ferment could complain of being overlooked; indeed, it must be owned that some, whose claims were questionable, partook of his lavish patronage. But though he rewarded services, however humble, he also promoted many in whose advancement he had no personal interest. Lord Brougham was hardly lessdistinguished for his social qualities than for his abilities in public life.

'He was capable,' says one who knew him well, of investing the least attractive subjects with interest. My friend, the late Viscountess Eversley (Mr. Whitbread's younger daughter) recollected a group of fashionable ladies listening at breakfast one morning at Southhill with breathless attention to his description of the habits of bees, which he made as charming as a fairy tale. He was also a firstrate mimic, so that John Kemble being asked what he thought of him, answered, "If "I could get him on the boards for a season, it would make my fortune.” Even Mr. Rogers, though not addieted to praise, observed as Mr. Brougham was stepping into his chaise at the door of Southhill, “There "go Demosthenes, Bacon, and George Selwyn all in the "chaise." (Sir D. Lemarchant's Memoir of Earl Spencer.)

sanie

We have commented freely on some serious misstatements in these volumes; but before closing them, we must notice some minor inaccuracies. Sir Lancelot Shadwell, the ViceChancellor, is mentioned as Master of the Rolls. The date of Lord Russell's birth is given as 1784 instead of 1794. The whole story of the Marquis Wellesley's marriage in vol. ii. p. 477 is a pure fabrication. Mr. Peacock, who is mentioned as having assisted in the preparation of the Reform Bill, and as having gone to India as a judge and died there, had, as we know from the best authority, nothing to say to the Reform Bill. Mr. Peacock went to India in 1852, not as a judge, but in the far higher position of the Law Member of the Council of the Governor-General, and afterwards became Chief Justice of the High Court. After a long and distinguished judicial career, Sir Barnes Peacock recently returned to England, and is now living here in retirement. Such mistakes would be unpardonable in an ordinary narrative; but their apology is to be found in the simple and touching paragraph which closes the Memoir:

If I have imperfectly performed my work-if I have appeared to dwell too diffusely on some subjects, whilst others of equal importance have been passed over-if many statements have been feebly and some inaccurately rendered,-let it be recollected that I began this attempt after I was eighty-three years of age, with enfeebled intellect, failing memory, and but slight materials by me, to assist it. Above all, that there was not left one single friend or associate of my earlier

days, whose recollections might have aided mine. All were dead. I alone survived of those who had acted in the scenes I have here faintly endeavoured to retrace.' (Vol. iii. p. 443.)

We have not passed over the blemishes in the great and splendid character which we have attempted to review; but if all its faults are to be

'observed,

Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote,'

it is not in these pages that such an envious record will be found. Lord Brougham's failings were of a kind which provoked irritation and even resentment; they detracted materially from his usefulness at every stage of his public career, and at length incapacitated him for the public service. But his failings have died with him, and have left no stain of baseness or dishonour upon an imperishable fame.

ART. IX.-Case on behalf of the Government of the United States submitted to the Tribunal of Arbitration to be convened at Geneva under the Treaty of Washington of the 8th of May, 1871. London: 1872.

W

HEN a litigant in a court of justice publishes to the world his pleadings before the judge, he invites the criticism of the public, although his cause may remain undecided. We should have scrupled to break ground on the topics to be submitted to the Arbitrators at Geneva, notwithstanding their international and general importance, had not both the antagonists relieved us of all scruple on that subject. Even as it is, however, we shall not trespass on those matters which form the substantial topics which the Arbitrators must decide; but propose to make the present singular position of the Arbitration itself the subject of some reflections.

Among the thoughts suggested to us by the perusal of the Case for the United States (published by Bentley, and professing to be a facsimile of the official copy), the most prominent was this: that if the conditions under which neutrality is to be maintained or suffered be those expounded in this singular volume, it is not the interest of a nation to observe neutrality. According to what we read in this Case,' we had the fate of the American Civil War in our hands; for if a few inconsiderable privateers had power, by their marauding excursions, to protract the war for two years, what might not have been done if we had put forth our maritime strength? Had we even

VOL. CXXXV. NO. CCLXXVI.

declined to recognise the very questionable blockade of the Southern ports, the North, by the confession of this pleading, must have been greatly enfeebled; and if we had joined with France, and intervened to terminate the struggle in November, 1862, there would have been an end, at all events, of Ala'bama' Claims. Nor were we without solid interests at stake which urged us in that direction. To say nothing of the internecine and hideous aspect of the war itself, fearful beyond any record of civil slaughter, our great manufacturing staple was withdrawn from us, our manufacturing population were exposed to the cruellest hardships, and our manufacturers to ruin, as the price of our fidelity to our neutral obligations. We were faithful, however, although the American case makes it doubtful if we had any motive or interest to be so. Our operatives bore their privations with a magnanimity without example, we believe, in the history of neutral nations; and we resisted the solicitations of the Emperor of the French to alter our policy, even although it brought daily injury to ourselves. And now that all is done, and the North, not without the aid of German recruits and British munitions of war, has subjugated the South, how are we rewarded? America claims from us the whole expense of the war incurred after the battle of Gettysburg: the whole expense of Grant's last campaign and Lee's masterly defence; of Sherman's march through Georgia; of the weary, almost hopeless, waiting of the Northern armies before Richmond, up to the long-deferred but final surrender. We are to pay for all this. Should we not have been better off as belligerents? for according to these demands, the belligerent is to come off free, and the neutral to pay all.

It

Nor may we forget what the battle of Gettysburg was. was the cast of a die by the South for final victory. Up to that time so utterly had the North failed, with all the enormous advantages which their blockade and their command of the sea gave them, to subdue the South, that they had retired, stunned and bewildered, after Stonewall Jackson's last battle; and Lee felt himself strong enough to become the aggressor, and carry the war into the States of the North. He almost succeeded. The battle of Gettysburg hung long in suspense; and had the scale turned the other way, the ultimate event might not, perhaps, have been altered, but would certainly have been much longer deferred. Lee retreated to the territory of the South almost unmolested, presenting to the North the same solid front as that against which three of their armies had before dashed themselves in vain. Yet the truth of history tells us, as we find it written in the American Case, that the war

from this date was only kept alive by the roving freebooters, the Alabama,' the Florida,' and the Shenandoah;' and that if these had been captured or sunk, the South would instantly have collapsed.

Had we become belligerents, it would certainly, at this rate, have been better for our purse. Would it have been worse for the good feeling which ought to prevail between the two countries? Not if we are to believe the American Case. Our neutrality, it seems, has only left behind feelings as bitter, and exasperation as intense, as war itself could have produced. Our very neutrality, we are told, was as hostile and as offensive as war could have been; our sayings and our doings, official and non-official, are now paraded in order to give expression to what, according to the Case, is the deliberate sense of the nation. Even the Washington Treaty has done nothing to moderate the poignancy of American resentment, which is faithfully depicted, as we are asked to believe, in this remarkable State paper.

We may say, once for all, that we regret no part of our past impartiality; but this Case no more represents either the facts of history, or genuine American opinion, than the monstrous heads and distorted limbs we see in a pantomime represent the human figure. The draughtsmen of the Case strive to produce their effects, as the scenic artist does, by grotesque exaggeration; and the result has been, for the present at least, to obstruct if not to destroy a course of amicable and sensible adjustment in which, if some things were surrendered which strict adherence to theory might have maintained, the English nation were ready to recognise, with good humour and friendliness, a mutual desire for a practical closing of accounts. But this demand has gone beyond all limits of patience, and is placed on grounds which leave no room for its exercise.

We very much regret, as we suspect the statesmen of America themselves regret, the levity with which the first and the last pages of the Case were permitted to form any part of so grave and important a proceeding. That any serious expectation was entertained in any quarter that the arbitrators would even listen to such a demand is improbable; and, indeed, the Case itself discloses as much, for no details are suggested on which the arbitrators, however willing, could frame an award. The first chapter, devoted to an exposition of our bad faith and our Southern proclivities, has no bearing whatever on the real matter in dispute; and could only have had the effect of infusing an acrimonious ingredient into an amicable suit.

We

think it much the most serious ground of observation which the Case presents; for it is as little founded on principle or on historical truth as the demand for indirect damages; while it appears to be, unlike the other, thoroughly in earnest.

The Americans have made, we think, a great practical blunder in these preliminary criticisms. They entirely misconceive the temper of the people of whom they write. We like and admire our American cousins, although sometimes we laugh at them, and sometimes they laugh at us. We feel a family pride in their freedom, their manliness, and their prosperity; and we can stand, in the way of remark, from them what we might not accept from any other quarter. We make allowances, also, for the pure democracy of their government, and concede a certain privileged character to their proceedings which has, perhaps, been carried to excess. But to imagine that we should consent to do penance because our public men expressed their views on public affairs in their own way, or that our conduct as neutrals was affected by our popular sympathies, indicates on the part of the compilers of the American Case a great deficiency of perception. We are a free people, as their countrymen are; accustomed to say what we think, and not very curious to mark whether our thoughts are pleasant or unpleasant to the rest of the world. We looked on, while their civil war raged, with great interest. The sympathy of some went with the North, that of others with the South. The detestation of slavery animated one side; a certain feeling for the gallantry of the weaker side, and an impression of their constitutional rights, weighed with the other. Advanced Liberals were for the North; advanced Conservatives for the South; and, midway, opinions shifted as the wonderful and romantic tragedy proceeded. The American Case seems to find in all this some element which America is entitled to resent. Resentment on such grounds is out of the question. It can signify nothing whether either party in the struggle agreed with our views or our sympathies. America must know that if it were the price of a good understanding with any Power that we should restrain the expression of our opinions on passing events, it is one we should never think of paying.

Let us refer our critics to an episode, which occurred about a quarter of a century ago, from which they may draw a lesson of good sense taught from a quarter they will probably respect. During the Hungarian struggle in 1848, so much was the sympathy of the United States with those whom they would now call insurgents, that they despatched a special envoy to ascer