Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/31

 that, if they were once realized, he would be about the last man in England to find new ones. He is the incarnation of Quakerism, summing up in his own person all its noble law and all its prophets. The sect which has been numerically so weak and morally so strong will never produce another such. Its theory of the public good, though perhaps the highest of any, is limited after all.

One part of. Mr. Bright's education which was not neglected, and which has been to him from boyhood a source of real inspiration, I ought not to overlook; viz., his study of the great poets. He has a genius for appropriate quotation; and, if I might give a hint to my young readers, let me recommend them to verify, as occasion offers, the sources from which he draws. They will be well repaid for the trouble.

Like most generous and humane natures, he is fond of the lower animals, more especially of dogs; but his canine, I am sorry to say, are not equal to his unerring poetic, instincts. In this respect he is not much above the shockingly low average taste of Lancashire. In his youth he was a good football-player, a smart cricketer, an expert swimmer, and during a period of convalescence, more than twenty years ago, he acquired the art of salmon-fishing, which he has since, for recreative reasons chiefly, brought to considerable perfection. He is a total abstainer; and what with a steady hand, a quick eye, and indomitable patience, few better amateur anglers appear on the Spey.

He is a charming companion, with a weakness for strolling into billiard-rooms. Once at Llandudno, the story goes, he played in a public billiard-room with a stranger, who turned out to be a truculent Tory manu-