On Lord Brougham

“Midhrust, August 21, 1861. (To M. Chevalier.)—I have read with much pleasure your address to the Social Science Meeting at Dublin. If you have a corrected copy in French, let me have one. I was amused at your diplomacy in comparing Brougham to Cicero. This must have delighted him. He has, I suspect, always had the great Roman in his eye, and has sought to imitate him in the universality of his accomplishments. But it was one thing to be universal 1900 years ago, and is another thing now. A Bolton mechanic who makes a steam engine, or one who drives a locomotive on our railways, knows more in his special calling than either Cicero or Brougham. It is this attempt at universality which has been the great error and failing of Lord B.’s public life. He has touched everything and finished nothing. Had he given his vast powers to one thing at a time, he might have codified our laws, and endowed every village with a good school, besides leaving nothing for me to do in Free Trade. But he made a speech for five hours on Law Reform forty years ago nearly, and another as long on National Education, and then he left those questions for something else. The result will be that in fifty yeas he will be remembered only for his Herculean mental powers, and his unrivalled intellectual industry, but his name will not be specially associated with any reforms for which posterity will hold him in grateful remembrance.”