worth, Mr. Bazley, Mr. W. Evans, and Mr. T. Thomasson. Besides the members of Mr. Cobden's family, and private mourners, there were also present Lords Alfred and Clarence Paget, Lord Kinnaird, Sir C. Wentworth Dilke, Mr. Gilpin, Mr. Ewart, Mr. Stansfeld, Sir J. Shelley, Mr. W. E. Forster, Sir F. Crossley, Sir Colman O'Loghlen, Mr. E. Baines, Sir S. M. Peto, Sir P. O'Brien, Sir Robert Clifton, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, Mr. P. Á. Taylor, Mr. É. Miall, Prof. Fawcett, the Rev. Newman Hall, Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. Robertson Gladstone, Dr. Hook (Dean of Chichester), Mr. Elihu Burritt, and Mr. Adams, the American Minister.

After the service in the church, the coffin was borne to the grave, the scene here being most impressive. The concluding portion of the burial service was now read by the Rev. Mr. Currie, with an emotion which was evidently felt by the whole of the mourners and distinguished circle that stood around. Mr. Bright was overcome with grief, and wept almost aloud; other friends standing by his side were also deeply moved; and Mr. Gladstone's pale face wore an expression of sad and deepened gravity as with much earnestness he followed the clergyman from his prayer-book. As the solemn words 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust' were pronounced, and the handful of earth was heard to rattle on the coffin-lid, there was a rush of friends to the opening of the vault, and a struggle to catch a farewell look at what was about to be shut in from them for ever. The mourners then turned from the scene, and the funeral of one of the world's benefactors was over.

But, save for the members of Mr. Cobden's own family, he who felt the keenest anguish that day was the statesman who had been the close companion of the dead in his great and arduous labours. Not always, in the presence of the deadthough they may have been good, wise, and illustrious-can men rise to that calm height wherein they perceive the blessedness of death, and can say, 'They rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.' Mr. Bright must have felt this on the death of Richard Cobden. A strong tie had been broken, a strong bond of affection and sympathy been snapped asunder. Where two had journeyed together, and taken counsel together, one was henceforth to travel alone.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REFORM CAMPAIGN OF 1866.

Lord Russell and the Reform Question in 1865.-Mr. Bright at Birmingham.-Examination of Ministerial Policy.-Position of Reform.-Representation abroad and at home.-Rights of the English people.-Election at Rochdale.-Dissolution of Parliament.-Mr. Bright's Address to his Constituents.-Return of Messrs. Scholefield and Bright.--Vigorous Speech by Mr. Bright.-Smart Attack on Mr. Disraeli.-A fine Peroration.Death of Lord Palmerston.-Speeches of Mr. Bright at Birmingham and Rochdale.-The Session of 1866.-Meeting of Parliament.-Discussion on the Cattle Plague.-Mr. Gladstone introduces the Reform Bill.-Mr. Bright supports it.-His Reply to the Opponents of Reform.-Humorous Description of Mr. Horsman and Mr. Lowe.-The Adullamites.'-Effect of the Speech.-Reform Meetings in the Country.-Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill.-Elaborate Speech by Mr. Bright.-The Division.Exciting Scene.--Defeat of the Government on Lord Dunkellin's Motion. -Resignation of the Ministry-Lord Derby accedes to Office.-Reform Agitation in London and the Provinces.--Great Demonstrations at Birmingham.--Mr. Bright on the Derby Ministry-Meeting at Manchester.Enthusiastic Reception of Mr. Bright. He visits Leeds and Glasgow.Stirring Addresses on the Reform Question.

Ir was naturally to be expected that when Lord Russell acceded to office upon the death of Lord Palmerston, towards the close of 1865, the question of Reform would be dealt with, and that in no perfunctory spirit. Lord Derby twitted the new Prime Minister with his old character of Finality John,' alleging that he had always understood he would not disturb the settlement of 1832; but Lord Russell had long felt that a further and a large extension of the suffrage was inevitable. This question of Parliamentary Reform was one of great difficulty, and many predicted that it would involve the fate of the Administration; but the Russell Ministry lost no time in avowing that they considered the immediate proposal of such a measure was due to their own consistency, to the just expectations of the country, and, moreover, to the obligations of political morality. The Reform struggle which now ensued is a memorable one in our political and Parliamentary annals; it gave rise to a display of eloquence on both sides of the House of Commons unsurpassed even during the great historic period

of 1832.

Before dealing with the measure of the Russell-Gladstone

Government, however, there are some preliminary events which demand our attention. In January, 1865, Mr. Bright paid a visit to his constituents at Birmingham, being received with remarkable enthusiasm. On the 2nd the new Birmingham Exchange was opened. The hon. member, speaking at the luncheon subsequently given, expressed his belief that manufacturers and merchants, as a rule, had generally been either too modest or not sufficiently acquainted with their true position. From the commercial classes, and not from monarchs or great lords of the soil, had come whatever there was of social, or civil, or religious freedom to the inhabitants of this country. My opinion is,' he added, 'looking at the course of history, that merchants and manufacturers, in the aggregate, are gradually becoming much more important in the world than warriors and statesmen-and even than monarchs themselves, for it is obvious to me that the power of these heretofore great authorities is waning, and that in every part of the world the power of the great industrial interest is sensibly increasing. Dealing with the subject of strikes, Mr. Bright said he was not sure that they should be altogether abandoned. I call the power to strike among workmen a reserve power, which, under certain circumstances, it may be their duty to exercise. At the same time, I think that, in my experience, in nineteen cases out of twenty, at least, the exercise of that power may be fairly questioned; and in many of these cases it has been a merciless curse to those by whom it has been exercised.'

On the 18th of January, Messrs. Scholefield and Bright addressed their constituents in the Town Hall, when there were some five thousand persons present. The Mayor, Mr. H. Wiggin, presided. Mr. Bright, in his lengthy speech, dealt almost exclusively with the Reform question. At the outset, he referred to the escape we had had from a war on account of Denmark, which he had strongly condemned and deprecated a year before. Whether England owed the chances of peace to the Queen, the younger members of the Cabinet as led by Mr. Gladstone, or to the moneyed interests of the country, he was equally grateful. But the time had been one of great danger, seeing that the aged statesmen at the head of the Government -Lords Palmerston and Russell-were the men who had been mainly responsible for the Crimean war. During the past session, when the question was discussed, the Government exhibited its usual feebleness, and the Opposition its usual folly. Mr. Bright observed that only twelve years ago Lord Russell

pledged England to defend all weaker nations, and to take care that nobody was molested in any part of the globe; and if they were to take Lord Palmerston's speeches, they would probably find a cartload of rhetorical rubbish of the same character. But notwithstanding that he (Mr. Bright) and Mr. Cobden had been reviled for holding a different view, all this warlike policy had now been entirely abandoned and overturned. The whole thing had gone to that receptacle to which all lies and superstitions would ultimately go.

Taking the events of the last few years, he was not much. mistaken in pronouncing the theory of the balance of power to be pretty nearly dead and buried. This balance of power,' said Mr. Bright, amid loud cheering, 'rises up before me when I think of it as a ghastly phantom which during one hundred and seventy years, whilst it has been worshipped in this country, has loaded the nation with debt and with taxes, has sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen, has desolated the homes of millions of families, and has left us, as the great result of the profligate expenditure which it has caused, a doubled peerage at one end of the social scale, and far more than a doubled pauperism at the other. I am very glad to be here to-night, amongst other things to be able to say that we may rejoice that this foul idol-fouler than any heathen tribe ever worshipped-has at last been thrown down, and that there is one superstition less which has its hold upon the minds of English statesmen and of English people." This being so, there was no necessity whatever for the constant increase in our military expenditure, which was already double that thought necessary by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel.

Coming to the great question of the day, that of Reform, Mr. Bright observed that it was not dead, and he thus enforced the necessity for dealing with the subject:

'An Englishman, if he goes to the Cape, can vote; if he goes further, to Australia, to the nascent empires of the New World, he can vote; if he goes to the Canadian Confederation, he can vote; and if he goes to those grandest colonies of England not now dependent upon the English Crown, there, in twenty free, and, in the whole, in thirty-five different States, he can give his free and independent vote. (Cheers.) It is only in his own country, on his own soil, where he was born, the very soil which he has enriched with his labour and with the sweat of his brow, that he is denied this right which in every other community of Englishmen in the world would be freely accorded to him. (Much cheering.)

'I agree very much with the gentlemen of the Torquay dinner, not as to the quality of the dinner (laughter)-but as to that apparition which seemed to alarm even their formidable and robust digestion. (Laughter.) This apparition

is not a pleasant one. This state of things I hold to be dangerous, and one that cannot last. 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. There are men in this room who felt then, and know now, that it required but an accident-but one spark to the train, and this country would have been in the throes of revolution; and these gentlemen who are so alarmed now lest a man who lives in a £10 house in a county, and a £6 house in a borough, should have a vote, would have repented in sackcloth and ashes that they had ever said one word or given one vote against Lord Grey's Reform Bill. (Applause.) I say that accidents always are happening, not to individuals only, but to nations. It was the accident of the French Revolution of 1830 that preceded that great movement in this country. You may have accidents again, but I do not hold that to be statesmanship which allows the security, the tranquillity, the loyalty of a people to be disturbed by any accident which they are able to control. (Cheers.) If the five millions should once unitedly fix their eyes with an intense look upon the door of that House where my hon. 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 Downing Street (loud laughter)—perhaps not even those more appalling and more menacing personages who have their lodgment higher up Whitehall. I say there is no power in this 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. This is the apparition which frightens the gentlemen at Torquay.' (Cheers.)

But the apparition gave trouble in other quarters to which he (the speaker) would pay more respect. He then referred to Mr. Charles Buxton's plan of doubling the votes of a man who lived in a house above £10 rental, and Lord Grey's plan of the cumulative vote-both of which he strongly condemned. Referring to the latter, Mr. Bright excited great laughter by saying that he had heard of donkey-races where the last wins. So in this case, the slowest animal would run off with the prize. Having touched upon some other fancy propositions by Lord Grey, the hon. member observed that he did propose some things which were right. He would extend the suffrage, and he would abolish many, if not all, of the very small boroughs. After an argument in favour of the rights of majorities, Mr. Bright said he wanted to know whence all this fear of the people came. It did not exist elsewhere, and he gave illustrations of this in connection with the exercise of the franchise. In the State of New York alone 700,000 men voted at the last Presidential election, and throughout the whole of the Free States not less than 4,000,000 votes were given, and they were all given with the most perfect order and tranquillity throughout the whole of the States. But some feared the legislative results of a wide extension of the franchise, and the hon. mem