustration) it touched himself, his office, the inviolability of his
jurisdiction, the unexceptionableness of his proceedings, and the wet
blanket of the Chancellor's temper instantly took fire like tinder! All
the fine balancing was at an end; all the doubts, all the delicacy, all
the candour real or affected, all the chances that there might be a
mistake in the report, all the decencies to be observed towards a Member
of the House, are overlooked by the blindness of passion, and the wary
Judge pounces upon the paragraph without mercy, without a moment's
delay, or the smallest attention to forms! This was indeed serious
business, there was to be no trifling here; every instant was an age
till the Chancellor had discharged his sense of indignation on the head
of the indiscreet interloper on his authority. Had it been another
person's case, another person's dignity that had been compromised,
another person's conduct that had been called in question, who doubts
but that the matter might have stood over till the next term, that the
Noble Lord would have taken the Newspaper home in his pocket, that he
would have compared it carefully with other newspapers, that he would
have written in the most mild and gentlemanly terms to the Honourable
Member to inquire into the truth of the statement, that he would have
watched a convenient opportunity good-humouredly to ask other Honourable
Members what all this was about, that the greatest caution and fairness
would have been observed, and that to this hour the lawyers' clerks and
the junior counsel would have been in the greatest admiration of the
Chancellor's nicety of discrimination, and the utter inefficacy of the
heats, importunities, haste, and passions of others to influence his
judgment? This would have been true; yet his readiness to decide and to
condemn where he himself is concerned, shews that passion is not dead in
him, nor subject to the controul of reason; but that self-love is the
main-spring that moves it, though on all beyond that limit he looks with
the most perfect calmness and philosophic indifference.
"Resistless passion sways us to the mood
Of what it likes or loaths."
All people are passionate in what concerns themselves, or in what they
take an interest in. The range of this last is different in different
persons; but the want of passion is but another name for the want of
sympathy and imagination.
The Lord Chancellor's impartiality and conscientious exactness is
proverbial; and is, we believe, as inflexible as it is delicate in
all cases that occur in the stated routine of legal practice. The
impatience, the irritation, the hopes, the fears, the confident tone of
the applicants move him not a jot from his intended course, he looks at
their claims with the "lack lustre eye" of prefessional indifference.
Power and influence apart, his next strongest passion is to indulge in
the exercise of professional learning and skill, to amuse himself with
the dry details and intricate windings of the law of equity. He delights
to balance a straw, to see a feather turn the scale, or make it even
again; and divides and subdivides a scruple to the smallest fraction. He
unravels the web of argument and pieces it together again; folds it up
and lays it aside, that he may examine it more at his leisure. He hugs
indecision to his breast, and takes home a modest doubt or a nice point
to solace himself with it in protracted, luxurious dalliance. Delay
seems, in his mind, to be of the very essence of justice. He no more
hurries through a question than if no one was waiting for the result,
and he was merely a _dilettanti_, fanciful judge, who played at my Lord
Chancellor, and busied himself with quibbles and punctilios as an idle
hobby and harmless illusion. The phlegm of the Chancellor's disposition
gives one almost a surfeit of impartiality and candour: we are sick
of the eternal poise of childish dilatoriness; and would wish law and
justice to be decided at once by a cast of the dice (as they were in
Rabelais) rather than be kept in frivolous and tormenting suspense. But
there is a limit even to this extreme refinement and scrupulousness
of the Chancellor. The understanding acts only in the absence of the
passions. At the approach of the loadstone, the needle trembles, and
points to it. The air of a political question has a wonderful tendency
to brace and quicken the learned Lord's faculties. The breath of a court
speedily oversets a thousand objections, and scatters the cobwebs of his
brain. The secret wish of power is a thumping _make-weight,_ where all
is so nicely-balanced beforehand. In the case of a celebrated beauty and
heiress, and the brother of a Noble Lord, the Chancellor hesitated long,
and went through the forms, as usual: but who ever doubted, where all
this indecision would end? No man in his senses, for a single instant!
We shall not press this point, which is rather a ticklish one. Some
persons thought that from entertaining a fellow-feeling on the subject,
the Chancellor would have been ready to favour the Poet-Laureat's
application to the Court of Chancery for an injunction against Wat
Tyler. His Lordship's sentiments on such points are not so variable, he
has too much at stake. He recollected the year 1794, though Mr. Southey
had forgotten it!--