reputation was so far established that he was elected F.R.S., But in spite of his taste for mathematical reasoning, Brougham’s mind was not an accurate or exact one; and his pursuit of physical science was rather a favourite recreation than a solid advantage to him.
For two years of his university career he had attended lectures in civil law, and having adopted law as a profession he was admitted to the faculty of advocates in 1800. It does not appear that he ever held a brief in the court of session, but he went a circuit or two, where he defended or prosecuted a few prisoners, and played a series of tricks on the presiding judge, Lord Eskgrove, which almost drove that learned person to distraction. The Scottish bar, however, as he soon perceived, offered no field sufficiently ample for his talents and his ambition. He resolved to go to London, where he had already appeared as junior counsel in a Scottish appeal to the House of Lords. In 1803 he entered at Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1808 he was called to the English bar. In the meantime he had turned to literature as a means of subsistence. When in 1802 the Edinburgh Review was founded by the young and aspiring lights of the northern metropolis, Brougham was the most ready, the most versatile and the most satirical of all its contributors. To the first twenty numbers he contributed eighty articles, wandering through every imaginable subject,—science, politics, colonial policy, literature, poetry, surgery, mathematics and the fine arts. The prodigious success of the Review, and the power he was known to wield in it, made him a man of mark from his first arrival in London. He obtained the friendship of Lord Grey and the leading Whig politicians. His wit and gaiety made him an ornament of society, and he sought to extend his literary and political reputation by the publication of an elaborate work on the colonial policy of the empire. In 1806, Fox being then in office, he was appointed secretary to a mission of Lord Rosslyn and Lord St Vincent to the court of Lisbon, with a view to counteract the anticipated French invasion of Portugal. The mission lasted two or three months; Brougham came home out of humour and out of pocket; and meantime the death of Fox put an end to the hopes of the Whigs.
Brougham was disappointed by the abrupt fall of the ministry, and piqued that his Whig friends had not provided him with a seat in parliament. Nevertheless, he exerted his pen with prodigious activity during the election of 1809; and Lord Holland declared that he had filled the booksellers’ shops with articles and pamphlets. The result was small. No seat was placed at his disposal, and he was too poor to contest a borough. He was fortunate at this time to ally himself with the movement for the abolition of the slave-trade, and he remained through life not only faithful, but passionately attached to the cause. Indeed, one of the first measures he carried in the House of Commons was a bill to make the slave-trade felony, and he had the happiness, as chancellor of England, to take a part in the final measure of negro emancipation throughout the colonies.
Previous to his entering on practice at the English bar, Brougham had acquired some knowledge of international law, and some experience of the prize courts. This circumstance probably led to his being retained as counsel for the Liverpool merchants who had petitioned both Houses of Parliament against the Orders in Council. Brougham conducted the lengthened inquiry which took place at the bar of the House, and he displayed on this occasion a mastery over the principles of political economy and international law which at that time was rare. Nevertheless, he was unsuccessful, and it was not until 1812, when he was himself in parliament, that he resumed his attack on the Orders in Council, and ultimately conquered. It was considered inexpedient and impossible that a man so gifted, and so popular as Brougham had now become, should remain out of parliament, and by the influence of Lord Holland the duke of Bedford was induced to return him to the House of Commons for the borough of Camelford. He took his seat early in 1810, having made a vow that he would not open his mouth for a month. The vow was kept, but kept for that month only. He spoke in March in condemnation of the conduct of Lord Chatham at Walcheren, and he went on speaking for the rest of his life. In four months, such was the position he had acquired in the House that he was regarded as a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party, then in the feeble hands of George Ponsonby. However, the Tories continued in power. Parliament was dissolved. Camelford passed into other hands. Brougham was induced to stand for Liverpool, with Thomas Creevey against Canning and General Gascoyne. The Liberals were defeated by a large majority, and what made the sting of defeat more keen was that Creevey retained his old seat for Thetford, while Brougham was left out in the cold.
He remained out of parliament during the four eventful years from 1812 to 1816, which witnessed the termination of the war, and he did not conceal his resentment against the Whigs. But in the years he spent out of parliament occurrences took place which gave ample employment to his bustling activity, and led the way to one of the most important passages of his life. He had been introduced in 1809 to the princess of Wales (afterwards Queen Caroline). But it was not till 1812 that the princess consulted him on her private affairs, after the rupture between the prince regent and the Whigs had become more decided. From that time, Brougham, in conjunction with Samuel Whitbread, became one of the princess’s chief advisers; he was attached to her service, not so much from any great liking or respect for herself, as from an indignant sense of the wrongs and insults inflicted upon her by her husband. Brougham strongly opposed her departure from England in 1814, as well as her return in 1820 on the accession of George IV.
In 1816 he had again been returned to parliament for Winchelsea, a borough of the earl of Darlington, and he instantly resumed a commanding position in the House of Commons. He succeeded in defeating the continuance of the income-tax; he distinguished himself as an advocate for the education of the people; and on the death of Romilly he took up with ardour the great work of the reform of the law. Nothing exasperated the Tory party more than the select committee which sat, with Brougham in the chair, in 1816 and the three following years, to investigate the state of education of the poor in the metropolis. But he was as far as ever from obtaining the leadership of the party to which he aspired. Indeed, as was pointed out by Lord Lansdowne in 1817, the opposition had no recognized efficient leaders; their warfare was carried on in separate courses, indulging their own tastes and tempers, without combined action. Nor was Brougham much more successful at the bar. The death of George III. suddenly changed this state of things. Queen Caroline at once, in April 1820, appointed Brougham her attorney-general, and Denman her solicitor-general; and they immediately took their rank in court accordingly; this was indeed the sole act of royal authority on the part of the unhappy queen. In July Queen Caroline came from St Omer to England; ministers sent down to both Houses of Parliament the secret evidence which they had long been collecting against her; and a bill was brought into the House of Lords for the deposition of the queen, and the dissolution of the king’s marriage. The defence of the queen was conducted by Brougham, assisted by Denman, Lushington and Wilde, with equal courage and ability. His conduct of the defence was most able, and he wound up the proceedings with a speech of extraordinary power and effect. The peroration was said to have been written and rewritten by him seventeen times. At moments of great excitement such declamation may be of value, and in 1820 it was both heard and read with enthusiasm. But to the calmer judgment of later generations this celebrated oration seems turgid and overstrained. Such immense popular sympathy prevailed on the queen’s behalf, that the ministry did not proceed with the bill in the Commons, and the result was a virtual triumph for the queen.
This victory over the court and the ministry raised Henry Brougham at once to the pinnacle of fame. He shared the triumph of the queen. His portrait was in every shop window. A piece of plate was presented to him, paid for by a penny subscription of peasants and mechanics. He refused to accept a sum of £4000 which the queen herself placed at his disposal;
