Lynchburg Virginian

LORD BROUGHAM

Lord Brougham is a common sized, plainly dressed man, about fifty five. His face is pale and somewhat thin, his eyes are not remarkable in themselves, and except when excited, are covered and half-concealed by the upper eye-lids; his nose is only remarkable from the end turning up very much; his mouth is broad, with rather thin lips, which have more flexibility and ease of motion than any lips I ever saw. His countenance is extremely mild and good humoured; and he is represented to be one of the most amiable men in the world, nevertheless, he is very irascible. He has a great deal in the expression of his face, like that of Franklin although Franklin's pinched lips are the very antipodes of his free ones. He has the same smiling, self-possessed, knowing look, that we find in the pictures of the great philosopher. And, perhaps this very expression of countenance has done more to obtain for them both the character of cunning than that acute policy Franklin exerted, and which Brougham throws excitement for the good of mankind.

His voice, in ordinary discourse, is rather low but very smooth and cultivated; when he speaks in the House of Peers, it is clear and distinct, still smooth, but without sufficient volume. His strong sense, his earnestness, and strikingly impressive enunciation, easy imperious air, which runs out to his very fingers' ends, and the honest passion into which he sometimes rises, makes him, however an eloquent speaker. But, after all, the best British eloquence is a very polite, passionless affair, Compared to the fire of American oratory. In one particular, Brougham is like Henry Clay—self-possessed, and respectful to antagonists; yet if a sharp unworthy thrust is made at him, he flashes out upon the aggressor and withers him.

It is a pleasant sight to see him on the bench, in his own Court of Chancery. The Court is held in a very large apartment the visitor walks three-fourths of its length on a very coarse thick matting; and the other fourth is parted off by a bar. beyond which are found rows of seats, one above the other for the gowned lawyers, whose sapient noddles are all covered with powdered wigs.

Then comes a table for two clerks, and then against the wall is fixed a sort of arm chair, not large or much elevated from the floor, but with a small desk extending before it. There my Lord Chancellor sits, with that horrible relic of the days of legal mummery, a judge's wig, hanging down over his gown covered shoulders, and almost hiding his chest. No American, having the least sense of the ridiculous, can possibly refrain from laughter at this assemblage of gowns and wigs, especially as Brougham looks all the time as if he had himself just ceased laughing at the farcical array in which he is the principal figure.

His whole manner in court seems to be founded on a resolution to break down the attachment of the 'limbs of the law' to their antediluvian forms and follies, by treating all such, himself, with the greatest disrespect, and to convince them that law is or ought to be based on the foundations of justice and common sense, and not on the whims of clerks or the conceits of perruquiers. He preserves the dignity without maintaining the stately gravity of the bench ; and he delights to rebuke the pompous advocate, by himself speaking in the voice and with the countenance of a human being. He usually has lying before him a huge pyramidical bouquet of flowers, some seven or eight inches in length this at times, he twirls in his hand, and now and then he smells at it, snuffling short and violently, as if it vastly delighted with the odours. In this manner he listens to the most important arguments and delivers the gravest decisions.