ch; the contagion of ill-luck was upon him; and every one dreaded to
catch the disease. It was sometimes even worse. The loss of power was
the ruin of fortune. The Dives had been suddenly transformed into the
Lazarus; the purple and fine linen were "shreds and patches," and not
even the dogs came to administer to his malady. But, among us, the
breaking up of a cabinet often only gives rise to a bold and brilliant
opposition. It is not like the breaking up of a ship, where the wreck is
irreparable, and the timbers are shattered and scattered, and good for
nothing; it is often more like the breaking up of a regiment in one of
our colonies, where the once compact mass of force, which knew nothing
but the command of its colonel, now takes, each man his own way,
exhibits his own style of cleverness; instead of the one manual exercise
of musket and bayonet, each individual takes the axe or the spade, the
tool or the ploughshare, and works a new fertility out of the soil,
according to his own "thews and sinews."

The moral of all this is, that the distinguished author of these Memoirs
is now devoting himself to a career of literature, to which even his
political services may have been of inferior utility. He is recalling
the public memory to those eminent achievements, which have so
powerfully advanced the mental grandeur of our era; and, while he thus
gives due honour to the labours of the past, he is at once encouraging
and illustrating the nobleness of the course which opens to posterity.
But Lord Brougham's influence cannot be contented, we should hope, with
merely speculative benefits; it is for him, and for men like him, to
look with interest on the struggles of literary existence at the hour;
to call the attention of government and the nation to the neglects, the
narrowness, and the caprices of national patronage; to demand protection
for genius depressed by the worldliness of the crowd; to point out to
men of rank and wealth a path of service infinitely more honourable to
their own taste, and infinitely more productive to their country, than
ribands and stars; than the tinkling of a name, than pompous palaces, or
picture galleries of royal price; to excite our nobles to constitute
themselves the true patrons of the living genius of the land, and
disdain to be content with either the offering of weak regrets or the
tribute of worthless honours to the slumberers in the grave. A tenth
part of the sums employed in raising o