etiquette, promised to return thanks for both. When the Governor's speech for the closing of Parliament was being drafted, Mr. O'Shanassy proposed to introduce a paragraph thanking the committee on behalf of the Government of Victoria and the Corporation of Melbourne. I pointed out what a grotesque position the Government would occupy if the administration of the colony was bracketed with a Corporation of no capacity or importance. All our colleagues took part in the controversy, and the feeling was decidedly against the proposal. Mr. O'Shanassy, who considered himself committed to it, at length fiercely broke in with the statement that if the paragraph were not retained in the speech he would not remain in the Government. I replied that this was a summons to abject submission, and that I answered it by stating that if the paragraph were retained in the speech I would not remain. After a moment's pause I said, " As you are the head of the Government, it is my duty to give way, and I verbally offer my resignation, and I will retire and put it into writing. I immediately did so, and returned to my department to remove my private papers. In half an hour I was followed by Mr. Chapman, the Attorney-General, who came to express the unanimous wish of the Cabinet that I should return; they had induced Mr. O'Shanassy to withdraw the paragraph, and no more would be heard of it. Under these circumstances I returned, but the incident caused a silent alienation never altogether abated.
When my election was over and the business of the administration began, I was attacked with a fit of dysentery, which brought me to the very edge of the grave, and of which I find the following notice in my diary:—
"I have certainly endured all the pains of death in my last illness, having been left to die, and having expected and desired death. All things became indifferent to me, but the desire to make amends for any wrongs I had done. I have realised and perfectly remember the condition of lunacy, for the real and the imaginary had a place side by side in my memory, and I could not separate them. The plot of the last novel I had read mixed with the experience of my life inextricably; the events of the one holding their place as
