Page:The Maclise Portrait-Gallery.djvu/149

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY.
87

Edinburgh, which had selected him for its Chancellor in 1860. This volume is a collection of various treatises upon mathematics and physics, written between 1796 and 1858, upon the most diverse subjects,—general theorems of geometry, the problems of Keppler, the principles of dynamics, the differential calculus, the architecture of the cells of bees, analytical and experimental researches into the nature of light, the attraction of forces, and lastly, the admirable speech which he delivered at Grantham upon the occasion of inaugurating the monument to Sir Isaac Newton.

This illustrious man and extraordinary character was born at Edinburgh, in September, 1778, and died at his seat at Cannes, in the south of France, May 8th, 1868. If he had lived four months longer, he would have entered upon his ninety-first year.

I shall conclude with an eloquent passage from an address delivered by the eminent French historian, M. Mignet, at one of the annual public meetings of the "Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques," a branch of the French Institute:—

"Henry Lord Brougham belongs to the number of the great men of his time and of his country. Endowed with extraordinary genius, possessed of vast knowledge, gifted with brilliant talents, animated by incomparable ardour, he devoted the thoughts of his mind, the enthusiasm of his soul, the resources of his knowledge, the brilliancy of his talents to the service of the noblest causes—to the progress of justice, of law, of intelligence, of humanity. A Reformer without a chimæra, a Conservative without a prejudice, he never separated, either in his writings or in his actions, what was expedient from what was right, and it was his pride to keep in accord the free advancement of man, and the moral order of society. He was also the defender of political liberty, the persuasive advocate of civil equity, the zealous promoter of public education, the eloquent supporter of human emancipation. Illustrious by his works, memorable by his services, Lord Brougham must be counted among those great men who honour the country whose glory they sustain, who maintain what is right, and strengthen what is good, and who, by the brilliancy of their talents, and the generosity of their souls, are held by posterity in everlasting esteem."


XX.—ROBERT MONTGOMERY.

"Bob Gomery there, on tilted chair,

Sits double, Bob and shadow;

E'en Satan's fire failed to inspire,

His verses all so bad, oh!"

When Miss Betsey Trotwood is informed by the mother of David Copperfield of the title of her husband's "residence," the old lady asked with asperity, "Why 'Rookery'.?" In like interrogative spirit my reader may demand, "Why 'Gomery'.?" Well, there seems some reason to believe that the gentleman so styled was actually the issue of Gomery, a celebrated clown; and that, consequently, the aristocratic addition to his patronymic is a self-authorized assumption. The fact is, Montgomery, in his early satire, The Age Reviewed (1827, 8vo, p. 145), had attacked A. A. Watts