Chapter 11

Bright's public life was in the main a tale of devotion to two great causes, the Repeal of the Corn Laws, consummated in 1846, and the extension of the Franchise, which was not realized till twenty years later. But he found time to examine other questions and to utter shrewd opinions on the government of India and of Ireland, and to influence English sentiment on the Crimean War and the War of Secession in the United States. In advance of his time, he wished to develop cotton-growing in India and so to prevent the great industry of his own district being dependent on America alone. He attacked the existing board of directors and preferred immediate control by the Crown; and, while wishing to preserve the Viceroy's supremacy over the whole, he spoke in favour of admitting Indians to a larger share in the government of the various provinces. Many of the best judges of to-day are now working towards the same end, but at the time he met with little support. It is interesting to find that both on India and on Ireland similar views were put forward by men so different as John Bright and Benjamin Disraeli. Mr. Trevelyan has preserved the memory of several episodes in which they were connected with one another and of attempts which Disraeli made to win Bright's support and co-operation. Bright could cultivate friendships with politicians of very different schools without being induced to deviate by a hair's breadth from the cause which his principles dictated, and he could treat his friends, at times, with refreshing frankness. When Disraeli warmly admired one of his greatest speeches and expressed the wish that he himself could emulate it, the outspoken Quaker replied: 'Well, you might have made it, if you had been honest.'

It was the young Disraeli who, as early as 1846, had attributed the Irish troubles to 'a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien church'. It was Bright who never hesitated, when opportunity arose, to work for the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland and for the security of Irish tenants in their holdings. A succession of measures, carried by Liberals and Conservatives from Gladstone to George Wyndham, have made us familiar with the idea of land purchase in Ireland; but Bright had been there as early as 1849 and had learnt for himself. Though at the end of his life he was a stubborn opponent of Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, he had long ago won the gratitude of Ireland as no other Englishman of his day, and his name has been preserved there in affectionate remembrance.

In 1854, the year of the Crimean War, Bright reached the zenith of his oratorical power, and at the same time touched the nadir of his popularity. Public opinion was setting strongly against Russia. In stemming the tide of war the so-called 'Manchester school' had a difficult task, and was severely criticized. The idea of the 'balance of power' made little appeal to Bright; and as a Quaker he was reluctant to see England interfering in a quarrel which did not seem to concern her. The satirists indeed scoffed unfairly at the doctrine of 'Peace at any price'; for Bright was content to put aside the principle and to argue the case on pure political expediency. But his attacks on the wars of the last century were too often couched in an offensive tone with personal references to the peerages won in them, and he spoke at times too bitterly of the diplomatic profession and especially of our ambassador at Constantinople. Nothing shows so clearly the danger of the imperfect education which was forced on Bright by necessity, and which he had done so much to remedy, as his attitude to foreign and imperial politics. In his home he had too readily imbibed the crude notion that our Empire existed to provide careers for the needy cadets of aristocratic families, and that our foreign policy was inspired by self-seeking officials who cared little for moral principles or for the lives of their fellow countrymen. A few months spent with Lord Canning at Calcutta, or with the Lawrences at Lahore, frequent intercourse with men of the calibre of Lord Lyons or Lord Cromer, would have enlightened him on the subject and prevented him from uttering the unwarranted imputations which he did. Yet in his great parliamentary speeches of 1854 he rose high above all pettiness and made a deep impression on a hostile house. Damaging though his speech of December 22 was to the Government, no minister attempted to reply. Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, with all their power, were unequal to the task. Disraeli told Bright that a few more such speeches 'would break up the Government'; and Delane, the famous editor of _The Times_, wrote that 'Cobden and Bright would be our ministers but for their principle of peace at any price'.

But Bright was not thinking of office or of breaking up Governments: he was thinking of the practical end in view. His next great speech was on February 23, 1855, when a faint hope of peace appeared. It was most conciliatory in tone, and was a solemn appeal to Palmerston to use his influence in ending the war. This was known as 'the Angel of Death' speech, from a famous passage which occurs in it. At the end he was 'overloaded with compliments', but the minister, who was hampered by Russian intrigues with Napoleon, seemed deaf to all appeals, and Bright again returned to the attack. Till the last days of the war, he continued to raise his voice on behalf of peace; but his exertions had told on his strength, and for the greater part of two years he had to abandon public life and devote himself to recovering his health.

Six years later he was to prove that 'peace at any price' was no fair description of his attitude. The Southern States of America seceded on the question of State rights and the institution of slavery, and the Federal Government declared war on them as rebels. This time it was not a war for the balance of power, but one fought to vindicate a moral principle, and Bright was strongly in favour of fighting it to a finish. For different reasons most of our countrymen favoured the South, but he appealed for British sympathy for the other side, on the ground that no true Briton could abet slavery. He was the most prominent supporter of the North, for long the only prominent one, but he gradually made converts and did much to wipe away the reproach which attached to the name of Englishmen in America, when the North triumphed in the end. The war ended in 1865 with the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, and Bright wrote in his journal, 'This great triumph of the Republic is the event of our age'.

But long before 1865 the question of Reform and of the extension of the franchise had been revived. Gladstone might speak in favour of the principle in 1864; Russell might introduce a Reform Bill in 1866; a year later Disraeli might 'dish the Whigs'; and Whig and Tory might wrangle over the question who were the friends of the 'working man', but Bright had made his position clear to his friends in 1846. He began a popular movement in 1849 and for the next fifteen years of his life it was the object dearest to his heart. He was not afraid to walk alone. When his old fellow worker, Cobden, refused his aid, on the ground that he was not convinced of the need for extending the franchise, Bright himself assumed the lead and bore the brunt of the battle. Till 1865 his main obstacle was Palmerston, who since he took the helm in the worst days of the Crimean War and conducted the ship of State into harbour, occupied an impregnable position. Palmerston was dear to 'the man in the street', shared his prejudices and understood his humours; and nothing could make him into a serious Democrat or reformer. Even after Palmerston's death, Bright's chief opponent was to be found in the Whig ranks, in Robert Lowe, who was a master of parliamentary eloquence and who managed, in 1866, to wreck Lord John Russell's Reform Bill in the House. But Bright had his revenge in the country. Such meetings as ensued in the great provincial towns had not been seen for twenty years: the middle class and the artisans were fused as in the great Repeal struggle of 1846. At Glasgow as many as 150,000 men paraded outside the town, and no hall could contain the thousands who wished to hear the great Tribune. He claimed that eighty-four per cent. of his countrymen were still excluded from the vote, and he bluntly asserted that the existing House of Commons did not represent 'the intelligence and the justice of the nation, but the prejudices, the privileges, and the selfishness, of a class'.

But however blind many of this class might still be to the signs of the times, they found an astute leader in Disraeli, who had few principles and could trim his sails to any wind. The Tory Reform Bill, which he put forward in February 1867, came out a very different Bill in July, after discussion in the Cabinet, which led to the resignation of three ministers, and after debates in the House of Commons, where it was roughly handled. The principle of household suffrage was conceded, and another million voters were added to the electorate. Disraeli had made a greater change of front than any which he could attribute to Peel, and that without conviction, for reasons of party expediency. The real triumph belonged to Bright. 'The Bill adopted', he writes, 'is the precise franchise I recommended in 1858.' He had not only roused the country by his platform speeches, he had carefully watched the Bill in all its stages through the House, and gradually transformed it till it satisfied the aspirations of the people. He had been content to work with Disraeli so long as he could further the cause of Reform; and he only quarrelled with that statesman finally when, in 1878, he revived the anti-Russian policy of Palmerston.

During this strenuous time his domestic life was happy and tranquil. After the death of his first wife he had remained a widower for six years, and in 1847 he had married Margaret Leatham, who bore him seven children and shared his joys and sorrows in no ordinary measure for thirty years. Whenever politics took him away from his Rochdale home, he wrote constantly to her, and his letters throw most valuable light on his inmost feelings. She died in 1878, and after this his life was pitched in a different key. The outer world might suppose that high political office was crowning his career, but his enthusiasm and his power were ebbing and his physical health failed him more than once. He was as affectionate to his children, as friendly to his neighbours, as true to his principles; but the old fire was gone.

The outward events of his life from 1867 to 1889 must be passed over lightly. Against his own wishes he was persuaded by Gladstone to join the Cabinet in 1868 and again in 1880. His name was a tower of strength to the Government with the newly-enfranchised electors, but he himself had little taste for the routine of office. At Birmingham, for which he had sat since 1857, he compared himself to the Shunammite woman who refused the offer of advancement at court, and replied to the prophet, 'I dwell among mine own people'. But events were too strong for him: he was drawn first to Westminster to share in the government of the country, and then to Osborne to visit the Queen. Both the Queen and he were nervous at the prospect, but the interview passed off happily.[21] Family affections and sorrows were a bond between them, and he talked to her with his usual frankness and simplicity. Even the difficult question of costume was settled by a compromise, and the usual gold-braided livery was replaced by a sober suit of black. Ministerial work in London might have proved irksome to him; but his colleagues in the Cabinet were indulgent, and no excessive demands were made upon his strength. It was recognized that Bright was no longer in the fighting line. In 1870 he was incapacitated by a second long illness, and he had little share in the measures carried through Parliament for Irish land purchase and national education.

[Note 21: See Fitzmaurice, _Life of Lord Granville_, vol. i, p. 540.]

His official career was finally closed in 1882, when the bombardment of Alexandria seemed to open a new and aggressive chapter in our Eastern policy. Bright was true to his old principles and resigned office.

He severed himself still more from the official Liberals in 1886, when he refused to follow Gladstone into the Home Rule camp. He disliked the methods of Parnell, the obstruction in Parliament, and the campaign of lawlessness in Ireland. His own victories had not been won so, and he had a great respect for the traditions of the House. He also believed that the Home Rule Bill would vitally weaken the unity of the realm. But no personal bitterness entered into his relations with his old colleagues: he did not attack Gladstone, as he had attacked Palmerston in 1855. From his death-bed he sent a cordial message to his old chief, and received an answer full of high courtesy and affection.

His illness lasted several months. From the autumn of 1888 he lay at One Ash, weak but not suffering acutely; and on March 27, 1889, he quietly passed away. His old friend Cobden had preceded him more than twenty years, having died in 1865, and had been buried at his birthplace in Sussex, where he had made himself a peaceful home in later life. Bright proved himself equally faithful to the home of his earliest years. He was laid to rest in the small burying-ground in front of the Friends' meeting-house where he had worshipped as a child. In his long career he had served noble causes, and scaled the heights of fame, and the crowds at his funeral testified to the love which his neighbours bore him. He had never willingly been absent for long from his native town. His life, compared with that of Disraeli or Gladstone, seems almost bleak in its simplicity, varied as it was by so few excursions into other fields. But two strong passions enriched it with warmth and glow, his family affections and his zeal for the common good. These filled his heart, and he was content that it should be so.

Type of the wise who soar but never roam, True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.

CHARLES DICKENS

1812-1870

1812. Born at Landport, Portsmouth, February 7. 1816. Parents move to Chatham; 1821, to London. 1822. Father bankrupt and in prison. Charles in blacking warehouse. 1827. Charles enters lawyer's office. 1831. Reporters' Gallery in Parliament. 1836. Marries Catherine Hogarth. Publishes _Sketches by Boz_. 1837. _Pickwick Papers._ 1838. _Nicholas Nickleby._ 1842. First American journey. 1843. _Martin Chuzzlewit._ 1844-5. Eleven months' residence in Italy, chiefly at Genoa. 1846. Editor of _Daily News_ for a few weeks. 1846-7. Six months at Lausanne; three months at Paris. _Dombey and Son._ 1849-50. _David Copperfield._ 1850. Editor of weekly periodical, _Household Words_. 1851-2. Manager of theatrical performances. 1852. _Bleak House._ 1853. Italian tour: Rome, Naples, and Venice. 1856. Purchase of Gadshill House, near Rochester. 1858. Beginning of public readings. 1859. _Tale of Two Cities_ appears in _All the Year Round_. 1860. Gadshill becomes his home instead of London. 1867. Second American journey. Public readings in America. 1869. April, collapse at Chester. Readings stopped. 1870. Dies at Gadshill, June 9.

CHARLES DICKENS

NOVELIST AND SOCIAL REFORMER

In these days when critics so often repeat the cry of 'art for art's sake' and denounce Ruskin for bringing moral canons into his judgements of pictures or buildings, it is dangerous to couple these two titles together, and to label Dickens as anything but a novelist pure and simple. And indeed, all would admit that the creator of Sam Weller and Sarah Gamp will live when the crusade against 'Bumbledom' and its abuses is forgotten and the need for such a crusade seems incredible. But when so many recent critics have done justice to his gifts as a creative artist, this aspect of his work runs no danger of being forgotten. Moreover, when we are considering Dickens as a Victorian worthy and as a representative man of his age, it is desirable to bring out those qualities which he shared with so many of his great contemporaries. Above all, we must remember that Dickens himself would be the last man to be ashamed of having written 'with a purpose', or to think that the fact should be concealed as a blemish in his art. There was nothing in which he felt more genuine pride than in the thought that his talents thus employed had brought public opinion to realize the need for many practical reforms in our social condition. If these old abuses have mostly passed away, we may be thankful indeed; but we cannot feel sure that in the future fresh abuses will not arise with which the example of Dickens may inspire others to wage war. His was a strenuous life; he never spared himself nor stinted his efforts in any cause for which he was fighting; and if he did not win complete victory in his lifetime, he created the spirit in which victory was to be won.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812, the second child of a large family, his father being at the time a Navy clerk employed at Portsmouth. Of his birthplace in Commercial Road Portsmouth is justifiably proud; but we must think of him rather as a Kentishman and a Londoner, since he never lived in Hampshire after his fourth year. The earliest years which left a distinct impress on his mind were those passed at Chatham, to which his father moved in 1816. This town and its neighbouring cathedral city of Rochester, with their narrow old streets, their riverside and dockyard, took firm hold of his memory and imagination. To-day no places speak more intimately of him to the readers of his books. Here he passed five years of happy childhood till his father's work took the family to London and his father's improvidence plunged them into misfortune.

For those who know Wilkins Micawber it is needless to describe the failings of Mr. Dickens; for others we may be content to say that he was kindhearted, sanguine and improvident, quite incapable of the steady industry needed to support a growing family. When his debts overwhelmed him and he was carried off to the Marshalsea prison, Charles was only ten years old, but already he took the lead in the house. On him fell the duty of pacifying creditors at the door, and of making visits to the pawn-broker to meet the daily needs of the household. His initiation into life was a hard one and it began cruelly soon. If he was active and enterprising beyond his years, with his nervous high-strung temperament he was capable of suffering acutely; and this capacity was now to be sorely tried. For a year or more of his life this proud sensitive child had to spend long hours in the cellars of a warehouse, with rough uneducated companions, occupied in pasting labels on pots of boot-blacking. This situation was all that the influence of his family could procure for him; and into this he was thrust at the age of ten with no ray of hope, no expectation of release. His shiftless parents seemed to acquiesce in this drudgery as an opening for their cleverest son; and instead of their helping and comforting him in his sorrow, it was he who gave his Sundays to visiting them in prison and to offering them such consolation as he could. The iron burnt deep into his soul. Long after, in fact till the day when the district was rebuilt and changed out of knowledge, he owned that he could not bear to revisit the scene; so painful were his recollections, so vivid his sense of degradation. Twenty-five years later he narrated the facts to his friend and biographer John Forster in a private conversation; and he only recurred to the subject once more when under the disguise of a novel he told the story of the childhood of David Copperfield. By shifting the horror from the realm of fact to that of fiction, perhaps he lifted the weight of it from the secret recesses of his heart.

When his father's debts were relieved, the child regained his freedom from servitude, but even then his schooling was desultory and ineffective. Well might the elder Dickens, in a burst of candour, say to a stranger who asked him about his son's education, 'Why indeed, sir, ha! ha! he may be said to have educated himself.'

At the age of fifteen Charles embarked again on his career as a wage-earner. At first he was taken into a lawyer's office, where he filled a position somewhat between that of office-boy and clerk, and two years later he was qualifying himself by the study of shorthand for the profession of a parliamentary reporter, which his father was then following. He entered 'the Gallery' in 1831, first representing the _True Sun_ and later the well-known _Morning Chronicle_; and at intervals he enlarged his experiences by journeys into the provinces to report political meetings. Thus it was that he familiarized himself with the mail coaches, the wayside hostelries, and the rich variety of types that were to be found there; with London in most of its phases he was already at home. So, when in 1834 he made his first attempts at writing in periodical literature, although he was only twenty-two years old, he had a wealth of first-hand experiences quite outside the range of the man who is just finishing his leisurely passage through a public school and university: of schools and offices, of parliaments and prisons, of the street and of the high road, he had been a diligent and observant critic; for many years he had practised the maxim of Pope: 'The proper study of mankind is Man.'

Friends sprang up wherever he went. His open face, his sparkling eye, his humorous tongue, his ready sympathy, were a passport to the goodwill of those whom he met; few could resist the appeal. Many readers will be familiar with the early portrait by Maclise; but his friends tell us how little that did justice to the lively play of feature, 'the spirited air and carriage' which were indescribable. On the top of a mail coach, on a fresh morning, they must have won the favour of his fellow travellers more easily than Alfred Jingle won the hearts of the Pickwickians. And beneath the radiant cheerfulness of his manner, the quick flash of observation and of speech, there was in him an element of hard persistence and determination which would carry him far. If the years of poverty and neglect had failed to chill his hopes and break his spirit, there was no fear that he would tire in the pursuit of his ambition when fortune began to smile upon him. He had touched life on many sides. He had kept his warmth of sympathy, his buoyancy, his capacity for rising superior to ill-fortune; and the years of adversity had only deepened his feeling for all that were oppressed. He had much to learn about the craft of letters; but he already had the first essential of an author--he had something to say.