pursuits. Professionally, he was not a success, possibly because he preferred the editorial sanctum as a mental dissecting room for the cutting up of municipal or political adversaries, to the more orthodox operation on "bodies" elsewhere. Although he received a modicum of medical practice, he did not take to it as kindly as to the newspaper, the platform, or the hustings. He was a stipendiary free lance on all the old Melbourne newspapers. For a short time he edited the Gazette, but wrote much for the Herald. A man highly educated, and thoroughly posted on every subject-political, economical, physical, and scientific-with a facile pen, a tongue well attuned to all the poses of public speaking, and a taking, studied, declamatory style, Greeves was one of the ablest men of a bygone generation, and might have become the most prominent person of his time but for an instability of purpose, a shiftiness of disposition, and an overweening confidence in his own wisdom, which invariably ended in his either overdoing or undoing everything he took in hand. The weathercock that mechanically points how the winds blow, the straws whirled about on a blowy day, or the ripple on the water, was not more inconstant than he, and his thorough unreliability was soon found out. Still he was (in my opinion, not only one of, but) the best Mayor that ever filled the Civic Chair in Melbourne. The position he took in the City Council was invariably sustained by talent and intelligence; and he was ever foremost in the initiation of some project for the advancement of the City, an appeal to the Government to remove a glaring abuse, or to remedy an indefensible neglect. In all the early political movements Greeves was in the van, and he was the originator of the electioneering coup by which Earl Grey was returned as member for Melbourne to the New South Wales Legislature, which, though denounced at the time as not only unconstitutional, but verging on the revolutionary, was treated very differently by the Colonial Office, and expedited the Colonial Independence of Port Phillip more than years of commonplace agitation would have done. Returned to the Victorian Parliament, he once held office as Commissioner of Trade and Customs, but his career in Senate or Cabinet did not add to his reputation. He was one of the founders of our early Charities, and the principal planter in Victorian soil of that Oddfellowship which, like a Gargantuan tree, overshadows the land with its philanthropic branches, and which, whilst inculcating habits of thrift and self-reliance, scare the wolf from many an honest door in seasons of sickness and distress. Greeves, with all his peculiarities and shortcomings, should never be forgotten in the colony; for, though he might have done much more than he did for the land of his adoption (and most certainly for himself), he left good works behind him, the effects of which will be felt by future generations. He died, much regretted, 23rd May, 1874.
William Nicholson
Arrived in the colony in 1842, and carried on the business of a prosperous grocer for several years, in a small shop on the north side of Collins Street, between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets, and not many yards westward of where a half namesake of his (Germain Nicholson) till lately throve in the oldest grocery in Melbourne. He had the blunt, taking way with him of a plain, good-natured "John Bull," and was candid and free with everyone. Though, unlike Russell, he never wrote a book, still, like Russell's, his education smacked of imperfection; but, as with most men who are self-taught, Nicholson considered himself one of the cleverest fellows in the colony. He was honest-purposed, had a large fund of practical good sense, spoke neither too much nor too little, and soon came to be considered "somebody" in Latrobe Ward. Suffering from no lack of modesty, or of self-confidence, he quickly emerged from the crowd, and before his death attained to the high and honourable position of Premier of Victoria. He made a very fair Mayor, which office he held when the announcement of Separation arrived; and in the celebrations and rejoicings over that event, William Nicholson took, as became him, an active and foremost part. He passed the last few years of his life in the country of the Upper Yarra, and died in 1870.
John Thomas Smith,
The "septenary" Mayor, was inappropriately styled "the Whittington of Melbourne," for, in the facts and fictions related of both, he was very dissimilar to the munificent Sir Richard Whittington, "a citizen and
