When "The Settlement" began, and when, like the pre-Judges time in Israel, every man did as he pleased, the inevitable inconvenience of that ultra-radical paradise led the small community to seek out a male Deborah, and, with one accord, they made choice of James Simpson, their early fellow-emigrant in the tide from Launceston. Had there been even a much larger society, the choice would probably have been as surely the same, for it would have been difficult indeed to find anyone, who, in the grace and command of natural presence, exceeded this inaugurator of authority in Victoria. His figure, rather tall, shapely, well-developed, surmounted by a noble head, bald with age, just touching the venerable, and with a genial expression of face, which, however, never descended to levity, although times without number to a smile or slight laugh, he sat erect upon the bench, facile princeps, as though institutions were to bend to him, and not he to them. When we entered the little hut-like structure in the middle of the Western Market area, so long Melbourne's only police-office, James Simpson seemed to us as much a part of its fittings as the rude little bench itself; and it was a disappointment not to find him there, as the indispensable complement to the scene, even although better conduct in the community was to be inferred. How so striking, so influence-wielding a man did not get or take a still more leading position than he had was due, perhaps, to some indolence of nature, to a rare and enviable contentment, or to a mixture of both. He took what fell in his way--magistracies, bank directorships, or what else, and lived unambitiously on his moderate but sufficient means, always in the front social position, and, of course, in universal respect. And how, again, so quiet a spirit adventured across amongst the tag-rags of the earlier Launceston tide, unless indeed under some benevolent inspiration and prescience about the magisterial needs, is a mystery which, although I often conversed with him, I never happened to hear him explain. DAVID CHARTERIS McARTHUR, FATHER OF VICTORIAN BANKING. "A man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation." --Love's Labour Lost.