apostles did as it were choose this or that particular province, as the main sphere of their ministry, St. Paul overran the whole world to its utmost bounds and corners, planting all places where he came with the divine doctrines of the Gospel. Nor in this course was he tired out with the dangers and difficulties that he met with, the troubles and oppositions that were raised against him. All of which did but reflect the greater lustre upon his patience; whereof, indeed, (as Clement observes,) he became a most eminent pattern and exemplar, during the biggest troubles and persecutions, with a patience triumphant and unconquerable. As will easily appear, if we take but a survey of what trials and sufferings he underwent, some part whereof are briefly summed up by himself. In labors abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths often; thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice suffered shipwreck, a night and a day in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness; and besides these things that were without, that whick daily came upon him, the care of the churches. An account, though very great, yet far short of what he endured; and where in, as Chrysostom observes, he does modestly keep himself within his measures; for, had he taken the liberty fully to enlarge him self, he might have filled hundreds of martyrologies with his sufferings. A thousand times was his life at stake; in every suffering he was a martyr, and what fell but in parcels upon others, came all upon him; while they skirmished only with single parties, he had the whole army of sufferings to contend with. All which he generously underwent with a soul as calm and serene as the morning sun; no spite or rage, no fury or storms, could ruffle and discompose his spirit: nay, those sufferings, which would have broken the back of an ordinary patience, did but make him rise up with the greater eagerness and resolution for the doing of his duty.

His patience will yet further appear from the consideration of another, the last of those virtues we shall take notice of in him,

his constancy and fidelity in the discharge of his place, and in the profession of religion. Could the powers and policies of men and devils, spite and oppositions, torments and threatenings, have been able to baffle him out of that religion wherein he had engaged himself, he must have sunk under them, and left his station. But his soul was steeled with a courage and resolution that was impenetrable, and which no temptation either from hopes or fears could make any more impression upon, than an arrow can that is shot against a wall of marble. He wanted not solicitation on either hand, both from Jews and Gentiles; and questionless might, in some degree, have made his own terms, would he have been false to his trust, and have quitted that way that was then everywhere spoken against. But, alas! these things weighed little with our apostle, who "counted not his life to be dear unto him, so that he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus." And therefore, when under the sentence of death in his own apprehensions, could triumphantly say, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith :" and so indeed he did, kept it inviolably, undauntedly, to the last minute of his life. The sum is,—he was a man in whom the divine light did eminently manifest and display itself; he lived piously and devoutly, soberly and temperately, justly and righteously, careful "always to keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and man." This he tells us was his support under suffering, this the foundation of his confidence towards God, and his firm hopes of happiness in another world: "this is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world."

177.-SIR WILLIAM GRANT.

LORD BROUGHAM.

[THE "Historical Sketches of Statesmen who flourished in the Time of George III." are amongst the most popular works of our time. Lord Brougham nad an intimate acquaintance with many of the persons whose characters he

has drawn, and his opinions are especially valuable when he treats of then oratorical qualifications.]

We have now named in some respects the most extraordinary individual of his time,-one certainly than whom none ever better sustained the judicial office, though its functions were administered by him upon a somewhat contracted scale,—one than whom none ever descended from the forum into the senate with more extraordinary powers of argumentation, or flourished there with greater renown. It happened to this great judge to have been for many years at the bar with a very moderate share of practice; and, although his parliamentary exertions never tore him away from his profession, yet his public character rested entirely upon their success until he was raised to the bench.

The genius of the man then shone forth with extraordinary lustre. His knowledge of law, which had hitherto been scanty, and never enlarged by practice, was now expanded to whatever dimensions might seem required for performing his high office; nor was he ever remarked as at all deficient even in the branch most difficult to master without forensic habits, the accomplishments of a case-lawyer; while his familiarity with the principles of jurisprudence and his knowledge of their foundations were ample, as his application of them was easy and masterly. The Rolls Court, however, in those days, was one of comparatively contracted business; and, although he gave the most entire satisfaction there, and in presiding at the Privy Council in Prize and Plantation Appeals, a doubt was always raised by the admirers of Lord Eldon, whether Sir William Grant could have as well answered the larger demands upon his judicial resources, had he presided in the Court of Chancery. That doubt appears altogether unfounded. He possessed the first great quality for dispatching business (the "real" and not "affected dispatch” of Lord Bacon), a power of steadily fixing his attention upon the matter before him, and keeping it invariably directed towards the successive arguments addressed to him. The certainty that not a word was lost, deprived the advocate of all excuse for repetition; while the respect which his judge inspired, checked needless prolixity, and deterred him from raising desperate points merely to

have them frowned down by a tribunal as severe as it was patient. He had not indeed to apprehend any interruption; that was a course never practised in those days at the Rolls or the Cockpit; but while the judges sat passive and unmoved, it was plain that, though his powers of endurance had no limits, his powers of discriminating were ever active, as his attention was ever awake: and as it required an eminent hardihood to place base coin before so scrutinizing an eye, or tender light money to be weighed in such accurate scales as Sir William Grant's, so few men ventured to exercise a patience which yet all knew to be unbounded. It may, indeed, be fairly doubted whether the main force of muscular exertion, so much more clumsily applied by Sir John Leach in the same court to effect the great object of his efforts,—the close compression of the debate,—ever succeeded so well, or reduced the mass to as small a bulk, as the delicate hydraulic press of his illustrious predecessor did, without giving the least pain to the advocate, or in any one instance obstructing the course of calm, deliberate, and unwearied justice.

The court in those days presented a spectacle which afforded true delight to every person of sound judgment and pure taste. After a long and silent hearing-a hearing of all that could be urged by the counsel of every party-unbroken by a single word, and when the spectator of Sir William Grant (for he was not heard) might suppose that his mind had been absent from a scene in which he took no apparent share, the debate was closed-the advocate's hour was passed-the parties were in silent expectation of the event the hall no longer resounded with any voice-it seemed as if the affair of the day, for the present, was over, and the court was to adjourn, or to call for another cause. No! The judge's time had now arrived, and another artist was to fill the scene. The great magistrate began to pronounce his judgment, and every eye and every ear was at length fixed upon the bench. Forth came a strain of clear unbroken fluency, disposing alike, in most luminous order, of all the facts and of all the argument in the cause; reducing into clear and simple arrangements the most. entangled masses of broken and conflicting statement; weighing each matter, and disposing of each in succession; settling one doubt by a parenthetical remark; passing over another difficulty

by a reason only more decisive than it was condensed; and giving out the whole impression of the case, in every material view, upon the judge's mind, with argument enough to show why he sc thought, and to prove him right, and without so much reasoning as to make you forget that it was a judgment you were hearing, by overstepping the bounds which distinguish a judgment from a speech. This is the perfection of judicial eloquence; not avoiding argument, but confining it to such reason as beseems him who has rather to explain the grounds of his own conviction, than to labor at convincing others; not rejecting reference to authority, but never betokening a disposition to seek shelter behind other men's names, for what he might fear to pronounce in his own person; not disdaining even ornaments, but those of the more chastened graces that accord with the severe standard of a judge's oratory. This perfection of judicial eloquence Sir William Grant attained, and its effect upon all listeners was as certain and as powerful as its merits were incontestable and exalted.

In parliament he is unquestionably to be classed with speakers of the first order. His style was peculiar; it was that of the closest and severest reasoning ever heard in any popular assembly; reasoning which would have been reckoned close in the argumentation of the bar or the dialectics of the schools. It was, from the first to the last, throughout, pure reason, and the triumph of pure reason. All was sterling, all perfectly plain; there was no point in the diction, no illustration in the topics, no ornament of fancy in the accompaniments. The language was choice-perfectly clear, abundantly correct, quite concise, admirably suited to the matter which the words clothed and conveyed. In so far it was felicitous, no farther; nor did it ever leave behind it any impression of the diction, but only of the things said; the words were forgotten, for they had never drawn off the attention for a moment from the things; those things were alone remembered. Νο speaker was more easily listened to; none so difficult to answer. Once Mr. Fox, when he was hearing him with a view to making that attempt, was irritated in a way very unwonted to his sweet temper by the conversation of some near him, even to the show of some crossness, and (after an exclamation) sharply said, "Do you think it so very pleasant a thing to have to answer a speeck