The accounts of Mr. Bright are not altogether satisfactory. He
appears to be recovering from the attack of bronchitis, but it is stated that his system has received a severe shock, and that other ailments of older standing have gained ground in consequence. The anxiety with which the course of his illness is watched in every part of the Kingdom, is evidently most profound. The Radicals love him for what he has achieved ; the Conservatives, for the stand he has recently made against dangerous innovation; the literary men, for the singular grandeur of his oratory ; and the whole people, for his thoroughly English virtues, and perhaps even for his thoroughly English defects. Certainly no politician of our time has taken a course more loftily and almost brusquely independent, or has stood more completely alone against that popular opinion which he has succeeded in arming with so much greater an authority. No one can say that Mr. Bright has not implicitly trusted the people, even to choose what he thought the wrong path. No one can say that, when they chose the wrong path, he has not rebuked them with as sturdy a voice as was ever lifted up against oligarchies or despots.
