aring his hat where other men take off theirs. In the House of
Commons he conforms to the usages of the place, and speaks of "the noble
lord opposite," and "my right honorable friend near me," just as though
the Quakers never had borne their testimony against such vanity. In his
dress, too, there is only the faintest intimation of the Quaker cut. He
is a Quaker in his abhorrence of war and in his feeling of the
substantial equality of men. He is a Quaker in those few sublime
principles in which the Quakers, two centuries ago, were three centuries
in advance of the time.

For the benefit of young orators, I will mention also that he has taken
excellent care of his bodily powers. As a young man he was a noted
cricketer and an enthusiastic angler. At all periods of his life he has
played a capital game at billiards. Angling, however, has been his
favorite recreation, and he has fished in almost all the good streams of
the northern part of his native island.

Nor does he find it necessary to carry a brandy flask with him on his
fishing excursions. He mentioned some time ago, at a public meeting,
that he had been a tee-totaler from the time when he set up housekeeping
thirty-four years before. He said he had in his house no decanters, and,
so far as he knew, no wineglasses.

Edward Everett used to say that a speaker's success before an audience
depended chiefly upon the thoroughness of his previous preparation. Mr.
Bright has often spoken extempore with great effect, when circumstances
demanded it. But his custom is to prepare carefully, and in his earlier
days he used frequently to write his speech and learn it by heart. He
received his first lesson in oratory from a Baptist clergyman of great
note, whom he accompanied to a meeting of the Bible Society, and who
afterwards gave an account of their conversation. John Bright was then
twenty-one years of age.

"Soon a slender, modest young gentleman came, who surprised me by his
intelligence and thoughtfulness. I took his arm on the way to the
meeting, and I thought he seemed nervous. I think it was his first
public speech. It was very eloquent and powerful, and carried away the
meeting, but it was elaborate, and had been committed to memory. On our
way back, as I congratulated him, he said that such efforts cost him too
dear, and asked me how I spoke so easily. I said that in his case, as
in most, I thought it would be best not to burden the memory too much,
but, having ca