A PARLIAMENTARY JESTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4342, 24 March 1882, Page 3

A PARLIAMENTARY JESTER.

Speaking of the laj* Bernal Oeborne, the World says :— lt is no injustice to the dead man to say that Mr Oaborne had outlived his reputation. That reputation was always greater than his merits, and if his name is remembered in the record of the parliamentary and social life of the nineteenth century, the recollection of it will be accompanied with a seatiment of surprise that a pereon who eaid and did so little .worthy of memory should have been so much in the mouths of his contemporaries. Bernal Osborne first appeared upon the public stage at a time when notoriety of tha sort he aimed at was not difficult to achieve. Life was then a leisurely affair. Society moved somewhat stiffly. It had its dandies, its exquisites, its fine ladies, and its wits. But the star of Theodore Hook had commenced to pale, and there was an opening for a jester who had neither respect for himself nor for the objects of his raillery. That position Bernal OaborF.o filled. Ho occupied it for about thirty years. If he had paseed away a decade since, his loss would have been felt; as it is, he will not be missed or regretted, except by a few members of his family. Latterly he had fallen into a somewhat lonely way of life. He dined at the Eeform Club in solitude ; and it was almost painful to witness him last summer at Ohantilly, wandering about the enclosure, the embodiment of isolated old age. Happily for himself, he went to spend Christmas with his son-in-law, the Duke of Sfc Albans. He was evidently quite broken when he arrived. He died from internal cancer, a malady which his medical attendant, Mr Nunn, had some time ago diagnosed. His end was extremely tranquil. He was haunted throughout his life by an extraordinary terror of death 5 yet the hand of death was no sooner upon him than the fear departed j and during the six hours before he expired he lay extremely weak indeed and motionless, but perfectly peaceful, perfectly conscious, and looking the great Deliverer in the face without, as he said, apprehemion or regret. Thu last words which he Bpoke were to the effect that dissolution had for him no sting. Even those who saw in Bernal Osborne little to admire and less to like will be pleased to know that his final moment* were calm and dignified. Tho world, on tho wholo, had treated him very well. It took him at his own valuation. He was a signal instance of what astute telf-confidenoe and pushing selfassertion, unfettered by ecruples or compunctions of any sort, can do. Much stress has been laid upon his cleverness and quiokness Bincehis death. He possessed, doubtless, both qualities ; nor is it surprising, seeing that he hsd acquired the impudenoe of the Irishman, and had inherited the shrewdness of the Jew. But when a future generation is told that the elegant oxtraotß from the wit and humour of Bernal Osborne, which have appeared during the last few days in the newspapers, were the things that once set the House of Commons in a roar, will it not wonder with how little fun that assembly was amused? If one eliminates the mere impertinence, audacity, and self-assurance from M* Bernal Osbome's jests, there will be found the smallest possible residuum of humour or of wit. He had no delicate gift of_ irony or of satire, no power of rhetorical invective, no power of sudden and overwhelming sarcasm. His best jokes smelt too much of the lamp. They were not only elaborated to a painful degree, but were far from being first-rate in themselves. It was the presence and the manner of the speaker which carried them off. Bernal Osborne was a decidedly personable man. There were also a drollery in his appearance and a mock gravity in his manner whioh pleased the House of Commons. His jokes will not bear critical examination or even perusal. For their effect they wore largely indebted to quotation, and the quotations were of the moßt hackneyed kind. One of the best known of what are called his good things was the feigned inadvertency which caused him to address the House of Commons instead of the Speaker. "Gentlemen," he said ; and then, when the uproar which interrupted him had subsided, he added, " I suppose you are gentlemen," a remark whioh, of course, elicited a renewal of the tumult. Upon this he turned round to the Speaker, and apologieed for "the inexperience of the Housj which had betrayed him into speaking of it in such terms." This is a fair specimen of Bernal Osborno's parliamentary mots. He was always aggressive and impudent, and more than once Lord Palmorston caused him to feel that ho was ineffective as well. On a well-known occasion Mr Osborne, conscious that he had gone a little too far, sont an apologoLic message to Palmerston. " fell him," was tho characteristic reply, " that lam not in the least offended, the more particularly because I think I had the best of it." Some yea-s later Mr Osborne told the Whig Cabinet of Lord John Busseli that their meaßures were rickety for physiological rea» sons, becaußO tho members of the Government were nearly related. Men who deal in this sort of smartnef s mußt expect now and again to be paid baok in their own coin. Bitter and severe as were many of the things which Mr Osborne said of, and to, others, he never said anything bitterer or severer than was ones said to him by the late Mr Cookesley. Cookesley was a more or less intimate acquaintance of QabornVa during many years ; but his fortunos were just then under a cloud, and it was not Mr Osborne's habit to recognise f/ionds in advertity. He therefore gave Mr Cookesley the cut direct. A few days afterwards the old Eton master was walking with Cockburn, and Osborne, after having saluted the Lord Chief Justice effusively, turned to Cookeeley with great cordiality. But Oookesloy was r.Qfc the man to stand this sort of thing. He drew binwelf up to his full height, which was not very grea^ and put his arms behind his back. "Do you think," he said, "my hand is a glove, to be put on and off a Jew's fingers whenever he ohooaes ?" This was the only way of treating Bernal Osborne. He Bpared neither man nor woman, if it suited the purposes of his pleasantry to make them ridiculous or uncomfortable; and tome twenty years ago at a country house in Galway he convulsed a mixed audience by reading aloud the letters of two young ladies — his relationship to whom should have scoured them immunity from his satire— with a cruelly grotesque running commentary.