adversary--a kind of irrepressible rocket, only too easy to discharge, but whose course defied prediction. It is, however, admitted by everyone that the literary results of this portentous activity were essentially ephemeral. His writings are hopelessly commonplace in substance and slipshod in style. His garden offers a bushel of potatoes instead of a single peach. Much of Brougham's work was up to the level necessary to give effect to the manifesto of an active politician. It was a forcible exposition of the arguments common at the time; but it has nowhere that stamp of originality in thought or brilliance in expression which could confer upon it a permanent vitality. Jeffrey and Sydney Smith deserve more respectful treatment. Macaulay speaks of his first editor with respectful enthusiasm. He says of the collected contributions that the 'variety and fertility of Jeffrey's mind' seem more extraordinary than ever. Scarcely could any three men have produced such 'diversified excellence.' 'When I compare him with Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer. But he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly an universal genius than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much as Brougham affects the character.' Macaulay hated Brougham, and was, perhaps, a little unjust to him. But what are we to say of the writings upon which this panegyric is pronounced?