CENTENARIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4483, 2 August 1875, Page 5

CENTENARIES.

(From the' Australasian.) " Time hath, my lord, a wallet on his back In which he puts alms for oblivion." Siiakspere. WitMn the past lustrum, Scotsmen, English, and Inslimen have merged in the vast body of an Australian community in honoring the centenary of Sir Walter Scott. The fame of the author of "Waverley" had long been European. A Scotsman to the very marrow— Scottish in taste, in habits, and traditions, as by birth, rearing, studies, and pursuits—Sir Walter was, in addition, a thorough man of the world. He proved himself no less at home in the bowers of Cumnor and the moors of Derbyshire, in the park of Plessis and the Gierstein of S witzerland, than on the dark brow of the lofty Helvellin, the pass of Killiecrankie, and even the fearful swirl of the Boost of Somberg—than with the links of Forth, the crags of Arthur's Seat, or the wynds, closes, and (not least) the Tolbooth of his own native Edinburgh. A man of sense loves the home he enjoys and adorns ; but when he sallies forth to business or to society, he straightway puts on the cosmopolite, and keeps his household gods sacred. Our ideal aspirations and our cherished Utopias should be kept, like our wine, to mellow in secret security—our specialties of excellence and professional skill be reserved for and confined to their proper sphere ; but the man, directly he steps into car or boat, &c, should become forthwith an Aristippas, a cosmopolite. Such was Scott. And for this we revere his memory —for this union of the "idion" with the "koinosunon" — i.e., of the special originality race and character with genial universality, and with practical good sense. It is, perhaps, in such union that lies the charm of a centenary. A second tribute now invites the Australian lovers of freedom on the sth of August. Daniel O'Connell (like Scott) was of good family and tradition—he loved dearly his native land, of which his 'speech, his virtues, his enjoyments, his very failings were strongly redolent. "I believe yee, mee boys, I'm I-rrrish," was a favorite interjection of his in those stirring cataracts of eloquence addressed to his countrymen, to be numbered by the thousand, and I am told by the trustworthy that the vocal effect of its genial drollery was . simply inimitable, and to outsiders inconceivable. Neither an Irishman nor a Romanist, I rejoiced when Catholic emancipation effaced a blot from our legislation, when Wellington lived to achieve and to crown, in 182 S, that emancipation for which he had so earnestly pleaded in the Irish Parliament of 1791. But O'Connell, an Irishman and a patriot, was something more. He was a true friend of freedom. He supported the emancipation of the slave, and (if I mistake not) the recognition of the Jew. His powerful aid was given freely to Earl Grey for the passing of the Reform Act in 1860, and he knew how to assert both its independence and its value. " Well, O'Connell," asked a quidnunc of Regent-street, "and what position are you to have under the new Whig Ministry ?" "That of being allowed, sirr, to walk the streets without being pestered with impertinent questions," was the ready answer of the Milesian. "I, sir, and my friends and my confidents will freely, one and all, support the Reform Bill, not as partisans of Ministers, but as lovers of justice and freedom."

The heart of the cultured Irishman beats high within him as he learns the preparation for a tribute dear to his soul and gratifying to his patriotism. And while he disdains to invite others, he may not, perhaps, disown an inner glow of pleasure and pride, when Scotch and English come forward voluntarily to claim, as Australian cosmopolites, some slight property in the man. Paddy, while throwing out his " Hurrah for Dan," may, perhaps, at first deem the festival exclusive and sectarian. But when he hears the blended_Elauditsolj "Scbtcnniehref Cockneys, "and of Israelites, his i inherent love of jollity will make him all the prouder of his countryman, whom Catholics love as the Liberator of their fellow-wor-shippers, whom Englishmen honor as the emancipator of the slave, and whom Britons respect as the friend of the freedom of the man. For, I say with William Henry Curran ("Reminiscences of the Irish Bar"), there were three, perhaps four O'CohneUs. The Cleon of Clontarf I never heard—with the shrewd ready advocate I have but a traditionary acquaintance—the ready speaker, apt debater, and gentlemanly reasoner of the English House of Commons I have often, heard with

envy, delight, and despair. The leg of the elephant, according to the teachings of zoology, consists of three layers of osseous matter, which are curiously twisted to form a mass of strength. Or, to take a somewhat homelier simile, I should liken O'Connell to a boatswain's rattan, with its three distinct canes intertwisted and fastened at both ends. O'Connell had an aristocratic vein running through his character. He was not unconscious of his Milesian descent, though his native good sense prompted him to sink it in public, or to glance at it with a goodhumored wink and broad smile. As a lawyer, he loved system and justice—the truculent mob-orator was, in court, held in abeyance. The power and life were there, but the forces were differently apportioned, directed, and applied. He would have accepted the post of Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer Court had it been offered to him. Was it Roebuck or Wingrove Cooke that said : "The neglect to make him Chief Baron was a blunder quite unpardonable and irretrievable ?" Perhaps his life might have been thereby prolonged, and the gentler and wiser traits of his character have been drawn forth to shine with the novelty of their pleasing lustre on all his fellow-subjects, more especially on those at some distance—those who hitherto knew only his vigor, his humor, and his sarcasm, but had never enjoyed the charm of his genial conversation in social life. At Derrynane and Merrion-square, lory, Radical, Whig, Protestant,-or Mahometan, &c, were welcomed and made happy. One turnpike, indeed, you had to pay. No politics were to be even glanced at, not even the journals to be mentioned. Poetry, literature, fun, anecdote, &c, were welcome and as much of each as you like, but no politics. The nuulnuiic was out of his element. " I hayo a great mind," said the Liberator, "to write a novel. You smile. But what will you say when I tell you that I have one of the essential ingredients of a novelist ? Industry in early life has made me a good second-rate lawyer. Now, no one wholly ignorant of law can ever become a first-rate novelist. What makes Scott so easy to read, so natural ? His legal education. True, he liked it not, but its discipline is apparent in his every page. Observe how commonplace novelists transfer property, prove wills, pay debts, assert claims to titles ; nay, sometimes have the audacity to try prisoners, and even to follow them into their place of transportation. I would write a novel such as would be relished not only by Adolphus and by Thesiger, but even by Knight Bruce and by Sugden."

A party of young English ladies, on their way to Holyhead, were joined in the coach by a burly gentleman in green, with a sealskin cap over his brown wig. The racy os rotundum promised fun. But the cheery wit and literary taste of the gentleman fairly swamped their metropolitan fastidiousness. And it waß not till a right cordial farewell that they learnt they had enjoyed the gentler vein that underlay the giant strength of the Liberator of Ireland.

But his merits will be "hymned by loftier harps than mine." Centenaries are beneficial to the living as well as honorable to the dead. " It is not," aptly remarks the shrewd Paloy—"it is not what the Lord Mayor feels in his state-coach, but what the boy-apprentice feels who gazes on him, that benefits the general public."

Could O'Connell see and hear us, he might, perhaps, say, " Too niuch, too much." For he was sincerely and deeply religious. Still the young may learn much matter for serious reflection at that which stirs hearty bursts of enthusiasm in the" old. Where are the faults and failings of O'Connell? Gone, faded, even as the matches in the blaze of the midday son. Time, that great dia-illusionisa' (pardon the neologism) dissolves and crumbles into decay all that is petty, local, and mean, preserving only the memory of that which has the colors of greatness and the substance "of goodness. The Athenian cobbler criticised the sandal on the foot of the statue whose sublime proportions were destined to charm and elevate future generations, by whom the sandal is unheeded and the critic forgotten. And art thou dead ? Then so's all enmity. AH thy good rises—all thine evil's . . lost, is, perhaps, the finest of Young's lines in his well-known tragedy "The Kevenge." More can scarcely be said. When the voices of Australians shall blend in brave and lusty " Hurrahs" to the immortality of that liberty of which O'Connell was the champion—when Scotch and English races shall grasp the hands of Irishmen in* warm sympathy—when the aged feel that a microscope were necessary even to recall the carpings of his cleverest foe —and when the young hear from all lips and read on every page nought save eulogy and honor, what a cheery incentive to their manliness of character and to their energy of enterprise. Let them so live that time, while washing down to obliteration every trace of every fault, shall hallow with its own lustre, softening and sanctifying the perennial beauty whose strength defies its ravages, and which shall still live and radiate to sustain and dignify the laurels with which it is crowned by the loving hearts of the grateful, by the impartial justice of the intellectual, and from every English-speaking clime, by the warm sympathy of the good.