gifted men had proved that he could go bravely into the midst of angry opponents, could show them their fallacies one by one, destroy their favourite theories before their very faces, and triumphantly argue them down."

JOHN BRIGHT.

(1811.)

The Cave of Adullam.-On the meeting of Parliament in 1866, a Reform Bill was introduced by Earl Russell's Administration. Several members usually found in the ranks of the Liberal party either opposed or withheld their support from the measure. Among them Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman were most conspicuous. In a debate on the bill, on the 13th of March, the following observations by Mr. Bright excited great merriment, and gave the name of " Adullamites" to this section of politicians: "The right honourable gentleman below me (Mr. Horsman) said a little against the Government and a little against the bill, but had last night a field-night for an attack upon so humble an individual as I am. The right honourable gentleman is the first of the new party who has expressed his great grief, who has retired into what may be called his political cave of Adullam, and he has called about him every one that was in distress and every one that was discontented.* The right honourable gentleman has been anxious to form a party in this House. There is scarcely any one on this side of the House who is able to address the House with effect, or to take much part in our debates, whom he has not tried to bring over to his party or cabal; and at last the right honourable gentleman has succeeded in hooking the right honourable gentleman the member for Calne (Mr. Lowe). I know there was an opinion expressed many years ago by a member of the Treasury bench and of the Cabinet, that two men would make a party. When a party is formed of two men so amiable, so discreet as the two right honourable gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament a party perfectly harmonious, and distinguished by mutual and unbroken trust. But there is one difficulty which it is impossible to remove. This party of two reminds me of the Scotch terrier, which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of it."

An Appeal against War.—Mr. Bright's speech against the continuance of the Crimean war (Feb. 23, 1855) was perhaps the best example of the honourable gentleman's higher flights of oratory. It contained the following passage: "I do not suppose that your troops are to be beaten in actual conflict with the foe, or that they will be driven into the sea; but I am certain that many homes in England in which there now exists a fond hope that the distant one may return-many such homes may be rendered desolate when the next mail shall arrive. The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the firstborn were slain of old, to

1 Samuel, xxii. 1, 2.

sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two sideposts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on. He takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and the lowly; and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn appeal. . I would ask, I would entreat the noble lord (Palmerston) to take a course which, when he looks back upon his whole political career-whatever he may therein find to be pleased with, whatever to regret cannot but be a source of gratification to him. By adopting that course he would have the satisfaction of reflecting that, having obtained the object of his laudable ambition-having become the foremost subject of the Crown, the director of, it may be, the destinies of his country, and the presiding genius of her councils-he had achieved a still higher and nobler ambition: that he had returned the sword to its scabbard-that at his words torrents of blood had ceased to flow-that he had restored tranquillity to Europe, and saved this country from the indescribable calamities of war."*

A Modern Sindbad.-In the debate on the Queen's Message announcing the declaration of war with Russia, March, 1854, Mr. Bright condemned the policy of a war on behalf of Turkey, and in the course of his remarks said, "The property-tax is the lever, or the weapon, with which the proprietors of land and houses in this kingdom will have to support the integrity and independence' of the Ottoman Empire. Gentlemen, I congratulate you that every man of you has a Turk upon his shoulders."

The Ass between Two Burdens.-In a speech at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in 1866, Mr. Bright used this illustration. He said: "When I look at the great middle class of this country, and see all that it has done, and see the political position in which it has been to some extent content to rest, I cannot help saying that it reminds me very much of the language which the ancient Hebrew patriarch addressed to one of his sons. He said, 'Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens.' On the one side there is the burden of seven and a half millions per annum, raised by way of tax, to keep from starvation more than 1,200,000 paupers within the United Kingdom-and on the other hand, and higher up in the scale, there is mismanagement the most gross, there is extravagance the most reckless, and there is waste the most appalling and disgraceful which has ever been seen in the government of any country. And this is the grand result of a system which systematically shuts out the millions, and which cajoles the middle class by the hocus-pocus of a Parliamentary Government."

The "Intense Glare at the Doors of Parliament.”—Mr. Bright used this expression in a speech at Birmingham in 1865. Alluding to the fear which the Tories and many of the Whigs entertained of a

*The critical sense of the House of Commons is always keenly alive. This peroration was listened to in a silence which was itself impressive, and the 66 beating of the wings" might have been audible, could it have occurred; but a member who was present remarked, "If he had said flapping we should have laughed at once."

Reform Bill, he said, "What is this apparition which alarms them? They are afraid of the five or six millions of Englishmen, grown-up men, who are allowed to marry, to keep house, to rear children, who are expected to earn their living, who pay taxes, who must obey the law, who must be citizens in all honourable conduct-they are afraid of the five or six millions who by the present system of representation are shut out, and insultingly shut out, from the commonest rights of citizenship. It may happen, as it happened thirty years ago, that the eyes of the five millions all through the United Kingdom may be fixed with an intense glare upon the doors of Parliament; it was so in the years 1831-32. . . If the five millions should once unitedly fix their eyes with an intense look upon the doors of that House where my honourable friend and I expect so soon to enter, I would ask, Who shall say them nay? Not the mace upon the table of the House; not the four hundred easy gentlemen of the House of Lords, who lounge in and out of that decorated chamber; not the dozen gentlemen who call themselves statesmen, and who meet in Downingstreet; perhaps not even those more appalling and more menacing personages who have their lodgment higher up Whitehall. I say there is no power in the country, as opinion now stands, and as combination is now possible there is no power in this country that can say 'Nay' for one single week to the five millions, if they are intent upon making their way within the doors of Parliament."

Parliamentary Corruption preventing a Dissolution.—In a speech at Glasgow in October, 1866, Mr. Bright said: "With regard to a general election, some of you have read, and many of you know something of the cost and corruption of a general election. I will give you one instance and one proof of it. It has been my opinion all along that it was the duty of the Government of Lord Russell, after the defeat of their Reform Bill during the last session, to have dissolved the Parliament. I have no reason to disbelieve what is asserted, that Lord Russell himself was of that opinion. But a general election was a burden which the members of Parliament did not wish to bear. I was speaking to a member of the Government on this question, about the time when the resignation of the late Government was just about to be submitted to the Queen, and I was telling him that I thought the true policy, the constitutional policy, of the Government was to dissolve the Parliament. A portion of his answer was this: A member who sits on our side of the House had spoken to him about it. He said, 'My election has already cost me 90007.;' and he added, 'I have, besides, 3000l. more to pay.' He said further, what was very reasonable, that this was a heavy burden, that it was grievous to be borne, that it put him to exceeding inconvenience, and, if the Parliament were dissolved, he could not afford to fight his county or his borough, as the case might be, but would be obliged to retire from the field, and leave the contest, if there should be a contest, to some one else. You will believe, then, that the Government were greatly pressed by this consideration; and this consideration, added, it may be, to others, induced them to resign office rather than to dissolve Parliament. Thus you have a proof that whereas general corruption and putridity are the destruction

of most bodies which they affect, the corruption of the present Parliament was, and is, the cause of its present existence."

A Parliament from Temple Bar.-In a speech at Glasgow, in 1866, Mr. Bright made this supposition: "If the Clerk of the House of Commons were placed at Temple Bar, and if he had orders to tap upon the shoulder every well-dressed and apparently cleanly-washed man who passed through that ancient bar, until he had numbered 658; and if the Crown summoned these 658 to be the Parliament of the United Kingdom, my honest conviction is that you would have a better Parliament than now exists. This assertion will stagger some timid and some good men ; but let me explain myself to you. It would be a Parliament every member of which would have no direct constituency, but it would be a Parliament that would act as a jury, that would take some heed of the facts and arguments laid before it. It would be free, at any rate, from the class prejudices which weigh upon the present House of Commons. It would be free from the overshadowing presence of what are called noble families. It would owe no allegiance to great landowners, and I hope it would have fewer men amongst it seeking their own gains by entering Parliament.”

66

The Derby Minstrels.-Speaking on Reform at Birmingham in 1866, Mr. Bright made the following allusion: The Government of Lord Derby in the House of Commons, sitting all in a row, reminds me very much of a number of amusing and ingenious gentlemen whom I dare say some of you have seen and listened to; I mean the Christy Minstrels. The Christy Minstrels, if I am not misinformed, are, when they are clean washed, white men; but they come before the audience as black as the blackest negroes, and by this transformation it is expected that their jokes and songs will be more amusing. The Derby Minstrels pretend to be Liberal and white; but the fact is, if you come nearer and examine them closely, you will find them to be just as black and curly as the Tories have ever been. I do not know, and I do not pretend to say, which of them it is that plays the banjo and which the bones."

Inadequate Remedies.-In March, 1868, the Earl of Mayo, as Chief Secretary for Ireland in Mr. Disraeli's Administration, brought before the House of Commons the measures intended to deal with Irish questions, and among them a scheme for a new Roman Catholic University. In the course of the discussion Mr. Bright ridiculed these measures as inadequate to the requirements of the occasion, and said: "I recollect that Addison, a good while ago, writing about the curious things that happened in his time, said there was a man in his county—I do not know whether it was in Buckinghamshire or not-he was not a Cabinet Minister, he was only a mountebank-but this man set up a stall, and to the country people he offered to sell pills that were very good against the earthquake." (Great laughter.)

A "Free Breakfast Table."-In addressing the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, of which he had been made an honorary member, in 1868, Mr. Bright urged his hearers to agitate for this object. By the term he included the repeal of all remaining duties on tea, coffee, and sugar.

A Defence of the Queen.-During the Reform agitation in 1866, a meeting of the London trades was held in St. James's Hall, Mr. Bright and Mr. Ayrton delivering addresses. The latter, alluding to a popular demonstration at St. James's Park on the previous day, censured the Queen for not making an appearance and recognising the people. Mr. Bright thereupon disclaimed any participation in such a feeling. "I am not," he said, "accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns. But I could not sit and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and pain. I think there has been, by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say this, that a woman, be she Queen of a great realm or be she the wife of one of your labouring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you."

The Shunammite Woman.-On the formation of Mr. Gladstone's Government in December, 1868, Mr. Bright was offered and accepted the post of President of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the Cabinet. Addressing his constituents at Birmingham on his re-election, he said that when the Prime Minister asked him to take office, "I have reason to know that he made that proposition with the cordial and gracious acquiescence of her Majesty the Queen. . . I should have preferred much to have remained in the common rank of the simple citizenship in which heretofore I have lived. There is a charming story contained in a single verse of the Old Testament, which has often struck me as one of great beauty. Many of you will recollect that the prophet, in journeying to and fro, was very hospitably entertained by what is termed in the Bible a Shunammite woman. In return for the hospitality of his entertainment he wished to make her some amends, and he called her and asked her what there was that he should do for her. Shall I speak for thee to the King or to the Captain of the Host? '—and it has always appeared to me to be a great answer that the Shunammite woman returned. She said, 'I dwell among mine own people.' When the question was put to me whether I would step into the position in which I now find myself, the answer from my heart was the same-I wish to dwell among mine own people. Happily, the time may have come-I trust it has come when in this country an honest man may enter the service of the Crown, and at the same time not feel it in any degree necessary to dissociate himself from his own people."

The "Residuum."-Mr. Bright having, in 1873, been made the subject of some very free remarks by a provincial clergyman, for applying the term "residuum" to the working classes, he wrote a letter warmly repudiating the construction put upon his words, and remarked: "If I had applied the word 'residuum' to the 'working men of England'— if I had deemed or called them the dregs of the population'-should I have given much time and labour, and many years of my life, to procure for them the right to live by the free exchange of their industry, and the right to vote that they might share in the government of their country?