OPINIONS

OF

LORD BROUGHAM,

ON

POLITICS, THEOLOGY, LAW, SCIENCE,

EDUCATION, LITERATURE,

&c. &c.

AS EXHIBITED IN HIS

PARLIAMENTARY AND LEGAL SPEECHES,

AND

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1837.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Ir is scarcely requisite to observe to the intelligent reader of this work, that its object is to afford a collective view of the opinions and practical objects of one of the most eminent public men of his age, so far as these objects and opinions are manifested in his writings and speeches.

As it would be totally foreign to the ingenuousness of an honourable mind, to take any part in a publication so personally exhibiting himself, it must be quite unnecessary for the Editor to state, that Lord Brougham has no connexion with this work, further than that he forms the subject of it.

This book will be found, not only to embody the most brilliant passages from his celebrated speeches and writings, but also to unfold to the

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reader the gradual development of his lord. ship's mind, on those great questions in politic. literature, and science, in which learned men of all countries, and all ages, must ever take a lively interest.

The Editor has exercised great caution in the extracts which have been made, relying only on the most authentic reports of Lord Brougham's parliamentary and legal speeches. He confidently trusts that the passages from the Edinburgh Review will be seen to offer such internal evidences as will render their authenticity a matter of no doubt with the reader.

In addition to the selections, the Editor has given a prefatory memoir, which, he feels assured, will be found more complete, accurate, and elaborate, than any that has hitherto appeared. It contains very ample particulars of his lordship's early, and also of his more advanced life, with a philosophical analysis of his mind and writings.

London, April, 1837.

MEMOIR

OF

LORD BROUGHAM.

To write the Biography of a certain class of public men is a task comparatively easy. Draw out a plain and prominent outline of their private personal history, throw in a bold background of the political events of the era in which they have moved, and you complete the picture.

Lord Brougham is eminent among these potentates of the world of mind. So completely is he identified with the interests of his countrymen, that it would be impossible to write his life without making the groundwork of it a history of the age in which he lived. The active part he has taken in the great questions of Reform; the unwearied energy and perseverance, and we may now add the success, of his efforts in the great national cause of the Education of the People; the peculiarity of the

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