I do not go beyond the mark in saying, that after Bentham, who supplied the principal materials, the greatest share of the merit of breaking down this wretched superstition belongs to Black, as editor of the _Morning Chronicle_.

He kept up an incessant fire against it, exposing the absurdities and vices of the law and the courts of justice, paid and unpaid, until he forced some sense of them into people's minds.

On many other questions he became the organ of opinions much in advance of any which had ever before found regular advocacy in the newspaper press.
Black was a frequent visitor of my father, and Mr.Grote used to say that he always knew by the Monday morning's article whether Black had been with my father on the Sunday.

Black was one of the most influential of the many channels through which my father's conversation and personal influence made his opinions tell on the world; cooperating with the effect of his writings in making him a power in the country such as it has rarely been the lot of an individual in a private station to be, through the mere force of intellect and character: and a power which was often acting the most efficiently where it was least seen and suspected.
I have already noticed how much of what was done by Ricardo, Hume, and Grote was the result, in part, of his prompting and persuasion.

He was the good genius by the side of Brougham in most of what he did for the public, either on education, law reform, or any other subject.