ured
to atone for any occasional indiscretions or intemperance by giving
the Duke of York credit for the battle of Waterloo, or congratulating
Ministers on the confinement of Buonaparte at St. Helena. There is no
honest cause which he dares not avow: no oppressed individual that he
is not forward to succour. He has the firmness of manhood with the
unimpaired enthusiasm of youthful feeling about him. His principles are
mellowed and improved, without having become less sound with time: for
at one period he sometimes appeared to come charged to the House with
the petulance and caustic sententiousness he had imbibed at Wimbledon
Common. He is never violent or in extremes, except when the people or
the parliament happen to be out of their senses; and then he seems to
regret the necessity of plainly telling them he thinks so, instead of
pluming himself upon it or exulting over impending calamities. There
is only one error he seems to labour under (which, we believe, he also
borrowed from Mr. Horne Tooke or Major Cartwright), the wanting to go
back to the early times of our Constitution and history in search of the
principles of law and liberty. He might as well

"Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream."

Liberty, in our opinion, is but a modern invention (the growth of books
and printing)--and whether new or old, is not the less desirable. A man
may be a patriot, without being an antiquary. This is the only point
on which Sir Francis is at all inclined to a tincture of pedantry. In
general, his love of liberty is pure, as it is warm and steady: his
humanity is unconstrained and free. His heart does not ask leave of his
head to feel; nor does prudence always keep a guard upon his tongue or
his pen. No man writes a better letter to his Constituents than the
member for Westminster; and his compositions of that kind ought to be
good, for they have occasionally cost him dear. He is the idol of the
people of Westminster: few persons have a greater number of friends
and well-wishers; and he has still greater reason to be proud of his
enemies, for his integrity and independence have made them so. Sir
Francis Burdett has often been left in a Minority in the House of
Commons, with only one or two on his side. We suspect, unfortunately for
his country, that History will be found to enter its protest on the same
side of the question!

[Footnote A: Mr. Brougham is not a Scotchman literally, but by
adoption.]

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