LORD-CHANCELLOR BROUGHAM'S LEVEE.

UNFEIGNED respect for, and a slight personal acquaintance with, the noble person who now holds the Seals, led me to attend his last levee.* This could not be done without some inconvenience; and not the least of it was the necessity of being equipped in full court-apparel. I do not object to this dress-indeed, I much approve of it in those who mingle in the gorgeousness of courts; but plainer attire would have more befitted the taste of an humble incognito. I mention this fact, lest it might be supposed that I was guilty of the not improbable gothicism of appearing in a garb fit for the funeral, but not the levee of a Lord-Chancellor. The practice of receiving the respects of the public on one or two stated occasions is sufficiently ancient, but I have understood was discontinued, or not much observed, in the latter days of Lord Eldon. It was revived with somewhat greater splendor by Lord Lyndhurst, but still it attracted little public notice. His Lordship never secured any very considerable share of general favor. As a lawyer, he was not at the head, though among the chief of his profession. For my own part, I do not regard his secondary eminence in the law as detracting much from his eminence as a public character, when it is recollected that Brougham him

* This sketch was published in No. 1 of the Metropolitan Magazine (May, 1831). which was started by Thomas Campbell, the poet, after he had retired from the Editorship of the New Monthly Magazine, which he had held for a period of ten years. Lord Brougham's first levee would probably have been in Ililary Term. 1831, and the second, described by Mr. Sheil, at the commence ment of the following Easter Term, or in April, 1831.—— M,

self ranked much below Gurney,* Pollock, Campbell, and sev eral others, whose distinction is derived from law alone-the lowest basis on which the fame of a public man can rest. In politics his career had not been such as to command respect. He was uniformly the supporter of the most profitable opinion.

*The late Sir John Gurney, long known as one of the best cross-examiners at the bar, was made a puisne judge, and in that capacity, no one could say of him,

"Even his failings leaned to mercy's side."

for he was most severe in his judgments. Sir Frederick Pollock and Lord Campbell are yet alive-the first, is Chief Baron of the Exchequer; the other, is Lord Chiet Justice of England, and obtained a peerage in June, 1841, by the scandalous job (already referred to in my notes on the sketch of Plunket) of being made Irish Chancellor, for a few days, to obtain the retiring pension of four thousand pounds sterling, when the Melbourne Ministry, whose first law-officer he was, had no other means of quartering him on the public.- M.

+ Lord Lyndhurst, who has been Lord Chancellor of England under five Administrations, is American by birth, having been born at Boston, May 21, 1772. His grandfather, Richard Copley, was an Irishman who emigrated to America; John Singleton Copley, this man's son, born in Boston in 1738, showed great natural taste for painting, which he adopted as a profession. He went to England, where his fine historical painting, the death of Lord Chatham, gave him high reputation. He painted several other subject-pictures, which caused him to be elected a Royal Academician. He died in 1815, having lived to see the dawning success or his son. The future Chancellor having eminently distinguished himself at Cambridge University, was called to the English bar in 1804. and, at first was remarkable for his ultra-liberal politics. He soon became leader of his circuit, entered Parliament, adopted Tory views, and was rewarded by the Government, with the Chief Justice of Chester in 1818. He was made Solicitor-General, and knighted, in 1819, became Attorney Genera! in 1824; was made Master of the Rolls in 1826; and was raised to the rank of Lord Chancellor, with a peerage, as Lord Lyudhurst, when Lord Eldon and five of his colleagues simultaneously resigned, with a view to embarrass Janning, the new Premier, in 1827. Lord Lyndhurst was continued in the office of Chancellor under the brief administration of Lord Goderich, and was retained, from 1827 to November, 1828, by the Duke of Wellington, under whom, in 1829, the pliant lawyer advocated Catholic Emancipation, as strongly as he had assailed it before. In November, 1830, when the Duke's Cabinet broke up, Lyndhurst had to resign, and was succeeded by Brougham. In 1831, Lord Lyndhurst was made Chief Baron of the Exchequer, which he resigned, in December, 1834, again to become Lord Chancellor. But Peel's Ministry, of which he was one, was compelled to resign in April, 1835. From this time, until the autumn of 1841, Lord Lyndhurst held no official station, but received his retiring pension of five thousand pounds sterling. He made a speech, for several

In early life a flagrant Whig, as opening up the best field for talent; in a more advanced stage, the bitter enemy of the Catholics, so long as the star of Lord Eldon, the great dispenser of legal favor, was in the ascendant; and finally, when office had secured him, the advocate of the Catholics on what was called the constitutional ground, when all favor was in the giving of the Duke of Wellington.*

It is not remarkable that the levees of Lord Lyndhurst should have passed off in quietness. I do not remember to have heard that the ceremonial was observed by his Lordship, although, from the known display of this fashionable lawyer, there is no doubt that it was not neglected. If, however, his levees had been attended by the magnificent, it is equally certain that the fact must have attracted public notoriety. I incline to think that it was reserved for Brougham to illustrate the ancient custom, by the splendor of those who chose to be dutiful to the Lord-Chancellor. The fashion of going to court subsequent years, at the close of each Parliamentary Session, in which he ably and unmercifully exposed the " sayings and doings" of the Melbourne Ministry. When Peel again became Premier, in 1841, Lord Lyndhurst, for the fifth time, was made Lord Chancellor, and continued in office, until June, 1846, when the Peel Ministry was broken up. It is said that he was offered the Great Seal, for the sixth time, in 1852, by Lord Derby, but declined on the plea of advanced years-having then reached the age of seventy. As a politician, Lord Lyndhurst has been inconsistent and flexible; as a parliamentary speaker, severe and sarcastic; as an advocate, powerful and effective; as a judge, acute and shrewd. In common law, he has had few superiors; and though his bar practice was not in the Chancery courts, sagacity and great common sense marked his decisions in equity. He still attends to his parliamentary duties [January, 1854], but seldom speaks.—M.

* War, to which Wellington owed his celebrity, rank, and fortune, has usually been an expensive luxury to John Bull. In the last four years of the contest with France, the cost to the British nation was -1812, £103,421,538; 1813, £120,952,657; 1814, £116,843,889; 1815, £116,491,051. The expenditure during the war, from 1803 to 1815 inclusive, was £1,159,729,256. It was stated after the battle of Waterloo, that young men in the United Kingdom (such as usually enlist) were so generally killed off that it would have been impossible to raise another army. I have heard Doctor Buckland, the geologist, state (in a course of lectures which I attended when at Oxford), that the present French soldiery owe their stunted appearance to the conscription: in the time of Napoleon, which drew away the manhood of the country, leaving the population to spring from immature youths or exhausted vieillards.-M.

is such, that it infers little personal respect to the individual monarch; but the practice of attending the levee of an inferior personage is to be ascribed to the respect which individual eminence commands.

When Lord Brougham announced his levees, it could not be known whether he should receive the homage of the aristocracy, to whom it was not supposed that his Lordship's politics were very amicable. It was, moreover, thought that the republican, or, to speak more guardedly, the Whig Lord-Chancellor, would care little for a custom in which there was no manifest utility. He had declared that the gewgaws of office delighted him not; and I dare say he would fain bring his mind to believe that all ceremonial was idle, perhaps contemptible. But it is the greatest mistake to suppose that Lord Brougham is inattentive to the ceremonies with which his high place is surrounded. A careful observer will see clearly that imposing forms are perfectly agreeable to his mind; nobody could ridicule form better, so long as he held no situation which required the observance of customary rules: but, elevated to his present distinction, it is plain that he enjoys all the little peculiarities of his office. Somebody said that he presided in the House of Lords in a bar-wig, and instanced the fact as a proof of his reforming temper; but it was not true. Accident may have obliged him to take his seat in this ungainly form, but he had no purpose of deviating from the ancient full-bottom, and he is now to be seen in all the amplitude of the olden fleece. In like manner he observes the strict regime, so fantastical to a stranger, of causing counsel to be shouted for from without, although they are actually present, and he adds to the oddness of this custom by receiving them with a most imposing mien, and putting on his chapeau as they advance. This is a form for which the model is not to be found in the practice of his immediate predecessors. It is possible, however, that his extensive and minute reading may have made him aware that Wolsey, peradventure, or some great Chancellor of old, had the fancy to be covered when the suppliants approached. Let any one observe with what studied dignity he performs the duty of announcing the royal assent to acts

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of Parliament; he assumes a solemnity of tone for which his voice is not ill fitted, but which is unusual with him. These small circumstances, and many such which might be mentioned, show that state is not uncongenial to his mind. Why should it? His weakness consists in the unreal contempt for what is not really contemptible.

With his high notions of office, I should have been surprised if he had foregone the levee; and assuredly he has not reckoned without reason; for a more splendid or flattering pageant could not be witnessed than that which his rooms exhibited. Unquestionably the most remarkable man in the empire at this moment, it is his fortune to attract the honorable regards of all who are distinguished as his compeers. It is not my intention to offer any estimate of what I conceive to be his genuine worth, as he may be appreciated in a more dispassionate time; I speak of him only as a great man filling a very large space in the consideration of the empire. Judging from the throng of all classes upon this occasion, whose favor is desirable, no man is more popular.*

* Το us, looking back upon public events, it may now appear singular that there could have been any doubt, on the part of the Whigs, on taking office, in November, 1830, of Brougham's claim to participate in "the spoils." For nearly twenty years, he had been one of the leaders of the liberal party in the House of Commons. In that capacity none had more ably or consistently advocated education, and parliamentary, and law reform. On Queen Caroline's trial, he distinguished himself above all others, and his advocacy of her cause, while it precluded him from Court favor, greatly endeared him to the public. In 1827, he strongly supported Canning's Ministry, but declined, it is said, the office of Master of the Rolls, vacant by Lord Lyndhurst's elevation to the Woolsack. At the general election in 1830, on the accession of William IV., the great County of York returned him, without his competitor's risking a contest, as one of its representatives. He pledged himself to introduce a measure of Parliamentary Reform, and the day being fixed for its introduction, the Wellington Cabinet was beaten into resignation, whereupon Lord Grey was em powered to construct a liberal Government. The post of Attorney-General (which is not held by one of the Executive) was offered to Brougham and declined. It was an inferior post, for Lord Grey actually was afraid of the great genius of the man who had emphatically become "the observed of all observers." Afraid that Brougham's plan of Parliamentary Reform would be bolder and better than that promised by the Whigs, the highest office was offered him and accepted. Or November 22. 1834. he took his seat in the House of Lords,