The Virginian

MR. BROUGHAM IN PARLIAMENT

From the Albion.

Brougham rises amidst the deep silence of the House, and the muttered curses of the Reporters, whose pens must now be worn to the stumps. His air and his manner, at first, put you very much in mind of those of a field preacher. He is tall and bent, and plain in his appearance; and though his tones be full and melodious, he hesitates as if he were either at a loss what to say, or ashamed to say it. He stands crouched together, pulls up his shoulders, hangs his head, and there is a tremulous motion in his upper lip and nostril, which makes you fancy that he is trembling through fear. His first sentences, or rather the first members of his sentences, for an opening sentence with him is a ten minutes matter at least—comes forth cold, hesitating and ambiguous, so that, for the soul of you, you cannot perceive the drift of them. Each is indeed, a clear and satisfactory proposition in itself, but the whole seem bent in one direction by a moving force, which is yet senseless as the wind. When however, a sufficient number of these have been drawn within it, the whole march solemnly and steadily to one conclusion, & the position meant to be carried is carried as completely and as irresistibly as by a bayonet charge of the most powerful British troops. One point being thus won, the orator seizes upon it, both in body and mind, and wins a second by a more bold and brief attack. Then he vaults upon the subdued basis, rises in figure and in tone till he over-tops the staring members, and shakes the astonished House; and when he has gained what you imagine to be the very summit of powerful speaking and has kept beating time upon the table and looking towards every corner of the House as if to see & hear the sneer at the admiration which he has called forth, his voice and his figure sinks again to dimensions lower than ever. You would imagine that he was terrified at the echo of his own voice, but no such thing: it is like the bending of the wrestler, in order that he may twist his antagonist, in his grasp, or like the drawing back of the tiger, in order that he may spring the more rapidly on his prey. Woe be to the man upon whom his eye glares from that terrible concealment. -Woe be to the wight, to whom those half whispered words are a prelude to the storm which is on the wing. You are a stranger of course, and know not what is to happen: you merely see a man speaking in subdued whispers, which astonish you by their being audible to the very smallest syllable. The words which were at first cold and congealing, become hurried and hot, and while the speaker absolutely drowns the cheering of his own party, and binds the whole "House of Commons" in a fetter which they dare not break, he is pecking some poor devil to the bone, and tossing his mangled limbs into all the positions of mental agony through the whole figures of rhetoric; nor is it till his own body has been vanquished and beaten down by the energy of his own mind, that he drops upon his seat, giving the House time to cheer, and leaving you utterly confounded.