n the army, and against the Irish
Established Church. He supported Cobden's motion for the reduction of
public expenditure, and in and out of parliament pleaded for peace. In the
election of 1852 he was again returned for Manchester on the principles of
free trade, electoral reform and religious freedom. But war was in the air,
and the most impassioned speeches he ever delivered were addressed to this
parliament in fruitless opposition to the Crimean War. Neither the House
nor the country would listen. "I went to the House on Monday," wrote
Macaulay in March 1854, "and heard Bright say everything I thought." His
most memorable speech, the greatest he ever made, was delivered on the 23rd
of February 1855. "The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land.
You may almost hear the beating of his wings," he said, and concluded with
an appeal to the prime minister that moved the House as it had never been
moved within living memory. There was a tremor in Bright's voice in the
touching parts of his great speeches which stirred the feelings even of
hostile listeners. It was noted for the first time in this February speech,
but the most striking instance was in a speech on Mr Osborne Morgan's
Burials Bill in April 1875, in which he described a Quaker funeral, and
protested against the "miserable superstition of the phrase 'buried like a
dog.'" "In that sense," he said, "I shall be buried like a dog, and all
those with whom I am best acquainted, whom I best love and esteem, will be
'buried like a dog.' Nay more, my own ancestors, who in past time suffered
persecution for what is now held to be a righteous cause, have all been
buried like dogs, if that phrase is true." The tender, half-broken tones in
which these words were said, the inexpressible pathos of his voice and
manner, were never forgotten by those who heard that Wednesday morning
speech.

Bright was disqualified by illness during the whole of 1856 and 1857. In
Palmerston's penal dissolution in the latter year, Bright was rejected by
Manchester, but in August, while ill and absent, Birmingham elected him
without a contest. He returned to parliament in 1858, and in February
seconded the motion which threw out Lord Palmerston's government. Lord
Derby thereupon came into office for the second time, and Bright had the
satisfaction of assisting in the passing of two measures which he had long
advocated--the admission of Jews to parliament and the transfer of the
governm