If we were to compress the description of Mr. Bright's character into a few words, we should say he was honest, earnest, fearless, eloquent. He is honest; for he casts aside the objects of personal ambition in a life devotion to an unpopular cause. He is earnest; for he is constant to his faith, untiring in the effort to instil it into the community. He is fearless,--morally fearless; for he permits no obstacle, no obloquy, no powerful antagonism, to check him in the expression of unwelcome thoughts. He is eloquent; inasmuch as he stands up amid the silence of the most critical and restless legislature in the world, and compels members to listen, without interruption, to ideas which in the opinion of the vast majority are hateful and destructive. His character, as it has been displayed by a consistent public record, bears the stamp of truth and ingenuousness. He is candid, almost to a fault. He has no subtle statecraft; he recognizes no code of expediency. He is impatient of that spirit which actuates statesmen as a class to sacrifice something of good for the practical attainment even of a worthy end,--a spirit which, for our own part, we cannot wholly disapprove. While as a business man his integrity is perfectly unimpeachable, as a legislator his opponents have only to fear his strong and indignant eloquence: they are safe from any thrust which is not open and manly. He was not destined to become a great statesman: he is too rash, too little tolerant of antagonistic opinion, too much inclined to absolute conclusions, too open by nature in giving expression to his thoughts. In the demolishing process which properly precedes, in a long-established polity, the constructing process, he has every quality which would fit him to be a leader. His Quaker blood is of little avail in making him sit in patience whilst deep social wrongs stare him in the face on every side. The uprising of the people, especially that peaceable uprising to which the English people are by nature and precedent inclined to resort, seeking to cure by prompt action what statesmanship has failed to mend, would give him the best of opportunities. Quaker though he is, he would revel in taking the van of a lawful reformation aimed at the abuses he hates so heartily. So far as the expunging of an iniquitous law from the statute-book goes, his work would be well done; but when the time came to fill up the page with a new and just enactment, it would be his part to yield to more deliberate and judicious counsels. Like Lord Brougham, he is great in opposition. He can defend well; he can attack far better. Aggressive warfare is his forte. He is as positive in his theological and social as in his political opinions. He is a practical philanthropist, leads a life of strict probity and temperance, and seeks his pleasure, as well as his duty, in benefiting the human race. He carries the nervousness and enthusiasm of his public displays into the amenities of private life.