L/ORD B/ROUGHAM was born in Scotland, was the son of a Scotch mother, was trained in the Scotch metaphysics, and employed them with advantage in his work on natural theology, and was swayed by them, often unconsciously, in his addresses at scientific associations, in his speeches, his sketches of statesmen and philosophers, and in his legal opinions and decisions which, when they relate to moral themes, are evidently founded on sound ethical principles, caught from Stewart and the Scottish professors.We are therefore entitled to claim him as belonging to the fraternity.
He was born in Edinburgh, September, 1779.His father was Henry Brougham, of Brougham Hall, Westmoreland, who came to Edinburgh after the death of his first wife, and there married Eleanor Lyme, a niece of Principal Robertson, the historian.He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, where he early showed his great capacity and his power of application.At the university he devoted himself closely and systematically to higher learning, and at times took excessive fits of study.If tradition speaks true, he had also fits of drinking, from the visible effects of which he was kept by his strong mind and bodily constitution.He attended Dugald Stewart's lectures; and we see traces of a happy influence produced on his restless temper by the calm, moral wisdom of that true philosopher and great teacher.But he was specially addicted to physical and mathematical studies, and profited greatly by the instructions of Play fair, Black, and Robison." Great as was the pleasure and solid advantage of studying under such men as Playfair and Stewart, the gratification of attending one of Black's last courses exceeded all I ever enjoyed." At a very early age, from sixteen to twenty, he had papers on optics and porisms inserted in the " Philosophical Transactions " of Edinburgh.
He acquired at this time an immense body of information which be turned to profitable use as a pleader and a statesman, and which greatly increased his usefulness.No doubt his admirers ascribed to him, and he probably ascribed to himself, a larger amount of learning than he really possessed: still he had attained and mastered a vast amount of real knowledge.He continued all his life an ardent and laborious student; and he had laid, in his college days, a solid foundation on which to build his acquirements.
He became, as we might expect, a stirring member of the Speculative Society, which at that time embraced, among its younger members, Jeffrey, Horner, Murray, Moncreiff, Miller, Loch, Adam, Cockburn, Jardine, Charles (afterwards Lord)Kinnaird, Lord Webb Seymour, and at a some what later date the two Grants, Glenelg and his brother Sir Robert." After the day's work we would adjourn to the Apollo Club, where the orgies were more of the 'high jinks' than of the calm or philosophical debating order, or to Johnny Dow's, celebrated for oysters.Sometimes, if not generally, these nocturnal meetings had endings that in no small degree {361} disturbed the tranquillity of the good town of Edinburgh." He became a member of the Society of Advocates in 1800, and in 1808 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, London.The profession was at first distasteful to him in the highest degree, but he soon got reconciled to it when it brought him into scenes of excitement, as when he became counsellor to the Princess Caroline, and earned such fame by his defence of her.
There would be no propriety in our entering into the details of his London life, where he espoused the liberal side in politics, became member of parliament, and compelled all men to acknowledge at once that he was a debater of extraordinary power.His eloquence was of a very marked kind, full, elaborate, yet pointed and telling.His sentences were complex, often taking in a mighty sweep of arguments and facts; and people wondered how lie was ever to get out of the labyrinth in which he had involved himself, but in the end he always came out perspicuous.His clear arrangement of a difficult subject, the fulness of his information, gained the judgment, while his massive language made the whole argument come down with the power of a sledge-hammer, His speeches did resemble thunder quite as much as those of any modern orator; and if Demosthenes "fulmined" over Greece, Brougham "fulmined" over Westminster Hall and St.Stephen's, and popular meetings all over England.His sarcasm was very biting and his invective terrific, and the effect was increased by a nervous curl of the lip, resembling the snarl of a dog.He had every quality of a great orator except tenderness and pathos.
He was a powerful (the most powerful in his day)advocate of every measure of reform, political and social.
He uttered the most withering denunciations of slavery; he advocated law reform, and parliamentary reform, and took a deep interest in education and in all social questions, --becoming president of the Social Science Congress.But perhaps his greatest work was the formation of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which did so much to extend a knowledge of literature and science and promote reading among the people.
His vast powers, however, were greatly marred by certain weaknesses.He was impelled by a fiery intellect to constant labor, and was often busy when he might have carried his point more effectively by retiring.He was intensely fond of popular applause, -- partly through his sympathy with man kind, and often sought fame in quarters where he got only infamy.All this wrought in him a restlessness and an inequality of temper; and his party, even his friends, complained that they could not trust him.