Henry Brougham was born in Edinburgh in 1779: his father was no extraordinary man, but his mother is described as a woman of talent and delightful character. The son was educated in Edinburgh, which, in 1857, he declared in public he looked upon as a very great benefit conferred on him by Providence. He was _dux_ of the Rector’s class at the Edinburgh University in 1791; and he was preëminent in mathematics and natural philosophy, in law, metaphysics, and political science. When not more than seventeen, he contributed to the Royal Society a paper on the Inflection and Reflection of Light; and next, a paper of Porisms in the Higher Geometry. He chose the Scottish Bar as his profession; and, with Horner, Jeffrey, and other Scottish Whigs, joined the renowned Speculative Society for the sake of extemporaneous debate. He for some time edited the _Edinburgh Review_, and was for five-and-twenty years the most industrious and versatile of the contributors. In 1808 he was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and began to practise as an English barrister. In 1810 he entered Parliament, and soon distinguished himself on all the great questions of the day. His application to law, literature, and science was alike intense. Sir Samuel Romilly said, he seemed to have time for every thing; and Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine himself to only the transaction of so much business as three strong men could get through. Hazlitt, in a portrait-sketch taken about 1825, says: Mr. Brougham writes almost as well as he speaks. In the midst of an election contest he comes out to address the populace, and goes back to his study to finish an article for the _Edinburgh Review_, sometimes indeed wedging three or four articles in the shape of _rifacimenti_ of his own pamphlets or speeches in Parliament in a single Number. Such indeed is the activity of his mind, that it appears to require neither repose nor any other stimulus than a delight in its own exercise. He can turn his hand to any thing, but he cannot be idle. He is, in fact, a striking instance of the versatility and strength of the human mind, and also, in one sense, of the length of human life: _if we make good use of our time, there is room enough to crowd almost every art and science into it_.