onarchy to
play with. Radicalism had learned that Whigs in office are not very
unlike Tories in office; and to Brougham it applied the remark: nor
was he at all indignant that it did so. All his superabundant energies
were expended in Chancery. We unluckily missed hearing him deliver his
famous speech at Inverness, and that merely by an untoward chance, for
we were in that part of the country at the time; but we have seen and
conversed with scores who did hear him: we are intimate, too, with the
gentleman who gave his speech on that occasion to the world, and know
that a more faithful or more accomplished reporter than the editor of
the _Inverness Courier_ is not to be found anywhere, nor yet a man of
nicer discrimination, nor of a finer literary taste. There was no
mistake made regarding his Lordship's sentiments when he spoke of the
Reform Bill as well-nigh a final measure; nor did his delight in the
simple-minded natives arise when he pledged himself to recommend them,
by the evening mail, to the graces of good King William, from their
wishing the bill to be anything else than final. Even with its
limited franchise, he deemed it a very excellent bill; and the
woolsack, to which it had elevated him, a very desirable seat. People
did occasionally see that Hazlitt was in the right--that he was rather
a man of speech than of action; that he was somewhat too imprudent for
a leader, somewhat too petulant for a partisan; and that he wanted in
a considerable degree the principle of co-operation.

But Chatham wanted it quite as much as he; and it was deemed invidious
to measure so accomplished a man, and so sworn a friend of peace and
good order, by the minuter rules. But Napoleon should have died at
Waterloo, Brougham at Dunrobin.

What is ex-Chancellor Brougham now? What party trusts to him? What
section of the community does he represent? Frost had his confiding
friends and followers, and Feargus O'Connor led a numerous and
formidable body. Even Sir William Courtenay had his disciples. Where
are Brougham's disciples? What moral influence does the advocate of
popular education, and the indignant denouncer of the iniquities of
the slave-trade, exert? In what age or what country was there ever
a man so 'left by faction?' The Socialism of England and the
Voluntaryism of Edinburgh entrust him with their petitions, and
Chartism stands on tiptoe when he rises in his place to advocate
universal suffrage; but no one confides in h