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a momentary view of his manner and character.
The result of my intercourse with him thus far is that I like the man less, though I admire his powers as ever before.
I could not fail to perceive, in the rapidity of his thought, the readiness of his language, and the variety of his topics, no slight confirmation of the received opinion with regard to his versatility and universal attainments.
The gentleman, who is now staying here, assured me that he had often received long letters from his Lordship, written, current calamo, in correct Latin; and a friend told me that he once stood behind him, when a barrister on the Northern Circuit, and saw him scrawl a Greek ode on his desk in court.
You may say credat Judaeus. I have been told that the sketches of character, which form such a remarkable ornament of the new publication of his speeches (do read these), were written in his carriage while posting to the south of France; and I happen to know from another source that he was paying his postilions double, and I doubt not swearing at the same time, to make them go faster!
I am almost sorry that I have seen Lord B., for I can no longer paint him to my mind's eye as the pure and enlightened orator of Christianity, civilization, and humanity.
I see him now, as before, with powers such as belong to angels: why could I not have found him with an angel's purity, gentleness, and simplicity?
I must always admire his productions as models of art; but I fear that I shall distrust his sincerity and the purity of his motives.
I think that he is about throwing himself again among the people, and accepting their leadership.
Two letters that I have received from Lord B. have been signed ‘H. Brougham,’ and I have heard of his signing so frequently.
He spoke to me in the most disparaging terms of the aristocracy; but I shall be afraid that he will not speak so much for truth's sake as to promote his own fame and power, or perhaps to gratify a personal pique.1 Certainly, in the society in which I have moved I have heard but one opinion expressed with regard to the dishonesty and malevolence which have characterized his late conduct; and his spite towards Lord Durham is represented as diabolical.
In illustration of this, I have heard anecdotes which I have neither time nor space to relate.
One of these is striking.
Last winter it was supposed for a while that an invention had been found out which would supersede the use of coal, upon which Lord Durham's immense income depends.
Brougham is said to have gone about telling of it, and rubbing his hands, saying: ‘Old Durham is a beggar!
Old Durham is a beggar!’
Perhaps all these idiosyncracies may be better understood and more charitably viewed, when it is known, as it is not generally in England, that Brougham's father died insane, and that he has a sister who is so still.
I am disposed to believe that there is in him a nervousness and immense activity which is near akin to insanity, and which at present jangles the otherwise even measures of his character.
Friday morning, Sept. 7.
I write this in Brougham's library and study,—a most beautiful apartment, with panels of old oak black with age, and with a rich ceiling of the same 