VICTORIAN LETTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5529, 16 December 1878, Page 3

VICTORIAN LETTER.

\ (fkoh odb owji correspondent.) Melbourne, December 4.

Tha date, when the almanac is consulted, will be found to coincide with the birthday of Thomas Carlyle, 1795. Four score and three years is a good long time to spend here in the “ midst of the Immensities," as ho would describe our little planet. Thomas has had the mighty privilege of teaching the teachers of men these fifty years. If the old man could now be persuaded to leave, like Goethe, his reminiscences of the hundreds of great men who have figured in the literary world since 1820, he wonld be but extending the chart of intellectual progress drawn up by his great friend in the Dichtung und Wahrheit, and nobody who has compared his graphic painting of men 'with the watery descriptions usually found in histories, can doubt that he would produce a gallery e£ portraits second to none ever yet given to the world. His personal influence must now, however, be on the decline, and looking round for his successor, I am reminded that I also was born on the 4th of December. Carlyle taught in a school at the age of 23. So did I. He grew tired of hearing juveniles assert that two and three are seven and a half, and launched out into writing for periodicals, only to find people asserting in morals and politics propositions equally far from the truth. I gave up school-mastering when, after a clear year’s drilling of a class in English grammar and pronunciation, I found five out of six saying, “ I seen the man wot done it,” and reading a line of poetry thus— And ’ere ’e 'ung 'his ’orn on 'igh. Putting this and that together, I too decided to lannch out into literature, and I look forward hopefully to catching a certain mantle, all other things being equal. The discussions on the Embassy scheme still rage, the only new feature being that two will have the spending of £SOOO instead of one. Every third man in the Legislature has proposed a new constitution for the country. The Upper House has sent down a sort of ultimatum of what they are prepared to concede, and the Government announce that the ultimatum is not only no concession, but is really a claim for further powers. Everybody is thoroughly sick of this constitution mongering when they see measures affecting large interests hung up indefinitely, whilst Ministers pose before the country as men pledged to see through a mighty work. I see by your latest files that yom- next Parliament is to be turned into an arena for similar purposes. You are to have a great “ fight ” with your Upper Chamber. Happy the country that has nothing of so pressing national importance but that time can be spared for working up class feuds, and thereby affording the professional politician a show in the battle of life. The later debates have maintained the character, justly deemed native to Victoria, of highclass politioaloratory. One sturdy Oppositionist has especially recalled the beat days of Athenian eloquence, and rendered hopeful the rise in these southern lands of an eloquence hitherto deemed impossible to any but a Burke, a Pitt, or a Canning. The Chief Secretary has the misfortune to be rigged out with a pair of legs like pipe stems—the brain having evidently monopolised the vital forces. This member of the Opposition recently, at a late hour of the night, called the attention of Parliament to the unsatisfactory support accorded by nature to the trunk of the Premier. He urged this as another reason why Mr. Berry should not proceed to England as a representative of Victorian manhood. On another occasion a certain talkative member of the Ministerial party advanced a statement, when one of the Opposition straightway requested him to “ get up on his long legs” and make good his assertion. As the hon. member addressed stands barely 6ft. above the level of the sea, whilst Graham Berry is not notably short, it will at once appear that future aspirants for Parliamentary honors will have to bestow some attention on their stature, and especially on the contour of the lower limbs, if they wish to make their mark in this Legislature. These high-class hometbrnsts made a profound impression on a legislator from New South Wales who happened to be present, and he is said to have made the remark that his own antics in the New South Wales Parliament were altogether behind the age, and that he had yet much to learn. The hon. gentleman’s own weakness is to swear, and threaten what he will do when he “ collars ” his opponent outside the House. The outlawry of the Kelly gang of robbers empowers anyone to shoot them down without calling on them to surrender. An acquaintance who has had considerable dealings with the Ten Lost Tribes, and who now finds him. self unable to pay even the interest on the shent per Bhent loans, told me last week he had hit upon a plan which would release him from the Israelitish yoke. He proposes to get a rifle, and give out that ho is off after the Kellys for the £SOO reward. A confederate is to invite Naphthali, Gad, and Ephraim to a little picnic in the country. As they ait eating sandw——, no not sandwiches, but mince-pie, the crack of a rifle is to be heard, and then two revolver shots, and a claim is to be sent in at once for the reward. That’s what he calls killing three vultures with one stone.