Colony. Sir George Bowen is worried past endurance here just now by the "wealthy lower orders" who hate him for being friendly to the masses; or their leaders, the existing Government. When you change, change if you can to Ceylon. You talk of the H——s coming here to you, when you reach Australia. Do you know that the Governor cannot appoint a policeman; has, in fact, no patronage but his own staff, consisting of a military aide-de-camp and a private secretary, and sometimes both offices are combined. You could not give H—— any employment by which he could live. Had you come here for a political career, you would have had a brilliant one, I have no doubt, but to reign and not to govern is a triste métier. Return to London and Parliament as soon as you can C'est mon avis).
When I am relieved from office by the dissolution of this Parliament, I will go back to the old world. Not to return to the House of Commons—I will never go there—but to live among great thinkers, and great transactions.
My friend replied:—
Government House, Hong Kong, July 20, 1878.My dear Sir Gavan,—You are right about the "cycle of Cathay," and though you are farther from it than I am, we are both as far as we can well be from Europe. But you must return to great thinkers and transactions, not as you say out of the House, but as the Irish Leader in Parliament. You once gave me a word of encouragement to republish my little sketch of the Literature of the Young Ireland Party. I am thinking of doing so now, and perhaps, if justice is to be done to the theme, it should be expanded into a volume.
Thomas Davis and yourself must be the leading characters; and therefore its value and permanent interest would be much increased if you could give me any letters, scraps, or unpublished facts about the early literary development of yourself and Davis. From the age of twelve and during my boyhood, I was a student of the Nation and of Disraeli's works. Those dear little volumes that your namesake printed, and the prophetic political novel, were my companions in the bohreens about Cork when Father Michael O'Sullivan said I was neglecting the classics in the Mansion House School. No doubt you are answerable for the gross ignorance of Greek that thousands of other boys of that generation in Ireland got involved in. But though I am sometimes ashamed of it, I am well satisfied with the cause, and would not exchange my national sympathies for the scholarship of Gladstone—Always yours,
Pope Hennessy.
In reply to his request for literary aid I said:—
If you expand your lecture into a volume, or better still into two articles for the Fortnightly, and then into a volume, I can give you letters and other materials. I have written the first volume of a big book on the same subject but I will not publish until I can return to Europe, so that you can have the first innings. I have all the private correspondence of the period on public affairs, and it will be a pleasure to share with you.
Among my many correspondents none was so welcome as my lifelong friend Lord O'Hagan:—
