The Right Hon. John Bright
Note: original spelling has been maintained.
THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT.
Lord Lytton says, poverty and low birth are the twin gaolers of the human heart; but assuredly in this country, they do not bar the road to fame and fortune. In English society there is no such thing as caste. The field in the race of honourable ambition is open to all; and stout hearts and fertile brains have little to fear, in the long run, from any difficulty which may chance to delay them at the outset.
In England, there are class distinctions, but there are no class barriers. The aristocracy, which is the most flourishing in Europe, is constantly recruited from the ranks of the people. He who has parts, pluck, and perseverance, will get riches, and, if he covets it, the bubble reputation. There is, indeed, one exclusive profession. Unless a man has a father according to Debrett, or unless he is an inheritor of wealth, he has no chance of promotion in the army. But every other calling is open to all comers. We have merchant princes who were once errand-boys; self-taught children, of the direst poverty, have won high renown in literature, art, and science; sons of tradesmen have been enthroned as I primates of the Anglican Church. Legal biography abounds with instances of men who, from the humblest beginnings, have risen to eminence. Unaided ability succeeds even in politics and statesmanship. In the House of Commons, there are many men who have attained a high social position by their own unassisted industry. There are at this time two exceptionally conspicuous examples of—to adopt a popular phrase—self-made statesmen.
There is Mr. Disraeli. Born, as he tells us, in a library; the son of a Jew—and not a rich Jew; never entering, as Canning did, a public school, the nursery of English statesmen; destined for the law, and for a while engaged in an attorney’s office; emerging from obscurity, as a novelist; and, when nigh thirty years old, entering Parliament. That he should become a party leader is remarkable; but that he should become the chief of the blue blood party, is still more remarkable. By sheer force of will and might of mind, Mr. Disraeli, despite peculiarly adverse circumstances, became Prime Minister of the British Empire; and during his brief tenure of office made a Lord Chancellor, an Archbishop of Canterbury, an Irish duke, an English countess, and a Governor General of India. He who was destined to be an attorney, appointed the Ruler over 150,000,000 of Asiatics. In his case, the wildest dreams of the most audacious ambition have been realized.
The career of Mr. Bright is not less surprising ; and, as we shall presently remark, not less triumphant. Like Mr. Disraeli, he was not educated or trained for the high service of the State. Unlike Mr. Disraeli, he has not entirely devoted himself to politics, but until lately was engaged in business. Some one suggested to a member of his firm that he was of course only a sleeping partner. “ Sleeping ! Why, he knows everything that goes on, and is an ever-vigilant administrator.” Mr. Disraeli, though not a public school or university man, received a thoroughly classical and comprehensive education; and if he is not so good a Grecian as Mr. Gladstone, he is not inferior to Mr. Lowe as a Latinist. Mr. Bright had a commercial, middle-class i education, and that is all; and yet there is no scholar who has a more copious, more forcible, and more elegant diction. He is often cited as an example of the uselessness of studying the dead languages. It is not Mr. Bright’s opinion, who admires scholarship as much as he abhors pedantry. Some persons suppose that he would have been less idiomatic if he had been a classic. The late Lord Derby was a ripe scholar, yet his translation of Homer is one of the most idiomatic works in the English language. If Mr. Disraeli had the disadvantage of descending from an alien race—and thirty years ago it was unquestionably so—Mr. Bright was associated by birth with a sect whose doctrines are thoroughly at variance with the rules of our social system.
How did Mr. Bright, carpet manufacturer and cotton spinner, become an eminent public man and a member of the Cabinet? No doubt he has a high character, and is endued with political foresight; but it is not to these qualities he is indebted for his success. His influence and fame are due to his eloquence.
As a rule, the platform orator fails in the House of Commons; but Mr. Bright is a brilliant, and almost an unique, exception. The reputation he acquired at public meetings has been confirmed and enhanced by his career in Parliament. Mr. Cobden had the ear of the House, but he was only a persuasive debater; whilst the name of Bright is worthily associated with the names of Chatham, Burke, Fox, and the foremost of living orators. His speeches are complete, finished, and ornate; and years after their delivery they are read with pleasure and profit. An unbroken chain of reasoning is illumined by flashes of wit and humour, by grand imagery, by deep pathos, by exalted sentiment; whilst the style is chaste, and distinguished by a noble simplicity. Four years ago, he addressed a meeting at St. James’s Hall on Parliamentary Reform. In reply to the charge of being a promoter of dangerous excitement, he said:—
“If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them—if I speak of their danger to the monopolists of power—am* I not a wise counsellor both to the people and to their rulers? Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius or Etna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet or in that homestead: You see that vapour which ascends from the summit of the mountain?—that vapour may become a dense black smoke that will obscure the sky. You see that trickling of lava from the crevices or fissures in the side of the mountain?—that trickling of lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain?—that muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of a violent convulsion that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities, for which there is no resurrection—as history tells us that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away, and their name has been known no more for ever. If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there come hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men that were in danger!”
Those who listened to this outburst of nervous eloquence will never forget the intense excitement. Mr. Bright was not in good voice that night, but the above passage was given with a passionate energy that thrilled the listeners. There was the deep stillness so impressive in large assemblies; and then, when the pause came, the audience, moved by an irresistible and unanimous impulse, sprang to their feet, and greeted the orator with rounds of deafening cheers.
Like effects have been produced in the House of Commons, which is the most impassive assembly in the world. Mr. Bright opposed the Crimean War. He made a speech (Dec. 22, 1854) in which he taunted the Ministry in a manner that almost exceeded the licence of Parliamentary debate. He spoke of “ the buffoonery at the Reform Club;” he asked if the Ministers had “shown themselves statesmen and Christian men.” He said, “ I have not enjoyed for thirty years, like the noble lords, the emoluments of office. I have not set my sails to every passing breeze.” The House was dead against him, and he was constantly interrupted with derisive shouts, cries of “ Question,” and even yells. He thus concluded:—
“ Even if I were alone, if my voice were the solitary one raised amid the din of arms and the clamours of a venal press, I should have the consolation I have to-night and which, I trust, will be mine to the last moment of my existence—the priceless consolation that I have never uttered one word that could promote the squandering of my country’s treasure, or the spilling of one single drop of my country’s blood.”
And he sat down amidst loud and repeated cheers from the whole House, no one applauding more heartily than Lord Palmerston. Over and over again has he thus taken the Commons by storm, and compelled those who were against him, as well as those who were for him, to give him their applause. His speeches are thickly studded with such eloquent passages as those we have quoted.
The moral integrity of Mr. Bright is as far above suspicion as the sky is distant from the earth; and those who accuse him of clinging to office from mercenary motive betray unpardonable ignorance, or most culpable virulence. Yet it is undeniable that Mr. Bright has been grossly unjust in his judgments, and discreditably bitter in bis resentments. He seems incapable of conceiving that there are two sides to a question; and he deems it impossible for any I one to honestly differ from the views he I himself holds. The press supported the Crimean War, and therefore he denounced it as “ a venal press.” The press did not agree with him about the American Civil I War, and therefore he declared that the leading articles of the London papers were written “by men who would barter every human right that they might serve the party with which they are associated.” And subsequently he expressed a hope, “ that their power for evil in the future will be greatly lessened by the stupendous exhibition of ignorance and folly which they have made to the world.” Mr. Bright could not forgive [ Lord Palmerston for postponing Reform; and he assailed the venerable statesman in I season and out of season. The ill-will appeared to survive the death of his political opponent. The late Lord Derby is described in his speeches as “a weakness to the throne;” he is scolded for his “insolence,” and jeered at for his faithlessness to his professions. The Tory party is sneered at as a host of fools; whilst the leaders, cunning knaves, “make it profitable enough.” Yet Mr. Bright complains of “ the scurrilous vituperation of the Tory press”! During the American War, every one who sympathized I with the Confederates—or rather, every one who did not anathematize them—was anathematized by Mr. Bright. The subscribers to the Confederate Loan were vilified as men “ who, for the chance of more gain than honest dealing will afford them, would not hesitate to assist a cause whose fundamental institution and corner-stone is declared to be felony, and infamous by the statutes of their country.” Mr. Bright forgot how he had lauded the United States before the secession of the South, when negro slavery was an institution of the Republic.
Whilst insisting upon the honesty of Mr. Bright, it is impossible to condone or palliate his injustice and violence to those who differed from him. It is a fault which marred his usefulness, and in troublous times might have proved disastrous to the community. Mr. Bright boasts—and not without warrant—of his firm attachment to the throne; for whenever he has mentioned the Queen, he has always done so in befitting terms. But attachment to the Sovereign does not justify hate of a loyal and devoted aristocracy. Surely, when Mr. Bright was sitting in council with peers and with Mr. Lowe—whom he furiously assailed four years' ago—he must have regretted an intolerance of judgment so fanatical, unjust, and, we must add, spiteful.
When he received the seals of office, her Majesty accorded him a very gracious reception; and he was further honoured by an interview with the Crown Princess of Prussia, who thanked him for the kindly way in which he had always spoken of her royal mother. On his return from Windsor, he went to the Reform Club, and astonished his friends by an unwonted exuberance of spirits. Some one expressed surprise that office so much delighted him. Mr. Bright replied—“It is not office that makes me joyous. I am happy because, without flattering the people or fawning on the Sovereign, I have won the confidence of both; and I know that I deserve it.”
Nervous prostration—the too common ailment of all great intellects—has obliged Mr. Bright to retire from office. Men of all parties deplore his sickness, and trust that he will be restored to full health, and be able to serve his country for many years to come. But if, unhappily, his voice should be heard no more in the Senate—if the curtain has fallen on his public career—we must yet hold that the Right Hon. John Bright is one of Fortune’s best favoured sons—that he has been pre-eminently successful. The greatest demagogue of the age—we do not use the word in its corrupted and invidious sense—he is also a power in Parliament. He has been a leading member of the Government; and he has been graciously and cordially welcomed to the Court of his Sovereign. And the press, the party, and the statesmen he has so persistently and so grievously calumniated, admire his talents, recognize his virtues, and forgive—though it may be they cannot quite forget—his faults.