Brougham himself! and in the memory of man no other person was ever heard to refer to the Brougham code.

How should they? How should a man of Lord Brougham's multifarious pursuits ever have had time to learn the law? Hear what he says himself of the duties of a chancellor, at the period when the seals were, for some reason, in commission, and there was a talk of dividing the chancellor's duties, and Lord Brougham was out of office.

"If the Lord Chancellor's duties were confined to sitting " in the House of Lords, he would soon become a mere judge "of appeal: he would soon cease to be what the Constitu❝tion prescribed he ought to be,—the first lawyer in the "country. Even as a judge of appeal we might set him up "and plant him on the woolsack; we might give him power; “but would he have any authority? Would he satisfy the "Courts below? Would he satisfy the suitor? Would he sa"tisfy the profession? See the course which would then be "taken by the appointment of a Lord Chancellor. He would "then be chosen because he was a cunning intriguer behind "the curtain, because he was a skilful debater in the House "of Lords. Would such a man be qualified to decide appeals "from the Vice-Chancellor-from the Master of the Rolls? "He would hear, and he would listen; he would discover a "hole to pick here, a word to carp at there, now a commen"tary to hazard, then a remark to risk; but would he be "competent to grapple with the difficulties of a complicated "case? Certainly not, because he would well know that the "profession had no confidence in him.*”

Of whom could Lord Brougham have been thinking when he penned this accurate portrait? Lord Brougham was a bad lawyer, and no shame for him; his studies had been wider— nobler perhaps-than those requisite for success in that profession. The great champion of the Commons, the eager student of all branches of science, the vigorous preacher of state reforms, and (to sink somewhat) the advocate employed solely in some not very difficult points of common-law practice, had no leisure, genius as he was, for attaining legal experience. That he was a bad lawyer was no shame for him, but why be a bad judge?-the place was his own seeking, and the fault at nobody else's door.

We should like to carry our notice somewhat farther, and

is sentence is also quoted, in a most pungent article in the Law Magazine.

make some comments upon the really noble speeches on the Slave Trade which are to be found in this collection,-upon the masterly speech on Law Reform, and the famous oration on the Reform Bill; but want of space compels us to close the volumes and our strictures on them. As far as they have gone, the praise has been small, and the censure only liberal. Has it, however, been undeserved? Is he or is he not convicted of selfishness, tergiversation, insincerity? There is no need of genius to prove the man guilty,-there was no need of a giant to kill Goliath. We pretend to no squeamish morality, that is horrified at Lord Brougham's political crimes, and do not fancy him, on this score, a whit worse than his neighbours. We never have doubted or carped at his genius; but believe him, in intellect and acquirement, to be a giant among the pigmy politicians, amongst whom he now sits, bitter and lonely. It is precisely because he is no more of a rogue (let us be pardoned the expression for brevity's sake) than other men of other parties, who live and shuffle, and bear an honest name; and because his genius is noble and his views originally pure and good, that his example is of some benefit; that of a fool or a born knave is none. Whatever may be the duty of future historians, or the gratitude with which coming generations shall think of him (we cheerfully allow that such gratitude and fame is his due), the critic of the present time (who, God help him! does not look to instruct ages to come, or to live quite as long as the pyramids) has his duty marked out, and his occupation fixed to the day.

It seems to us that the very faults of this man may benefit us as much as ever his labours and excellencies have, materially; and that we each, quiet in our own little sphere, not profiting much individually by law reforms, or parliamentary reforms,—not battling to life and death for Irish tithes,-not very much disturbed even by thoughts of Mr. O'Connell,— and thinking, perhaps, with the poet,

"How small, of all the ills which men endure,

The part which kings or laws can cause or cure;—'

it seems to us, that a man, be he a sceptic in politics, or a violent partizan, may gain no small good from Lord Brougham's history, in the unsubstantial though useful shape of a moral.

The man who cares not for politics may be thankful that his inclinations or his sense of duty have kept him from such

a science, where, to attain eminence, so many sacrifice conscience, happiness, ease, peace of mind; where genius, instead of being free as she should be, must become a poor truckling slave of party or of political expediency; and honesty must run into temptations, or very likely perish altogether. And for what? "I demens, ut declamatio fias,"—to mouth to a mob, or become the subject of discourse to a newspaper. The party politician, on the contrary, (he must pardon us for thinking that his trade cannot be an honest one) may learn some worldly lessons of prudence, if not of morals; and by reading the history of our great schoolmaster, may learn what to avoid. He will not have a tithe of Lord Brougham's genius most likely, of his eloquence, or his acquirements; and will be blessed with no greater share of principle than now, we fear, remains to the worn-out political adventurer. He will see others with less genius and as little principle, far outstripping Brougham in the race; honoured, while he is neglected and alone; praised by some party at least, whilst our poor Brougham is buffeted both by Chronicle and Times. He will find out that however great may be the fools with whom he has to deal, he yet can neither afford to be arrogant with them or unfaithful; and that he must be true to his party, or at least prepared to throw himself into the arms of another. He must not be like Mr. Brougham in 1814, writing for "the doctrine of yearly elections, and the franchise enjoyed by all paying taxes;" at another time talking of "a strong government;" and then, disappointed, whirling back to Radicalism again,-unless he has a party to support him. They may be Lilliputians, but they are more than a match for Gulliver.

It is with a sorrow proportioned to the admiration we feel for Lord Brougham's talents, and the gratitude we know his country owes him for some acts of his life, that we bring ourselves to speak of him in any terms of censure. But it is for the sin of neglecting, or turning to evil uses, the talents with which he has been endowed, that we call him to account. We lament-we in common with thousands who have looked for higher things at his hands,-lament that he has condescended to stoop to the level of the mean and factious coteries by which he is surrounded. We attack in him what a demoralizing and debasing system has created; not the strong heart and head of the individual man, but the tricks, the in

trigues, the charlatanerie of the political adventurer. We attack less the man than the system in the man; and we take him for our object, because he was one who might have shivered the unsound fabric into atoms, but had not courage or earnestness enough to do so: he might have stood upon a moral eminence, so exalted, so commanding, that the eyes of all should have been turned on him in admiration, in gratitude, and love; but, having played his stake for his own sake, not for the sake of mighty principles and of his country, he has fallen, and fallen not to rise again, among his contemporaries. Posterity, that will, happily for him, have lost the record of his weaknesses, while contemplating the vastness of his services, will place him among the foremost men of his age and country. But for those weaknesses, posterity would have known in him not only the one great man of our time, but one of the greatest men this country, fertile in such, ever gave birth to. Grievously do we lament that, with such a choice before him, he should have chosen ill!-ill for his own sake, ill for the sake of England, ill for the sake of the whole human race, whose advancement he might have still more energetically aided, and whose welfare he might have done so much more to assure.

ARTICLE VII.

Précis du Système, des progrès, et de l'état de l'Instruction publique en Russie, rédigé d'après des documents officiels. Par ALEXANDRE DE KRUSENSTERN, Chambellan de S.M. l'Empereur de Russie. 8vo. Varsovie, 1837. THE object of this work is twofold; to enlighten Europe with respect to the erroneous opinions generally entertained by foreigners of the state of civilization in Russia, and to demonstrate the gradual advancement which is, we are told, shortly to place that country upon a level with the most leading nations. The author is a dignitary of the Russian court, the zealous friend of his country, or rather of his government; and his especial task is to prove that in Russia every fortunate result in point of civilization is due, not, as elsewhere, to the natural and progressive development of the intellectual faculties of the nation at large, but solely to the enlightened and self-entitled paternal efforts of government.

These considerations would suffice to stamp this literary production as the work of a partisan, and consequently little worthy of our notice, if the author had not had the good sense to resort for support to official documents, and further the extraordinary courage to attempt to sum up in figures an abstract of the propagation of knowledge in his country. This portion of his work, of which we nowise desire to question the accuracy, deserves investigation; since every foreign and impartial reader may hence extract matter on which to form an independent opinion, even should he then be led to conclusions diametrically opposed to those which it is the author's purpose to establish.

"In western Europe civilization has been the necessary consequence of the force of things,-in Russia it has been the "work of government." This is the favourite theme upon which the author founds, by which he explains, the nature and progress of the system of public education in Russia. Without inquiring, in the first instance, what Russian civilization is, even in its present state, we are at least authorized to infer, that if this civilization be the work of the government, in spite of the force of things, the government mus necessarily be more enlightened than its nation. Is this phenomenon, good and useful as a general thesis, entitled to the like praise in Russia? Is not its action rather noxious than salutary? Nothing is more simple than that a powerful government should be enlightened; but is enlightenment sufficient of itself to render a people happy? The essential requisite to render power beneficial is a sense of justice and morality; now can a sense of justice and morality be reckoned upon in a government, which has attained to its actual position only by a series of frauds, of nefarious deeds, of violated engagements, that founds its policy solely upon the right of the strongest, and that consequently exists only by the destruction of others? Does not knowledge, without justice and without morality, concentrated in a tyrannical government, place in the hands of that government an additional instrument with which to execute its ambitious schemes and make humanity tremble? Russia reigns over two species of conquered countries, and it is of her conquests only that we speak, since it is upon them alone that rests the fascination of her actual power. She burthens with her yoke on the one