ommon. Howe's
relations with Lord Falkland had at first been those of intimate
friendship, and for a time the quarrel was conducted with decorum.
Several months after his resignation he could write, 'personal or
factious opposition to your Lordship I am incapable of.' But a literary
gentleman, in close connection with Lord Falkland, began in the press a
series of fierce attacks on Howe and the other Liberal leaders. Of Lord
Falkland's sanction and approval there could be little doubt. His
Lordship himself said in private conversation that between him and Howe
it was 'war to the knife,' and personally denounced him in his dispatches
to the Colonial Office. Howe was not the man to refuse such a challenge.
Though retaining his seat in the House, he resumed the editorship of the
_Nova Scotian_, which he had abandoned in 1841. From his editorial chair
he not only guided the parliamentary Opposition, but pelted the governor
himself with a shower of pasquinades in prose and verse. Lord Falkland
has practically put himself at {82} the head of the Tory party, said
Howe, and as a political opponent he shall have no mercy. A flood of
Rabelaisian banter was poured upon the head of the unhappy nobleman. He
was attacked in his pride, his tenderest place. It is impossible not to
wish that Howe had shown more moderation. He had, of course, precedent
on his side. Nothing which he wrote was so bad as the language of Queen
Elizabeth to her councillors, or of Frederick the Great to Voltaire. He
was neither more savage than Junius, nor more indecent than Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams in his attacks on King George II. But times had
changed. Mouths and manners had grown cleaner, and much of Howe's banter
is over-coarse for present-day palates. But of its effectiveness there
is no doubt. He fairly drove the unhappy Falkland out of the province.
After all, his raillery was an instrument in the fight for freedom, and a
less deadly one than the scythes and muskets of Mackenzie or Papineau.

A squib which produced much comment in its day was 'The Lord of the
Bedchamber,' which begins thus:

The Lord of the Bedchamber sat in his shirt,
(And D--dy the pliant was there),
And his feelings appeared to be very much hurt
And his brow overclouded with care.

{83}

It was plain, from the flush that o'ermantled his cheek,
And the fluster and haste of his stride,
That, drowned and bewildered, his brain had grown weak