Plucky as a mastiff, high-blooded as a racer,
enterprising but reflective, cool, keen, and as composed as daring.
Few men talk less; few by manner and conduct suggest more. One
fault you will pardon, a tendency to overrate the writer of this
letter."
This gentleman, Mr. Birnie, is a son of the late Sir Richard
Birnie, so long an eminent police magistrate in London. At the
close of a lecture which he gave at Ballaarat on the 24th of May,
1862, subsequent to the disastrous intelligence of my son's death,
he introduced the following remarks, as reported in a colonial
paper:--
If amusement and gravity might be held compatible, they would
bear with him in pronouncing the name of William John Wills.
(Cheers.) The lecturer, when first in Melbourne, lived at a
boarding-house, and there he met Wills. Their friendship soon grew
and strengthened, in spite of the difference of their ages. Of the
man as a public explorer, everybody knew as well as he did.
Professor Neumayer said that Wills's passion for astronomy was
astonishing, and that his nights were consumed in the study. Yet
his days also were spent in enlarging his literary attainments.
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