Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/68

 of his splendid intellect, with fame and fortune to achieve, and William Charles Wentworth, whose genius was quite as commanding, and perhaps more statesmanlike. After the return of Lowe to England and the retirement of Wentworth, it was inevitable that a man with the political instincts and combative attributes of Parkes should quickly come to the fore under the free constitution which Wentworth had devised for the colony.

Standing well over six feet in height, with his large leonine head, and huge shaggy locks now whitened by half a century of strenuous public life. Sir Henry Parkes presents a striking and commanding figure. Far from the fashion-plate type, either in face or form, this Australian, even when seen in the most aristocratic of London drawing-rooms, commands the glances of admiration; for his appearance is neither commonplace nor conventional, and in his manner there is no vestige of vulgarity. The man's mind too, distorted as it has often shown itself by the born politician's insatiable love of power and popularity, is in many respects large and even catholic in its aims and predilections. I have only to add that Sir Henry Parkes has been three times Prime Minister of