t
qualities as a writer by articles and _jeux d'esprit_ in the
_Chronicle_. The defects of the law, and of the administration of
justice, were the subject on which that paper rendered most service to
improvement. Up to that time hardly a word had been said, except by
Bentham and my father, against that most peccant part of English
institutions and of their administration. It was the almost universal
creed of Englishmen, that the law of England, the judicature of England,
the unpaid magistracy of England, were models of excellence. I do not go
beyond the mark in saying, that after Bentham, who supplied the
principal materials, the greatest share of the merit of breaking down
this wretched superstition belongs to Black, as editor of the _Morning
Chronicle_. He kept up an incessant fire against it, exposing the
absurdities and vices of the law and the courts of justice, paid and
unpaid, until he forced some sense of them into people's minds. On many
other questions he became the organ of opinions much in advance of any
which had ever before found regular advocacy in the newspaper press.
Black was a frequent visitor of my father, and Mr. Grote used to say
that he always knew by the Monday morning's article whether Black had
been with my father on the Sunday. Black was one of the most influential
of the many channels through which my father's conversation and personal
influence made his opinions tell on the world; cooperating with the
effect of his writings in making him a power in the country such as it
has rarely been the lot of an individual in a private station to be,
through the mere force of intellect and character: and a power which was
often acting the most efficiently where it was least seen and suspected.
I have already noticed how much of what was done by Ricardo, Hume, and
Grote was the result, in part, of his prompting and persuasion. He was
the good genius by the side of Brougham in most of what he did for the
public, either on education, law reform, or any other subject. And his
influence flowed in minor streams too numerous to be specified. This
influence was now about to receive a great extension by the foundation
of the _Westminster Review_.

Contrary to what may have been supposed, my father was in no degree a
party to setting up the _Westminster Review_. The need of a Radical
organ to make head against the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly_ (then in the
period of their greatest reputation and influence) had been