save that client by all expedient means-to measure-evidence inadequate to prove a debt protect that client at all hazards and costs to impotent to deprive of a civil right-ridicuall others, and among others to himself is lous to convict of the lowest offence-scanthe highest and most unquestionable of his dalous if brought forward to support a charge duties; and he must not regard the alarm- of the highest nature which the law knowsthe suffering-the torment-the destruction monstrous to ruin the honor, to blast the -which he may bring upon another. Nay, name, of an English Queen! What shall I separating even the duties of a patriot from say, then, if this is the proof by which an act those of an advocate, and casting them, if of legislation, a parliamentary sentence, an need be, to the wind, he must prove reckless ex post facto law, is sought to be passed of the consequences, if his fate should un- against this defenceless woman? My Lords, happily be to involve his country in confusion I pray you to pause. I do earnestly beseech for his client's protection!" you to take heed! You are standing upon the brink of a precipice-then beware! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the Queen. But it will be

This, if considered as propounding an article in the code of forensic ethics, is an exaggerated and erroneous view, against which the only judgment you ever pronounced, the right reason of every one instinctively revolts; but the speaker meant it to apply to and foreshadow the necessity to which he might be driven of recriminating upon the King, and impunging his title to the throne in consequence of his marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert. Although Mr. Brougham did not go so far as this, yet he went far enough in vindicating his claim to know in the discharge of his duty to his client "but one person in the world, that client and no other," when he called the King "the ringleader of the band of perjured witnesses;" and in quoting an affectionate letter from George III. to his daughter-in-law, said, that he could not read it "without a feeling of sorrow, when we reflect upon the reign that has passed, and compare it with the rule we live under."

which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who gave it. Save the country, my Lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe-save yourselves from this peril-rescue that country of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and stem of the tree. Save that country that you may continue to adorn itsave the Crown which is in jeopardy-the Aristocracy which is shaken-save the Altar which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred Throne! You have said, my Lords, you have willed-the Church and the King have willed-that the Queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has, instead of that solemnity, the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplications to the Throne of Mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people, in a larger measure than the merits of their rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice."

It is needless to express any opinion upon the merits of the case, or to revive a controversy, in every aspect most unhappy, which has died away. We are dealing with the In connexion with the Queen's trial another Queen's trial merely as it afforded a great opportunity was afforded to Mr. Brougham occasion for a great advocate; and no one for a great oratorical display. When she can deny the matchless skill with which the defence was conducted, and the power with which the testimony of Majocchi, the "non mi ricordo " Majocchi-of Demont, the Machiavel of waiting maids"- of Cucchi, with "that unmatched physiognomy, those gloating eyes, that sniffing nose, that lecherous mouth"-of Sacchi, and of Kress, and indeed of all the witnesses. for the bill, was sifted, anatomized, and destroyed. We will quote the peroration of the speech, and chiefly for the purpose of calling attention to the rising climax at the beginning.

"Such, my Lords, is the case now before you! Such is the evidence in support of this

died in August, 1821, the bells of most of the churches throughout England were tolled,— but those of Durham remained silent. Neither church nor cathedral there paid this tribute of respect to her memory; and a Mr. Williams, the editor of a local newspaper at Durham, commented with some severity upon the omission. What he wrote would now-adays pass unheeded and disregarded, but those were times of ex-officio informations; and the late Lord Abinger, then Mr. Scarlett, the Attorney-General of the County Palatine, obtained a rule, which was afterwards made absolute, for a criminal information against John Williams, the publisher of the para

In the same speech occurs a passage which we must cite as perfect in its kind. Mr. Scarlett had lamented in his opening that the clergy had not the power of defending themselves through the public press. Mr. Brougham declared that they had largely used it and

graph, for a libel against "the clergy residing in and near the city of Durham." We more than doubt whether such a body-having no corporate character or capacity-could, in point of law, be the possible subjects of a libel, so as to enable them to be the relators in a criminal information. But the rule was grant-" scurrilously and foully libelled" the defended, and Williams was defended before a Durham jury by Mr. Brougham.

In the alleged libel occurred the following passage:-"Yet these men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, to teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to promote harmony, charity, and Christian love! Out upon such hypocrisy!" -and Mr. Scarlett, who conducted the prosecution, had suggested in his opening address to the jury that the reason why the bells of Durham were silent was because the clergy there too deeply sympathized with the Queen's fate to give open expression to their sorrow. This was indeed to expose an unguarded flank to the enemy and invite a terrible attack, and thus did Mr. Brougham avail himself of the opportunity.

ant. He then thus proceeded :

"Not that they wound deeply or injure much; but that is no fault of theirs: without hurting they give trouble and discomfort. The insect brought into life by corruption, and nestled in filth, though its flight be lowly irritate the skin and offend the nostril, and and its sting puny, can swarm and buzz and altogether give us nearly as much annoyance as the wasp, whose nobler nature it aspires to emulate. These reverend slanderers-these pious backbiters-devoid of force to wield the sword, snatch the dagger; and destitute of wit to point or to barb it, and make it rankle fester in the scratch." in the wound, steep it in venom to make it

Nor was this the last occasion on which Lord Brougham defended the memory of the Queen. No one can doubt the sincerity of his conviction of her innocence, and he has seized every opportunity of proclaiming it to the world. In a debate in 1823, on the question of the administration of the Law in Ireland, brought forward by himself, Mr. Peel had censured his reference to a letter which had been addressed by the Irish AttorneyGeneral, Mr. Saurin, to Lord Norbury, then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, and in which the writer had suggested that Lord Norbury should make use of his position as a judge on circuit to influence those with whom he came in contact against Catholic Emancipation. This letter was a private one, which had got into print by some improper means, contrary to the wish and intention of Mr. Saurin, and had been the subject of much public remark. On hearing the attack, Mr. Brougham turned to Mr. Denman and Mr. Williams, who with Dr. Lushington had been his colleagues on the Queen's trial, and, quoting Cromwell's words at the battle of Dunbar, said, "The Lord hath delivered them into our hands." When he rose to

"The venerable the clergy of Durham, I am told now for the first time .. did nevertheless, in reality, all the while, deeply sympathize with her suffering in the bottom of their reverend hearts! When all the resources of the most ingenious cruelty hurried her to a fate without parallel-if not so clamorous as others, they did not feel the least of all the members of the community-their grief was in truth too deep for utterance sorrow clung round their bosoms, weighed upon their tongues, stifled every sound-and when all the rest of mankind, of all sects and of all nations, freely gave vent to the feelings of our common nature, THEIR silence, the contrast which THEY displayed to the rest of their species, proceeded from the greater depth of their affliction; they said the less because they felt the more!-Oh! talk of hy pocrisy after this! most consummate of all the hypocrites! After instructing your chosen official advocate to stand forward with such a defence such an exposition of your motives -to dare to utter the word hypocrisy, and complain of those who charged you with it! This is indeed to insult common sense, and outrage the feelings of the whole human race! If you were hypocrites before, you were down-reply he thus dealt with the accusation, and right frank honest hypocrites to what you his upon adversary : have made yourselves-and surely for all you have ever done or ever been charged with, your worst enemies must be satisfied with the humiliation of this day, its just atonement and ample retribution!"

thus retorted

"And why, let me ask, am I to be blamed for simply referring to an extensively published letter, as if I had first given it publicity? .. I entirely agree with the Right Honorable Gentleman, in his condemnation

of those who have been concerned in obtain- | bear the storm. Her being made more tight ing the letter for the purpose of publishing in her rigging, better trimmed, better manned, it. Their conduct may not be criminal by and by a more contented crew, sounder in the enactments of the law, but it is morally her timbers, more secure and more seaworthy dishonest, and it is revolting to every honor- in all her fabric, far from rendering her less able feeling. I go heartily along with him in fit safely to ride through the troubled waters, reprobating all such odious practices; I hold must make her more powerful to defy the with him that it is shameful, indecent, abomin-strife of the elements. . The vessel has able to encourage them; I consider it truly undergone a thorough repair; not unneces→ detestable to hold out the encouragement of sary for her security in the fairest weather, bribes for the purpose of corrupting servants, but in the stress of wind and wave absolutely and inducing them to violate their first duty, required to give her a chance of safety." and betray the secrets of their master-aye, and of their mistress too!-I say of their collection we are reviewing, we cannot resist And, although it is not included in the mistress of their mistress!—and not only the temptation of quoting an extract from to betray her secrets and to steal her papers,

and to purloin her letters, but to produce his noble speech on the State of the Law, them for the treacherous, the foul, the execra- where a fine metaphor is beautifully sustained. ble purpose of supporting a charge against "The great stream of Time is perpetually her honor and her life, founded on the docu- flowing on; all things around us are in ceasements that have been pilfered by her servants less motion; and we vainly imagine to preand sold to her enemies! the proofs obtained serve our relative position among them by by perfidy suborned, and larceny perpetrated! getting out of the current and standing stockand then to carry on a prosecution wholly still on the margin. The stately vessel we grounded on matter drawn from sources so belong to glides down; our bark is attached polluted, as at once insulted, disgraced, and to it; we might pursue the triumph and degraded the nation-a prosecution so foul, partake the gale;' but worse than the fool so utterly abominable, making the sun shroud who stares expecting the current to flow himself in darkness, as if unwilling to lend down and run out, we exclaim, Stop the the light of day to the perpetration of such boat!' and would tear it away to strand it enormous wickedness! * And by whom was for the purpose of preserving its connexion this infamy enacted? By the Ministers of with the vessel." the Crown-by the very colleagues of the Right Honorable Gentleman who now pronounces so solemn a denunciation of all that tends to encourage servants in betraying the confidence of their masters and their mistresses!"

Lord Brougham is sparing in the use of metaphor, and hardly ever resorts to a simile. But when he does employ metaphor it is always apt and effective. We may give as a specimen his description of the benefits conferred by the Reform Bill, which occurs in a speech delivered by him in 1839, on what was called the Bed-chamber Question, so fatal to Sir Robert Peel's attempt to form an Administration in the month of May in that

year.

"It is my clear and deliberate conviction (and if I had not so believed I never would have consented to the change in 1831 and 1832, much less promoted it)-that if the altered Constitution is fit for the calm, it is yet better suited to the tempest; if the vessel can ride the more safely in smooth water, since the repairs she has underwent, they were still more necessary for enabling her to

* An eclipse of the sun happened to take place at the time of the opening of the case for the Bill of Pains and Penalties against the Queen.

that Lord Brougham peculiarly excels. No It is, however, in the power of description one can paint with more force a picture in words. Witness that tremendous passage with which he appalled the House of Lords when, in his speech on the Slave Trade in 1838, he described the horrors of the Middle Passage and spoke of the shark that follows in the wake of the slave-ship; "and her course is literally to be tracked through the ocean by the blood of the murdered, with which her enormous crime stains its waters." Our space will not allow us to do more than give a fragment of the picture in which are drawn scenes—

"Scenes not exceeded in horror by the forms with which the great Tuscan poet peopled the Hell of his fancy, nor by the dismal tints of his illustrious countryman's pencil breathing its horrors over the vaults of the Sistine Chapel! Mortua quin etiam jungebat corpora vivis! On the deck and in the loathsome hold are to be seen the living chained to the dead-the putrid carcass remaining to mock the survivor with a mock him with the spectacle of a release that spectacle that to him presents no terrors-to he envies! Nay, women have been known to

of the vain efforts made to seek relief. Miserable men might be seen rushing forth into the streets and wildly grasping the first pasAfter this, his affecting account of the suf- senger they met, to implore his help, as if by ferings of the people in his speech against could restore health to their own veins, or communicating the poison to others they the Orders in Council in 1812 seems almost life to its victims whom they had left stretched tame. And yet his tale of starving penury before it. In that dismal period there was and silent woe in the manufacturing districts no end of projects and nostrums for preventwas told with infinite skill-we fear with not ing or curing the disease; and numberless more skill than truth-and touched the hearts empirics every day started up with some of all who heard it. Speaking of Birminghopes and terrors of the multitude, and then new delusion, rapidly made fortunes of the

"

With this it is worth while to compare his grand and impassioned burst of indignant eloquence, when denouncing in the House of Lords, in 1838, the cruelties practised in our West India Colonies, and calling upon the House to assent to the immediate emancipation of the Negro apprentices. female slaves had been severely flogged, and "then forced by torture to work on the treadmill, "till their sufferings had reached the pitch when life can no longer even glimmer in the socket of the weary frame." They died-and

Eleven

parison of France in 1792, when" a pro- | property in man!* In vain you appeal to ious revolution had unchained twenty-six treaties, to covenants between nations: the illions of men in the heart of Europe," with covenants of the Almighty, whether of the rance at the time he spoke, after "Jacobin- old Covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions." ism, itself arrested by the Directory, punished by the Consuls, reclaimed by the Emperor, has become attached to the cause of good order, and made to serve it with the zeal, the resources and the address of a malefactor engaged by the police after the time of his sentence had expired." Or the peroration of his speech in 1823, on abuses in the Administration of the Law in Ireland, which Mr. Wilberforce in his "Diary" (see his Life," vol. v. p. 186.) called "quite thundering magnificent, but very unjust declamation." With the justice or injustice of the attack we are not now concerned, but it is melancholy to think that such a theme should have afforded materials for a long oration in the House of Commons little more than thirty years ago, and that it should have been possible to say there, as Mr. Brougham did say, "In England, justice is delayed, but thank Heaven, it can never be sold. In Ireland it is sold to the rich, refused to the poor, delayed to all. It is in vain to disguise the fact; it is in vain to shun the disclosure of the truth.

We are driving six millions of people to despair, madness..

But at the risk of choosing a passage which some may think eclipsed by others more rhetorical and brilliant, we will give an extract from the close of his speech in the House of Commons in 1830 on Negro Slavery, which we think remarkably fine :

"Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes-the same throughout the world, the same in all times-such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes. Such it is at this day. It is the law written in the heart of man by the finger of his Maker; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject the wild and guilty phantasy that man can hold

"Ask you," said the great champion of the cause of African freedom, "ask you, if crimes like these, murderous in their legal nature, noticed; if inquiry was neglected to be made as well as frightful in their aspect, passed unrespecting these deaths in a prison? No such thing! The forms of justice were, on this head, peremptory even in the West Indies; and those forms, the handmaids of Justice, were present, though their sacred mistress was far away. The coroner duly attended; inquisitions were made in order, and eleven his jury were regularly impannelled; eleven verdicts returned. Murder! manslaughter! misdemeanor! misconduct! No-but Died by the Visitation of God!' Died by the visitation of God! A lie! a perjury! a blasphemy! The visitation of God! Yes, for it is amongst the most awful of those visitations by which the inscrutable purposes of His will are mysteriously accomplished, that He sometimes arms the wicked with power to oppress the guiltless; and if there be any visitation more dreadful than another-any which more tries the faith and vexes the reason of erring mortals, it is when Heaven showers down upon earth the plague-not of scorpions, or pestilence, or famine, or war-but of unjust judges and perjured jurors; wretches who pervert the law to wreak their personal ven

* Some years ago, when a case was argued before Lord Denman and several other judges in Serjeants' Inn, involving incidentally the right of the counsel who argued that a certain capture was a Spanish or Portuguese vessel to carry slaves, unlawful, was assuming that, by the Law of Nations, slave-trading was lawful; upon which Lord Denman said, "I don't know that; I should like to hear that point argued." However, it was soon shown that what the laws of the principal nations of Europe had sanctioned, could not be contrary to the Law of Nations; and indeed so Lord Stowell had decided in the case of the French vessel Le Louis in 1817.