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'You see a constant expression of restlessness, discontent, and pugnacity in his countenance during the more quiet proceedings of the House. You need not the aid of a phrenological examination of his cranium to convince you that the organ of combativeness is most prominently developed; one glance of his face will satisfy you on that point. Had destiny made him one of the lower orders of Irishmen, and given him birth in the neighbourhood of Donnybrook, he would have acquired great distinction in the pugilistic exhibitions of its fair; he would always have been giving and receiving broken heads and broken bones."—pp. 331— 333.

Lord Brougham is generally said to be proud and overbearing; and our author thinks that it is the little respect shown him by his fellow Peers, that is the secret of his many furious attacks on them. He knows well that he is heartily disliked by some Lords on his own side of the House, as well as by those on the other. His conceptions of his own importance, when he held the great seal, were extravagant, as was particularly apparent from the contemptuous and snappish manner in which he spoke to deputations of the Commons, who had bills to present to the House of Lords. Since he has been out of office, till his late illness, with the exception of the Duke of Cumberland, not one of the Peers was more regular in his attendance in the House than Brougham. But he is evidently miserable when an occasion does not offer itself for his addressing their Lordships, and his ingenuity is remarkable in seizing on trifling points, if nothing better offers; thus making pegs on which to hang long speeches. As to his voice and gesture when speaking—

"His voice possesses great flexibility. In its more usual tones there is something approaching to harshness; but in all his important speeches he varies it to such an extent as to touch on almost every conceivable key. In its lower tones it is soft and sweet, and often, when pitched on a higher key, it has much of music in its intonations. Few men have an equal command over their voice. He raises and lowers it at pleasure. In his more indignant moods it has uncommon power and compass, and admirably suits the bold, impetuous character of his manner and eloquence.

"His gesture is as varied as his voice. On ordinary subjects he is calm and gentle in his manner; but when he becomes excited-on which occasions, as before mentioned, he throws his whole soul into his speeches -his action becomes violent in no ordinary degree. His arms are put into such requisition that it were very unsafe for any noble Lord to be, as the phrase is, within arm's-length of him. He has no favourite system or fashion-if either term be a correct one-of gesture. It is as varied as are the forms into which the human body can be put, or the position which one's arms can be made to assume. In this respect he is a second Proteus. His gesture has no grace: it is often as awkward as can well be imagined, and in any other man would appear ridiculous."- pp. 338, 339.

Taking him all in all, Lord Brougham is certainly one of the most extraordinary and eminent men of the present day. He is said to be in his fifty-seventh year, and again quite recovered from his late illness. It is to be hoped that he will contine to adorn, enlighten, and astonish the nation for many years to come. We have often for hours listened to him with the most rivetted attention, and though not blind to his defects, looked upon him with never-failing delight, as if he had been something more than human, or a concentration of intellect.

Of these sketches, there is not a finer and more dignified portrait than that of Earl Grey. His apparent gravity, and profoundly thoughtful air, are in excellent keeping with his character, both in its public and private capacity. He will belong to history, and be better known to posterity than any other statesmen of the present day. We must, however, refer the reader to the volume itself, now before us, for this highly satisfactory sketch of him, and all the other prominent characters in the Upper House, to whom alone the author has properly confined his Recollections. We have only now again to say, that this volume is in every respect a suitable companion to one on a similar plan by the same author, which was devoted to the Lower House, and that while the sale of this will be equally extensive as that of the former, the two will reciprocally recommend one another. The observation and the practice which the author has shown in these two volumes, joined to his original talent, prove him to be one of the readiest and most felicitous portrait-painters that the country can boast of.

ART. III.-The Life of John Jebb, D. D. F. R. S. Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe. With a selection from his Letters. By the Rev. CHARLES FORSTER, B.D., &c. &c. In 2 vols. London: Duncan. 1836.

THE life of this exemplary prelate, this amiable, accomplished, and pious man, not only teems with the most weighty lessons of a practical kind for the imitation of every churchman in England, and still more especially in Ireland at the present time, but it exhibits one of the most engaging and soundly-constituted characters that have ever been delineated for the lasting benefit of mankind. The way in which we can do justice to such a legacy, and most effectually enrich our pages with it, is to trace the principal turns and points discoverable in the narrative before us. The life properly divides itself into three distinct branches, viz. his childhood and youth; the period from his entering the church till he becomes a bishop; and the period from that time till his death. The first is, as might be expected, the least important, and indeed presents nothing by any VOL. II. (1836) nɔ. 1.

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means of an extraordinary nature. But But it is very valuable when taken in connection with his future career and eminence, and impresses the reader deeply with the important truth, that neither early brilliancy of talent, nor remarkably favourable opportunities, are the indispensable precursors of solid and permanent fame; that youth is not the only period during which education and mental culture can be mainly advanced; and that diligence, integrity, and high moral principle, may have their healthiest exercise and make their noblest display during the middle age of man. To those, indeed, who think that no biography is worth reading which treats not of heroes or statesmen-eccentric characters, or men of prodigious genius-together with all the stirring or strange events and passages of human life identified with the lives of such personages, the work before us can have few attractions; for it must be too fine and simply excellent for their tastes and comprehension. But to all who believe that there is not a rational being, especially if he is educated, whose life, when given with tolerable fairness and fullness, may not contribute to the philosophy of the human mind, and be made interesting in a high degree, Bishop Jebb offers a splendid theme.

John Jebb, the subject of the present work, was born on the 27th of September, 1775, in the city of Drogheda. His parents were highly respectable in point of worldly station, and indeed were allied to persons of note. Nichols, in his Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century, says, "few families have produced more persons connected with the literary history of the last century, than the Jebbs." The Bishop's father, who is represented as a person of singularly simple worth, pursued trade, but ultimately with bad. success. He however filled the first civic offices in Drogheda. Partly among near relatives, and partly under the paternal roof, the future prelate was reared. He is said to have been "a gentle, affectionate child, somewhat hasty in temper, but not bold; quiet, and fond of reading; but, at the same time, lively, and loving play." His brother, who was nearly ten years older, and who in 1818 attained to a Judge's seat on the King's Bench in Ireland, adds to the above estimate, that, "I think, though he was not backward in learning, he was not remarkably quick-certainly not precocious." The first school he-the future Bishop-seems to have been sent to, is described to have been miserably defective as a classical seminary, and in every respect badly calculated either to form a good foundation for learning, or sow the seed of superior manners and principles. The Bishop himself says, he experienced sufferings the same in kind, though inferior in degree, as those which Cowper has so pathetically described in his history of his Westminster life; neither did the other boys belong to the rank of gentility. From this vulgar school he was removed to London

derry, to a seminary of quite a different character, where there were not above twelve or fourteen boarders. But even here, it appears, the radical defects of his first schooling were by no means cured. Two years spent at each of the schools referred to, completed, however, his school education. Yet he himself says, that though not a grounded scholar, he carried away from Derry an awakened literary taste, and a thoughtful introspective mind. Something finer than even the richest results of mere classical education distinguished him also at these schools. At the former, which was in Celbridge, when on one occasion punished severely for what he himself considered at the time" a great fault," although, as boyish tricks and errors run, it was no such thing, he immediately afterwards declared before his schoolfellows, that "he knew it was for his good." He also speaks of a fault committed at Derry school, which Mr. Marshall the master punished in this way: "He did not flog me, he never did; on this occasion he gravely and sorrowfully said, 'I will not speak to you for three days.' While under this interdict, I recollect, as if it were but yesterday, his meeting me; and when he passed me by, with a silence that had more in it of melancholy than of sternness, I was cut to the heart." Was there not materials in such a heart to work on most successfully, and did not his habits, which, while at Derry, are thus described, correspond with these materials?

"He disliked school-plays in general: but a quiet walk into the country, with one or two companions, he enjoyed. The play-ground attached to the school was exceedingly limited; and the boys, out of school-hours, had the free range of the town and its vicinity, a liberty which, as he justly observed, ought not to have been granted; and which he expressed his fear, in some instances, was attended with moral mischief. One consequence, however, of the want of play-ground was, that, instead of joining the boys in their rambles and excursions, John, unexposed to the harassing annoyances which he had so severely suffered under at Celbridge, commonly occupied the window-seat, at a corner of the boarders' parlour: seated in that retreat, he was quite in his element; . . his body bent into a bow, his knees up to his chin, and his eyes devouring such books as he could lay hold of.

"While thus indisposed, however, to the boyish pastimes of his companions, it appears, from a testimony incidently borne to him by his master, that he was anything but insensible to their wants and feelings, when they needed sympathy. Mr. Marshall observed of him, as a remarkable trait in a shool-boy, that, when any boy was sick, Jebb loved to sit with him during play hours."-vol. i, pp. 26, 27.

In the year 1791, he entered the University of Dublin, and lived under the roof of his generous elder brother, who had before this defrayed all his expenses at school. The future judge had succeeded to the property of Sir Richard Jebb, and was both able and willing to forward John's education in the handsomest manner. At college

he distinguished himself nobly. His destination for life, however, was not for years afterwards fixed on. The linen business, medicine, the bar, and the army, were all spoken of, but his own hankering was always after the church, although his brother said, "You will live and die a curate." Literature was now his delight, and he began to write for a periodical journal of considerable merit, courting also and maintaining the companionship of a few literary and accomplished contemporaries, some of whom have risen to distinction. In the summer of 1796, for the first time Jebb visited England, on a pedestrian tour, accompanied by two of these contemporaries. There are some notices in the present work descriptive of this tour, which are particularly interesting to ourselves, fond of such strollings and random encounters, as we have been.

"Appearing in the questionable shape of Irish strollers, they not unnaturally apprehended that the civil authorities might chuse to make inquiry, at a period of general alarm about the state of Ireland, into their real character and objects. They, therefore armed themselves, not with deadly weapons, but with certificates under the broad seal of the city of Dublin, signed by the lord mayor. These municipal vouchers, however, they never had occasion to produce, except for the amusement of their friends. Upon this tour, they carried with them all necessary changes of linen, &c., in two knapsacks; a violin, in a canvass bag, was slung, by turns, on the shoulders of him who escaped, for the day, a knapsack; a flute was in the pocket of Mr. Macklin; Mr. Reid played well on the violin; and, wherever they went among the peasantry, the farmers, and the gentry, the concord of sweet sounds' proved acceptable. 'Never,' observes Mr. Jebb, did I experience from all classes, more genuine hospitality; and, whatever may have been the experience of others, for myself, and for my friends, with whom, on this and on other occasions, I have crossed the Irish Channel, I must say, that we ever found the hearts, the houses, and (had it been necessary) the purses, also, of Englismen open to us. With them performance always outgoes profession: what a man finds them now, unless it be his own fault, he will infallibly find them ten years hence: win them once, and you have them always.'

Among other curiosities, the travellers visited the celebrated Dr. Darwin, whose Botanic Garden' had many attractions for Mr. Jebb's youthful fancy; and retained its place, until his ripening judgment was revolted, by the vicious splendour of the versification. By this singular man they were hospitably received; and found his conversation interesting, unless when tinctured by his infidelity. From his society they brought away much exemplary warning, some useful information, and one good repartee. Dr. Darwin, it is well known, was a great stammerer; a tactless guest broadly noticed the defect, remarking, It is a pity, Dr. Darwin, that you stutter so much.' No Sir,' rejoined the doctor, (doing ample justice to his impediment as he spoke) I consider it an advantage: it teaches me to think, before I speak.'

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The concluding anecdote of this tour, a practical comment on his eulogy of the hospitality of England, deserves to be recorded in Bishop Jebb's own words. . . One little anecdote I cannot suppress. We