disgrace of the quarrel with America, ultimately conquered. The Orders in Council were revoked.

Brougham also labored incessantly for negro emancipation throughout the British colonies. One of the first measures he carried into the House of Commons was a bill to make the slave trade felony. As Chancellor of England he had the happiness of taking part in the great final act of humanity and justice by which the abhorred traffic was abolished. But while Brougham will always be remembered as the champion of every human right and the avenger of every human wrong, he was blessed with neither reserve nor discretion. As a man of letters, notwithstanding his literary industry, and the fact that in the first twenty numbers of the Edinburgh Review he wrote eighty articles, he has left no work of lasting celebrity, and in science he made no real discovery. In the midst of all his triumphs, the friends who knew him best were aware that his extraordinary gifts and powers did not include all the important elements of true greatness. He lacked self-control; was too rash, arrogant, and capricious for a successful leader, and although probably admired and feared more than any man in England, he drifted out of the main stream of national life, and his figure is already becoming indistinct. The following letter to Lord Grey reveals something of the kindness of his nature:

(Private.)

"MY DEAR LORD GREY :

་་

WANSTED, August 30, 1833.

"I forgot before leaving town to renew my urgent request about Miss Martineau's pension, of which we talked last winter. I am sure Lady Grey (if I wrote to her, which I have a great mind to do) will join warmly in this. You know what was her (Miss Martineau's) case. When her father failed in the panic, she refused an annuity from some of her relations, and supported herself and her mother by her needle. This I know to be the fact; she went on for two years in that way, then discovered that she had another gift and another vocation. She has since made a good income by her books. But she is driven to write too much and too constantly; and this is spoiling her, and indeed wearing her out. So that 100 a year might be the means of saving her from going down, and finally going out. Whether or not she might be romantic about it, as she was about her cousin's offer, I can't tell. But, at all events, your offering it to her would be a most creditable thing to you, and be most agreeable to all our people. Yours ever,

"H. BROUGHAM."

In the year 1813 Lord Jeffrey visited America for his bride, Miss Charlotte Wilkes, the daughter of Charles Wilkes, the first treasurer of the New York Historical Society and president of the Bank of New York, whose residence was in Wall Street. Lord Jeffrey lost his first wife in 1805, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Edinburgh. His acquaintance with Miss

Wilkes began about the close of 1810, while the lady with her father and mother were visiting relatives in Scotland. The sincerity of his attachment was proven by this voyage, in a time of war between the two countries, and by one who recoiled in nervous horror from all watery adventures. No matter whether it was a sea that was to be crossed, or a lake, or a stream, or a pond, it was enough to render him miserable that he had to be afloat. The discomforts of an ocean journey at that period too were very great, as steam had not yet shortened it, and modern luxuries of travel were unknown. But he, nevertheless, made his will, and turned his face toward the New World. He went to Liverpool in May to find a ship, but was not able to sail until August 29, and, with his brother, landed in New York on the 7th of October. His marriage took place in the Wilkes mansion, and in November he visited some of the principal American cities, and, on the 18th of that month, had the honor of dining with President James Madison. He had two interesting interviews with Secretary Monroe, the conversation turning in a most animated manner upon the existing war, its provocations, principles, and probable results, particularly as to the right claimed by England of searching American vessels for the recovery of British subjects. On the 22d of January, 1814, he left New York on his homeward voyage, and reached Liverpool in safety, the 10th of February. The next article which he wrote for the Edinburgh Review was entitled "The State and Prospects of Europe," the war on the continent having ended, as it were, miraculously, through experiences which seemed to promise permanent peace to the world. Jeffrey wrote, in the flush of joy, one of the most beautiful essays that ever came from his pen. In his opinion the greatest of impending evils was continued hostilities, and Napoleon's military despotism; as for the American war, he was alive to the fact that the tone of the British government had changed, and that the prospect was fair for a speedy restoration of tranquillity with the new nation beyond the seas. He has said, in regard to the reception of this paper, "that it was the first time the Review and the public were ever of one mind."

HOOPER CUMMING VAN VORST

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE HOLLAND SOCIETY

When Rev. Henry Van Dyke, in the name of The Holland Society of New York, a few years since, presented to ex-Judge Hooper C. Van Vorst the golden badge of office as president of that society, he inadvertently addressed the latter as "Your Honor." Recovering himself, he continued: "Mr. President, no better title could be found by which to address one who for so many, many years has filled so many positions of trust with honor to himself and with benefit to the community, one who holds this position because of the esteem and affection of his fellow-membersone whom all men delight to honor."

This is the uppermost sentiment in the minds of all who knew him, now that he is dead.

What a happy memory to leave.

His ancestor in the male line came from Holland and settled at Albany in 1670.

Born at Schenectady, New York, in 1817, he graduated with honor at old Union, and studied law with Messrs. Paige & Potter, names illustrious among New York jurists. Removing to Albany, he became president of the Young Men's Association and was soon appointed corporation counsel, and the large body of friends who forty years later followed him to his grave in the Albany Rural Cemetery attested the lasting impression his good qualities made upon the exclusive society of that proud city. In 1853 he came to the city of New York, and while engaged in an extensive law practice he was in 1868 appointed by the governor of the state a judge in the court of common pleas. In 1871 he was elected a judge of the superior court of New York city, and in 1873 he was appointed by the governor to hold circuit and special terms in the supreme court of the state, wherein he has since become famous as a learned, careful, impartial equity judge, earning from his fellow judges the soubriquet of "The Chancellor." In the midst of his many and arduous duties he made time to attend to the waifs and the children of the poor, being for eighteen years a trustee of the Children's Aid Society, and for about the same period of time a member of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, a director of the American Tract Society, and an elder

in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church. He was a member of the Board of Education from 1871 to 1873, having previously been a trustee of the schools of the sixteenth ward. He has been a trustee of his alma mater since 1885. He was an honored member of the Psi Upsilon frater

nity, and president of its New York city Alumni Association from 1884 to 1886. The only reason he was not renominated and re-elected judge at the expiration of his fourteen years' term in 1885 was because in two years more he would reach the constitutional limit of seventy years of age; he thereupon resumed the practice of the law, and found another post of honor in the private station, where all confided in his integrity, his learning, and his wisdom. When The Holland Society of New York was formed he was selected as worthy to be its first president, and he was followed to the grave by the hearts of its eight hundred members. When that society carries out its intention of erecting in New York city a statue of a typical Dutchman, it may well consider a statue of Hooper C. Van Vorst as the embodiment of all the virtues of their forefathers, rather than perpetuate the name of some half mythical hero of the seventeenth century, whose vices have been forgotten or obscured by time. This man had no vices to forget. He was a Christian who daily lived up to his faith and profession. And in considering his life as a whole, and recalling the peaceful smile that rested upon his features as he lay in his coffin in the church crowded with mourning friends, a man may well say, "May I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be like his."

Der W. Jan Dielen

VOL. XXII.-No. 6.-32