Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament. John Morrison Davidson

of a respectable tradesman of Bolton-leMoors, and became in due course the father of John the Great, the subject of this sketch.

      Mr. Bright's ancestry abounds in Abrahams and Jacobs, Marthas and Marys. He has a sort of vested interest in scriptural characters and scriptural knowledge, which comes as instinctively to him as fox-hunting to a squire of the county. He is a hereditary Nonconformist; nearly all his relatives, as is well known, being members of the Society of Friends. He may be said to have been born resisting church rates. His father, a most estimable man, could never be induced to pay them, and was, in consequence, as familiar with execution warrants as with the pages of his ledger. Not a bad example, assuredly, for a youthful people's tribune! Bright the elder had started life as a poor but honest weaver, working, as his right honorable son has told all the world, for six shillings a week! In 1809 he took an old mill named Greenbank. Some Manchester friends who had confidence in his intelligence and integrity supplied the capital; and, by the time that the ex-President of the Board of Trade had attained years of discretion, the family were in easy circumstances. The business has since been much developed; but the knowledge that Mr. Bright, from the first, possessed a ​substantial "stake in the country," has given a cogency to his more Radical and humanitarian opinions in the eyes of the middle class, which no amount of mere argument could have ever supplied.

      Was Mr. Bright equally happy in his education? The question is one of great difficulty; but, on the whole, I am disposed to think he was. True, he did not learn much at the Friends' schools which he frequented; but, on the other hand—unlike Mr, Gladstone, with his great academic acquirements—he learned nothing which it has been necessary for him, by a painful process, to unlearn. If, like Shakespeare, he "knows little Latin and less Greek," he knows uncommonly well how to do without them. At the Ackworth and York schools his heart was cultivated, if his head was not crammed. The foundations were laid deep and strong of a placid, free, wise, and upright manhood. "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." It was the educational aim of the friends of Bright's childhood to instil wisdom first, and to leave knowledge pretty much to take care of itself. I do not like to contemplate what might have happened to Mr. Bright if he had gone to Eton and to Oxford with Mr. Gladstone, and drunk in all the pernicious ecclesiastical and political nonsense which the Premier imbibed in his misdirected youth. Mr. Gladstone has survived Oxford, and come out clothed and in his right mind; but it is highly doubtful if Mr. Bright would have been equally fortunate. He is by temperament a Conservative, who has been singularly faithful to all the ideas with which he started in life. What he is to-day he was forty-five years ago. His principles are far-reaching, and susceptible of varied application; but I venture to affirm, ​that, if they were once realized, he would be about the last man in England to find new ones. He is the incarnation of Quakerism, summing up in his own person all its noble law and all its prophets. The sect which has been numerically so weak and morally so strong will never produce another such. Its theory of the public good, though perhaps the highest of any, is limited after all.

      One part of. Mr. Bright's education which was not neglected, and which has been to him from boyhood a source of real inspiration, I ought not to overlook; viz., his study of the great poets. He has a genius for appropriate quotation; and, if I might give a hint to my young readers, let me recommend them to verify, as occasion offers, the sources from which he draws. They will be well repaid for the trouble.

      Like most generous and humane natures, he is fond of the lower animals, more especially of dogs; but his canine, I am sorry to say, are not equal to his unerring poetic, instincts. In this respect he is not much above the shockingly low average taste of Lancashire. In his youth he was a good football-player, a smart cricketer, an expert swimmer, and during a period of convalescence, more than twenty years ago, he acquired the art of salmon-fishing, which he has since, for recreative reasons chiefly, brought to considerable perfection. He is a total abstainer; and what with a steady hand, a quick eye, and indomitable patience, few better amateur anglers appear on the Spey.

      He is a charming companion, with a weakness for strolling into billiard-rooms. Once at Llandudno, the story goes, he played in a public billiard-room with a stranger, who turned out to be a truculent Tory ​manufacturer from Yorkshire. While the game was proceeding, the Yorkshireman's wife chanced to ask some of the hotel attendants how her husband was engaged, and was beside herself with alarm on" learning that he was in the company of one against whom she had so often heard him express the most bloodthirsty sentiments. "Are they fighting?" she asked, and could with difficulty be pursuaded that no altercation was going on. About a couple of hours afterwards the husband turned up, rubbing his hands, and told his wife with much satisfaction that he had just been having a game at billiards with a most pleasant casual acquaintance, and that they had arranged for another trial of skill next day. "Why," exclaimed the lady, "it is John Bright you have been playing with!" The manufacturer's countenance fell; but, speedily recovering himself, he observed, in extenuation of his conduct, that the newspapers always told lies about people, and, so thoroughly was he now satisfied of Mr. Bright's entire harmlessness, that, in given circumstances, he should vote for him himself.

      At home, at One Ash, Mr. Bright enjoys universal respect. His abode, though most unostentatious, is a model of comfort and good taste. His library is noteworthy, being specially rich in history, biography, and poetry. At the close of the corn-law agitation upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars were subscribed by his admirers, and twelve hundred volumes purchased therewith, as some slight acknowledgment of his powerful advocacy of the good cause. As of yore, he regularly attends the services at the humble meetinghouse of the Friends; and, as age advances, the sources of his piety show no symptom of drying up. His charities, and—

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      "That best portion of a good man's life,

       His little, nameless, unremembered acts

       Of kindness and of love,"

      which are in reality numerous, are seldom recorded, because Mr. Bright, like his father before him, declines to blow a trumpet when he does a good deed. He acts on the principle of not letting his right hand know what his left hand doeth in such matters; and, as a consequence, his benefactions are better known to the beneficiaries than to the public.

      As to Mr. Bright's relations with his work-people, many lying legends were at one time circulated by the Tory press. They practically, however, received their quietus on the 2oth of January, 1867, when the alleged victims of Mr. Bright's tyranny met and unanimously passed resolutions so complimentary to their employer, that for shame's cause the Conservative organs had to look about for fresh subjects of vilification. At that time Mr. Bright was able to say, "From 1809 to 1867 is at least fifty-seven years; and I venture to affirm, that with one single exception, and that not of long duration, there has been during that period uninterrupted harmony and confidence between my family and those who have assisted us and been employed in it." How few employers in this age of "strikes" can say as much!

      With respect to Mr. Bright's oratory, I agree with all competent judges that it is as nearly as possible perfect. He is the prince of English speakers. I have been told by some authorities who have heard Wendell Phillips speak, that he is equal to Mr. Bright; but, from speeches by the celebrated American which I have read, I should very much doubt it. The heart, the ​conscience, the intellect, Mr. Bright can touch with equal ease. His speech is the natural expression of a mind at once beautiful and strong. The whole man speaks, and not, as is the case with most other speakers, only a part of him. His words glide like a pleasant brook, without haste and without rest. His rising in the House is always an event. I remember by chance being in the Speaker's Gallery on a Wednesday afternoon when he made his now celebrated speech on the Burials Bill. He had seldom spoken since his severe illness, and was not expected to address the House. The debate had been of the poorest select vestry stamp, without ability and without human interest of any kind, when suddenly a movement of expectation was visible on both sides of the House:—

      "And hark! the cry is, 'Astur!' and lo! the ranks divide,

       And the great lord of Luna comes with his stately stride.

       Upon his ample shoulders clangs loud the fourfold shield,

       And in his hand he shakes the brand which none save he can wield."

      The effect was magical. Languid