PEN AND INK SKETCHES OF LOCAL POLITICIANS.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 12, 5 March 1857, Page 2

PEN AND INK SKETCHES OF LOCAL POLITICIANS.

By

Quizzicus.

CHAPTER V. In breed I believe no less “ powerfully and potently” than did . Hamlet in old men wearing grey beards, with face wrinkled and purging thick amber or plumb-tree-gum. Being myself one of the right breed I naturally stick up for the sound doctrine that all men are not equal except m the sight of God; that men from men differ as much as does the silk purse from the pigs ear; and that Paddy hit upon an admirable though unpopular truth when hearing the stump Demosthenes say — One man is as good as another, exclaimed— Och 1 yes, and a great deal betther. I have frequently amused myself in the profoundest possible contemplation of breed, and am prepared to vouch for the startling fact that some men from some men differ more materially than do some men from some monkeys. I never saw Saint Wroe, leader and founder of that circumsized sect of which “ Beardie” is a member, but while in Ashton Under Lyne where Wroe, many years since, played strange and very animalish tiicks, I was frequently told that to a baboon then in the Manchester Zcologoical Gardens he bore most marvellous resemblance.

Without dwelling upon this isolated fact, bespeaking for it undue importance, or backing it up by very many others from my budget of such, 1 affirm the importance of breed in relation to character; and against a world of philosophers, all armed with pens, will maintain that though “ of one blood God made all nations of the earth” out of some much more than others the offending Adam it is difficult to whip, while the “one blood” will be found rich or poor, gentle or ungentle, pure or impure, according to the channels through which it happens to flow. From blood comes body, every human body being not metaphorically but liter ■ ally built up from blood, and as are the differences of blood, so (eetoeris paribus) will be the differences of body. After all, therefore, the phrases noble blood, aristocratic blood, royal blood and their like, have a deep significance and are well worth the attention of “ entire animal” democrats who think with Byron that Not all the Wood of all the Howards can ennoble baseness, and in the ex.huberance of democratic feeling would readily fraternize with the horse if he did pathetically ask— Am I not a horse and a half brother ? But to my subject, whose por trait, faithfully sketched, cannotfail to impress the beholder in a sense favorable to its oiiginal. If not of the best breed he has excellent blood in him and, although “ fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf,” plenty of it too, as certain Constitutional terrorists found when, upon sundry ever to be remembered occasions, they tried to’frighten or weary him into a surrender of'liis per-

sonal rights and, what seem no less dear to him, the privileges of Parliament. In stature he exceeds by some inches Arthur Wellesley, late Duke of Wellington; but his profile seen from a fair stand-point is as like that of the Iron Duke as one pea is like another, or six is like half a dozen. For years before death the Duke, whether riding or walking, was seen chin dropped upon the front of a cravat “ got up” to prevent the junction of chin and breast; his entire head seeming in constant danger of toppling over frontwise. Not so the head of my hoary and venerable subject, who is not only distinguishable from immortal Wellesley by an inch or two more of height and a stone >r two more of flesh, but by the head which thrusts itself in advance of the body as if it were a regular go-a-head, or push« along-keep-moving sort of head, and very ill content to wait for a body unable to keep up with it. The ordinary expression of his rather aristocratic and intellectual-looking face is sadly serious; but when he good-hu-mouredly unbends, which he frequently does, the expression of his countenance is delightful to behold. No other Member of that Council can so well afford to smile, or looks half so well when he does smile. At those moments the whole face is suddenly metamorphosed and, as it were, illuminated by the divine light of a pure, frank, gentie, manly, and noble spirit. But for the decidedly intellectual cast of his face, the go-a-headism of his head, wi h its seeming disposition to go farther in advance of its body than inertia of said body, or the fitness of thing will permit, and his whole outer man, would suggest the idea of an uneasyly hungry boa-con-strictor preparing for a spring—just as the Local Politician sketched in No. 2 of this series suggests the idea of a rather too well-fed but still fightably inclined bu .1dog and just as that other notability, sketched in No. 3, suggests a cross between the ox and the ass. When my present subject strolls forth to enjoy his otiurn cum dignitate he is, m manner, far less dignified than when engaged in the performance of Parliamentary functions. And I cannot but feel grieved to see his venerable head, as is sometimes the case, surmounted by a hat or tile, or whatever you please to call it, which strongly reminds me of the beg-; garly-looking article called Cabbage-Tree . Hat worn by that once powerful set of scamps the Sydney Cabbage Tree Mob. His “ continuations”, vulgarly, breeches are either like the late Sir Charles Wethereli’s unbraced up, or much too long. That is a fault for no man can possibly look comma il faut. or at ail events like a gentleman well and thoroughly finished, if his troupers are ill made,, being well made are not well braced up,. None dress better than your genuine-’ 7 ; English gentleman. Fops are for most part overwhelmingly dressed. < Neither under nor over-dressed the English gen- '• tieman challenges observation withoutprovoking ridicule, ami from the sole of his finely finished boot, to the crown of his chimney-pot hat, is a beautiful combination of the neat, the easy, and the elegant.

If my present subject would condescend to pay a little more attention to the matter of dress in general, and breeches or continuations in particular, his outward and visible man would be scarcely less distingue or aristocratic than that of Arthur Lord Wellington himself; who, I think it right to mention, dressed admirably, an I never was known to wear continuations which did not exactly fit him. Although “ the oldest Barrister in the Colony” my venerable and right honorable subject is detested by Constitutional terrorists who sneer at his “ professional standing” and through him their able Editor has just discovered that “ age and infallibility are not always synonymous terms.” They consider him simply in the horrid light of an animal caterwauling for, and running in couples with, “red cat” Carleton whose “nod is always as good as a wink.” They accuse him of sundry high crimes ; but the highest of all the crimes laid to his charge is that of refusing to permit the Council to rescind one of its own resolutions. Hating him ( as Old Nick is said to hate holy water or Gun No. 4, i.e. Spongy brandy and ditto, they on the night before prorogation by systematic terrorism did (within the Council Hall) put him in bodily fear, or at least did try to do so, They were bitterly disappointed. Insult proof and calm as a modern artist

has depicted the first Charles when that calf-headed monarch was fallen into the worse than Philistine hands of ironsided Cromwellian s, he showed the excellence of his breed, and made me amazcdly exclaim—in the fine phrase cf vile Lady Macbeth — Who'd have thought that the old man had so much blood in him. No Speaker more jealous of the privileges appertaining to his office. At any attack, however indirect, or any phrase however soft, if directed against them he fires up and manifests an almost painful degree of excitement. While memory holds her seat in my undistracted head I shall remember his venerable face when Lawyer Merriman pertly told him he was bound to put questions to the Council unless they were contrary to the Standing . Orders. It was indeed a study. Quite amusing too was his owl in an ivy bush appearance when with head projected considerably beyond the line of his body he gazed at vacancy, a perfect picture of parliamentary still life, and then suddenly darted forward as if the contents of aVoltaic battery had been discharged into the stout part of his back. He would be much improved by adashof therollicking and genuinely philosophic spirit of that w;ld Irishman who when asked how he managed not to be “ uneasy” although he had many things to make him so, sagely said—

To be throubled in your tbronble, Is to make your throuble double. Like another respectable Limb of the Lavr, a sketch of whom appeared in the last Examiner, he is naturally but au meme temps rather unconstitutionally irritable. This unconstitutional, though natural, irritability often betrays him into pettish and petty controversies about trifles even when most anxious to avoid controversy about anything. His tastes are refined notwithstanding the unrefining influence of Colonial air and (such as it is) Colonial society. In giving a judgment he hesitates, repeats himself, and wavers, like one whose mind is not fully made up ; but having got it out he holds to it with desperate tenacity. When excited his feelings seem to have the upper hand of his judgment, as was painfully apparent in a score at least of his wordy contests with Lawyer Merriman. Which of the two had law on his side, or whether either of them had, only a Lawyer shipped direct from Philadelphia could tell. Both stood greatly in need of a “judicious bottle holder” who like my Lord Palmerston, is skilful, not only in bringing his man up to the scratch, but m showing him how to “go in and win.” Of this unclassical allu don I am almost ashamed. However, having made it, at eminenthazard of my reputation for delicacy of touch, I will let stand.

Errors in judgment are less odious than errors in feeling although often more mischievous. The errors of my venerable subject are all of the head. That his heart is in the right place no keen and unfactiuus minded person wifi doubt. His affection for the Constitutionalists’ most wonderful red cat with whom, as already remarked he “runs in couples,” too often blunts the edge of his understsnding, and converts, or rather perverts, the calm judge into the passionate advocate. Often, indeed, during recent proceedings he was in danger of rather too clearly manifesting his partizan tendencies as did Chief Justice Pennefather when, summing up at [the “ Monster Trial” of O’Connell and his confederates, he unconsciously talked of arguments urged by “gentlemen on the other side.” Guarded in speech even to the point of punctiliousness when cool, my excellent subject sins against the law of politeness (which rightly understood is the law of justice) when hot. Bold even unto rashness, and honest enough to despise the “ quirk and quiddities” of common place lawyers, his legal decisions are not always reliable. Nothing, for example, could be bolder than his erection of a power within the Council greater than the Council itself a true imperium in imperio. Drawbacks notwithstanding he is the nearest approach to complete realization of my idea of a Fine old English gentleman, one of the olden time, that I have yet seen in this parr of the world. And nobody can deny that he has made a name in Provincial Political History. The great Duke, by Cockney little boys called Old Nosey, (whom in so many physical respects he much resembles) was thought a wonder, an example, and a moral. So is my venerable original, but in a sense, as well as on a scale, considerably less extensive. In small he is a wonder because highly toned, tolerably well educated, politicians

are hereabouts marvellously rare ; an example because he had the honest, if not prudent, audacity to assert what he deemed right in the teeth of powerful wrongdoers ; a moral because the lesson practicably exemplified in the various acts of his political life, may be summed up in the four words— Be just and good—which four words John Adams, in one of his letters to Thomas Jefferson, declared were the neat result of all his personal experience and sixty years hard reading.