John Morrison Davidson

“ For his is an exceedingly strong and healthy nature, as little prone to succumb to the enervating influences of prosperity as to the prostrating blows of adversity,—a true Samson Agonistes, whose locks, however closely shorn by unlucky chance, were bound to grow some day and somehow. His intellect is characterized by a vigor that is almost redundant, a tenacity of purpose that turns not back, and a personal courage curiously combined with caution, which it would be exceedingly difficult to match inside or outside of Parliament. ”

“ Men cast in such a big mould as Mr. Fawcett are almost inevitably democrats. The mere gaudium certaminis of politics is life for them. With culture and honesty of purpose such as the Cambridge professor possesses, robust, hearty natures of this stamp make the most trustworthy Radical politicians. They have what is so necessary for political life, "staying power." They do not despair of progress because for a time there is an ebb in the popular tide. ”

“ There are always clever people ready to demonstrate that untoward calamities, which do not happen to themselves, are somehow blessings in disguise. Are you lamed for life? So much the better for you. Is there not thus effected an immense saving of shoe-leather? For the future you are independent of shoemakers. ”

“ Fawcett's ideas may be described as ultra-individualist in their tendency. He is an "administrative Nihilist," who believes that government is at best a necessary evil, and that the less the people have of it, and the more they are left to seek their own happiness in their own way, the better for them. In a country like Germany, with its autocracy on the one hand and its socialism on the other, he would be between the upper and the nether millstone, and would assuredly, politically speaking, be speedily pounded to atoms. ”

“ Fawcett's habitual mood is cheerful, even to mirthfulness. He has escaped being a mere athlete by becoming a scholar; and it is pretty certain, that, if he had not been a philosopher, he would have been a demagogue. ”

“ At this moment an Indian bankruptcy stares us in the face, with all its terrible consequences. The limit of taxation has been reached, while the expenditure of the administration is unlimited as ever. ”

“ It went to prove, incredible as it may appear, that the portals of the "rich man's club" at Westminster may be successfully forced at the cost of a few hundreds by candidates at once poor and honest, if only they have the requisite faith and ability to make the venture. In 1863 Mr. Fawcett contested the borough of Cambridge on the same principles that he had found to answer so unexpectedly well in Southwark. ”

“ Henry Fawcett, M.P., was born in the neighborhood of Salisbury in the year 1833. His father, Alderman Fawcett of Salisbury, was born at Kirby Lonsdale in 1793, and is now consequently in his eighty-sixth year; and a haler old gentleman or more resolute Radical it would be difficult to find in all England. He came to Wiltshire from Westmoreland in his youth, and, after engaging for some time in trade, betook himself to the more congenial occupation of a gentleman farmer. His energy and intelligence as an agriculturist were conspicuous ”

“ The blind Postmaster-General is recognized by all parties in the House as a speaker of decided mark, and his vote is always to be weighed as well as counted. He entered the legislature with a body of well-defined principles, and he has stuck to them manfully through evil and through good report. ”

“ It was impossible, however, that such a man should long be excluded from the legislature. In two months' time a vacancy occurred in the representation of the vast metropolitan constituency of Hackney, and the eyes of the Liberal electors were at once turned with one accord towards Mr. Fawcett. He was elected without difficulty; his great services to India, and his persistent opposition to all encroachments on Epping Forest and the New Forest, weighing heavily in his favor in the electoral balance.
In Parliament Mr. Fawcett's career has been one of no ordinary success. ”

“ He has always been in comfortable circumstances, thanks to a provident father and his own exertions; but rather in the sense that his wants have been few and legitimate, rather than that his income has been large. ”

“ His family were neither rich nor poor, but in that "just middle" state which neither suggests to the youth that exertion is superfluous, nor inflicts on him the labor of acquirement as an unavoidable drudgery. ”

“ George Odger's committee in Southwark, when that republican artisan statesman was so near obtaining a well-merited seat in the legislature of his country.
In theory Mr. Fawcett is himself a republican; but his practice, alas! has not always squared with his principle. But it is as the "member for India" that Mr. Fawcett's name will be handed down to posterity. ”

“ Physically he is a picture of health and strength, one of the tallest men in the House, with long sinewy limbs and that peculiar poise about the shoulders suggestive of a leonine bound, which is generally observable in persons of extraordinary intrepidity of character. ”

“ He has strong natural affinities for the "unwashed" multitude. "March without the people," he would say with Ledru Rollin, "and 30U march into night: their instincts are a finger-pointing of Providence, always turned towaids real benefit." ”