He set

of its members, were to him one and the same thing. about giving effect to this determination with all that energy of will and perseverance of effort, which he had already displayed so conspicuously in other pursuits. All our readers, probably, know how splendid was his success; and will pardon us, if we hasten to the commencement of his parliamentary career.

He was about thirty-eight years of age, when he first took his seat in Parliament; having been returned for Camelford, a borough in the interest of the Duke of Bedford. It was a period crowded with great events. The world was then agitated by the all-grasping ambition of one extraordinary man. Nothing seemed to be exempt from his power. He overturned thrones and subverted governments. At the distance of three thousand miles, we felt the shock. England alone seemed to stand in his way to the mastery of the old world; and with England, he was, at this period, at war. In ordinary wars, neutral rights are respected, and the neutral position is one of eminent advantage. But this was not an ordinary war. Napoleon led the way to the violation of the law of nations and of neutral rights, by the famous decree of Berlin, issued in November, 1806. The English Government retaliated, by issuing the equally famous Orders in Council, in November, 1807. In December of the same year, Congress, deeming our commerce 'unsafe within the wind of such commotion,' passed the embargo law, by which our whole trade was at once withdrawn from the ocean. Of the effect and policy of all or any of these acts of belligerent legislation, it is not our purpose to speak in detail. The trade and manufactures of Great Britain were deeply injured by them; and, in the following year, petitions were presented from London, Liverpool, and Manchester, against the obnoxious Orders in Council. Mr. Brougham was the most conspicuous advocate of the petitioners. He argued their cause, and the cause of the nation, ably and faithfully; but his efforts were not, at this time, successful. The Orders in Council were not rescinded. For four years longer, the nation struggled on through every form of embarrassment and distress. The merchants and manufacturers again complained and petitioned; and Mr. Brougham was again their advocate. He moved that evidence should be heard at the bar of the House of Commons on the state of the country. Contrary to general expectation, according to the wish, rather than the hope of the petitioners themselves, the VOL. XXXIII.-NO. 72.

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motion prevailed. Evidence was introduced. Mr. Brougham himself took the lead in the examination; which was continued near a month, until the House was saturated with information as to the existence and the cause of the general distress. He then, in a speech of great eloquence and power, urged the immediate repeal of the obnoxious and ruinous edicts. His principal arguments were drawn from the vast importance of the American market to the British manufacturer, and the necessity of checking the growth of a manufacturing spirit in the United States, who had begun to make at home, what British policy prevented them from purchasing abroad. We regret that we have not room to lay before our readers some passages from this truly splendid speech; but we must reserve all the space that can be spared for other quotations of even greater interest. His power had been felt before; but in this debate, he first put forth his whole strength. He showed himself to be armed with a perfect knowledge of the whole merits of the question, and he used his knowledge with wonderful skill. He exposed, with irresistible sarcasm, the absurdity and ruinous character of the ministerial policy; and he alarmed the fears and aroused the sympathies of the House, by vividly picturing the uneasy and distressed condition of the country. It is scarcely necessary to add, what nearly all our readers know, that he went out of this debate triumphantly. The Orders in Council were rescinded on the 23d of June, 1812. It was, indeed, too late to regain our trade; for war had been declared by the United States against Great Britain, only a few days before. Mr. Brougham's merits, as the champion of the commercial and manufacturing interests, could not, however, be affected by this extrinsic circumstance, which so greatly diminished the value of the victory he had gained for them. We are informed by a gentleman, who was himself an important witness before the House, and whom these pernicious enactments went near to ruin, that the deputations from Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and other places, then representing their interests at London, presented to Mr. Brougham, on this occasion, a splendid service of plate, as a token of their sense of the value of his services.

But the repeal of the Orders in Council constitutes one of his least claims upon the gratitude of his country. We now invite the attention of our readers to his labors in the cause of popular education. This important subject seems to have occu

pied him early; but it was impossible to draw the attention of Parliament to it while the country was plunged in war. He did not attempt to do so, and he acted wisely. In the meantime, the people,-'a class,' as somebody has well said, 'who became obsolete soon after the downfall of the Roman Republic, and did not come again into notice for some sixteen or seventeen centuries,'-were learning a lesson in the school of experience, that rigid and stern, but most efficient schoolmaster. The great efforts that had been made, and were making, to vindicate the rights of the many against the pretensions of the few, were not regarded with an indifferent eye. Our own example of prosperous freedom shone calmly, but gloriously, upon the path of nations. Many eyes, that had been blind to the signs of the times, were opened; many ears, that had been deaf to the pleadings of humanity, were unstopped; many tongues, that had been silent in her cause, were loosed; so that when the war ended and the heavy pressure was taken off from the energies of the nation, every body felt that a great change had been wrought upon public sentiment, and that a great reform was necessary to satisfy the wishes of the people. Mr. Brougham seized this auspicious moment to commence his labors in behalf of education. In England, education had never been made a national concern. Individuals, of every rank, from the monarch down to the humblest of his subjects, had, from time to time, appropriated large sums to this object; but the nation, as a nation, had never done any thing for it. It became necessary, therefore, if Parliament should determine to take this matter into their own hands, to ascertain how far their individual contributions went towards accomplishing the object of a national education, before it could be known how much must be supplied from the public treasury. It was very generally understood, that numerous instances existed, of most reprehensible mismanagement and misapplication of the funds devoted by private munificence to this truly pious purpose. Every lawyer knew this perfectly well. In the sixth volume of the Term Reports, we find Lord Kenyon remarking, in one of his opinions, that whoever will examine the state of the grammar schools in different parts of the kingdom, will see to what a lamentable condition most of them are reduced. If all persons had equally done their duty, we should not find, as is now the case, empty walls without scholars, and every thing neglected but the receipt of the salaries and emoluments.' And in the

thirteenth volume of Vesey's Reports, Lord Eldon is represented as solemnly and sternly denouncing from the bench, the general mode of dealing with the charity estates all over the kingdom, as 'grossly improvident, amounting to a direct breach of trust.'

tom.

Mr. Brougham's first efforts were, of course, to be directed to the exposure and correction of these abuses. In 1816, he began by moving for a Committee to inquire into the state of education among the lower orders of the metropolis. The alarm and clamor, with which the first proposal to extend the blessings of education to the working classes had been received, had subsided and was become disreputable. The motion, therefore, was not opposed. An Education Committee, consisting of forty members, taken indiscriminately from both sides of the House, was appointed, and Mr. Brougham was placed at the head of it. We cannot give any detailed account of the labors of this Committee; nor is it necessary to our purpose. A man who is in earnest in a good cause, will not shrink from the burdens it imposes; and we accordingly find Mr. Brougham, as we might have expected to find him, doing a very large share of the Committee's work. And the work was well done. The investigation went to the very botThe Committee made a voluminous Report,-printed by order of Parliament,-showing the proportion of uneducated children, the state of their morals, the happy influence of education upon morals, the circumstances in the state of the country favorable and unfavorable to education, the proper methods of promoting education, and lastly, the condition of the funds, already applicable to this purpose. In the session of 1818, this Committee was revived and clothed with larger powers. Its labors were renewed with the same energetic zeal, which had marked them when confined to a narrower sphere. Great numbers were examined, as well upon the general subject of education, as upon the application of the charitable funds. Mr. Brougham himself was a witness, and spread before the Committee a vast amount of information, collected by actual observation and from an extensive correspondence. The whole accumulated mass of evidence was digested into a second Report, which was also printed by order of Parliament. These Reports furnished a complete chart of the state of education throughout the kingdom, and attracted universal attention. It was found, that Lord Kenyon's descrip

tion was not only not overcharged, but that it actually fell far short of the reality. Men were found receiving large salaries for teaching, where nothing was taught; and where, in some instances, the very endowment of the school was unknown to those who should have received the benefit of it. Two or three cases, taken almost at random from these Reports, and from another source, will set this matter in a much stronger light than the most elaborate description.

We will first mention that of a free school and hospital amply endowed. The lands belonging to this charity, worth about $12,000 a year, were rented by the trustees to individuals of their own number, for about $3000. The free school was not taught at all; because, as it was alleged, scholars would not come; yet there was a master receiving a good salary, and enjoying, besides, the use of a house and premises worth about $400 a year, and keeping a private school for his own benefit, in the free school-house! Where he found scholars is a mystery. It was utterly impossible to get any when they were to be taught for nothing. In another case, which we find detailed in a letter from Mr. Brougham to Sir Samuel Romilly, recommending a commission of inquiry, a suit was brought in Chancery, and the evidence showed a richly endowed school, where the master was engaged in the laborious duty of teaching one whole boy, and his usher was helping, as well as he could, at the distance of a hundred miles. this case, the Chancellor thought himself obliged to decree to this master and his usher, for services so meritorious, all the money received on account of fines, amounting then to about $25,000; lamenting, at the same time, the extreme injustice of the case; but saying with Portia,

'The law allows it, and the court awards it.'

In

The last case we shall mention is that of a free school, where the master and usher enjoyed a clear income of about $4000 a year; besides houses for both and two closes, for the master. The school-room had gone to ruin, and was converted into a carpenter's shop. There was, as in the first case, one scholar, who was taught in another room. The master had been obliged, as he said, to be a great deal absent froin home, much against his inclination, and the usher, of whom he had the appointment, was deaf.

These facts are enough to show what was the nature of the