PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5938, 19 February 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

PASSING NOTES.

(From Otago .Witness.)

Dickens, with a moral fitness which everybody recognises, makes Mr Micawber take up his final quarters in Australia. ■There was scope for Mr Micawber's airy and expansive financial genius in the New World; there was none in the Old. To Dickens, and the readers of Dickens, Australia stood for a region where enterprise was not necessarily hampered by want of capital, and where a speculator of optimist temperament might, without unreason, count on the eventuality of "something turning up." In his native haunts Mr Micawber's operations were always paralysed by that fatal want of capital. Speaking of her visit with her husband to bhe Medway, Mrs Micawber remarked: "My opinion of the coal trade on that river is, that it may require talent^ but that it certainly requires capital. Talent Mr Micawber has ; capital Mr Micawber has not." Talent when combined, as in Mr Micawber, with a total want of capital and a singular incapacity for obtaining it, has always had a vocation for the colonies, and accordingly the Micawbers are despatched to Australia. New Zealand would have eerved the novelist's purpose as well; but New Zealand was little thought of thirty years ago, and we have imported our Micawbers later, and under other names. Mr Macandrew won't take it ill, I'm sure, if I avow that what has led me ; to this Micawber reminiscence is his recent letter to the University Council. Forty thousand pounds—no more, and no less—is; what Mr Maoandrew recommends the Council to expend in creating a Public Library. Where are they to get the money from—? Nothing easier responds Mr Macandrew ; capitalise your rent from Barewood, and the thing is •clone.^ Now this idea of /"capitalising ".— that is, selling —the rent of a sheep run for forty thousand down, strikes me as conceived in Mr Micawber's best style— particularly when I remember that said Bheep run, as Mr Macandrew himself suggeßts, may be resumed by the Government at any time. Tall: of financial kiteflying—thin is financial ballooning. It iB asjthought Mr Macandrew, when asked where the forty thousand was to come from, had said, Oh, sign a big bill for it, and then thank God that Hud's off your mind ! How came Mac to hit on exactly forty thousand- pounds—neither more nor less ? I can't tell, unless because forty thousand is a fine round Micawberish figure, which Bounds well in an estimate. It imparts an air of careless magnificence exactly suited to the proposals of a financier with talent but without capital. Forty thousand pounds, unleas I am; mistaken, was the cost of the palatial Post Office erected under the Macandrian ancien regime, a building subsequently assigned through Mr Macandrew's influence for University purposes, found unsuitable, and sold for something over twenty thousand. Absit omenl

_ Revolving in my mind the constitutional bearings of that tragi-comic event, the expulsion of the Parnellites, I begin to ace in it- something very momentous. I : rather fancy it amounts to a revolution. It is commonly said that majorities mußt rule, and that the ruling power in England ia the will of the majority. That I deny. The ruling power in England is the will of the majority tempered by the influence of the minority. The Opposition : is "Her Majesty's Opposition," and an integral part of the constitutional machine] A minority that can neither carry nor reject a measure may very materially modify it.. English legislation is a series of compromises due to the necessity of conciliating minorities. If you are in a minority you make yourself a nuisance, and something has to be given to you to keep you quiet. Your right to make yourself a nuisance was recognised by the Constitution and protected by the forms of the_.Housa. _In availjnz jrnnrßoif..o£-ifc_b y _ boonooing tneMJuister, interrupting him by hisßes and " ironical cheers," talking againat time, and moving innumerable amendments, you were simply doing your duty in that station of life to which it had pleased Providence to oall you, and helping to carry on the Government of the country. Such has been the timehonoured British Constitution. But all that is changed. An hon. member's sacred right of interruption has been rudely confiscated, he will not be permitted to make himself a nuisance any longer than the Minister thinks will suffice to keep up appearances, and, if he persists, will be tapped on the shoulder by the Sergeant-at-arms and invited to accompany that functionary to the regions of outer darkness below the bar. The ohange may be a salutary one, or it may not; in either case it is a coup d'etat and a revolution. In England the power of expelling minorities will be exercised, I daresay, with discretion, and only in extreme emergencies. But fancy what may happen in the Colonies ! I learn . from a biographical notice of Sir George Grey in a Sydney paper that the great proconsul has " stamped Liberalism on the very heart of New Zealand." If that is so I suppose we shall soon see his return to power at the head of a Liberal majority, and armed with the new power of expulsion. Does anyone believe he wouldn't use it ? What we may look for. in the near Parliamentary future is a decree of the House setting forth that, in order to facilitate the public business, the Halls, Atkinsons, together with other oligarchs and landsharks, are relegated to their homes for the remainder of the Session.

A not unfriendly critic informs me that he disputes altogether my estimate of Carlyleasthe "greatest writer of English " in the century. Be it so. Questions of taste are not arguable, and my judgment must be taken quantum valeat. On the sound principle that comparisons are odious, I ought to have avoided, in my passing elor/e of Oarlyle, the attempt w> distinguish the greatest amongst the half dozen names I quoted, all of which are great. It would have been better had I imitated the modesty of the theological student, who, being required in an examination to specify the greater and the lesser Prophets, answered that he objected to make invidious distinctions. The mention of prophets helps me to a definition of Carlyle's literary style. It is the style of a Hebrew prophet, subinfused with humour. The combination is peculiar, indeed it is unique ; it has been made ridiculous as travestied by imitators and parodists. All this I allow, yet it remains that, in the hands of the master himself, Oarlylese is the most vigorous, piquant, picturesque English prose that ever was written. The salt of humour runs through it all, through pathos and sternness, the most dignified and the most familiar passages, yet strangely enough, suits all moods equally, and gives point to the specific quality of each. When your palate has once recognised the pleasant puDgency of the true Carlylean humour there is nothing like it. On this subject I am a mere devotee, and make no useless pretence of judicial discrimination. Carlyle subjugated and enslaved me long ago. Macaulay's prim staccatoed antithesis, De Quincey'a rolling word-fugues, have their own wonderful merits, but when I hear these writers exalted as masters of English style above my own idol I comfort myself by one of his otvn sage reflections, My countrymen are thirty millions—mostly fools.

Apropos alike of Carlyle and the Parnellites, I transfer to Passing Notes two extracts from T. C.'s " Cromwell," describing "Pride's Purge," and Cromwell's •dismissal of the Rump. They are the only two events in English History in any sort of parallel with the catastrophe of the Home Rulers, and one has a melancholy pleasure in recalling, in the style of the narrative, the touch of a vanished Jiand and the sound of a voice that is still,

—Parliament, on some important question (matters not what), having persistently voted awry, and having finally settled it wrong by 129 to 83, there happens the famous State-stroke known thence and onwards a3 —

pride's purge—(l64B.)

Wednesday, Gth December, ' Colonel Rich's ' regiment of horse and Colonel Pride's regiment 'of foot were a guard to the Parliament; and ' the City Train bands were discharged' f t ota that employment. Yes, they were! Colonel Rich's horse-stand ranked in Palace yard, Colonel Pride's foot in Westminster Hail and at all entrances to the Commons House, this day: and in Colonel Pride's hand is a written list of names, names of the ohief among the Hundred-and-twenty-nine; and at his side is my Lord Grey of Groby, who, aa this Member after that comes up, whispers or beokons, "He is one of them; he cannot enter!" And Pride gives the word, "To the Que3n's Court;" and Member after Member is marohed thither, Forty-one of them this day; and kept there in a state bordering on rabidity, asking, By what Law P and ever again, By what law ? . . .At evening the distraoted Forty-one are marohed to the Duke's Tavern h»rd-by, a ' Tavern called Hell,' and very imperfectly accommodated for the night . . ■ Among whom we count little Clement Walker ' in his gray suit with his little stick,' asking in the voice of the indomitablest terrier or Blenheim cooker, " By what law ? I ask again) By what Law ?" Whom no mortal will ever be able to answer. Suoh is the far. famed purging of the House by Colonel Pride.

the rump—(l6sß.)

"Come, gome!" exqlaims my Lord-General (Cromwell) in a very high key, "we have had enough of thia," —and in fact my Lord General, now blazing up into clear conflagration, exclaims, " I will pat an end to your prating," and steps forth into the floor of the House, and ' olapping on hiß hat,' and occasionally ' stamping the floor with his feet,' begins a discourse which no man can report! He says - Heavens! he is heard saying: "Itis not fit that yon should sit here any longer! Yon have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately. You shall now give place to better men!" " Call them in 1" adds he briefly, to Harrison, in word of command; and some .twenty or thirty grim musketeers enter, with bullets in their snaphances; grimly prompt for orders; and stand in some attitude of Carry-arms there. Veteran men; men of might and men of war, their faces are as the faces of lions, and their feet are swift as the roes upon the mountains ; not beautiful to honorable gentlemen at this moment. " You call yourselves a Parliament," oontinues my Lord-General . . .1 say you are no Parliament! Some of you are drunkards, &c, &0., &o. . . Depart, I cay, and let us have done with you, In the name of God, —go!" The House is of course all on its feet, uncertain almost whether not on its head : Such a scene as was never seen before in any House of Commons. History reports with a shudder that my Lord- General, lifting the sacred Mace itself, said, " What shall we do with this bauble P Take it away !"—and gave it to a musketeer. . . . Such was the destructive wrath of my Lord General Cromwell against the Nominal Bump Parliament of Bnghnd, Wrath whioh innumerable mortals sinoe have accounted extremely diabolic; whioh some now begin to account partly divine. Divine or diabolic it is an indisputable faot; left for the commentaries of men. The Bump Parliament has gone its ways; and truly, ex. cept it be in their own, I know not in what eyes are tears for their departure. They went very softly, softly as a Dream, say all witnesses. " We did not hear a dog bark at their going!" asserts my Lord-General elsewhere.

Mr Stout has apparently been perpetrating a grim after-dinner joke, Unless he is belied by those confounded reporters, he proposed at the banquet to Judge Williams the following toast :— " ' Our unfortunate clients,' without which the cost and mechanism of the Supreme Court and the whole legal profession as a body, from the Judge down to the Usher, would have no end or aim of existence.' Therefore, long live criminals, and down with morals. Very neat, Mr Stout; it reminds one of a ghastly picture in one of G. P. R. James' works of the undertakers in the plague year assembling convivially amidst all the grimly suggestive paraphernalia of their trade to "drink the plague," for by it they lived. So lawyers live by crime, Mr Stout, do they ? And their " unfortunate clients" deserve special recognition and encouragement on that account. "They all are jolly good fellows", and their health was drunk on the occasion referred to with all the honours. Of course it was all a joke, but it was a two-edged one. If I were ill natured, which everyone "Knows'tliat "Civis" is not, rtnight sug-" gest that when men live by crime, and know it, they won't be very anxious to diminish crime ; it will at least be some consolation to lawyers when crime increases that their gains increase with it, as did the gains of the undertakers by the virulence of the plague. As to these •" unfortunate clients " I may remind my readers of the story told of a oertain young advocate who at his first trial hesitated a good deal how to begin his case. "My Lori," said he, "my unfortunate client—my un-for-tu-nate client,' my lord—my lord, my un-for-tu-nate client." " Go on, Mr So-and-so," said the judge, the Court is with you so far." Similarly, my readers will no doubt be with Mr Stout in talking of his clients and those of the profession generally as " unfortunate." How far their misfortune is increased by falling into the hands of men who indulge themselves in after-dinner jokes like the above I must leave my readers to judge. One account, I ccc, speaks of the toast as having included "crimes," but as I hear Mr Stout disowns that, it's only fair to give him the benefit of the doubt; otherwise, the joke would have been very grim indeed.

Herr Bandmann's raptures on the occasion of his benefit were natural in the , circumstanoes, but decidedly amusing. We have given Bandmann good houses, have enjoyed his acting, filled his purse. He departs from us, as he Baid, " with honour and money." Naturally Herr Bandmann ia delighted with us, and thinks us to be reckoned amongst the finest people in the world. We are generous, hearty, full-souled. We have amongst us "gentlemen of education, scholars, Shakespearian men," who have written such admirable criticisms—"not only criticisms, but essays " —on Herr Bandmann's performances that he has been " proud " to send hundreds of the papers containing them " to scholars and friends all over the world." Not only are we a wonderful people, but we live in a wonderful place :—

You know very wfll (this is no fUttery) that your town is oae of the most beßutifal in the world. In faofc, I prophesy that the time is not far distant when this will be the reßorfc of touristo from Anatralia and Europe,'who will travel to see the grandeur of the place. I have travelled in Italy, Switz rland, and other oonntries, but I have seen nowhere grandeur so beautiful as I have seen around your enlightened, hearty, and full-souled town.

" I have to repeat," continued the grateful actor. " that this is not blarney." Oertainly not. It was not blarney, but simply great ingenuousness, and a striking illustration of the fact that a man may be a great actor and remain as simple-hearted as a child. Bandmann spoke as he felt, but, unfortunately for our self-conceit, the copy of the Daily Times which reports his speech gives also the impressions of another visitor who doubtless spoke as he felt. This is Mr " Arthur Sketchley," a renegade clergyman named Rose, who some time ago peregrinated New Zealand in the vain endeavour to attract its public to an original entertainment entitled "Mrs Brownat the Play." Not succeeding with his entertainment, Mr Rose naturally found our town 3 (Dunedin included) "little better than brick-fields," and our hotels dens of infamy with " drunken wretches lying in and about the doors like swine." Our merchants he discovered to be for the most part fraudulent bankrupts, and observed that the people went about with a "depressed air" which "mystified" him until it was explained by the fact that " the inhabitants of New Zealand in general were in a state of chronic insolvency." Look on this picture and qn that! There is a great deal of human nature in both of them—that is, I mean, in the artists who drew them. Eich of them has ingenuousfy reported what he saw, or thought he saw. The difference in the result is due to the circumstance that Herr Bandmann has been propitiated by kindness, the other man jaundiced by neglect.

Very few people, I suppose, who 'see the actor strutting his hour upon the stage have .any adequate. u notion of the

labour, study, anxiety, that are essential to the success of a great histrionic artist, such as undoubtedly Herr Bandmann is. In the speech quoted above Bandmann referred incidentally to the fact that his company during their short Dunedin seasonhad played " some twenty odd pieces." Some twenty odd pieces, the whole of which the leading actors must have carried in their heads, represent a bulk of dramatic literature equal to about one half the writings of Shakespeare. Fancy the labour of becoming word-perfect in one half of Shakespeare ! Any amateur who has tried to master a single part in a single play will know that the mere memory-work of an actor must mean incessant toil, and the memorywork is by no means the most trying part of his labours. In " The Actor Abroad," by Edmund Leathes, there is an amusing story which illustrates the difficulty of getting up in a part. In Melbourne Mr Leathes met with an amateur who was very anxious to play the part of Lennox in "Macbeth.'' The longest speech in this part is one of eight lines only ; but they seem to be sufficient to cause the collapse of any inexperienced person who tries to deliver them. This particular amateur forgot everything after the first line, " The night has been unruly," and when he came to the end, which stands thus in Shakspeare—

the obscure bird Clamoured the livelong night; some say, the earth! Was feverous, and did shake—

he deemed it best, or perhaps found it necessary, to substitute a new reading of his own :—

The owl sat up on the top of the roof. In fact, my lord, not a soul in the castle closed a wink. Few people work harder or better deserve any reward in coin or kudos that may come to them than successful actors.

An Invercargill correspondent writes to " Oivis " as follows :—

My Dear Sir,—Several friends of mine here are sorely exercised at the thought that you are a "Jesuit"—(don't laugh.) How they have arrived at this I know not, but their Presbyterian noses have scented out heresy in your "Passing Notes" for some time back, and their suspicions have become absolute certainties now that they have read your remarks re the " character-book" in your issue of the sth February. It was of no avail my telling them that, like Artemus Ward, you were indulging in " sarka?m." They are all Scotchman, so cannot see through a joke.

I am aware that it is contra bonos mores to aak any individual what his religious persuasion is'; but I could not stand and hear such an accusation sgainßt you pass uncontradicted, so I just bet these Scotties six bottles of whisky that you were no follower of I. Loyola—in fact, that you were too broad a thinker and too liberal in your views to belong to any particular sect. —Yours truly,

A. S. I will not be bo unkind as to ask a fa Sydney Smith why my correspondent did not add the other sto his name. I would rather satisfy his friend's curiosity, though he admits in a P.S. that the question is an extremely impertinent one. My answer is the same as Dickens' hon. member for Verbosity, who, when questioned by a little Baptist tailor as to his principles replied, with withering scorn, "The gentleman asks me my principles ; my principles are hearths and homes, and not mosques and Mahommedanism." Hoping this response will be entirely satisfactory to my friend A. S. and 7us friends, —I remain, theirs sincerely, Civis.