Let _Punch_ hold out to you a friendly hand, And speak what haply he had left unspoken Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command, That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken. Forgot the changes of thy later years, No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew, Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers-- Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you. He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue Lashed into infamy and endless scorn The wretches who their blackening scandal flung Upon a Queen--of women most forlorn. He knows the lover of his kind, who stood Chief of the banded few who dared to brave The accursed traffickers in negro blood, And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave; The Statesman who, in a less happy hour Than this, maintained man's right to read and know, And gave the keys of knowledge and of power With equal hand alike to high and low; The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims, Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay: The Chancellor who settled century's claims, And swept an age's dense arrears away; The man whose name men read even as they run, On every landmark the world's course along, That speaks to us of a great battle won Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong. Remembering this, full sad I am to hear That voice which loudest in the combat rung Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer, To see that arm of battle all unstrung. And so, even as a warrior after fight Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore, I think of thee, and of thine ancient might, And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more. This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity, the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown and lived for seventeen years longer--years crowded with multifarious activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility, vituperation, and vulgarity.