ties and all but revolutionary declamation of Mr. Bright. But the fiery tone of his addresses was well-suited to public and miscellaneous meetings. Mr. Bright was soon recognized as only second to Mr. Cobden in the effective advocacy of the objects of the league, while the more ardent spirits of the party predicted his eventual supremacy. The history of Mr. Bright's connection with the Anti-corn-law league, involves the history of the league itself, which does not fall to be written here. Suffice it to indicate, as prominent events of this section of Mr. Blight's career, his metropolitan exertions in 1843 to secure the return of Mr. Patterson, the free-trade candidate, for the city of London, and his appearance at a great meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society in Exeter hall, during the course of 1844, when he advocated the application of free trade even to the sugar question, and opposed the imposition of a prohibitory or protective duty on slave-grown sugar. As a proof of his unremitting perseverance, it may be mentioned, that when he accompanied to Leamington his first and dying wife (Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Jonathan Priestman, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, whom he married in 1839, and whom he lost in 1841), he delivered anti-corn-law lectures in the neighbourhood, and endeavoured to win over the Warwickshire farmers to a conviction of the agricultural benefits of free trade.
Mr. Bright first entered parliament in 1843, two years after the return of Mr. Cobden for Stockport. In the spring of that year a vacancy occurred in the representation of Durham, and Lord Dungannon was selected as the conservative candidate. In accordance with the tactics of the league, to offer a free-trade candidate whenever there was a vacancy, and whether success was probable or improbable. Colonel (now Major-general) Thompson was put forward as the free-trade candidate, and Mr. Bright was despatched to Durham to advocate his claims and to forward his canvass. From some cause or other Colonel Thompson withdrew from the contest at the eleventh hour. There was no time to lose: Mr. Bright was on the spot; and the day before the election he issued his address as a candidate. He was defeated by a majority of 101. The return of Lord Dungannon, however, was petitioned against, and he was unseated for bribery. The contest was renewed, and in July, 1843, Mr. Bright was returned for Durham by a majority of 78. The spectacle of a radical quaker sitting for the cathedral and conservative city of Durham was a strange one, and would seem marvellous even now, were it not understood that the then Marquis of Londonderry refused to throw his overwhelming influence into the scale of his natural ally, the conservative candidate. Mr. Bright's first speech in the house of commons was made towards the end of a session, and in a thin house, on the 7th of August, 1843. It was in support of a motion of Mr. Ewart's for the reduction of import duties, and its delivery betrayed a certain nervousness which often characterizes Mr. Bright's parliamentary oratory, and which must surprise those who have only heard him speak to miscellaneous, excited, and altogether friendly audiences. From this period onward to the repeal of the corn laws, Mr. Bright was active in and out of parliament; but both with the public as a whole, and with the house of commons, Mr. Cobden was still the favourite. In his celebrated peroration, when proposing the repeal of the corn laws, the late Sir Robert Peel ascribed the whole glory of the free-trade triumph to Mr. Cobden. The Bright testimonial, subscribed for after the dissolution of the Anti-corn-law league, was very much inferior in amount to that raised for Mr. Cobden, although it furnished the recipient with an excellent library. Unconnected directly with the free-trade movement, two items of Mr. Bright's house of commons activity in the parliament of 1841-47, deserve to be noticed. One is the appointment procured by him in 1845, of a game law committee, which printed its evidence without a report, in 1846; and an abridgment of the evidence, with an address by Mr. Bright to the Tenant Farmers of Great Britain, was published, at his expense, the same year. The other was the appointment, also at his instance, of a select committee on the cotton cultivation of India: its labours issued in a huge blue book, frequently referred to in discussions on this interesting question.
The general election of 1847, which followed the repeal of the corn laws, and the overthrow of the Peel ministry, placed Mr. Bright in a higher position than any he had yet aspired to. Mr. Mark Philips retired from the representation of Manchester, and the friends of Mr. Bright wished to see him the colleague of Mr. Milner Gibson in the representation of that important constituency. The liberal party of Manchester was divided. The old whigs disliked Mr. Bright's radicalism, and wished to throw off the thraldom of the league, the local leaders of which were favourable to the claims of Mr. Bright. Mr. Cobden was invited to stand, but he refused. Lord Lincoln (now duke of Newcastle) was then persuaded to become a candidate, but dissatisfied with his chances of success, he withdrew, after his committee had been formed, and Mr. Bright was returned without opposition. The ensuing six years of Mr. Bright's life, public and parliamentary, were active and busy. "Out of doors," he co-operated no longer as a subordinate, but as an equal with Mr. Cobden, in various agitations for financial and parliamentary reform, but not with the marked success which had attended the free-trade movement. In parliament, Mr. Bright spoke with increasing frequency, and succeeded gradually in the difficult enterprise, which is termed "gaining the ear of the house." It was remarked that, if still narrow in his tone, his scope was wider. Besides urging the ordinary views of a radical politician, he produced a marked effect by his treatment of the Irish and Indian questions in 1848 and 1850. After the formation of the first Derby ministry, and the consequent dissolution of parliament, his return for Manchester was opposed, but the cause of free-trade was thought to be once more in danger, and moderate liberals themselves, though disagreeing with many of his views, refused to countenance the attempt to oust him from the representation of Manchester at such a crisis. After a contest, he was again returned by a large majority. His violent opposition to the Russian war, however, united against him a majority of his constituents, many of whom, moreover, were perhaps still influenced by a jealousy of the local power of the Anti-corn-law league, which, though nominally dissolved, still kept up in Manchester a considerable organization. Soon after the formation of Lord Palmerston's ministry, Mr. Bright was compelled, by ill-health, to withdraw from attendance in parliament, and to seek repose and change of scene on the continent. The general election of 1857 found him abroad, and in his absence, Manchester rejected him as its representative. On the death of Mr. Muntz, he was elected in August, 1857, one of the members for Birmingham, and has since resumed his parliamentary duties. In 1847 Mr. Bright married a second time, a daughter of Mr. Leatham of Wakefield, by whom he has several children, in addition to one by his first marriage.—(Alexander Somerville, Free-Trade and the League, Manchester, 1853, &c.)—F. E.
BRIGHT, Richard, M.D., an eminent physician, was born in Bristol in the year 1789. He matriculated as a student at the university of Edinburgh in the year 1808, and graduated in medicine in 1812. After spending some time at Cambridge, he proceeded to the continent, and was one of the many physicians and surgeons who thronged to Brussels after the battle of Waterloo, with the double object of acquiring professional knowledge and of assisting the overtasked military surgeons in the care and treatment of the sick and wounded. Dr. Bright afterwards commenced the practice of his profession in London, and in 1820 was appointed assistant-physician to Guy's hospital—the high reputation of which, as a medical school, he did much to establish and maintain. As an author, Dr. Bright occupies the foremost position in English medical literature. His "Original researches into the Pathology of Diseases of the Kidney" have been universally acknowledged as among the most valuable discoveries in pathology; and over the whole world "Bright's disease" is recognized and described. It may be sufficient to indicate here that his discovery lay in the identification of the coexistence of an albuminous state of the urine with certain morbid changes in the structure of the kidney. On other subjects connected with pathology and practical medicine. Dr. Bright has been a copious and able writer. As a practitioner he attained great celebrity, more especially in dropsical cases, and he was one of the physicians extraordinary to the queen. Dr. Bright died in December, 1858, in the 70th year of his age.—J. B. C.
BRIGHT, Timothy, an eminent English physician and divine, took his degree of doctor of medicine at Cambridge, and in 1591 became rector of Methley in Yorkshire. His most celebrated production is his "Treatise of Melancholy." His medical works exhibit a remarkable acquaintance with the doctrines of the early Greek writers. He died in 1615.
BRILL, Paul, one of the earliest of the Flemish landscape painters, was born at Antwerp about 1556. After receiving some instruction from an obscure painter of the name of Oortel-
