Premiers came in thick and fast succession in those days, for there was
no small doing and undoing, and no little of general upturning when an
exclusively representative Assembly took the place of the "Crown"
system, in its preceding complete or subsequently still partial
condition. The Land Question was ever the chief difficulty, for, whereas
in previous times the people had been directed to conform themselves to
land laws, now the new fancy all was that the land laws should conform
to the needs of the people. Ministries rose and fell mainly on this
question. When the second time Premier, I think in 1860, Nicholson left
his name to a Land Act, as did O'Shanassy, Gavan Duffy, and others, and
there is a ringing of the changes even yet upon that fertile subject.
William Nicholson has passed to his rest, and Burns might have fitly
awarded him his high palm, "An honest man's the noblest work of God."
CHARLES HOTSON EBDEN, ESQUIRE.
"But I thought there was more in him than I could think."
--Coriolanus.
"Methinks there is much reason in his sayings."
--Julius Caesar.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The subject of this sketch
might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's
dulness, for he had a few odd ways, and a fertile turn for
epigrammatics, some of them not bad.
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