intellectual brilliancy, and marvellous vitality, can only be explained in the splendid phrase of Mr. Joseph Cowen, by his "Idolatry of the Immediate." Sir Thomas is a successful and vigorous colonist, of a rude and self-willed character. But he is, after all, of a manly type—springing from the yeomanry of Ayrshire, the birth-place of Robert Burns, and I am satisfied that he could never consciously "play to the gallery" without deep inward shame and self-mortification.
I have no doubt that the admirers of that distinguished ornament of the House of Commons, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, will be considerably outraged by any comparison between one of his royal lineage—the grandson, too, of an Archbishop—with his brilliant academical and legal attainments, and his cultivated capacity for persiflage, and a rude colonial Premier, angling for the support of a disloyal section of the community. From my point of view, any apology for the comparison is entirely due to Sir Thomas M'Ilwraith. As for Sir William Vernon Harcourt, his archiepiscopal descent no longer overawes me, for I have seriously come to regard his political existence as the strongest argument that can be adduced in favour of the
