New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1867-06-16

ness, in speaking of the frightening effort
of true Sunday on the toiling classes Of
Lancashire, he once quoted a couplet of
George Herberts:
Tbs week were dark without thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.
We have never listened to anything finer of
its kind than a passage in a very grand
speech which we mad the privilege of hear
ing him make, last August, in the town hall
at Birmingham. He was describing the
progress of popular liberty in the English
col )nies and in the United States, and then
/ returning to Europe, he said:
You will find III the republic of Switzer
land, in the kingdom of Holland and Bel.
GUM, in Norway, in Sweden, in France
and now in Germany also, "A widespread
exercise of the franchise hitherto unknown
in our time in this country; and neither
emperor nor king nor noble believes that
his authority or his interest, his own great
ness or the happiness of any of his country
men, will be jeopardiZed by the free admission
OF the people to the constitutional privileges
What is 1t that we are come to in this
country, that what is being rapidly con.
ceded in all parts of the world is being per-
sistently and obstnately refused here in
England-the home of freedom, the mother
of parliaments"-
At this point the orator paused as if
struggling for some loftier and more vivid
language with which to portray the peculiar
glory and, therefore, the peculiar shame of
England, and then in an instant he resumed,
| as these fine lines seemed to flash upon his
| memory
"of which one of her own poets has said,
Though Ser heads the frozen Pleads SHINE,
'1is Liberty that crowns Britannlas isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak noun,
tains smile.
| 1t was but an audience of working-men,
| yet the splendor of the quotation and Its APP
plication to the argument, all the more pow.
| eriul because so delicate, were fully appre-
| ciated, and the vast assemblage seemed
| lifted from their seats by their enthusiasm.
| But when the next morning that speech was
laid on every aristocratic breakfast-table in
| England, and innumerabe eyes, that could
not but sparkle at literary excellence, fell
| upon this passage, with what Il tantalZcd
mixture of fury and delight would many a
| Tory squire and noblcmau eXclaim. THE
| Quaker dog Where did he get such Eng
fish? And now, see! he has broken into
the very armory Of our poets, has stolen
| their choicest weapons, and is using them
| to knock our brains out!
In closing the last speech he ever made,
Mr.. Golden said, 81 never perorate." 1t
| NAV be said OF his illustIious friend, Mr.
Bright that he never closes a speech with
out perorating. OF course we do not mean
that even he pcrorates in the exact sense
| Mr.. Golden meant-that of an elaborated
| strain of ostentatious rhetoric. But MIR.
| Bright has what Mr.. Golden had not-an
| oratorical temperament and as he draws
toward the conclusion ola speech his mind
seems to rise to a grander and more kind
ling view OF his theme he sweeps over the
whole a more burning glance, and, as II
exultin- in the amplitude of his own re.
sources for expression, he gathers them up
and pours them forth at last in his richest
and most energetic sentences. An admir-.
able instance of this habit, and Que which
illustrates, also many of the best qualities
of his manner, was the perOratiOn OF his
magnificent speech for the reform bill in
the house of commons in April, 1866.
81 have been misrepresented and con
demued and denounced by honorable gen.
ticmen opposite, and by not a few writers
in their press. My conscience tells me that
have labored honestly only to destroy that
which is evil. and to build up that which is
good. (Cheers.) The political aims of the
last twenty-five years, as they were summed
up the other night by the honorable mem
Der for Wick (Mr. Laing), are my political
aims, If they can be called the aims in any
degree of any living Englibhman. loud
cheers.) And If now, in all the great cen
tres of our pCpulation-in Birmingham with
its business districts, In Manchester with its
encircling towns. in the population Of the
West Riding Of Yorkshire, in Glasgow and
amidst the vast industries of the west Of
Scotland, and in the great Babylon in which
we are assembled-ifw we do not find ourselves
surrounded by hungry and eXasperated
multitudes-if now, more than at any time
during the last hundred years, it may be
said. quoting the beautiful words of Mr.
sheridan, that
Content sits basking on the cheek OF toll =
if this house and if its statesmen glory in
the change, have not as much as any liv
ing man some claim to partake OF that
glory? cloud cheers know, and every
thoughtful man among you knows, and
those gentlemen who sit on that bench and
who are leading you to this enterprise, they
know that the policy have urged upon the
house and upon the country, so far as 1t ha;
hithe to been accepted by parliament, is q
policy conservative of the public welfare
strengthening the just authority OF parlia
ment, and adding from day to day frcsf
lustre and dignity TO the crown. ,(Cheers.
And now, when | speak TO You and ask yOr
to pass this bill-when plead on behalf o
those who are not allowed TO speak them
selves in this house--if you could raise
yourselves for this night, for this hour
above the region of party strife-if You
could free yourselves from the pestilent at
mosphere Of passion and prejudice which sc
often surrounds us here, | feel confden
that at this moment should not plead in
vain before the imperial parliament on be
. half of the English constitution and the
| English people, loud and long-contin
ued cheering,)