VANITY OF THE LATE JOHN

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9953, 14 March 1894, Page 2

VANITY OF THE LATE JOHN

BRIGHT. Mk Yizei'ELiLY in hit>, " Chronicle of Reminiscenses," says he started the Pictorial Times, in 1843, and secured the services of Thackeray, Jerrold, Mark Lemon (to whom he refers contemptuously as the keeper of a public house in Wych-street), Sir John Gilbert and Owen Jones. In the summer of that year, he says : — '' Mr John Bright, who had risen rapidly into celebrity through his eloquent speeches at Anti-Corn Law meetings, was first elected to Parliament as member for the city of Durham. On my apply to him for his portrait, for publication in the Pictorial Times, he agreed to pay a visit to Mi 1 Claudet, and a small full length daguerreotype portrait ,vas the result. A proof of the engraving was sent to Mr Bright before publication, and the same evening, as I was about to leave the office, the new member for Durham presented himself in Quaker garb, and, producing the proof, proceeded to explain to me that there was something about the expression of the mouth which he did not quite like,and muchwished to have altered before the engraving was printed off. It chanced that the illustrated side of the newspaper sheet went to the machine that eveniug, and it was, consequently, necessary to make the alteration at once. Sending, therefore, for the woodcut and a few engraving tools, I proceeded to alter the mouth in accordance with Mr Blight's suggestions, while the popular tribune stood erect before me, and gave to his lips that pliant expression which he thought most becoming. Although the face in the woodcut was no bigger than one's finger nail, I had to make repeated attempts before I succeeded in satisfying the new M. P., whose childish vanity amused me immensely. Fifteen years afterwards when the agitation againht the paper duty was in full swing, I used to see a good deal of John Bright. I recognised the some old vanity about him, though his admirers, I dare say, will demur to this assertion ; and a complacent assumption of the wisdom of the serpent on almost all subjects, regardless of his occasional imperfect acquaintance with them. I was struck, moreover, by a certain promposity of manner, which I thought somewhat strange in a Quaker. At this date, it should be remembered, John Bright's former fierce opponents had all taken to belauding him, and thereby confirmed him in the high estimate which he had evidently formed of his own sagacity."