~

FURIE DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS. i032

A curiously winning mobility and play. His voice was clear,
"aried in its tones, sweet, and penetrating; but it had
Scar cely the compass, or the depth, or the many resources
that have usually been found in orators who have drawn great
Multitude of men to listen to them. Of nervous fire, indeed,
he hog abundance, though it was mot the fire which
fares up in the radiant colours of a strong imagination.
It Was rather the glow of a thoroughly convinced reason, of
tellactyal ingenuity, of argumentative keenness. It came
from transparent honesty, thoroughly clear ideas, and a very
definite purpose. These were exactly the qualities that
Cobden’ share in the work demanded. Any professor could
have supplied a demonstration of the economic fallacy of
Wonopoly, Fox, the Unitarian minister, was better able to
ir men’y spirits by pictures, which were none the less true
for being very florid, of the social miseries that came of
Monopoly, In Cobden the fervour and the logic were
Wixed, and his fervour was seen to have its source in the
Strength of his logical confidence.
It has often been pointed out how the two great gpokes-Wen
 of the League were the complements of one another; how
their gifts differed, so that one exactly covered the ground
Which the other was predisposed to leave comparatively
Untouched, The differences between them, it is true, were
of 50 many as the points of resemblance. If in Mr. Bright
there was a deeper austerity, in both there was the same
bomelin egg of allusion, and the same graphic plainness.
Both avoided the stilted abstractions of rhetoric, and neither
W8S ever afraid of the vulgarity of details. In Cobden as
Bright, we feel that there was nothing personal or small,
"ud that what they cared for so vehemently were greab
Causes, There was a resolute standing aloof from the
Smal] thingy of party, which would be almost arrogant, if
the whole texture of what they had to say were less

1841.

“me. 37.