Victorian Worthies

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[Note 20: See G. M. Trevelyan, _Life of John Bright_, pp. 384-5.]

Bright's public life was in the main a tale of devotion to two great
causes, the Repeal of the Corn Laws, consummated in 1846, and the
extension of the Franchise, which was not realized till twenty years
later. But he found time to examine other questions and to utter shrewd
opinions on the government of India and of Ireland, and to influence
English sentiment on the Crimean War and the War of Secession in the
United States. In advance of his time, he wished to develop
cotton-growing in India and so to prevent the great industry of his own
district being dependent on America alone. He attacked the existing
board of directors and preferred immediate control by the Crown; and,
while wishing to preserve the Viceroy's supremacy over the whole, he
spoke in favour of admitting Indians to a larger share in the government
of the various provinces. Many of the best judges of to-day are now
working towards the same end, but at the time he met with little
support. It is interesting to find that both on India and on Ireland
similar views were put forward by men so different as John Bright and
Benjamin Disraeli. Mr. Trevelyan has preserved the memory of several
episodes in which they were connected with one another and of attempts
which Disraeli made to win Bright's support and co-operation. Bright
could cultivate friendships with politicians of very different schools
without being induced to deviate by a hair's breadth from the cause
which his principles dictated, and he could treat his friends, at times,
with refreshing frankness. When Disraeli warmly admired one of his
greatest speeches and expressed the wish that he himself could emulate
it, the outspoken Quaker replied: 'Well, you might have made it, if you
had been honest.'

It was the young Disraeli who, as early as 1846, had attributed the
Irish troubles to 'a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and
an alien church'. It was Bright who never hesitated, when opportunity
arose, to work for the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland and for
the security of Irish tenants in their holdings. A succession of
measures, carried by Liberals and Conservatives from Gladstone to
George Wyndham, have made us familiar with the idea of land purchase in
Ireland; but Bright had been there as early as 1849 and had learnt for
himself. Though at the end of his life he was a stubborn opponent of
Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, he had long ago won the gratitude of Ireland
as no other Englishman of his day, and his name has been preserved there
in affectionate remembrance.

In 1854, the year of the Crimean War, Bright reached the zenith of his
oratorical power, and at the same time touched the nadir of his
popularity. Public opinion was setting strongly against Russia. In
stemming the tide of war the so-called 'Manchester school' had a
difficult task, and was severely criticized. The idea of the 'balance of
power' made little appeal to Bright; and as a Quaker he was reluctant to
see England interfering in a quarrel which did not seem to concern her.
The satirists indeed scoffed unfairly at the doctrine of 'Peace at any
price'; for Bright was content to put aside the principle and to argue
the case on pure political expediency. But his attacks on the wars of
the last century were too often couched in an offensive tone with
personal references to the peerages won in them, and he spoke at times
too bitterly of the diplomatic profession and especially of our
ambassador at Constantinople. Nothing shows so clearly the danger of the
imperfect education which was forced on Bright by necessity, and which
he had done so much to remedy, as his attitude to foreign and imperial
politics. In his home he had too readily imbibed the crude notion that
our Empire existed to provide careers for the needy cadets of
aristocratic families, and that our foreign policy was inspired by
self-seeking officials who cared little for moral principles or for the
lives of their fellow countrymen. A few months spent with Lord Canning
at Calcutta, or with the Lawrences at Lahore, frequent intercourse with
men of the calibre of Lord Lyons or Lord Cromer, would have enlightened
him on the subject and prevented him from uttering the unwarranted
imputations which he did. Yet in his great parliamentary speeches of
1854 he rose high above all pettiness and made a deep impression on a
hostile house. Damaging though his speech of December 22 was to the
Government, no minister attempted to reply. Palmerston, Russell, and
Gladstone, with all their power, were unequal to the task. Disraeli told
Bright that a few more such speeches 'would break up the Government';
and Delane, the famous editor of _The Times_, wrote that 'Cobden and
Bright would be our ministers but for their principle of peace at any
price'.

But Bright was not thinking of office or of breaking up Governments: he
was thinking of the practical end in view. His next great speech was on
February 23, 1855, when a faint hope of peace appeared. It was most
conciliatory in tone, and was a solemn appeal to Palmerston to use his
influence in ending the war. This was known as 'the Angel of Death'
speech, from a famous passage which occurs in it. At the end he was
'overloaded with compliments', but the minister, who was hampered by
Russian intrigues with Napoleon, seemed deaf to all appeals, and Bright
again returned to the attack. Till the last days of the war, he
continued to raise his voice on behalf of peace; but his exertions had
told on his strength, and for the greater part of two years he had to
abandon public life and devote himself to recovering his health.

Six years later he was to prove that 'peace at any price' was no fair
description of his attitude. The Southern States of America seceded on
the question of State rights and the institution of slavery, and the
Federal Government declared war on them as rebels. This time it was not
a war for the balance of power, but one fought to vindicate a moral
principle, and Bright was strongly in favour of fighting it to a
finish. For different reasons most of our countrymen favoured the South,
but he appealed for British sympathy for the other side, on the ground
that no true Briton could abet slavery. He was the most prominent
supporter of the North, for long the only prominent one, but he
gradually made converts and did much to wipe away the reproach which
attached to the name of Englishmen in America, when the North triumphed
in the end. The war ended in 1865 with the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox, and Bright wrote in his journal, 'This great triumph of the
Republic is the event of our age'.

But long before 1865 the question of Reform and of the extension of the
franchise had been revived. Gladstone might speak in favour of the
principle in 1864; Russell might introduce a Reform Bill in 1866; a year
later Disraeli might 'dish the Whigs'; and Whig and Tory might wrangle
over the question who were the friends of the 'working man', but Bright
had made his position clear to his friends in 1846. He began a popular
movement in 1849 and for the next fifteen years of his life it was the
object dearest to his heart. He was not afraid to walk alone. When his
old fellow worker, Cobden, refused his aid, on the ground that he was
not convinced of the need for extending the franchise, Bright himself
assumed the lead and bore the brunt of the battle. Till 1865 his main
obstacle was Palmerston, who since he took the helm in the worst days of
the Crimean War and conducted the ship of State into harbour, occupied
an impregnable position. Palmerston was dear to 'the man in the street',
shared his prejudices and understood his humours; and nothing could make
him into a serious Democrat or reformer. Even after Palmerston's death,
Bright's chief opponent was to be found in the Whig ranks, in Robert
Lowe, who was a master of parliamentary eloquence and who managed, in
1866, to wreck Lord John Russell's Reform Bill in the House. But Bright
had his revenge in the country. Such meetings as ensued in the great
provincial towns had not been seen for twenty years: the middle class
and the artisans were fused as in the great Repeal struggle of 1846. At
Glasgow as many as 150,000 men paraded outside the town, and no hall
could contain the thousands who wished to hear the great Tribune. He
claimed that eighty-four per cent. of his countrymen were still excluded
from the vote, and he bluntly asserted that the existing House of
Commons did not represent 'the intelligence and the justice of the
nation, but the prejudices, the privileges, and the selfishness, of a
class'.

But however blind many of this class might still be to the signs of the
times, they found an astute leader in Disraeli, who had few principles
and could trim his sails to any wind. The Tory Reform Bill, which he put
forward in February 1867, came out a very different Bill in July, after
discussion in the Cabinet, which led to the resignation of three
ministers, and after debates in the House of Commons, where it was
roughly handled. The principle of household suffrage was conceded, and
another million voters were added to the electorate. Disraeli had made a
greater change of front than any which he could attribute to Peel, and
that without conviction, for reasons of party expediency. The real
triumph belonged to Bright. 'The Bill adopted', he writes, 'is the
precise franchise I recommended in 1858.' He had not only roused the
country by his platform speeches, he had carefully watched the Bill in
all its stages through the House, and gradually transformed it till it
satisfied the aspirations of the people. He had been content to work
with Disraeli so long as he could further the cause of Reform; and he
only quarrelled with that statesman finally when, in 1878, he revived
the anti-Russian policy of Palmerston.

During this strenuous time his domestic life was happy and tranquil.
After the death of his first wife he had remained a widower for six
years, and in 1847 he had married Margaret Leatham, who bore him seven
children and shared his joys and sorrows in no ordinary measure for
thirty years. Whenever politics took him away from his Rochdale home, he
wrote constantly to her, and his letters throw most valuable light on
his inmost feelings. She died in 1878, and after this his life was
pitched in a different key. The outer world might suppose that high
political office was crowning his career, but his enthusiasm and his
power were ebbing and his physical health failed him more than once. He
was as affectionate to his children, as friendly to his neighbours, as
true to his principles; but the old fire was gone.

The outward events of his life from 1867 to 1889 must be passed over
lightly. Against his own wishes he was persuaded by Gladstone to join
the Cabinet in 1868 and again in 1880. His name was a tower of strength
to the Government with the newly-enfranchised electors, but he himself
had little taste for the routine of office. At Birmingham, for which he
had sat since 1857, he compared himself to the Shunammite woman who
refused the offer of advancement at court, and replied to the prophet,
'I dwell among mine own people'. But events were too strong for him: he
was drawn first to Westminster to share in the government of the
country, and then to Osborne to visit the Queen. Both the Queen and he
were nervous at the prospect, but the interview passed off happily.[21]
Family affections and sorrows were a bond between them, and he talked to
her with his usual frankness and simplicity. Even the difficult question
of costume was settled by a compromise, and the usual gold-braided
livery was replaced by a sober suit of black. Ministerial work in
London might have proved irksome to him; but his colleagues in the
Cabinet were indulgent, and no excessive demands were made upon his
strength. It was recognized that Bright was no longer in the fighting
line. In 1870 he was incapacitated by a second long illness, and he had
little share in the measures carried through Parliament for Irish land
purchase and national education.

[Note 21: See Fitzmaurice, _Life of Lord Granville_, vol. i, p.
540.]

His official career was finally closed in 1882, when the bombardment of
Alexandria seemed to open a new and aggressive chapter in our Eastern
policy. Bright was true to his old principles and resigned office.

He severed himself still more from the official Liberals in 1886, when
he refused to follow Gladstone into the Home Rule camp. He disliked the
methods of Parnell, the obstruction in Parliament, and the campaign of
lawlessness in Ireland. His own victories had not been won so, and he
had a great respect for the traditions of the House. He also believed
that the Home Rule Bill would vitally weaken the unity of the realm. But
no personal bitterness entered into his relations with his old
colleagues: he did not attack Gladstone, as he had attacked Palmerston
in 1855. From his death-bed he sent a cordial message to his old chief,
and received an answer full of high courtesy and affection.

His illness lasted several months. From the autumn of 1888 he lay at One
Ash, weak but not suffering acutely; and on March 27, 1889, he quietly
passed away. His old friend Cobden had preceded him more than twenty
years, having died in 1865, and had been buried at his birthplace in
Sussex, where he had made himself a peaceful home in later life. Bright
proved himself equally faithful to the home of his earliest years. He
was laid to rest in the small burying-ground in front of the Friends'
meeting-house where he had worshipped as a child. In his long career he
had served noble causes, and scaled the heights of fame, and the crowds
at his funeral testified to the love which his neighbours bore him. He
had never willingly been absent for long from his native town. His life,
compared with that of Disraeli or Gladstone, seems almost bleak in its
simplicity, varied as it was by so few excursions into other fields. But
two strong passions enriched it with warmth and glow, his family
affections and his zeal for the common good. These filled his heart, and
he was content that it should be so.

Type of the wise who soar but never roam,
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.

[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS

From the painting by Daniel Maclise in the National Portrait Gallery]

CHARLES DICKENS

1812-1870

1812. Born at Landport, Portsmouth, February 7.
1816. Parents move to Chatham; 1821, to London.
1822. Father bankrupt and in prison. Charles in blacking warehouse.
1827. Charles enters lawyer's office.
1831. Reporters' Gallery in Parliament.
1836. Marries Catherine Hogarth. Publishes _Sketches by Boz_.
1837. _Pickwick Papers._ 1838. _Nicholas Nickleby._
1842. First American journey. 1843. _Martin Chuzzlewit._
1844-5. Eleven months' residence in Italy, chiefly at Genoa.
1846. Editor of _Daily News_ for a few weeks.
1846-7. Six months at Lausanne; three months at Paris. _Dombey and Son._
1849-50. _David Copperfield._
1850. Editor of weekly periodical, _Household Words_.
1851-2. Manager of theatrical performances. 1852. _Bleak House._
1853. Italian tour: Rome, Naples, and Venice.
1856. Purchase of Gadshill House, near Rochester.
1858. Beginning of public readings.
1859. _Tale of Two Cities_ appears in _All the Year Round_.
1860. Gadshill becomes his home instead of London.
1867. Second American journey. Public readings in America.
1869. April, collapse at Chester. Readings stopped.
1870. Dies at Gadshill, June 9.

CHARLES DICKENS

NOVELIST AND SOCIAL REFORMER

In these days when critics so often repeat the cry of 'art for art's
sake' and denounce Ruskin for bringing moral canons into his judgements
of pictures or buildings, it is dangerous to couple these two titles
together, and to label Dickens as anything but a novelist pure and
simple. And indeed, all would admit that the creator of Sam Weller and
Sarah Gamp will live when the crusade against 'Bumbledom' and its
abuses is forgotten and the need for such a crusade seems incredible.
But when so many recent critics have done justice to his gifts as a
creative artist, this aspect of his work runs no danger of being
forgotten. Moreover, when we are considering Dickens as a Victorian
worthy and as a representative man of his age, it is desirable to bring
out those qualities which he shared with so many of his great
contemporaries. Above all, we must remember that Dickens himself would
be the last man to be ashamed of having written 'with a purpose', or to
think that the fact should be concealed as a blemish in his art. There
was nothing in which he felt more genuine pride than in the thought that
his talents thus employed had brought public opinion to realize the need
for many practical reforms in our social condition. If these old abuses
have mostly passed away, we may be thankful indeed; but we cannot feel
sure that in the future fresh abuses will not arise with which the
example of Dickens may inspire others to wage war. His was a strenuous
life; he never spared himself nor stinted his efforts in any cause for
which he was fighting; and if he did not win complete victory in his
lifetime, he created the spirit in which victory was to be won.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812, the second child of a large family,
his father being at the time a Navy clerk employed at Portsmouth. Of his
birthplace in Commercial Road Portsmouth is justifiably proud; but we
must think of him rather as a Kentishman and a Londoner, since he never
lived in Hampshire after his fourth year. The earliest years which left
a distinct impress on his mind were those passed at Chatham, to which
his father moved in 1816. This town and its neighbouring cathedral city
of Rochester, with their narrow old streets, their riverside and
dockyard, took firm hold of his memory and imagination. To-day no places
speak more intimately of him to the readers of his books. Here he passed
five years of happy childhood till his father's work took the family to
London and his father's improvidence plunged them into misfortune.

For those who know Wilkins Micawber it is needless to describe the
failings of Mr. Dickens; for others we may be content to say that he was
kindhearted, sanguine and improvident, quite incapable of the steady
industry needed to support a growing family. When his debts overwhelmed
him and he was carried off to the Marshalsea prison, Charles was only
ten years old, but already he took the lead in the house. On him fell
the duty of pacifying creditors at the door, and of making visits to the
pawn-broker to meet the daily needs of the household. His initiation
into life was a hard one and it began cruelly soon. If he was active and
enterprising beyond his years, with his nervous high-strung temperament
he was capable of suffering acutely; and this capacity was now to be
sorely tried. For a year or more of his life this proud sensitive child
had to spend long hours in the cellars of a warehouse, with rough
uneducated companions, occupied in pasting labels on pots of
boot-blacking. This situation was all that the influence of his family
could procure for him; and into this he was thrust at the age of ten
with no ray of hope, no expectation of release. His shiftless parents
seemed to acquiesce in this drudgery as an opening for their cleverest
son; and instead of their helping and comforting him in his sorrow, it
was he who gave his Sundays to visiting them in prison and to offering
them such consolation as he could. The iron burnt deep into his soul.
Long after, in fact till the day when the district was rebuilt and
changed out of knowledge, he owned that he could not bear to revisit the
scene; so painful were his recollections, so vivid his sense of
degradation. Twenty-five years later he narrated the facts to his friend
and biographer John Forster in a private conversation; and he only
recurred to the subject once more when under the disguise of a novel he
told the story of the childhood of David Copperfield. By shifting the
horror from the realm of fact to that of fiction, perhaps he lifted the
weight of it from the secret recesses of his heart.

When his father's debts were relieved, the child regained his freedom
from servitude, but even then his schooling was desultory and
ineffective. Well might the elder Dickens, in a burst of candour, say to
a stranger who asked him about his son's education, 'Why indeed, sir,
ha! ha! he may be said to have educated himself.'

At the age of fifteen Charles embarked again on his career as a
wage-earner. At first he was taken into a lawyer's office, where he
filled a position somewhat between that of office-boy and clerk, and two
years later he was qualifying himself by the study of shorthand for the
profession of a parliamentary reporter, which his father was then
following. He entered 'the Gallery' in 1831, first representing the
_True Sun_ and later the well-known _Morning Chronicle_; and at
intervals he enlarged his experiences by journeys into the provinces to
report political meetings. Thus it was that he familiarized himself with
the mail coaches, the wayside hostelries, and the rich variety of types
that were to be found there; with London in most of its phases he was
already at home. So, when in 1834 he made his first attempts at writing
in periodical literature, although he was only twenty-two years old, he
had a wealth of first-hand experiences quite outside the range of the
man who is just finishing his leisurely passage through a public school
and university: of schools and offices, of parliaments and prisons, of
the street and of the high road, he had been a diligent and observant
critic; for many years he had practised the maxim of Pope: 'The proper
study of mankind is Man.'

Friends sprang up wherever he went. His open face, his sparkling eye,
his humorous tongue, his ready sympathy, were a passport to the
goodwill of those whom he met; few could resist the appeal. Many readers
will be familiar with the early portrait by Maclise; but his friends
tell us how little that did justice to the lively play of feature, 'the
spirited air and carriage' which were indescribable. On the top of a
mail coach, on a fresh morning, they must have won the favour of his
fellow travellers more easily than Alfred Jingle won the hearts of the
Pickwickians. And beneath the radiant cheerfulness of his manner, the
quick flash of observation and of speech, there was in him an element of
hard persistence and determination which would carry him far. If the
years of poverty and neglect had failed to chill his hopes and break his
spirit, there was no fear that he would tire in the pursuit of his
ambition when fortune began to smile upon him. He had touched life on
many sides. He had kept his warmth of sympathy, his buoyancy, his
capacity for rising superior to ill-fortune; and the years of adversity
had only deepened his feeling for all that were oppressed. He had much
to learn about the craft of letters; but he already had the first
essential of an author--he had something to say.

The year 1836 is a definite landmark in the life of Dickens. In this
year he married; in this year he gave up the practice of parliamentary
reporting, published the _Sketches by Boz_, and began the writing of
_The Pickwick Papers_. This immortal work achieved wide popularity at
once. Criticism cannot hope to do justice to the greatness of Sam
Weller, to the humours of Dingley Dell and Eatanswill, to the adventures
of the hero in back gardens or in prison, on coaches or in wheelbarrows.
Every one must read them in the original for himself. In this book
Dickens reached at once the height of his success in making his fellow
countrymen laugh with him at their own foibles. If in the art of
constructing a story, in the depiction of character, in deepening the
interest by the alternation of happiness and misfortune, he was to go
far beyond his initial triumph,--still with many Dickensians, who love
him chiefly for his liveliness of observation and broad humour, Pickwick
remains the prime favourite.

The effect of this success on the fortunes of the author was immediate
and lasting. Henceforth he could live in a comfortable house and look
forward to a family life in which his children should be free from all
risk of repeating his own experience. He could afford himself the
pleasures and the society which he needed, and he became the centre of a
circle of friends who appreciated his talents and encouraged him in his
career. His relations with his publishers, though not without incident,
were generally of the most cordial kind. If Dickens had the
self-confidence to estimate his own powers highly, and the shrewd
instinct to know when he was getting less than his fair share in a
bargain, yet in a difference of opinion he was capable of seeing the
other side, and he was loyal in the observance of all agreements.

The five years which followed were so crowded with various activities
that it is difficult to date the events exactly, especially when he was
producing novels in monthly or weekly numbers. Generally he had more
than one story on the stocks. Thus in 1837, before _Pickwick_ was
finished, _Oliver Twist_ was begun, and it was not itself complete
before the earlier numbers of _Nicholas Nickleby_ were appearing. In the
same way _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and _Barnaby Rudge_, which may be
dated 1840 and 1841, overlapped one another in the planning of the
stories, if not in the execution of the weekly parts. There is no period
of Dickens's life which enables us better to observe his intense mental
activity, and at the same time the variety of his creations. Here we
have the luxuriant humour of Mrs. Nickleby and the Crummles family side
by side with the tragedy of Bill Sikes and the pathos of Little Nell.
Here also we can see the gradual development of constructive power in
the handling of the story. But for our purpose it is more significant to
notice that we here find Dickens's pen enlisted in the service of the
noblest cause for which he fought, the redemption from misery and
slavery of the children of his native land. Lord Shaftesbury's life has
told us what their sufferings were and how the machinery of Government
was slowly forced to do its part; and Dickens would be the last to
detract from the fame of that great philanthropist, whose efforts on
many occasions he supported and praised. But there were wide circles
which no philanthropist could reach, hearts which no arguments or
statistics could rouse; men and women who attended no meetings and read
no pamphlets but who eagerly devoured anything that was written by the
author of _The Pickwick Papers_. To them Smike and Little Nell made a
personal and irresistible appeal; they could not remain insensible to
the cruelty of Dotheboys Hall and to the depravity of Fagin's school;
and if these books did not themselves recruit active workers to improve
the conditions of child life, at least society became permeated with a
temper which was favourable to the efforts of the reformers.

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