Mr. Bright entered on an active political career in 1839, when he joined the Anti-Corn-Law League.  He first became a member of Parliament in 1843, and illustrates a most valuable feature of English political practice.  When a change of feeling in one place prevented his re-election, he selected another which was glad to honor itself by having a great man represent it, so that the country was not robbed of a statesman by a village faction; and there being no spoils system, he did not have to waste his time in office-jobbing to keep his seat.  He sat first for Durham, then for Manchester, and finally for Birmingham, remaining in public life over forty years; and never had to make a “deal” or get any one an office in all that period.

He was in Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet from 1868 to 1870, and again from 1873 to 1882.  On the Home Rule question the two old friends and long co-workers divided; Mr. Bright, with more than half the oldest and sincerest friends of liberty and haters of oppression in England, holding the step to be political suicide for the British Empire.

As an orator, Mr. Bright stood in a sense alone.  He was direct and logical; he carefully collected and massed his facts, and used strong, homely Saxon English, and short crisp words; he was a master of telling epigram whose force lay in its truth as much as in its humor.  Several volumes of his speeches have been published:  ‘On Public Affairs’; ’On Parliamentary Reform’; ‘On Questions of Public Policy’; ’On the American Question,’ etc.  His life has been written by Gilchrist, Smith, Robertson, and others.  He died March 27th, 1889.

FROM THE SPEECH ON THE CORN LAWS (1843)

It must not be supposed, because I wish to represent the interest of the many, that I am hostile to the interest of the few.

But is it not perfectly certain that if the foundation of the most magnificent building be destroyed and undermined, the whole fabric itself is in danger?  Is it not certain, also, that the vast body of the people who form the foundation of the social fabric, if they are suffering, if they are trampled upon, if they are degraded, if they are discontented, if “their hands are against every man, and every man’s hands are against them,” if they do not flourish as well, reasonably speaking, as the classes who are above them because they are richer and more powerful,—­then are those classes as much in danger as the working classes themselves?

There never was a revolution in any country which destroyed the great body of the people.  There have been convulsions of a most dire character which have overturned old-established monarchies and have hurled thrones and sceptres to the dust.  There have been revolutions which have brought down most powerful aristocracies, and swept them from the face of the earth forever, but never was there a revolution yet which destroyed the people.  And whatever