PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 45, 3 October 1863, Page 1 (Supplement)

PARLIAMENTARY PORTRAITS.

MAJOR LILLYCRAP.

A gentleman of no mean parts, and my friend wrote some time since, in one of those wilfully smart articles, of which he has almost a monopoly, the following sentence :—« Majors in New Zealand, are, somehow or other, not in favor with miners} for majors generally are crotchetty old fogies, and we young go-a-head fellows have a down on them.'

But then my friend was writing ' with a pur. pose,' a thing I never do; moreover he woe not speaking of MY major. With this necessary caveat, I proceed to a new paragraph. My major did I say ? Rather the major of Otago! The finest old man in the Province! The representative idea of the genuine old stock, now unhappily almost as extinct and mythical, as the mastodon, the megatherium, or the moa! The courtly polish of Sir Charles Grandison, the rejuvenescent yivaciousness of Palmerston, the well-stored mind and sage experience of Lynd-

hurst, are all united in my major! To say that Major Lillycrap was not in favor with miners* would be not only to mis-state, but to understate a patent fact. The major is, at the present time) out and away one of the most popular men in the Province.

What then if one ' daily,' not very long ago* did write him out of a Superintendency, and another is frantically trying, at this moment, to ostracize him from a Speakership ? Well, Mr Smithereens knows more about both those matters than he cares to print. True, our major is already in the yellow leaf* but then I hope a little of the magna capitis Hverentia cam survives even in these degenerate days, and that all ' young go-a-head fellows' (as my witty friend has it) do Dot • think' all old fellows ' fools.' If they do, I have no alternative. X must commend to their attention the concluding clause of the apothegm. True, one scribe indicts him for his 'jauntyair* and , 4 subtle tongue.'

Jaunty enough! His biographer admits the soft impeachment for him. Lillycrap is no Atlas* bearing the weight of a world of unmerited censure : the shafts of impotent envy and malignant depreciation glance harmless from his crest. The present writer, then, records his cordial prepossession in favor of the subject of this sketch—-Major Lillycrap. Repose of manner and gentleness of gait are a great letter of re* commendation —and Lillycrap has them; an assured and tranquil tone of voice (a 'jaunty air' the paper calls it) is a great attraction—and he has that; perfect mastery of language, and a marvellous resiliency of oratorical resource distinguish the able from the maladroit speaker—and he has both of these high natural gifts* Lastly, having stepped into the thorny path of active life, he has been ever known as working hard as any day labourer in his literary seclusion j and his matchless industry, no less than his incorruptible integrity, have never failed to challenge the admiration of even political opponents* Why, then, let the ' Daily ' revile him \ our gallant veteran, like an old stager as he is, need never make any mistake in taking his journalistic physic, if he only takes the trouble to -——well, look at the label!

The present biographer, however, accords him of admiration the most unfeigned, of respeot the heartiest May the hand that traces these faltering lines always uphold the essential and vital truth that it is character which makes the man.

So, three cheers for Major Lillycrap ! and one cheer more, with as much Kentish fire and Devonshire enthusiasm as you like ! And may the day be far, far distant when we of this Province, referring to his memory, may point and say—

"He was a man! take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again." — Eitoning Star.