The bank rose rapidly all across, but to get it up high enough it was necessary to make it less than half the thickness of the other part. Several times the water, as the tide rose, seemed to be gaining on the work, then with a wild shout the barrows would rush down and the work would get the advantage. At last they began to watch the sandbank, thinking the water must come over it, as our bank had kept it out till it was above ten feet deep on one side and dry on the other. But I trembled when I saw how narrow the bank was which had to sustain such a pressure.

At last, as a great rush of men with barrows was coming down, I called "Off! off!" to those on the new work, and "Halt! halt!" to the coming barrows. Happily loud enough and in time, for my suspicion was too just. I thought the bank was yielding; and in a tew seconds a torrent was tearing through our day's work and digging a lake out in the sand on the empty side.

A groan of dismay was all that escaped us.

The rush of water continued for two hours, seeming to glory in our discomfiture, so wickedly did it tear and toss our poor work, and every now and then a heavy splash told of a considerable fall of the bank when the current had undermined it.

I put the best face on it that I could. "Go to dinner now, boys, and come all to-morrow and we will do it."

And to-morrow we did it.

Though the rush of water had torn away a vast hole beside the mound, still a great collection of stones remained and gave us an advantage next time. Every one came, every one did his very best, and yesterday's groan of dismay was for ever dispelled by the exulting shout which hailed the full tide breaking over the restraining sandbank while our bank stood firm.

"Hurrah!" cried an enthusiastic workman; "now, boys, sure enough there's no unpossible thing his honour won't do next!"

The water cut a channel that sufficed

for the flow and ebb of the tide that day, and it abides so still. The next day the water rose quietly at both sides of our mound equally, and we had only to make it broader and stronger and higher at leisure. In six weeks from its beginning a carriage drove over our causeway. But it was still neither high enough nor sufficiently protected with a coating of stones to resist the winter storms, as was proved before winter came. About the equinox heavy gales came

on.

One day I was unwell, unable to leave my room, but my windows looked out upon the causeway and I could see the workmen driven off from their work and an unusually high tide, urged by a violent storm, making a clean breach over my work and tearing it to pieces.

It blew hard all night. It was full moon spring-tide, but the sky was clear and the night light. In the morning I looked out, doubtful whether a wreck worth repairing would be left of my summer's toil and expense. There was

no sign of any harm done!

How could that be? I had seen the waves dragging down the protecting stones, tearing away the exposed clay, cutting gulfs through the roadway.

Had I dreamt it?

The fact soon was told me by the people in the house, that as soon as the tide began to retire at night, men and carts began to appear, others seized the wheelbarrows, and all night long they wrought by the light of the moon, and actually left it in a better state than before the storm.

To this day I have never been able to get any one to acknowledge he had a share in that night's work. But I have often been told when I asked:

"Oh, yer honour, they say it must have been the wee folk" (fairies).

Subsequent additional work made this sufficient to afford a good causeway and road, which is safe and perfect after a trial of near half a century—a perpetual memorial of the kindly feelings of my neighbours, which I feel every year more deeply.

This

I WAS standing, some three years ago, in a street in London, talking to a friend who was a Conservative, when Mr. Bright passed; on which my friend said, "That ought to be the proudest man in England; for while he has not budged an inch, we, and the whole country, have come round to his way of thinking." This led me to try and estimate the extent of Mr. Bright's influence on public opinion; hence this paper. As a matter of fact, many of the Conservatives who voted for Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, had previously, at a longer or shorter interval of time, denounced Mr. Bright and those who thought with him, for advocating measures of Reform less democratic, and less subversive of the existing order of things, than that Bill. This does not prove that the Conservatives were wrong in opposing political reformation at one time, and passing a Radical Reform Bill at another: it does, however, prove that they had changed their opinion as to the necessity or expediency of Reform. Political pioneers there must ever be, and, being pioneers, they must expect to be mistrusted, misrepresented, and abused: but they may as surely look forward to the spread and growth of their opinions; and as the seed they have sown fructifies, they may expect, as in the case of Catholic Emancipation, Free Trade, and Reform, that others should put in the sickle, because the time of harvest is come. Political pioneers care, or ought to care, more for principles than for party, more for measures than men. The moderate Liberals, the old Whigs, the thoroughgoing partisans freely spoke of the political dishonesty and tergiversation of the Conservative leaders in taking up the cause of Reform, and were angry that they should by so doing have taken from them one of their best stock election cries, which they secretly hoped

would never become more than a cry; but the Radicals, while opposed to many of the details of Mr. Disraeli's Bill, which they regarded as imperfect and incomplete, while suspecting the sincerity of those who proposed the Bill, gladly welcomed the fact that, whether in pretence or sincerity, Reform, however short in completeness of that for which they had for years contended, was certain of attainment. For many years Mr. Bright has been our best known pioneer, and what has been said of a not very well-known but influential theological pioneer, might with very little alteration be applied to Mr. Bright: "He was careless of his own name, provided the higher thoughts for which he cared were found bearing fruit. He possessed that highest of all magnanimity, of forgetting himself in the cause which he loved, and rejoicing that others entered into the results for which he laboured."

for

Even Mr. Bright's opponents, who have by the bye adopted many of his views, acknowledge that he has been a pioneer in the commonest meaning of the word; that he has been in advance of the political opinion of his day. For years he has been cutting his way through the tangled jungle of ignorance and prejudice; years he has been educating large masses of men of all ranks, classes, and degrees, in the same sense that Mr. Disraeli is said to have educated his followers. But it has become the fashion to say that Mr. Bright's work is done, that he is no longer sufficiently advanced in opinion to lead, but that he must be content to fall into the ranks, and follow the leadership of men more advanced, who have a keener insight into the wants of the present day, a better appreciation of the requirements of those recently enfranchised by Mr. Disraeli; that the Irish Church having been disestablished, the electoral fran

chise having been extended, an Irish Land Bill become law, and provision made for the better education of the people, that having thus seen the whole of the chief measures for which he has contended carried into effect, Mr. Bright must stand aside, and amuse himself with salmon fishing. This fallacy has gained strength and substance, owing to Mr. Bright's enforced retirement from public affairs.

Now it will be my aim to show, that important as are the measures that have been carried, yet they do not, when taken together, make a moiety of the political programme which Mr. Bright has consistently and persistently advocated. And I venture to hazard this prophecy, that as in 1858, after nearly three years' absolute retirement from public life, Mr. Bright appeared like a giant refreshed, and was able to effect more than before his illness, so now we may expect Mr. Bright's return to active life will be signalized by another decennial period of sound and thorough political work.

I may state at the outset that I do not wish to claim for Mr. Bright more than is his due. I neither think nor wish to imply that he has been the sole instrument in bringing public opinion to the state of ripeness which effected the passage of the important measures which he has advocated, and for advocating which he has been reviled and misrepresented; which measures however have, after more or fewer years, been regarded as not quite so dangerous as was supposed, as not dangerous at all, and at last as wise, politic, and beneficial. I merely take Mr. Bright as the leading man left to us of the small band of pioneers known as Radicals when the title was opprobrious, who have laboured for progress and for civil and religious liberty. I do not attempt to gauge the extent of Mr. Bright's debt to Mr. Hume, Mr. Cobden, or Mr. Villiers, any more than I attempt to decide how much of his indisputable influence is due to his facile eloquence; to his terse, plain language; to his thoroughly English cast of thought; to his familiar, heart

to-heart, scriptural form of expression. He is alive, and is happily recovering his health. Before his illness he revised the volumes of his published speeches which were edited by Mr. Thorold Rogers, which therefore may be taken as a summary of his own opinions, and not alone of his individual opinions, but also as a summary of the opinions of the small, earnest, thoughtful party to which he belongs, and of which he is chief. In this sense I take these speeches, and throughout this paper I shall refer only to them. From these speeches alone I hope to be able to make good my proposition, that not a tithe of the measures which the Radical party have advocated has yet been carried into effect; that those which remain are sufficient to prove that Mr. Bright has in no way forfeited his position as a pioneer, as a leader of progressive political thought; and that if health and strength are restored to Mr. Bright, he will influence the legislation of the immediate future as much as he has that of the recent past.

Even if some deny that Mr. Bright's influence is as widely spread as it was a few years ago, certainly his power is greater: not only has he done nothing to forfeit the confidence of his followers; not only is he the trusted and honoured friend of the Prime Minister and the leader of the House of Lords; but he has been accepted with marked cordiality by the Queen as a member of the Government and Cabinet. It would be greatly for the advantage, alike of the Ministry and the country, if Mr. Bright would again accept a seat in the Cabinet, without being harassed by the cares and responsibility of any department. What Lords Lyndhurst and Lansdowne have been to former Cabinets, that may Mr. Bright become to the present; and it does not require much foresight to see that, with the accidents and chances of life, it may easily happen that Mr. Bright may himself one day be Prime Minister; were he but ten years younger, this would seem a certainty.

We should take care that we are not led away by the noisy declamation of

what Mr. Thomas Wright, the journeyman engineer, styles "the demonstrative clique" of working men, who, he says, are regarded "by an influential section of the working classes" as "selfseeking, place-seeking, and wire-pulling men;" and I hope that I shall be able to show Mr. Wright, and those who think with him, that when they ask for "a real people's tribune, such a man as John Bright was in the strength of his early prime, and to the full as advanced in opinion for this day as John Bright was for that time," that no better, no more likely man can be found to realize his hopes, and carry into effect his wishes, than the Right Honourable John Bright.

So far back as 1845 Mr. Bright said, "I assert that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country;" and again he called it "the most disgraceful institution in Christendom." Two years later, speaking on the Irish Land question, "There is an unanimous admission now that the misfortunes of Ireland are connected with the management of the land." While few deny that these opinions were true, still fewer realize for how long a period Mr. Bright held them. I have quoted these words in order to show that the man who for twentythree or twenty-four years lost no fair opportunity of giving expression to such opinions, to which opinions a vast majority of the electors at length gave in their adherence, is entitled to as much or more credit (discredit, if his opponents like to say so) than the man who, having for years disputed them, actually works up these opinions into a Bill, and induces the House of Commons to accept it. But in 1866 Mr. Bright, in unmistakeable terms, threw down a challenge to Mr. Gladstone to take up the Irish question and deal with it in a statesmanlike manner: "I should like to ask him (Mr. Gladstone) whether this Irish question is above the stature of himself and of his colleagues. Take the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is there in any legislative assembly in the world a man, as

the world judges, of more transcendent capacity? I will say even, is there a man with a more honest wish to do good to the country in which he occupies so conspicuous a place?" Thus in no dim manner was foreshadowed the alliance between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, which led to the inauguration of a humane policy towards Ireland—to the passing of the Irish Church and Land Bills, which measures, though still denounced by those who opposed them, and somewhat disappointing the expectations of those who thought to gather a rich crop of fruit immediately that the tree was planted, have led The O'Donoghue, an undoubted Irish patriot, to declare Mr. Gladstone's Government to be "a Government which has redressed the wrongs of ages, which has established the reign of equality and justice in Ireland."

As Mr. Bright was in advance not only of the general opinion of the country on the Irish question, but even of those who regarded him as their most outspoken champion, so on most purely political questions did he head or act with the most advanced party of progress. It will be sufficient if I name a few on which legislation has taken place, as Free Trade, admission of Jews to Parliament, Church Rates, Ecclesiastical Titles, removal of Tests, Education, withdrawal of troops from Canada, and Reform. Many other questions have been decided, if not in accordance with the exact principles advocated by the Radical leaders, yet in the direction indicated by them. Now the probable course of opinion-therefore of legislation-in the future, can only be learned by careful study of the past and present; and if we look back a few years, we shall see that the whole course of legislation has been progressive, what is called democratic and Americanizing our institutions by those who, acting as a break, have delayed somewhat, but have altogether failed in arresting, "the wild and destructive " course of the powerful locomotive driven by the middle-class Radical leaders.

And if we look at the present, we

see that the whole of Mr. Gladstone's legislation has been in accordance with the wishes of the Radical party, except on Education; on which question his Government is in danger from his Radical supporters. If Mr. Bright does not again take office, he has left in the volumes of his speeches charts by which we can ascertain the course he would have steered: let us see then what future legislation is likely to be, as laid down in these charts so plainly that none who try to read aright can fail to read rightly.

The first question which is going to be decided, whether first in importance or not, is the Ballot, which would hardly occupy the pre-eminent position assigned to it in Mr. Gladstone's programme but for such sentences as these spoken by Mr. Bright in 1858, with which the whole Radical party agree: "I believe it is the opinion of the great body of the Reformers of the United Kingdom, that any Reform Bill which pretends to be generally satisfactory to the Reformers must concede the shelter and protection of the Ballot." And again, speaking of the reduction of the franchise: "I think if there be any call now for the adoption of the Ballot, that call will be more strong and imperative after such a change in the franchise has been made." Some excitement was caused amongst the Conservatives by Mr. Gladstone's passing allusion during the last session to some further measures of Reform

which might be necessary. Hoping, well-nigh believing, that their Reform Bill meant finality, the Conservatives deeply resented this hint. If, however, they had studied the chart which lies open to them, they would have read, "I know no reason why the franchise should not be as extensive in the counties as in the boroughs." And again, "When you have settled the question of the Suffrage, you stand and will stand free to deal with the question of the Redistribution of Seats."

A question said to be new has this autumn been advanced towards the front of the host of those awaiting discussion and settlement-the Reform, or, failing Reformation, then the Abolition,

of the House of Lords. To those who, ostrich-like, bury themselves in the sand, and give not earnest or attentive heed to the floating atoms of thought and suggestion, until they gather themselves together into a mass, when they are recognized as public opinion, this question may be regarded as novel; but in 1858 Mr. Bright said, "We know, everybody knows, nobody knows it better than the Peers, that a House of hereditary legislation cannot be a permanent institution in a free country. For we believe that such an institution must in the course of time require essential modification." Again, while saying that the chief reason why the House of Lords adjourns so frequently without transacting any important business is owing to the mismanagement of the Government of the day, he adds, "All of us in our younger days were taught by those who had the care of us a verse which was intended to inculcate the virtue of industry. One couplet was to this effect

" Satan still some mischief finds
For idle hands to do.'

And I do not believe that men, however high in station, are exempt from that unfortunate effect which arises to all of us from a course of continual idleness." The sting of the sketch drawn by Mr. Bright of a Peer's proxy being used by the leader of his party while he was himself hundreds of miles away, and knew nothing of the question on which his vote was given, has been removed by the wisdom of the Peers themselves; and their sensible and judicious conduct, when the use of the proxy came under serious discussion, leads those (nine-tenths of the nation) who dislike the thought of so violent a wrench being given to the Constitution, as the forcible extraction of a wisdom tooth which shows only slight symptoms of decay, and which any dentist of moderate skill can easily stop, to hope and think that without violence or difficulty the House of Lords may be brought into harmony with the altered circumstances of the