553 LORD BROUGHAM (HENRY BROUGHAM, BARON BROUGHAM AND VAUX) (1778-1868) N ORATORY, statesmanship, science, and literature, Lord Brougham aspired to the high excellence which even the greatest minds attain only as a result of singleness of purpose. Yet he did not fail in anything and if unfortunately he stopped short of the highest excellence in everything, it was only after showing that it would have been possible for his genius had it been so for his persistence. With the versatility of Cicero, he had the Ciceronian vanity to which the love of rectitude offers no sufficient stimulus except as it offers the possibility of excellence. Had he been as anxious for his work to be the best as he was for it to be the highest, Brougham might have been in some one of the fields in which he succeeded, the greatest man of the century. As it was, he was really a great orator, who lacked only a little of being the greatest of England. In literature, he has written essays and studies of character, which, though they are now neglected, are certain of permanent survival. In statesmanship, if he did less than his best, he made himself so effective that he is unmistakably the last of the English Whig statesmen, who believed with Hampden and Locke in liberty as a supreme good, without which literature, art, science, and dominion are incapable of working out the destinies of the race. Brougham was born in Edinburgh, September 19th, 1778, and educated at the university of his native city. He founded or helped to found the Edinburgh Review in 1802, and is the reputed author of the attack on Byron which provoked "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" as a reply. After entering Parliament in 1810 his great success as an orator decided that his was not to be distinctively a literary career. His great oratorical victory in the defense of Queen Caroline assured him Whig leadership. He became Lord Chancellor in 1830 and held office until the Whig defeat of 1834 retired him. In politics he was the effective champion of the abolition of slavery, of popular sovereignty in elections, and of nonintervention. and peaceful co-operation among nations. His miscellaneous writings make eleven volumes, but he will be remembered in literature chiefly by his "Statesmen of the Time of George III."-a series of essays and character sketches which frequently show literary merit of a very high order. |