on the proof of the cover sent to me. I asked my colleagues to place above it the name of Sir Redmond Barry, the President of the museum and gallery, and Sir Redmond acknowledged the courtesy with effusion:—
Carlton Gardens, Melbourne.My dear Sir Charles,—I am very sensible of the compliment which you and the Committee of the National Gallery propose to pay me, as well as of the mode in which it is conveyed.
I accept your offer with pleasure as an expression of good feeling. It renders truly enjoyable to me the performance of the duties which we perform in common as administrators of the great institution, the affairs of which we have the honour to conduct.—Believe me to be, my dear Sir Charles, yours very faithfully,
Redmond Barry.August 27, 1873.
From the Press I had received the ordinary party support, and more than the ordinary party opposition, but I recall with pleasure that one able and original journalist followed each public transaction in which I was engaged with a wise, generous, and sympathetic commentary; the sort of commentary which, infinitely more than unmeasured praise, strengthens and encourages a public man. The writer never made himself known to me while I was in the exercise of power, and when I returned to the freedom of Opposition I thanked him for his liberal and unselfish co-operation. The writer was Mr. A. L. Windsor, author of a volume of essays, which, long before I knew who was the writer, I noted in my diary as exhibiting "the luminous style, the wide knowledge, and governing sense which distinguish Macaulay."
In acknowledging my letter Mr. Windsor said:—
It was a sublime puzzle to me how my brethren on the Press of Melbourne could have conspired to have delivered over into the hands of the British Philistine the only politician who ever attempted to infuse sweetness and light into the dull, confined, parochial, commonplace spirit of colonial statesmanship.
Unpleasant news came to me over the Sydney border. A controversy had sprung up between Parkes and Butler, in which, though I think neither of them was altogether in the right, Parkes was decidedly most to blame. The Chief-Justiceship at this time became vacant, and he had offered it to the Attorney-General, who accepted. After a time, how-
