PEN AND INK SKETCHES OF LOCAL POLITICIANS.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 11, 26 February 1857, Page 2

PEN AND INK SKETCHES OF LOCAL POLITICIANS.

By

Quizzicus.

CHAPTER IV, Lord Shaftesbury, author of the splendid ‘‘ Characteristics,” was described as a man to whom God had given his talents and Satan their application. Not many years since the same bitter sarcasm was by late Lord Melbourne applied to actual Lord Lyndhurst. In both cases the sarcasm raised a laugh even from lawn-sleeved and shovel-hatted legislators but did little harm to the noble personage against whom it was levelled. Sarcasm tells most upon cross-grained, weak-witted, people who are blown out by conceit as the bladder is blown out by air, and no less afraid of the point of a p#n than are certain fiercelooking heroes of the point of a sword. Men really wise smile at the shafts aimed at them by the satirist but difference between the really wise and that c’ass of pretenders here referred to is precisely the difference between choke damp and laughing gas.

The Local Politician now in my “mind’s pye” and presently to be sketched, may or may not be offended by a little playful scarcasm \ for he is neither sage nor simple, neither learned nor unlearned, neither witty nor stupid, neither well tempered nor illtempered, neither a man with principle nor .a man without principle, but a ratljcr brilliant specimen

of that intellectual and moral mongrel-, ism now quite common in the world. Professor Owen after carefully examining a limb of some extinct animal will teli you of what nature the animal was, and the species to which it belonged. One steady look at my present subject would suffice to convince intelligent believers in the Anatomy uf Expression that he is a Limb of tne Law. The legal profession, like almost every other, leaves its broad arrow upon those who follow and , live, or try to live, by it. Hence lawyers (as a class) can be distinguished no less readily than soldiers and sailors, or tailors and “professors of decayed soles.” But though tne subject of this sketch is a limb of perhaps the ugliest known animal, alive or dead, he is himself far from ill-looking. Physically, indeed, there are few so blessed.

Not much, if any, above the middle height, with frame weil proportioned and firmly knit, feet and hands neither ofibusively large nor aristocratically small, tout ensemble fleshy but not like my first sketch so fleshy as to suggest the. more-bowels-than-biains idea, saoulders sufficiently straight and wide, neck moderately thick, and he?d handsomely turned, it must be allowed that though a Limb of the anomolous monster called Law, my subject is in person the reverse of dispieablu.

But any description must be wretchedly imperfect if it omit all mention of his face which is not only full Y character, but open in style, handsome in outline-, and frank, nay almost ingenuous in expression. The eyes are pleasingly intelligent, the nose neither Grecian nor Roman but to my taste better than many tolerable spt cimens of both, the fore Head ample, and the hair just such as I should be proud to find adorning my own h°ad.

What his countenance needs, Yvhat ho himself needs, is iepose. The crow is planting its tell-tale feet, and the signs of mental wear aud tear are becoming disagreeably visible. He is a true atom on the fidgets ; restless, eager, always in a hurry, (apparent if not real) unstable as water, rasa as five.

Had he confined himself steadily to either Law or Politics he might have achieved greatness; but between tne two stools of Politics aud Law it is not improbable that ho will “ resign” to the ground —the polltian spoiling the lawyer and the lawyer playing “ old Harr'm” with the politician. While remarkably sensitive in regard to professional honor he is most unprofessionally prone to make a large legal show wita small legal means, and to talk people into the belief that he passed triumphantly through the fiery furnace of a law’ examination.

If, however, we are permitted to judge of his entire btocK of law by sundry samples of that uiigenuine article with which he has H tel y oewildered himself and every-* body else, our judgment touching his legal acumen, legal experience, legal solidity, or legal wisdom, will not be very agreeable to his feelings. By him, it is supposed, or rather I should say known that our abortion of a Superintendent was “ as asses are” led by the nose into that sea of mud, legal and political, in which both are “ at this present writing” up to their unfortunate necks. How they will contrive to flounder out of it no one seems able to “articulate,” and I hope they will forgive me if in my quizzical character I confine myself to wishing them luck. Only envy in alliance with the partizan, and most odius spirit of detraction will deny to my sharp, shrewd, but rather too fast, and much too easily excited subject considerable powers of speech. Gift of gab he unquestionably has. More fluent than any other member of our Little Parliament he would also be more effective if he kept his torguein check and resolutely denied it tire privilege of running nineteen to the dozen.

Speaking with fatal facility it cometh to pass that what he speaks is seldom., worth listening to. Profoundly thoughtful men weigh their words before they utter them ; but if he ever takes ths trouble to weigh his words it must bo some time after they are delivered. Ncr can he speak many minutes upon politically importtuU subjects (which of all subjects debateable or controversial most urgently repuire cool treatment) without committing himself to some rhetoricalbetise, or to some political impertinence, At tongue fencing he is in fact not at all an adept, and when resolved upon debate should remember the advice of Arista - phaaes—

Look too your wi’s or else you'll meet, Contempt as certain us defeat. AV Idle his words rush out with delugeJike impetuosity, one is apt to remember the apropos judgment of Jonathan Swift, wbo said—out of comparatively emp + v bra tors words quickest make their way as do people from comparatively empty churches, ai d for the name reason. Power of being seldom associated with power of thought, soon wearies and by-and-by disgusts. In addition to the double and very admirable faculty of talk, jng not only well but to the point, a party leader mush have perfect command of temper. No man is able to control a party while unable to control himself. In wordv warfare the very last thing a political leader can afford to lose is his temper. 111-temper means mental intoxication and that too of most dangerous kind. Socrates did, to be sure, consider anger the “ soldier of the mine ;” but withall respect, due to him whom oracles pronounced wisest of men, J venture to affirm'tilar this “ soldier of the mind” like many another soldier might safely be dispensed with. Certain it is chat frequent and sudden gns*s of passion, or fits of -anger, disqualify men for political leadership. Swaggering Pistol forced to eat the leek is a spectacle quite mirthmoving ; but a political leader being forced to eat his omu words rather lowers one’s respect for him.

Now, the political leader whose ‘‘characteristics” I am sketching, during the sitting of a defunct, or vvlnt amounts to nearly same thing “prorogued,” Council on an average took a meal of his own words about once every sitting. His h.ibit of paltering in double phrase which is very like paltering in double sense makes explanations endless and these endless explanations of his usually amount to that ‘‘darkening of counsel” for whicn pettifogging lawyers are renowned. Only the other day, by “ the other sine,” a certain proposal was made to him for unlocking the famous dead iock which he no sooner heard th&n,. waxing

furious, he scouted. Mr. Robert Graham while urging the propriety of i r s acceptance happened to say something about the opinion held by our limb of the Jaw’s constitutency, whereupon he ungenteely dambed their opinions or rather as he declares their legal opinion, whilfi “ the other side” with equal pertinacity insu t upon it that he expressed himself as not caring a d—n for their opinion—the qualifying “ legal’' being his own after-thought. Even if the words really spoken were solely in reference- to the legal point in question and that they amounted to no more than —I do not care a d—n for such (bis constitutency’s) opinion on a legal point, he was to blame for using them, nor would he have used them but that the spirit of anger had entered into him Words, according to one who knew how to use without abusing them, are the counters of wise men and the money of fools. My subject might pioflt by goodhumoured study of that maxim, for when in.his tantrums, or as fine writers say, in a towering passion, he talks as if touching words the fools are quite right and, of course, the wise men quite wrong. He does, however, sometimes produce considerable effect by his impassioned style of speech more especially upon StJangers in the Gallery, who upon a recent occasion were surprised into admiration and visibly touched by a declaration “in the sight of God” that he had acted on what he believed right and true grounds and with an earnest desire for the good of the country. What much added, to the effect of this really dramatic outburst was the artist-like action by which it was accompanied. . Altogether I pronounce it one of the best little bits of acting ever seen from Strangers’ Gallery of our Little Parliament. Enemies say the clever subject of this sketch is politically insincere; that, although not a finished political Judas he is politically untrustworthy; that he has played fast and loose as well with men as with principles; that like lawyers in general he is mere lawyer, wanting, however, what every lawyer should possess, namely, good temper enough at all times to command himself and wit enough at all impose upon others; that ever strong upon the stronger side, on the stronger side he ab waps intends to be found; that up to half-past three of the eventful day on which John Williamson became Superintendent he was undecided as to whether he should vote for or against him; and

found it almost as difficult to make up his mind as did a certain long-eared animal when placed in semi-starvation state between (wo bundles of hay ; that his poltieal ethics are of a nature so flexible that' “ on his conscience cud in sight of God” he dees many things a politician more scrupulous, or more squeamish, would shrink aghast from the bare conception of ; that he in his quality of political Law Adviser is the source- and spring, head and front,of all provincial mischief worked by our Superintendent at whose ear “ squat like a toad” he for some time past has been, as he recently insinuated imp Carleton was at the delicate ear of Mr. David Graham ; that to rely upon him is to rely upon a broken reed, inasmuch as he is the Esau of politics; and that be would be the Richard Brinsley Sheridan of this Province but for certain trifling disadvantages arising from lack of wit, eloquence, knowledge, and public .spirit.

These are a few counts from tho for-mable-looking Bill of Indictment drawn up without “ legal” assistance by the political opponents of my present subject. No sketch could be complete without them, er at least some notice of them. Are they not written in the History of the Province ?