Lord Grey's first offer to Brougham was Attorney-General. Brougham took the letter and quietly tore it in two and threw it under his feet; that was his whole reply. He then reiterated his notice for Reform, and Lord Grey took fright, and would have given him the Rolls, but the king, forewarned, would not do that; and so he became Chancellor.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Lord Grey's first offer to Brougham was Attorney-General. Brougham took the letter and quietly tore it in two and threw it under his feet; that was his whole reply. He then reiterated his notice for Reform, and Lord Grey took fright, and would have given him the Rolls, but the king, forewarned, would not do that; and so he became Chancellor." in the context of "John Wilson Croker to Lord Hertford (8 December 1830), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. II (1884), p. 80" to mean that wisdom is timeless.