The great reformer is so teazed to sit for photographs, portraits, and busts, that he is put to as many straits to escape the chisel and maul-stick as a debtor to get away from his creditors. This persistence on the part of artists is all the more surprising as it is well known that no one has yet succeeded in making what John Bright himself considers a good likeness. He can never be brought to acknowledge that anything resembles him. It is not that the efforts are uncomplimentary, but it is merely because they are not like him.
The sun-picture will not flatter, as the painter, with glowing brush, vivid tints, and poetic imagination, is prone to do; but it reproduces the features, though occasionally made ugly where they are not so in reality. Therefore, all photographs of the "Leader of the Peace Party," are sufficiently like him to be recognizable, though they do not enhance his good looks. One reason why neither painter nor sculptor is able to please John Bright is that he is generally impatient at sitting to them when he has more important duties to engross his time and thoughts. Consequently, he hurries and confuses them, and the result is an unsatisfactory portrait.
When speaking in public, John Bright depends on the force and grandeur of his subject and the wonderful eloquence with which he glorifies it, rather than on gesticulation and declamation; yet he is master of both. His elocution is matchless, and his voice is the most admirable blending of power and sweetness; none other can equal it. His fine eyes rarely flash around to thrill the already eager listener with added admiration and delight, for he raises them above as soon as he commences to speak, and fixes them there. As his discourses last for hours at a time, he must possess almost superhuman nerves to remain so long in an immovable position.
By the irresistible domination of superior thought, and the unusual harmony of his earnest tones, John Bright holds his listeners entranced; he sways them by his wonderful will, and by burning words and unanswerable logic he forces conviction from their first impulses, however ineradicable prejudice may afterward fly back, alarmed at innovation, and plead for conservatism. Pure, vigorous, eloquent language stamps his every discourse a masterpiece, and each will eventually be enshrined by unbiassed posterity among the English classics.
In friendly conversation, he is brilliant without effort, being gifted with a keen sense of the ludicrous, while overflowing with wit and good-natured sarcasm. Every word sparkles like the precious stones dropped from the lips of the girl in the fairy tale.
He is often called sneering and bitter, as are frequently much less witty and ironical people.
Some time ago there appeared in the "Saturday Review," very severe strictures on the "gentleman from Rochdale," and all were curious to know what reply he could possibly make to such scathing condemnation, for many great men have quailed and shrunk back crushed and humiliated from a scourging administered by the bitterest and most relentless periodical in England. Shortly afterward he delivered a speech and incidentally alluded to the article. He made a few playful remarks, as if it were not worth considering in a serious light, and ended by bestowing on the "Saturday Reviewer" the contemptuous paraphrase—as true as witty—of the "Saturday Reviler."
The laugh was turned on this much-dreaded journal which has struck awe and confusion to many, and literary ruin to not a few. Making common cause
