drawn exclusively from the pure wells of English undefiled. Milton and the Bible are his unceasing study. There was a time when it was rare to find him without 'Paradise Lost' in his hand or his pocket. The use of scriptural imagery is a marked feature of his orations, and no imagery can be more appropriately employed to illustrate his views; for Mr. Bright, in all his grand efforts, rises far above the loaded unwholesome atmosphere of party politics into the purer air and brighter skies of patriotism and philanthropy. may differ about his means or measures, but no one can differ about the aim when he puts forth his strength. to raise Ireland or India in the scale of civilisation, to mitigate the evils of war, or to promote the spread of toleration and Christian charity throughout the world. He wound up a speech on Ireland in these words :

We

'The noble Lord (Palmerston), towards the conclusion of his speech, spoke of the cloud which rests at present over Ireland. It is a dark and heavy cloud, and its darkness extends over the feelings of men in all parts of the British Empire. But there is a consolation which we may all take to ourselves. An inspired king, and bard, and prophet, has left us words which are not only the expression of a fact, but which we may take as the utterance of a prophecy. He says, "To the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." Let us try in this matter to be upright. Let us try to be just. That cloud will be dispelled. The dangers which surround us will vanish, and we may yet have the happiness of leaving to our children the heritage of an honourable citizenship in a united and prosperous empire.'

The speech in which he is commonly thought to have reached the culminating point of his oratory, the one to which he himself reverts with most pleasure, is that deprecating a continuance of the Crimean war. The most successful passage was this

'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 first-born were slain of old, to 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.'

Although Mr. Bright is a ready speaker, he is understood (like the great orators of Greece and Rome) to devote much time and labour to the preparation of his orations; which may account for their comparative fewness and brevity. His voice is all that could be desired as an orator, and his delivery is impressive, although so distinct, slow, and calm as to sound more like recitation than declamation, and it is suspected that his more ambitious passages are fairly written out on the paper which he holds with seeming carelessness in his hand.

One of the best specimens of his racy humour is the speech in which he introduced the cave of Adullam, and, in allusion to the alliance between two of the principal occupants, Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman, said:

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.' His epithets are as adhesive as Mr. Disraeli's; as when he termed that right honourable gentleman the mystery man' of his party. There was point as well as quaintness in one of his arguments against the Crimean

war:

"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.'

His eloquence is (or was) more convincing than persuasive; and the House of Commons for many years rarely went willingly along with him. He defied and confronted, instead of conciliating, an opponent; and when he encountered what he thought prejudices and others might think principles, his massive understanding passed over them like a steam-roller crushing and pulverising stones.

The unadorned eloquence' of Richard Cobden, the fellow-labourer of John Bright in the same high mission, has left its indelible mark on British legislation, but the House of Commons was not the arena in which its persuasive and convincing qualities were most triumphantly displayed.

The first place among living competitors for the oratorical crown will be conceded without a dissenting voice to Mr. Gladstone. It is Eclipse first and all the rest nowhere. He may lack Mr. Bright's impressive diction, impressive by its simplicty, or Mr. Disraeli's humour and sarcasm; but he has made ten eminently successful speeches to Mr. Bright's or Mr. Disraeli's one. His foot is ever in the stirrup: his lance is ever in the rest. He throws down the gauntlet to all comers. Right or wrong, he is always real, natural, earnest, unaffected, and unforced. He is a great debater, a great parliamentary speaker: with a shade more imagination, he would be a great orator. Much that we have said of Sir Robert Peel might be repeated of Mr. Gladstone. Inferior to the founder of his school in judgment and self-control, he is superior in moral courage, warmth, range, grasp, fertility, versatility, passion, power. If he has committed mistakes which Peel would not have committed, he has achieved triumphs which Peel could not have achieved. He

can not only persuade and convince senates: he can sway popular assemblies by voice, look, bearing, and moral force, as well as by sonorous periods and ringing words. See him in the cold grey mist of that October afternoon advance to the front of the platform at Blackheath, bareheaded, pale, resolute :

'Now one glance round, now upwards turns his brow,
Hushed every breath he rises-mark him now.'

Unluckily every breath was not hushed. From that surging sea of heads and faces arose an angry murmur that presaged a storm. The audience was the reverse of favourable: the reserved seats had been invaded by the populace, including many of the discharged dockyard labourers; and political emissaries were busy among the crowd. But a love of fair play, stimulated by curiosity, procured him his opportunity. His distinct articulation and finely-toned voice, loud as a trumpet with a silver sound,' commanded a wide circle, which widened as he went on: an English audience is more easily won by firmness than by flattery; and such was the influence of his manly self-assertion, combined with a judicious choice of topics, that the heath far and near resounded with plaudits when he wound up by devoting himself, according to the measure of his gifts,' to the service of the country and the Queen. In little more than an hour he had recovered his waning popularity and set up his government.

6

Let us now accompany him to another arena. During several months prior to the introduction of the budget in 1853, the most influential portion of the press, headed by the Times,' had bent all their strength to compel a modification of the Income Tax, with a view to lighten the burthen thrown on trades and professions by Schedule D. A strong pressure was put upon Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, to fall in with the current of opinion, which was deemed irresistible. The day before the financial statement, there

was a large dinner company (ministerialists) assembled at Sir William Molesworth's, when a member of the Government came in with a face of dismay to announce that Gladstone was obstinate, and that they should be all out within the week. Such was the general expectation. Within twenty-four hours after the delivery of his speech (April 18) every rational person was obliged to confess that the proposed modification was impracticable; and from that hour to this it has never been seriously entertained or formally proposed again. Another striking instance of the same kind is the revolution he effected in public and parliamentary opinion (May 4, 1863) by his speech against the exemption of charities from Income Tax.

The extreme subtlety of his mind, whilst supplying him with an inexhaustible store of replies and rejoinders, causes him to rely too much on over-refined distinctions and on casuistical modes of reasoning. During Garibaldi's visit to London, it was suggested that a noble and richly jointured widow, who was much about with him, should marry him. To the objection that he had a wife living, the ready answer was, 'Oh, he must get Gladstone to explain her away.' He has also Burke's habit of attaching undue importance to secondary topics. But the same liability to exaggeration which occasionally impairs the effect of a great speech, not unfrequently elevates an ordinary one, and enables him to compel attention to what may really be an important matter, although an impatient or fastidious House may deem it small. The compound householder, whom he rescued from unmerited neglect, is an example.1

'And now, gentlemen'-he was speaking at Chester -'shall I say a word to you about the Dee and Mersey

1 'Qu'est-ce que c'est que votre "compound householder," dont M. Gladstone parle si souvent?' inquired a foreign lady of distinction. 'Madame, c'est le mari de la femme incomprise,' was the reply.