The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 10, September, 1836Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 10, September, 1836
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
I would censure Lord Brougham more severely as a writer than as a
speaker; for Lord Brougham is also a writer, and a good deal too much
of one. The melancholy activity which distinguishes him, pushes him on
incessantly to fill the reviews with his economical, political,
scientific, historical, and theological essays, and to heap up
pamphlet on pamphlet; if his writings were characterized by a finished
style or new ideas, the evil would not be half so great; there is,
however, eternally the same excessive flood of words; and on paper,
where they cannot evaporate, it becomes even more intolerable. Though
on his own part it has not been an interested speculation, I cannot
pardon him for having been the father of that leprous, cheap
literature, which, pretending to diffuse useful knowledge, has only
displayed false opinions, ignorance, and bad writing. In France, where
this disastrous invention has been so quickly perfected, there is good
cause to curse in all sincerity its author. It is not his fault
however, that the French have permitted their worthless laborers to
infect, as they have done, all their literary field, with these tares
which threaten to choke the promising harvest of their young poetry.
Let us examine Lord Brougham as a politician. Here we find him still
more imperfect. I acquit him of the charge of having offered his
support to the conservatives, on the condition of their securing him
his chancellorship; this is a calumny of his enemies. I wish he had
never had any thing to do with toryism. It is not his fault however,
that he has not again become a whig officer. It is said that it is the
whigs who object to his joining their ministry, and who have refused
him the seals. Experience has proved that he is less dangerous as an
enemy than as a friend. He is neither tory nor whig; nor is he a
radical; he is however at present among the radicals. He is of no
party, if it be not his own, the party of Lord Brougham.
The case of Lord Brougham ought to afford a salutary example to M.
Dupin, his friend. There are many curious analogies between these two
celebrated lawyers; they resemble each other strikingly in their
countenances, in their fortune, in their inconsistencies, and in their
extravagancies. M. Dupin does not preside more soberly over the
Chamber of Deputies, than Lord Brougham did over that of the Lords. He
is also a {644} lawyer who fills the speaker's chair, and speaks
himself much more willingly than he accords the permission to another.
I grant you that his eloquence is of better metal, more powerful, more
solid, more triumphant; that his blows are heavier and more mortal;
but should he ever succeed in reaching the power after which he
aspires, I doubt if his temperament will allow him to sustain himself
half the time that the petulance of our ci-devant chancellor remained
seated on the woolsack.
IANTHE.
BY MORNA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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