[23] [For the use made by Mr. Brougham of the accidental departure of Rastelli during the Queen's trial _vide supra_, p. 37, October 15, 1820.]
[24] [This was the address moved by Mr. Wilberforce on the 22nd of June, 1820 (_vide supra_, p. 30, June 23rd, 1820). Lord Brougham states in his 'Memoirs' that the Queen resolved to reject the advice of Parliament without consulting her lawyers. In one of Lord Brougham's letters written at the time he calls Wood 'the ass and alderman called _Thistle_-wood,' and attributed to him the intrigue which brought the Queen to England.]
If it had been possible to recollect all that Brougham said on this and a hundred other subjects, it would be well worth writing down, but such talk is much too evanescent, and I remember no more.
After all Brougham is only a living and very remarkable instance of the inefficacy of the most splendid talents, unless they are accompanied with other qualities, which scarcely admit of definition, but which must serve the same purpose that ballast does for a ship. Brougham has prospered to a certain degree; he has a great reputation and he makes a considerable income at the bar; but as an advocate he is left behind by men of far inferior capacity, whose names are hardly known beyond the precincts of their courts or the boundaries of their circuits. As a statesman he is not considered eligible for the highest offices, and however he may be admired or feared as an orator or debater, he neither commands respect by his character nor inspires confidence by his genius, and in this contrast between his pretensions and his situation more humble abilities may find room for consolation and cease to contemplate with envy his immense superiority. To suppose that his ambition can be satisfied in the possession of natural and acquired powers far greater than the majority of mankind would be contrary to all experience. Such men consider their acquirements as means for the attainment of greater ends, and the disappointments which they frequently meet with in the pursuit of their objects of ambition more than counteract all the feelings of pride and satisfaction which conscious superiority is calculated to inspire. The life of a politician is probably one of deep mortification, for the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and few things can be more galling than to see men far inferior to ourselves enabled by fortune and circumstances to attain what we toil after in vain, and to learn from our own experience how many things there are in this life of greater practical utility than splendid abilities and unwearied industry.