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 LIBRARY 
 
 "llNIVWSITY Of I 
 
 CALIFORNIA / 
 
 LsU^S 
 
BERKELOUW 
 
 nnAi/rii-ii rno 
 
THE 
 
 POETS 
 
 AND 
 
 PROSE WRITERS 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 G. B. JBARTON, 
 
 OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT LAW, 
 
 READER IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TO THE 
 UNIVERSITY OE SYDNEY. 
 
 SyDA'f-: Y: 
 SIIA1.LAR1), & CO. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 Page. 
 
 INTRODUCTION - i 
 
 W. C. WENTWORTH - 17 
 
 J. D. LANG ... 23 
 
 CHARLES HARPUR 38 
 
 W. FORSTER . - 49 
 
 JAMES MARTIN ... 64 
 
 HENRY PARKES 83 
 
 D. H. DENIEHY - 94 
 
 ROBERT SEALY I49 
 
 W. B. DALLEY !6 4 
 
 HENRY KENDALL - ig 2 
 
 HENRY HALLORAN 207 
 
 SIR T. L. MITCHELL 215 
 
 J. L. MICHAEL - - 218 
 
 G. R. MORTON 22I 
 
 567 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 OWING to the extreme haste with which this book has been printed, a few 
 errors of the press have escaped notice. They are as follows : 
 
 Page in, line 20, for "A vein this which Robert Browning," read A vein 
 this which cannot, and never dreams of typify ing , like Robert Browning. 
 
 ,, 114, line 4 frorn bottom, for "want of specific matter" read want of 
 consideration of this specific matter. 
 
 ,, 117, line 10, for "the first thing," read the finest thing. 
 
 ,, 1 20, line n, for "lonely," read lovely. 
 
 ,, 134, line 22, for "regain," read repair. 
 
 ,, 148, line 23, for "thirty-five," read thirty-seven. 
 
 ,, 149, line 10, for "1861," read 1862. 
 
 ,, 153, line 26, for "love," read lore. 
 
 ,, 205, line 12, for "too," read to. 
 
 ,, 207, line 2, for "of," read on. 
 
 ,, 217, line 29, dele wild. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THIS volume is intended to supplement one already published, 
 under the title of 'Literature in New South Wales:' the object of 
 both being, to illustrate the progress of literature in this colony. 
 In the work mentioned, an attempt has been made to give some 
 account of every publication of importance that has issued from 
 the local press, including those which, having been published 
 elsewhere, have been written either by natives of the colony or by 
 old colonists. These publications have been classified, arranged 
 in chronological order, and accompanied by a critical estimate of 
 each. In this way the Editor endeavoured to compile a work 
 which might not only serve to give distant readers an exact idea 
 of our progress in literature, but might also prove an historical 
 record of some value to ourselves. The task was undertaken at the 
 request of the Executive Commissioner for the Paris Exhibition. 
 In the present volume, the Editor has endeavoured to carry out 
 the design attempted in the other, by collecting those contribu- 
 tions to our literature which seem of most worth. With few 
 exceptions, every local writer who has gained a reputation among 
 us is represented here. Writings which would otherwise have 
 remained buried in obscure prints are reproduced. In some 
 cases, as for instance in that of Mr. Wentworth's College Poem, 
 the writing is reproduced, not so much on account of its intrinsic 
 merit, as on account of the interest felt in the author. In other 
 cases, as for instance in Mr. Deniehy's, the writing possesses a 
 value of its own sufficient to warrant its republication. Without 
 
Vlll. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 this republication, no evidence could be furnished to substantiate 
 the eulogies pronounced elsewhere. In the remarks which he 
 has thought fit to make, the Editor has endeavoured to be as 
 concise as possible desiring to say nothing which was not 
 requisite to illustrate his subject. He regrets that he has been 
 unable to do as much justice to his task as he could have wished 
 to do. Being under the necessity of producing both these 
 volumes within a certain time, in order to serve the purpose 
 of the Exhibition Commissioners, he has been compelled to 
 hurry them through the Press, while the facilities he has had in 
 their compilation have been extremely slight. However, he 
 trusts that, imperfect as they may be, they will yet effect the 
 object for which they were produced. 
 
 There is a matter connected with the first of these publications 
 to which the Editor would particularly call the attention of foreign 
 reviewers. Soon after its appearance, a " Review" of it was pub- 
 lished in the leading journal of the colony, the Sydney Morning 
 Herald, ^his " Review" was simply a personal attack upon the 
 Editor. The writer made no attempt to criticise the book 
 impartially. His remarks from beginning to end were directed 
 at the Editor, with the view of disparaging him, and by that 
 means of depriving his book of all weight with its readers. Almost 
 every sentence contained either a wilful misstatement or a wilful 
 misrepresentation. The Editor, whose personal history was dragged 
 before the public, was at one moment represented as depreciating 
 the literature of the colony, and at another as exaggerating it : while 
 the book was in one sentence pronounced a valuable one, and in 
 another declared to be not worth the expense of its publication. 
 The malice prepense of the article was obvious : but the writer used 
 his weapons so clumsily that, as ROGERS said of CROKER when 
 he 'reviewed' MACAULAY "he attempted murder, but only 
 committed suicide." His falsehoods and his contradictions were 
 so apparent, that they scarcely required exposure : and his 
 attempts to justify himself exhibited only a worse degree of 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX. 
 
 illogical argument and spiteful insinuation. The Editor, how- 
 ever, would not trouble himself to refer to this matter on the 
 present occasion, were it not for the fact that it affords him an 
 opportunity of still further illustrating the literature of the colony. 
 The " Review" mentioned was provoked by the critical account 
 of the Herald given by the Editor in his work. He stated that 
 
 As a rule, the leading articles of the Herald are not distinguished by their brilliancy. 
 Curiously enough, although this journal has been, and is, far more successful than any other 
 in the colony, it has never possessed any reputation for literary ability. 
 
 Offence was also taken at his statement with respect to the causes 
 of the Herald's prosperity. One of these causes he alleged to be 
 the policy adopted by the proprietors in advocating Tory politics. 
 His argument on this matter will be found at page 28 of the book. 
 In preparing that book, the Editor wished to represent the literature 
 of the colony in as favourable a light as he conscientiously could ; 
 and he also wished to avoid giving offence to those whose publi- 
 cations he was called upon to notice. In his account of the 
 leading journal, he stated its merits, and proclaimed its great suc- 
 cess, without reserve. He felt that if the leading j ournal of a wealthy 
 community were represented as a worthless one, nothing more 
 damaging to our literary character could be said. But he would 
 have been false to his functions as a critical historian had he not 
 alluded to the literary deficiencies of the Herald. They are so 
 notorious that it is impossible to pass them over. It is 'curiously 
 true' that throughout the whole of its existence and it has now 
 reached its thirty-fifth year this journal has never possessed the 
 slightest reputation for literary ability. So far from possessing any 
 such reputation, it has been a public laughing-stock on the score 
 of its imbecility. The evidence on this point, as regards the past, 
 is both written and traditional ; as regards the present, it may be 
 found in the journal itself. For the last thirty-five years every 
 contemporary journal in Sydney has ridiculed the intellectual weak- 
 ness of the Herald; and the ridicule has been echoed by the 
 public. Every term that could express or typify mental weakness 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 has been fastened on it. It has generally been spoken of as the 
 Grandmother of the Press, by the popular abbreviation of 
 ' Grannie.' Except in commercial matters, its editorial manage- 
 ment has never exercised the slightest influence over the com- 
 munity. Politically, it goes for nothing; but that may be 
 accounted for by the fact that it has always advocated principles 
 antagonistic to those of the people. 
 
 It may be asked, How could such a journal as this outstrip its 
 many rivals, and achieve so much success 1 To answer that ques- 
 tion, it is necessary to review the history of our journalism. It 
 cannot be answered by considering the paper as it is now : we 
 must go back, and examine its career from the commencement. 
 When the Herald was started in 1831, its appearance was insig- 
 nificant in the last degree. A badly printed sheet of bad paper, it 
 was destitute of everything that could attract a reader. In its 
 appearance, as well as in its contents, it was inferior to its con- 
 temporaries. It did not improve in either respect for some time. 
 The journals it had to compete with were (i) the Gazette, estab- 
 lished in 1803 as a Government organ (2) the Australian, 
 established in 1824 as an Opposition organ and (3) the Monitor, 
 established in 1826 as a second Opposition organ. The two 
 last-mentioned papers were conducted with much ability, the 
 Australian especially. But the Gazette which ought to have 
 retained the lead of all our journals lost its character through 
 a variety of causes, and never succeeded in recovering it. No 
 journal ever did. The Opposition papers, on the other hand, 
 went too far in their advocacy of liberal politics ; they devoted 
 themselves with too much zeal to politics altogether, forgetting 
 that politics alone will never pay the expenses of a news- 
 paper. The Herald was brought into existence by men who knew 
 nothing of literature, and cared nothing for politics except as they 
 affected ' business.' It adopted a policy which could not possibly 
 give offence to men of property a policy which advocated the 
 claims of rank and wealth with unflagging ardour. It was edited for 
 
INTRODUCTION. XL 
 
 many years by a reverend gentleman who had previously edited the 
 Gazette, and whose contributions to our infant literature were rather 
 solid than splendid. By this means, although the paper was little 
 more than a sheetful of advertisements and news although it was 
 a mere dead letter so far as literature and politics were concerned 
 it gradually increased its circulation and rendered itself indis- 
 pensable to a business community. The leading features of its 
 character have been faithfully preserved up to the present day. 
 No one expects to find the graces of literary composition in its 
 leading articles, just as no one expects to find roses or daffy down- 
 dillies on a sheep-walk. But it contains all the advertisements and 
 all the news of the passing day it is the first to publish the 
 European telegrams on the arrival of the mail it has abundance 
 of foreign correspondence and it maintains the cause of good old 
 English Toryism in all its glory. 
 
 The politics advocated by this journal throughout its career are 
 not Conservative politics merely. There would certainly be nothing 
 in that to render its success a matter of surprise. Its politics are 
 Tory politics, and of the most inveterate stamp : politics not only 
 repulsive to the bulk of the people, but such as few educated men 
 can agree with. The principal feature in the system appears to 
 be a blind adoration of wealth and position. It seemed to the Editor 
 'a striking fact' that a journal so conducted should, in times like 
 these, in a community overrun by radicalism, not only maintain its 
 ground unshaken, but daily increase in prosperity. The really ' pop- 
 ular' journal that which advocates radical politics, and advocates 
 them with some degree of ability is, to use a turf phrase, actually 
 'nowhere' in the race. Its influence in political matters is infinitely 
 greater than that of its rival. But it seems to be following in the 
 steps of the old liberal journals already mentioned. It devotes its 
 energies to politics with the fiery zeal of a martyr; and thus cuts off 
 from itself the sympathies of an important section of society. This 
 section happens to be a peculiarly important one, so far as the 
 success of our newspapers is concerned. Radical politics will 
 
Xll. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 never recommend themselves to merchants and tradesmen. In 
 England, the radical journals are penny journals, and exist on 
 their circulation. Here, the population is not large enough to 
 support a penny journal at least the experiment has not been 
 tried and newspapers must consequently depend upon the 
 * favours' of the mercantile classes. If these are withheld, the 
 newspaper is crippled in its resources, and suffers accordingly. 
 
 It will be seen that the Editor's opinion with regard to the 
 Herald was mildly and inoffensively expressed in the work referred 
 to. He indulged in no ridicule ; he confined himself to a simple 
 statement of notorious facts. The reviewer, however, in the 
 ' cutting up' which he was instructed to administer, replied to this 
 statement by a series of sneers and bad arguments. He 
 insinuated that the Editor depreciated the literary ability of the 
 Herald because he was not a contributor to it ; and he then argued 
 that literary ability had nothing to do with journalism. The sneer 
 and the argument were of course contradictory, but the reviewer 
 did not see it. He then proceeded to beg the question in the 
 following style : 
 
 To judge of newspaper writing from the point of view of belles lettres is to mistake the 
 functions of a journal. Good newspaper writing is good writing for the purposes of a news- 
 paper, just as a good speech at the bar is one that is good for the purposes of the trial, &c. 
 
 Here the reviewer insinuates that ' good newspaper writing' is 
 to be found in the leading columns of the Herald, and attempts 
 to show that writing which would be bad anywhere else is perfectly 
 good in a newspaper. That is to say, that writing which would 
 elsewhere be execrated as twaddle, is ' good writing for the pur- 
 poses of a newspaper.' If this is the case, then the editorial 
 columns of the Herald contain the very best newspaper writing 
 that journalism can boast of. The reviewer then sailed on another 
 tack. He alluded to the many talented writers whose contributions 
 have appeared in the Herald, and claimed a reputation for literary 
 ability on the strength of it. This was simply a misrepresentation 
 of the Editor's statement. It is perfectly true that some of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. Xlll. 
 
 ablest writers we have had in the colony have contributed to the 
 Herald. But what did they contribute ? The Editor was speaking 
 of leading articles they never contributed one. They wrote 
 pieces of poetry, critiques on books, graphic sketches, and so on. 
 In this way, Rowe, Deniehy, Fowler, Evelyn, Harpur, Kendall, and 
 others, have from time to time contributed to the Herald. But 
 casual articles of this kind are not enough to give a literary repu- 
 tation to a newspaper, when its editorial columns display nothing 
 but intellectual barrenness. 
 
 The Editor feels it necessary to be precise on these points for 
 the arguments of the reviewer are calculated to convey a false 
 impression to distant readers as to the actual state of things. 
 From these arguments it might be gathered that literature here is 
 a very flourishing profession, and that any man of letters who 
 might settle in Sydney would make a handsome income. The 
 graphic author of Southern Lights and Shadows told the world 
 some years ago, that a thousand a year could be picked up very 
 readily in Australia. This delusion was dispelled by R. H. Home 
 in his Australian Facts and Prospects : but it was none the less 
 incumbent on the Editor to speak the truth a second time. In 
 the introductory part of his 'Literature in New South Wales,' he 
 has shown that literature, as a profession, does not exist here yet, 
 and he has explained the cause. But he was not speaking of 
 political literature, or as the reviewer expressed himself 'jour- 
 nalistic occupation.' Where there are newspapers, there of course 
 will be occupation for the journalist : though the amount of occupa- 
 tion is another question. The arguments of the Editor were 
 addressed to the question of a ' national literature.' He endea- 
 voured to show that, at present, there is no such literature here ; 
 that its growth is impeded by the indifference of the public to local 
 publications and their preference for English periodicals ; that so 
 long as this feeling existed, an independent literature could not be 
 expected, because men of letters could not live by their profession ; 
 that men of letters in this colony had always suffered, and still do 
 
XIV. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 suffer, by devotion to their profession ; and that the result was, so 
 far, prejudicial to our character as a community. That these state- 
 ments are true, no one will deny who is competent to discuss the 
 question. But the reviewer in the Herald, while he did not exactly 
 dispute their truth, indulged in a broadside of sneers and bad argu- 
 ments. He proclaimed that ' the introduction was written in a 
 querulous tone,' proceeded to account for it by ' the personal 
 experiences of the Editor/ and justified his gross personalities by 
 saying that it was 'necessary to explain the querulous tone of the 
 introduction to distant readers.' Now the 'tone' of a book can 
 be judged of only by reading it ; and the Editor feels confident 
 that no one who reads his will consider it 'querulous.' If it 
 is 'querulous,' then every man who makes statements which are 
 unpleasantly true, is ' querulous' when he does so. Goldsmith, 
 from whose ' Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe' 
 the Editor quoted a pathetic passage with reference to men of 
 letters, was ' querulous' to the last degree. After exhausting his 
 personalities, the reviewer proceeded to set matters right with his 
 characteristic logic. The Editor had shown that the quantity of 
 books and periodicals imported into this colony was extremely 
 large was much larger than might have been expected and 
 formed a conclusive proof as to our appreciation of literature. The 
 reviewer replied by asserting precisely the same thing, and imply- 
 ing that the Editor had said the reverse. 
 
 The statements made by the same authority with respect to the 
 prospects of men of letters here, require to be read with caution. 
 In the first place, he represents the Herald, in his own phase, as 
 'a convenient outlet' for men of literary ability. It might be inferred 
 that this journal endeavours to combine the functions of a magazine 
 and a newspaper, and is consequently eager to attract talented writers 
 to its columns. Now, although it is undoubtedly ci editable to its 
 proprietors that they should have assisted men of genius, when 
 reduced to destitution, by accepting articles from them, a species 
 of charity which blesseth him that gives quite as much as him that 
 
INTRODUCTION. 'XV. 
 
 takes, it would not be correct to infer any such thing. The real 
 state of the matter will be found in page 14 of 'Literature in New 
 South Wales.' The Editor has there quoted a passage from Mr. 
 Home's work which bears expressly upon the subject. In the 
 second place, it is stated by the reviewer that, 'few, if any, men of 
 talent have vainly sought for journalistic occupation in Australia,' 
 &c. It will be seen that the Editor was not speaking of Australia, 
 but of New South Wales; and not of journalistic occupation, but 
 of literature generally. What is true of New South Wales is un- 
 doubtedly not true of Victoria, in the matter of journalism at least. 
 The Melbourne journals are far superior to those published in 
 Sydney. If the Melbourne Argus be compared with the Sydney 
 Morning Herald, the difference will be seen at once. The former 
 is what a successful newspaper ought to be the latter is quite the 
 reverse. There is as much difference between the two as there is 
 between the Australasian and the Sydney Mail. 
 
 The Editor declines to follow the example set by the Herald 
 in the matter of personalities, as he is quite aware of the distinc- 
 tion between criticism and blackguardism. It would no doubt 
 greatly aid him in ' explaining to distant readers' the miserable 
 character of that journal, if his remarks were illustrated by the 
 biographies of its proprietors and editors. A running comment of 
 that kind could be written with ease, and would be read with 
 amusement : while no complaint could be justly made of one who 
 merely imitated the scrupulous delicacy of our leading journal. 
 He contents himself however with criticising the paper alone. 
 While a sense of duty compels him to touch upon its obvious 
 deficiencies, he is quite ready to admit all that can be said in its 
 favour. He admires its practical usefulness as a commercial 
 organ and a register of passing facts : he admires the good taste 
 with which it is usually conducted, and the skill with whiah it 
 occasionally handles an enemy : but, above all. he admires the 
 marvellous consistency which it has invariably displayed. It has 
 never altered a single feature in its character. It has never 
 
XVI. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 deviated by a single inch from the strict line of its original policy. 
 From first to last, it has possessed the reputation of a twaddling, 
 narrow-minded, illiterate publication; bitterly opposing every man 
 who has raised himself from obscurity, at the same time that it 
 chaunts the praises of wealth ; defending every abuse until it is 
 exposed, and then claiming the merit of its exposure ; possessing 
 no influence over the political destinies, and retarding, rather than 
 advancing, the intellectual development of the country. 
 
THE POETS AND PROSE WRITERS 
 OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 W. C WENTWORTH. 
 
 WILLIAM CHARLES WENTWORTH was born at Norfolk Island in 
 1791. His father, D'Arcy Wentworth, went there in the pre- 
 vious year, and a certain authority tells us that he was " particu- 
 larly noticed by Major Ross (the Commandant), who, on account 
 of his abilities and reputation, immediately appointed him as a 
 Superintending Surgeon of the Island." How long he remained 
 there is not known, but, as the settlement was broken up in 
 1805, he probably left it then. In 1819 his name occurs rather 
 frequently in the Civil List of the Colony. He was a Magistrate 
 of the Territory and its Dependencies Principal Surgeon on 
 the Medical Staff Trustee and Commissioner for Roads 
 Treasurer of the Police Establishment Superintendent of 
 Police, and a Director of the Bank of New South Wales. 
 
 His son left the colony in 1817, and went to England. There 
 he read for the Bar and entered himself as a student .at Cam- 
 bridge. In 1819 he published a work on the Colony, in which 
 he aimed at two great objects the promotion of emigration and 
 the removal of political abuses. It was a ' hasty production, 
 originating in the suggestion of an acquaintance;' and as it was 
 largely occupied with matters of a practical kind, little in the 
 way of literary excellence could be expected from it. It contains 
 passages, however, marked with very great power. Perhaps the 
 
1 8 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 best is the following, in which he denounces the conduct of the 
 ' Exclusives :' 
 
 The covert aim of these men is to convert the ignominy of the great 
 body of the people into an hereditary deformity. They would hand it down 
 from father to son, and raise an eternal barrier of separation between their 
 offspring and the offspring of the unfortunate convict. They would establish 
 distinctions which may serve hereafter to divide the colonists into castes ; 
 and although none among them dares publicly avow that future generations 
 should be punished for the crimes of their progenitors, yet such are their pri- 
 vate sentiments, and they would have the present race branded with disquali- 
 fications, not more for the sake of pampering their own vanity, than with a 
 view to reflect disgrace on the offspring of the disfranchised parent, and thus 
 cast on their own children and descendents that future splendour and impor- 
 tance, which they consider to be their present peculiar and distinguishing 
 characteristics. Short sighted fools ! they foresee not the consequences of 
 their narrow machinations ! They know not that they would be sowing the 
 seeds of discords and commotions, and that by their exalting their own imme- 
 diate descendants, they would occasion the eventual degradation and overthrow 
 of their posterity. Such would be the result of their ambition ; for it is the 
 curse of injustice that it brings with it, sooner or later, its own punishment. 
 Happily for the colony the realization of their projects depends not upon 
 themselves ; and his Majesty's ministers will not lend their sanction to 
 schemes of private aggrandizement, which can only be accomplished by the 
 sacrifice of the public good. If these men have not themselves the sagacity 
 to dive into futurity, and to foresee the dangers and contests to which unjust 
 privileges and distinctions must eventually give birth, shall the government 
 be equally blind and improvident ? Shall they, in the short space of thirty 
 years, forget the benevolent designs with which this colony was founded, and 
 convert what was intended as an asylum for repentant vice, not into a house 
 merely of salutary correction, which may moderate, with reviving morality 
 and cease entirely with complete restoration, but into a prison of endless 
 torture, where though the sufferings of the body may terminate, the worst 
 species of torture, the endurements and mortifications of the soul, are to end 
 only with existence ? Shall a vile faction be allowed to inflict on the unfor- 
 tunate convict a punishment infinitely greater than that to which he has been 
 sentenced by the violated majesty of the' law ? Has not a jury of impartial 
 freemen solemnly investigated the case of every individual who has been 
 transported to this colony? And have not the measure and duration of their 
 punishments been apportioned to their respective offences ? Is it then for 
 any body of men to assert that the law has been too lenient, and that it is 
 necessary to inflict an ulterior punishment which shall have no termination 
 but in the grave ? Shall the unhappy culprit, exiled from his native shore, 
 and severed perhaps for ever from the friends of his youth, the objects of his 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 1 9 
 
 first and best affections, after years of suffering and atonement, still find no 
 resting place, no spot where he may hide his shame and endeavour to forget 
 his errors ? Shall the finger of scorn and derision be pointed at him wherever 
 he betakes himself? And must he for ever wander a recreant and outcast on 
 the face of the earth, seeking in vain seme friendly shore, where he may at 
 length be freed from ignominious disabilities, and restored to the long lost 
 enjoyment of equal rights and equal protection with his fellows ? 
 
 In 1823, he competed for the Chancellor's medal for the best 
 English poem on "Australasia." The prize was carried off by 
 W. M. Praed, one of the most brilliant versifiers of the day ; the 
 second place in the list being awarded to Mr. Wentworth. A 
 comparison of the two productions will suggest doubts to some 
 readers as to the justice of the award. In local colouring, at 
 least, Wentworth's is altogether superior, as might be expected. 
 Nothing can be more absurd than some passages in Praed's, in 
 which he attempts to describe the character and customs of the 
 aboriginals. He seems to have been hardly aware of the distinc- 
 tion between New Zealand and New Holland ; for he first takes 
 the reader to the one, and then'hurries him off to the other, 
 mixing up convicts and Maoris as if they were members of the 
 same community. In one point, however, Praed has a decided 
 superiority ; his poem is two hundred lines shorter than Went- 
 worth's. This is certainly no slight merit in a Prize Poem. 
 
 AUSTRALASIA, 
 
 Land of my birth ! tho' now alas ! no more 
 Musing I wander on thy sea-girt shore, 
 Or climb with eager haste thy barrier cliff, 
 To catch a glimmer of the distant skiff, 
 That ever and anon breaks into light, 
 And then again eludes the aching sight, 
 Till, nearer seen, she bends her foaming way 
 Majestic onward to yon placid bay, 
 Where Sydney's infant turrets proudly rise, 
 The new-born glory of the southern skies : 
 Dear Australasia, can I e'er forget 
 Thee, Mother Earth? Ah no, my heart e'en yet 
 
20 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 With filial fondness loves to call to view 
 
 Scenes which, though oft remember'd, still are new ; 
 
 Scenes where my playful childhood's thoughtless years 
 
 Flew swift away, despite of childhood's tears : 
 
 Where later, too, in manhood's op'ning bloom, 
 
 The tangled brake, th' eternal forest's gloom, 
 
 The wonted brook, where with some truant mate 
 
 I lov'd to plunge, or ply the treach'rous bait ; 
 
 The spacious harbour with its hundred coves, 
 
 And fairy islets seats of savage loves, 
 
 Again beheld restampt with deeper dye 
 
 The fading image of my infancy : 
 
 And shall I now, by Cam's old classic stream, 
 
 Forbear to sing, and thou propos'd the theme ? 
 
 Thy native bard, though on a foreign strand, 
 
 Shall I be mute, and see a stranger's hand 
 
 Attune the lyre, and, prescient of thy fame, 
 
 Foretell the glories that shall grace thy name ? 
 
 Forbid it, all ye Nine ! 'twere shame to thee, 
 
 My Austral parent : greater shame to me. 
 
 Proud Queen of isles ! Thou sittest vast, alone, 
 A host of vassals bending round thy throne : 
 Like some fair swan that skims the silver tide, 
 Her silken cygnets strew'd on every side, 
 So floatest thou, thy Polynesian brood 
 Dispers'd around thee on thy Ocean flood, 
 While ev'ry surge that doth thy bosom lave, 
 Salutes thee " Empress of the Southern Wave." 
 
 Say, Muse, when first of Europe's roving train 
 Burst on De Quiros' sight this island main, 
 What golden visions rose to fancy's view, 
 The towns he plunder'd, and the hosts he slew ; 
 How on all sides the argent tripods shone, 
 And temples richer than Peruvia's sun ; 
 Till av'rice glow'd, while busy thoughts unfurl'd 
 The imag'd treasures of the new-found world : 
 'Twas then, triumphant Hope, thy power confess'd, 
 Hush'd the rude tongue, and calm'd the mourning breast 
 Then still'd sedition's buzz, each contrite soul 
 With awe and gladness hail'd a chief's control, 
 And ev'ry peril, ev'ry hardship past, 
 Seem'd to have found full recompence at last. 
 Say, too, what terror fix'd the natives' eye, 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 2 1 
 
 When first they saw, emerging from the sky, 
 
 That stranger bark in sullen silence sweep, 
 
 A wrathful spirit o'er the troubled deep, 
 
 Treading with giant stride the subject wave, 
 
 The wind his herald, and the tide his slave ; 
 
 While onward stalking in terrific state 
 
 He loom'd portentful of impending fate, 
 
 Yet vain the dream of those, the dread of these ; 
 
 For lo ! at length arriv'd with fav'ring breeze, 
 
 De Quiros' self directs the straining oar, 
 
 And leaps the foremost on the untrod shore 
 
 Follows his band ; but dark on ev'ry side 
 
 Repulsive forests frown with path untried ; 
 
 While from the hidden foe the frequent spear 
 
 Sweeps through their ranks, and wakes unwonted fear ; 
 
 Till struck with awe, they cease the hopeless chase, 
 
 And to the ship their sullen course retrace. 
 
 Ye primal tribes, lords of this old domain, 
 
 Swift-footed hunters of the pathless plain, 
 
 Unshackled wanderers, enthusiasts free, 
 
 Pure native sons of savage liberty, 
 
 Who hold all things in common, earth, sea, air, 
 
 Or only occupy the nightly lair 
 
 Whereon each sleeps ; who own no chieftain's pow'r 
 
 Save his, that 's mightiest at the passing hour ; 
 
 Say whence your ancient lineage, what your name, 
 
 And from what shores your rough forefathers came ? 
 
 Untutor'd children, fresh from Nature's mould, 
 
 No songs have ye to trace the times of old : 
 
 No hidden themes like these employ your care, 
 
 For you enough the knowledge that ye are : 
 
 Let Learning's sons, who would this secret scan, 
 
 Unlock its mystic casket if they can, 
 
 To your unletter'd tastes are sweeter far 
 
 The dance of battle, and the song of war, 
 
 'Mid hostile ranks the deadly spear to throw, 
 
 Or see the foeman stagg'ring 'neath your blow : 
 
 To you, ye sable hunters, sweeter, too, 
 
 To spy the track of bounding kangaroo, 
 
 Or long-neck'd emu : quick with eager gaze 
 
 His path you follow thro' the tangled maze, 
 
 O'er boundless wilds your panting game pursue, 
 
 And come, like trusty hounds, at last in view ; 
 
 Then creeping round her, soon the forest's pride 
 
22 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 Is hemm'd with bristly spears that pierce her side ; 
 
 And now, the labours of the chase being o'er, 
 
 And Nature's keen suggestions heard no more, 
 
 In uncouth numbers, seated in a ring, 
 
 Your ancient fathers' warlike feats ye sing, 
 
 Or striking each his shield, with clatt'ring lance, 
 
 The early night exhaust in Pyrrhic dance. 
 
 Such, mountain sons of freedom, your delight, 
 Such your rude sport by day, your mirth by night ; 
 Nor would you these few savage joys forego, 
 For all the comforts all the arts bestow. 
 What, if at times the barren chase deny 
 The scanty fare your niggard wilds supply ? 
 What, if to-day ye miss your sylvan feast ? 
 To-morrow's meal shall then derive a zest, 
 Unknown to those who live in slothful ease, 
 Child of the heath, the mountain, and the breeze. 
 What, if the wint'ry blast and pelting rain 
 Howl through the woods and inundate the plain ? 
 To some near cave ye fly, which, jutting o'er, 
 Wards from your naked limbs the drenching show'r 
 While kindled faggots soon with crackling sound 
 Dispel the gloom and scatter warmth around, 
 And, nestling close each to his sable love, 
 Ye sleep, regardless of the storm above. 
 Had'st thou, old cynic, seen this unclad crew, 
 Stretch their bare bodies in the nightly dew, 
 Like hairy Satyrs, 'midst their sylvan seats, 
 Endure both winter's frosts, and summer's heats ; 
 Thy cloak and tub away thou would'st have cast, 
 And tried, like them, to brave the piercing blast. 
 
 Illustrious Cook ! Columbus of our shore, 
 To whom was left this unknown world t* explore ! 
 Its untrac'd bounds on faithful chart to mark, 
 And leave a light where all before was dark : 
 And thou, the foremost in fair learning's ranks, 
 Patron of every art, departed Banks ! 
 Who, wealth disdaining and inglorious ease, 
 The rocks and quicksands dar'd of unknown seas j 
 Immortal pair ! when in yon spacious bay 
 Ye moor'd awhile its wonders to survey, 
 How little thought ye, that the name from you 
 Its graceful shrubs and beauteous wild flowers drew, 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 23 
 
 Would serve, in after times, with lasting brand 
 To stamp the soil and designate the land, 
 And to ungenial climes reluctant scare 
 Full many a hive that else had settled there ! 
 
 Ah why, Britannia's pride, Britannia's boast, 
 Searcher of ev'ry sea and ev'ry coast, 
 Lamented Cook ! thou bravest, gentlest heart, 
 Why didst thou fall beneath a savage dart ? 
 Why were thy mangled reliques doom'd to grace 
 The midnight orgies of a barb'rous race ? 
 Why could'st thou not, thy weary wand'rings past, 
 At home in honour'd ease recline at last, 
 And, like the happier partner of thy way, 
 In cloudless glory close life's setting day ? 
 
 And thou, fam'd Gallic Captain, La Perouse ! 
 When from this Bay thou led'st thy fated crews, 
 Did thy twin vessels sink beneath the shock 
 Of furious hurricane, or hidden rock ? 
 Fell ye, o'erpower'd on some barbarian strand, 
 As fell before De Langle's butcher'd band ? 
 Linger'd the remnants of thy shipwreck'd host 
 On some parch'd coral isle, some torrid coast, 
 Where no green tree, no cooling brook is seen, 
 Nought living is, or e'er before has been, 
 Save some lone mew, blown from the rocky nest, 
 Had lit, perchance, her homeward wing to rest ; 
 Till gnaw'd by want, with joy a comrade dead 
 They saw, and rav'nous on his body fed, 
 And soon, his bones pick'd bare, with'famish'd eye 
 Each glar'd around, then drew who first should die ; 
 Till of thy ghastly band the most unblest 
 Surviv'd, sad sepulchre of all the rest ; 
 And now his last meal gorg'd, with frenzy fir'd, 
 And raging thirst, the last lorn wretch expir'd ! 
 Whate'er thy fate, thou saw'st the floating arks 
 That peopled this new world, the teeming barks 
 That ardent Phillip led to this far shore, 
 And seeing them, alas ! wert seen no more. 
 Ah ! could'st thou now behold what man has done, 
 Tho' sev'n revolving lustres scarce have run, 
 How would'st thou joy to see the savage earth 
 The smiling parent of so fair a birth ! 
 Lo ! thickly planted o'er the glassy bay, 
 Where Sydney loves her beauties to survey, 
 
24 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 And ev'ry morn, delighted, sees the gleam 
 
 Of some fresh pennant dancing in her stream, 
 
 A masty forest, stranger vessels moor, 
 
 Charg'd with the fruits of ev'ry foreign shore ; 
 
 While, landward, the throng'd quay, the creaking crane, 
 
 The noisy workman, and the loaded wain, 
 
 The lengthen'd street, wide square, and column'd front, 
 
 Of stately mansions, and the gushing font, 
 
 The solemn church, the busy market throng, 
 
 And idle loungers saunt'ring slow among, 
 
 The lofty windmills that with outspread sail 
 
 Thick line the hills, and court the rising gale, 
 
 Shew that the mournful genius of the plain, 
 
 Driv'n from his primal solitary reign, 
 
 Has backward fled, and fix'd his drowsy throne 
 
 In untrod wilds, to muse and brood alone. -* 
 
 And thou, fair Port ! whose triad sister coves 
 
 Peninsulate these walls ; whose ancient groves 
 
 High tow'ring southward, rear their giant form, 
 
 And break the fury of the polar storm ; 
 
 Fairest of Ocean's daughters ! who dost bend 
 
 Thy mournful steps to seek thy absent friend, 
 
 Whence she, coy wild-rose, on her virgin couch 
 
 Fled loath from Parramatta's am'rous touch ; 
 
 Skirting thy wat'ry path, lo ! frequent stand 
 
 The cheerful villas 'midst their well-cropp'd land ; 
 
 Here lowing kine, there bounding coursers graze, 
 
 Here waves the corn, and there the woody maize, 
 
 Here the tall peach puts forth its pinky bloom, 
 
 And there the orange scatters its perfume, 
 
 While, as the merry boatmen row along, 
 
 The woods are quick en'd with their lusty song. 
 
 Nor here alone hath labour's victor band 
 
 Subdued the glebe, and fertiliz'd the land ; 
 
 For lo ! from where at rocky Portland's head, 
 
 Reluctant Hawkesbury quits his sluggard bed, 
 
 Merging in Ocean, to young Windsor's tow'rs, 
 
 And Richmond's high green hills, and native bow'rs, 
 
 Thence far along Nepean's pebbled way, 
 
 To those rich pastures where the wild herds stray, 
 
 The crowded farm-house lines the winding stream 
 
 On either side, and many a plodding team 
 
 With shining plougshare turns the neighb'ring soil, 
 
 Which crowns with double crop the lab'rer's toil. 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 Hail, mighty ridge ! that from thy azure brow 
 Survey'st these fertile plains, that stretch below, 
 And look'st with careless, unobservant eye, 
 As round thy waist the forked lightnings ply, 
 And the loud thunders spring with hoarse rebound 
 From peak to peak, and fill the welkin round 
 With deafning voice, till with their boist'rous play 
 Fatigued, in mutt'ring peals they stalk away ; 
 Parent of this deep stream, this awful flood, 
 That at thy feet its tributary mud, 
 Like the fam'd Indian, or Egyptian tide, 
 Doth pay, but direful scatters woe beside ; 
 Vast Austral Giant of these nigged steeps, 
 Within whose secret cells rich glitt'ring heaps 
 Thick piled are dooni'd to sleep, till some one spy 
 The hidden key that opes thy treasury ; 
 How mute, how desolate thy stunted woods, 
 How dread thy chasms, where many an eagle broods, 
 How dark thy caves, how lone thy torrents' roar, 
 As down thy cliffs precipitous they pour, 
 Broke on our hearts, when first with venturous tread 
 We dar'd to rouse thee from thy mountain bed ! 
 Till, gain'd with toilsome step thy rocky heath, 
 We spied the cheering smokes ascend beneath, 
 And, as a meteor shoots athwart the night, 
 The boundless champaign burst upon our sight, 
 Till, nearer seen, the beauteous landscape grew, 
 Op'ning like Canaan on rapt Israel's view. 
 
 Ye tranquil scenes ! too long to man unknown, 
 Your hills remained uncropp'd, your dales unsown : 
 Yet lo ! at last upon yon distant stream, 
 Increasing Bathurst's straggling honours beam, 
 While thick o'erspreading the fresh-cultur'd glade 
 The ripen'd harvest bends its heavy blade, 
 And flocks and herds, in thousands strewed around, 
 Awake the woodlands with their joyous sound. 
 Soon, Australasia, may thy inmost plains, 
 A new Arcadia, teem with simple swains ; 
 Soon a Lycoris' scorn again inspire 
 A Gallus' song to moan his hopeless fire, 
 And, while he murmurs forth his plaintive tale, 
 The list'ning breezes waft it down the dale. 
 
 What, though no am'rous shepherd midst thy dells 
 E'er charm'd responsive Echo from her cells ; 
 
26 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 What, though no liquid flute, nor shriller reed 
 E'er shot their wild notes o'er thy silent mead ; 
 Thy blue-eyed daughters, with the flaxen hair 
 And taper ankle, do they bloom less fair 
 Than those of Europe ? do thy primal groves 
 Ne'er warble forth their feather'd inmates' loves ? 
 Or, say, doth Ceres', or Pomona's reign 
 With scantier gifts repay thy lab'ring train ? 
 Ah ! no, 'tis slavery's badge, the felon's shame 
 That stills thy vo'c?, and clouds thy op'ning fame ; 
 'Tis this that makes thy sorrowing Judah weep, 
 Restrains her song, and hangs her harp to sleep. 
 
 Land of my hope ! soon may this early blot, 
 Amid thy growing honours, be forgot : 
 Soon may a freeman's soul, a freeman's blade, 
 Nerve ev'ry arm, and gleam thro' ev'ry glade 
 No more the outcast convict's clanking chains 
 Deform thy wilds, and stigmatize thy plains : 
 And tho' the fathers these of thy new race, 
 From whom each glorious feat, each deathless grace, 
 Must yet proceed, by whom each radiant gem 
 Be won to deck thy future diadem : 
 Did not of old th' Imperial Eagle rise, 
 Unfurl his pinions, and astound the skies ? 
 Hatch'd in an aery fouler far than thine, 
 Did he not dart from Tiber to the Rhine ? 
 From Dacia's Forests to fair Calpe's height, 
 Fear'd not each cow'ring brood his circling flight ? 
 From Libya's sands to quiver'd Parthia's shore 
 Mark'd not the scatter'd fowl his victor soar ? 
 From swift Euphrates to bleak Thule's rock, 
 Did not opposing myriads feel the shock 
 Of his dread talons, and glad tribute pay, 
 To 'scape the havoc of his murd'rous way ? 
 
 Yet ne'er, my country, roll thy battle-car 
 With deadly axle thro' the ranks of war ; 
 Of foreign rule ne'er may the ceaseless thirst 
 Pol'ute thy sons, and render thee accurst 
 Amid the nations ; ne'er may crouch before 
 Invading legions sallying from thy shore, 
 A distant people, that shall not on thee 
 Have first disgorg'd his hostile chivalry. 
 In other climes, Bellona's temples shine, 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 27 
 
 Ceres', Pomona's, Bacchus', Pan's, be thine, 
 
 And chaste Minerva's : from thy peaceful plains 
 
 May glory's star ne'er charm thy restless swains ; 
 
 Ne'er may the hope of plunder lure to roam 
 
 One Australasian from his happy home ; 
 
 But rustic arts their tranquil hours employ 
 
 Arts crown'd with plenty, and replete with joy : 
 
 Be theirs the task to lay with lusty blow 
 
 The ancient giants of the forest low, 
 
 With frequent fires the cumber'd plain to clear, 
 
 To tame the steed, and yoke the stubborn steer, 
 
 With cautious plough to rip the virgin earth, 
 
 And watch her first born harvest from its birth, 
 
 Till, tinged with summer suns the golden glade 
 
 Delight the hind and claim the reaper's blade ; 
 
 Theirs too the task, with skilful hand to rear 
 
 The varied fruits that gild the ripen'd year ; 
 
 Whether the melting peach, or juicy pear, 
 
 Or golden orange, most engage their care : 
 
 Theirs too round stakes or trellised bow'rs to twine 
 
 The pliant tendrils of the shooting vine ; 
 
 And, when beneath their blushing burdens grow 
 
 The yielding stems, the generous juice to stow 
 
 In copious jar, which drain'd on festive day 
 
 May warm each heart, and chase its glooms away : 
 
 Theirs too on fiow'ry mead or thymy steep 
 
 To tend with watchful dog the timid sheep ; 
 
 And, as their fleecy charge are lying round, 
 
 To wake the woodlands with their pipe's soft sound, 
 
 While the charm'd Fauns and Dryads skulking near, 
 
 Leave their lone haunts, and list with raptur'd ear. 
 
 Such be the labours of thy peaceful swains, 
 Thus may they till, and thus enrich thy plains ; 
 Thus the full flow of population's tide 
 Its swelling waters pour on every side : 
 As, on the topmost boughs of some old wood, 
 When outcast rooks first hatch their infant brood, 
 The tufted nests, as buds each vernal year, 
 In growing groups, and thicker ranks appear, 
 Till soon the spacious grove, with clam'rous strife, 
 Resounds throughout, and teems with callow life ; 
 So, Australasia, may thy exil'd band 
 Spread their young myriads o'er thy lonely land, 
 Till village spires, and crowded cities rise 
 
28 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 In thick succession to the travelers' eyes, 
 And the grim wolf, chas'd from his secret hold, 
 No more with hungry howl alarm the fold. 
 Nor be the rustic arts alone thy pride : 
 The ambient ocean half thy care divide ; 
 Whether thy roving sons on Tropic seas 
 Spread ev'ry sail to woo the sportive breeze ; 
 Or with bare poles and dauntless bosoms brave 
 The icy horrors of 'the Antarctic wave ; 
 Till fruitful commerce in thy lap shall pour 
 The gifts of ev'ry sea and ev'ry shore. 
 
 And thou, fair Science ! pure ethereal light, 
 Beam on her hills, and chase her mental night ; 
 Direct her sons to seek the perfect day, 
 Where Bacon traced, and Newton led the way ; 
 Till bright Philosophy's full orb arise, 
 To gild her noon, and cheer her ev'ning skies. 
 But, 'mid the future treasures of their lore, 
 Still foremost rank the Greek and Latin ore : 
 Still in the classic search the midnight oil 
 Be spent, nor deem'd that pleasing labour toil, 
 Till to their sight reveal'd all glorious shine 
 The hidden riches of this ancient mine ! 
 Whether they follow with admiring view 
 The fam'd retreat of Xenophon's bold few ; 
 Or in Calypso's Isle, or Ida's grove, 
 And by Scamander's boiling eddies rove ; 
 Or see the pilferer of the empyrean fire 
 Chain'd to his rock, endure the Thund'rer's ire ; 
 Or hear the caverns of the Lemnian shore 
 Ring with the raving hero's anguish'd roar ; 
 Or on Trozene's sands see Phaedra's hate 
 Draw on Hippolytus a guiltless fate ! 
 Or with the glory of th' Augustan reign, 
 Enraptur'd drink the sweets of Maro's strain ! 
 Or borne along by Tully's whelming flood 
 Feel all his anger kindling in their blood, 
 When to wide infamy and deathless shame, 
 He dooms the plund'rer's, or the traitor's name. 
 
 Celestial poesy ! whose genial sway 
 Earth's furthest habitable shores obey ; 
 Whose inspirations shed their sacred light, 
 Far as the regions of the Arctic night, 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 29 
 
 And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam 
 Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam, 
 Descend thou also on my native land, 
 And en some mountain-summit take thy stand ; 
 Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen 
 Than charm'd Castalia or fam'd Hippocrene ; 
 And there a richer, nobler fame arise, 
 Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes. 
 And tho', bright Goddess, on those far blue hills, 
 That pcur their thousand swift pellucid rills, 
 Where Warragumba's rage has rent in twain 
 Opposing mountains, thund'ring to the plain, 
 No child of song has yet invok'd thy aid, 
 'Neath their primeval solitary shade, 
 Still, gracious Pow'r, some kindling soul inspire, 
 To wake to life my countiy's unknown lyre, 
 That from creation's date has slumb'ring lain, 
 Or only breath'd some savage uncouth strain ; 
 And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song 
 Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along : 
 An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page 
 To Nature true may charm in ev'ry age ; 
 And that an Austral Pindar daring soar, 
 Where not the Theban Eagle reach'd before. 
 
 And, oh Britannia ! should'st thou cease to ride 
 Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide ; 
 Should thy tam'd Lion spent his former might 
 No longer roar, the terror of the fight : 
 Should e'er arrive that dark, disastrous hour, 
 When, bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r ; 
 When thou, no longer freest of the free, 
 To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee ; 
 May all thy glories in another sphere 
 Relurne, and shine more brightly still than here ; 
 May this thy last-born INFANT then arise, 
 To glad thy heart, and greet thy PARENT eyes ; 
 And AUSTRALASIA float, with flag unfurl'd, 
 A new BRITANNIA in another world ! 
 
 His Account of the Colony passed through three editions in 
 the course of five years. We may infer from this that it was a 
 successful work ; but it seems to have attracted little notice from 
 
30 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 the English press. On the appearance of the first edition, the 
 " Edinburgh Review " noticed it as 'a work of merit ' in an article 
 on the Colony. When the third edition was brought out, the 
 " Westminster " merely said that its execution was slovenly. But 
 it seems to have made its way with the public, successfully if 
 silently, and to have influenced the course of legislation with 
 respect to the colony. The two last editions were greatly enlarged. 
 In these, the author entered upon an elaborate vindication of 
 Governor Macquarie, who had been severely censured in the 
 Report of Mr. Commissioner Bigge, and who was recalled in con- 
 sequence. The following passage from this portion of the work 
 is a fine specimen of vigorous eloquence : 
 
 But the distinguishing characteristic in the state of society is to be traced to 
 the causes which led to the origin of the colony itself. For some consider- 
 able time after its foundation, there were of course only two classes, free 
 persons, consisting almost exclusively of the civil and military officers who 
 were attached to the establishment, and convicts sentenced to various terms of 
 transportation. The distinction between these classes was so broadly drawn, 
 that it soon produced a marked influence on the conduct of each. The former 
 became consequential and overbearing ; the latter equally humble and submissive. 
 After a few years, however, a third class slowly sprang up, composed of persons 
 who had been convicts, and had gradually become free, either by the expiration 
 of their respective sentences, or by pardon. This intermediate class soon 
 acquired the distinctive appellation of "emancipists ;" a name by which they 
 are still known, and which serves to contra-distinguish them from those whose 
 emigration has been voluntary. The emancipists soon made considerable 
 strides in number, character, and wealth, but for a long period they possessed 
 no visible influence in society ; for the upper class, which had also gained some 
 accession of strength, though by no means a proportionate accession, as well by 
 voluntary emigration, as by the gradual augmentation which occurred from 
 time to time in the civil and military establishments, kept as much aloof from 
 the emancipists as from the convicts themselves, enduring no association with 
 them except for purposes of mere interest or convenience. And, strange as it 
 may appear, such was the arrogance of one party, and such the servility of ihe 
 other, that the former class did not heap degradation on the latter with more 
 indifference than these seemed to endure it, as if pending the period- of servi- 
 tude they had acquired a habit and predilection for slavery, too inveterate for 
 any subsequent enjoyment of freedom to remove. Thus an aristocratic junta 
 gradually arose, who monopolized all situations of power, dignity, and emolu- 
 ment, and at last gained such an ascendancy that they were able for a long 
 
W. C. WENTWORTH. 31 
 
 while to domineer alike over the Government and the people. And to such a 
 pitch of insolence did they at last carry their pretentions, that they considered 
 themselves possessed of equal right to the Governor's confidence as if they 
 stood in the same relation to him which the nobility of this country bear to the 
 King, and were de jure his hereditary counsellors. Until the accession of 
 Governor Macquarie, the great body of the people, I mean of such as had 
 become free, scarcely possessed any civil privilege, but that of suing and being 
 sued in the courts of justice, and even this privilege they were very cautious of 
 exercising out of their own circle. The whole power and nearly the whole 
 property and commerce of the Colony were in the hands of the few who had 
 risen to this ascendancy at the expense, and to the evident detriment and 
 oppression of the community at large ; and even in those instances where the 
 emancipists had been allowed to acquire some little affluence, their success was 
 to be traced to the patronage and protection afforded them by some member 
 or other of the aristocratic party, to whom they either acted as agents in the 
 disposal of merchandise (for it was considered by these gentlemen derogatory 
 from their dignity to keep shops and sell openly), or else resorted for the pur- 
 chase of goods on their own account. At the prosperity and importance, however, 
 of this faction (for such is their proper appellation), Governor Macquarie, seeing 
 that the power which they had attained was subversive of the very end for 
 which the Colony itself had been instituted, levelled many a deadly blow during 
 his long and judicious administration ; and, although he, unhappily, did not 
 succeed in extinguishing them altogether, he at least shore them of all but the 
 inclination to re-establish the domination which they so long exercised. Like 
 the Indian juggler's bag of serpents, their nature is not altered, but they have 
 happily lost their poisonous fangs. Of the measures which this excellent, 
 though most calumniated gentleman adopted, with this view, the most prominent 
 were, first, Prohibiting the military from holdings lands or being concerned in 
 commerce ; secondly, Raising to situations of trust and dignity some of the most 
 deserving of the class of emancipists ; and thirdly, Throwing open the ports of 
 the Colony to an unlimited importation of all sorts of merchandize. But it was 
 not to be expected that he could effect these great and salutary changes in the 
 policy which had been so long acted upon by his predecessors in the Govern- 
 ment, without encountering the most obstinate and rancorous opposition from 
 the party whose monopoly was thus overthrown. He, in fact, instantly drew 
 on himself their unrelenting and systematic hostility. Numberless were the 
 attempts made on all hands to vilify his motives and misrepresent his actions ; 
 but, as the leading maxim of his administration "that it was good policy to 
 restore the deserving emancipist to that rank in society which he had occupied 
 previously to his conviction " attracted the marked and cordial concurrence 
 both of the Committee of the House of Commons, that reported on transport- 
 ation in 1812, and of the present Secretary of State for the Colony ; they judi- 
 ciously desisted from cavilling any further with a policy thus sanctioned, although 
 it was still as repugnant as ever to their feelings. With a pliant dexterity they 
 
32 W. C. WENTWORTH. 
 
 immediately shifted their ground, and, feigning to concede the soundness of the 
 principle itself, they resolved to seize every occasion to condemn its application. 
 Accordingly every emancipist, who was fortunate enough to become the object 
 of the Governor's countenance and protection, was instantly beset by this pack 
 in full cry. Not content with hunting up and giving a false colouring to every 
 little blemish which they could discover in the individual's history, they 
 scrupled not to circulate as facts every species of calumny to which an unbridled 
 and vituperate ingenuity could give birth. In the teeth, however, of all the 
 discouragements and obloquy which the rancorous malignity of this faction 
 contrived to throw in his way, this humane and upright Governor continued 
 his course with the undeviating flexibility of a man who knew that he was 
 pursuing the path of honour and duty. In vain did they assail him with open 
 censure, in vain did they seek to undermine him by secret misrepresentations. 
 To every charge of his enemies his unshaken integrity and unwearied zeal in 
 the performance of all his duties, whether public or private, proved a sufficient 
 refutation ; and in spite of an opposition thus organized and inveterate, he stood, 
 like some frowning solitary rock of the ocean, on its own eternal basis, heed- 
 less of the din, and unaffected by the assaults of the boisterous elements around 
 him. 
 
33 
 
 THE REV. DR. LANG. 
 
 JOHN DUNMORE LANG was born in Scotland, in 1799, and arrived 
 in this Colony in 1823. Few men, perhaps, of the present day 
 have employed their pens more actively than he has done. The 
 catalogue of his publications is a lengthy one. It stands thus : 
 
 1826. Aurora Australis : a collection of sacred verse. 
 
 1833. Emigration. 
 
 1834. History of New South Wales, 2 vols. 
 
 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian- Nations. 
 
 1837. Transportation and Colonization. 
 
 Second Edition of his History of New South Wales. 
 
 1839. New Zealand. 
 
 1840. Religion and Education in America. 
 
 1847. Phillipsland. 
 Cooksland. 
 
 1848. Eine Deutsche Colonie in Stillen Ocean. The origi- 
 nal was written in English. 
 
 1852. Freedom and Independence for Australia. 
 
 Third Edition of his History of New South Wales. 
 1 86 1. Queensland. 
 
 In addition to these labours as an author, Dr. Lang has contri- 
 buted extensively to the Press. In 1835, he established the 
 Colonist, one of the best of our old newspapers ; in 1841, the Colo- 
 nial Observer; and in 1851, the Press. To each of these journals 
 he contributed numerous editorial writings. 
 
34 J- D. LANG. 
 
 As an author, Dr. Lang is distinguished rather by fertility of 
 thought than by elegance of style. The latter, indeed, he seems 
 to have systematically neglected. Most of his works have been 
 produced under circumstances which, perhaps, did not admit of 
 careful elaboration. It has been his habit to write at sea, during 
 the many voyages he has made to the old world. It is conse- 
 quently difficult to select any passage from his works. at all remark- 
 able for style. DifTuseness and verbiage are found everywhere. 
 Where we are pleased, it is solely by the thought expressed ; not 
 at all by the manner of expression. 
 
 His work on the Polynesian Nations is by far the most valuable 
 of his writings, in a critical point of view. No other composition 
 from his pen displays such depth of research, such readiness in 
 argument, such capacity for profound philosophical investigation. 
 In this work he has demonstrated, not only the manner in which 
 the Polynesian Islands were peopled, and the origin of the cannibal 
 habits prevailing in them, but also the first settlement of America. 
 In opposition to Dr. Robertson's theory, that the aborgines of that 
 continent reached it by way of the Aleutian Archipelago, he 
 maintains that they came from the islands of the South Sea, by 
 the same succession of accidents which drove them from one 
 island to another. Whether we adopt his theory or not, we can- 
 not but respect the great ingenuity and learning he displays. 
 
 The following passages are taken from this work. They des- 
 .cribe the peopling of the islands by the adventurers of the Indian 
 Archipelago. 
 
 It would thus appear that on the first opening of the East to Europeans, 
 there were extensive, powerful, and flourishing maritime states of ancient stand- 
 ing established in the Indian Archipelago, the enterprising and warlike popu- 
 lations of which had made no inconsiderable progress in the arts of civilization. 
 The conquests of the Arabs, and the voyages of their seafaring converts in the 
 East to the sepulchre of the Arabian Prophet, may doubtless account for the 
 prevalence of the Malayan language in the Island of Madagascar, although it is 
 much more probable that the settlement of that island had been effected long 
 anterior to the era of Mahomet or the rise of the Saracen power ; but the early 
 discovery and the successive settlement of all the islands of the Indian Archi- 
 
J. D. LANG. 35 
 
 pelago, were the natural and the necessary result of the existence of an ancient 
 maritime power in that galaxy of isles. Some of these discoveries were doubt- 
 less the result of accident, others the reward of enterprise. With the islands 
 more favourably situated, a precarious communication would doubtless be 
 maintained for a longer period with the mother country ; but as the discovery 
 and settlement of the more distant and isolated isles would in all likelihood be 
 effected by the crews of vessels that had lost their way on the deep sea, their 
 future inhabitants would necessarily remain completely isolated from the rest of 
 mankind. 
 
 It would seem that the Indian Archipelago has been traversed from time 
 immemorial both by the Chinese and the Malays. * The Chinese, it is well 
 known,' says M. de Labillardiere, 'received spices from the Moluccas many 
 ages before these islands were seized upon by the Europeans. ' And for ages 
 past the Malays have had a fishery established on the north coast of New 
 Holland, which they visit annually with a large fleet of proas, to the number 
 of two hundred sail and upwards, in search of a marine slug, called trepang or 
 bechede lamer, which they cure for the China market. We are therefore war- 
 ranted to conclude that the same adventurous spirit which had ascertained the 
 existence of these distant regions, and rendered them available for the purposes 
 of mercantile speculation, would not only lead enterprising individuals of the 
 Malayan nation to the successive discovery and settlement of all the islands of 
 the Indian Archipelago, at a comparatively early period in the history of the 
 world, but induce them to launch out, like Columbus, in quest of unknown 
 lands into the boundless Pacific. Maritime enterprise is the characteristic of 
 islanders ; and we are warranted to believe, from instances that have occurred 
 within the memory of man, that voyages of discovery have in all past ages been 
 undertaken by that adventurous race, whose offspring now inhabit the South 
 Sea Islands, on the most indistinct idea of the existence of any land in the 
 direction of their intended course. A solitary native of the Fiji Islands had 
 been driven to sea by some sudden storm when fishing in his canoe on the 
 coast, and had landed at length on the Friendly Islands, three hundred and sixty 
 miles from his native isle. In such circumstances no European, unacquainted 
 with the science of navigation, would have ventured to put to sea in search of the 
 distant island from which the stranger had been accidentally driven. But the 
 thoughtless Polynesian, fired by the spirit of adventure, disregards the suggestions 
 of prudence, and fearlessly embarks on an expedition as wild as Don Quixote's. 
 Stimulated, accordingly, by the intelligence he had received from the stranger, 
 a chief of the Friendly Islands set sail for the Fiji Islands some time afterwards, 
 with two hundred and fty followers, in three large canoes, each of which must 
 have carried eighty men with provisions for the voyage. 
 
 In such voyages, however, the unskilfulness of the pilot or the unexpected 
 change of the wind, would often carry the adventurous islanders far beyond 
 their reckoning ; and in such circumstances they would either founder at sea, 
 or perish of hunger, or be driven they knew not whither, till they reached some 
 
36 J. D. LANG. 
 
 unknown and previously undiscovered island. In the latter case they would 
 gladly settle on the new-found land, fearful of again trusting themselves to the 
 ocean, and entirely ignorant as to what course they should steer for their native 
 isle. 
 
 This mode of accounting for the gradual peopling of the South Sea Islands 
 is accordant with known facts ; for numerous adventurers have been known to 
 leave their islands in those seas, on such hazardous voyages as the one I have 
 just referred to, and have never afterwards been heard of. Nay, instances are 
 frequently occurring in the South Sea Islands of canoes being blown off the 
 land by a sudden squall, or driven out of their course by some other accident of a 
 similar kind in their short voyages from one group of islands to another. During 
 the last few years the New South Wales sperm-whale ships have repeatedly 
 fallen in with canoes that had been thus accidentally driven out to sea, and that, 
 but for their assistance and direction, would never have reached any land. In 
 one instance of the kind that occurred within the last two years, there were two 
 dead bodies in one of the canoes. These calamitous accidents have doubtless 
 been aggravated and rendered unnecessarily fatal by the mental character and 
 disposition of the South Sea Islanders ; for, conjoining a remarkable proneness 
 to despondency with their spirit of adventure, when the wind blew strong and 
 adverse in their short and frequent voyages from island to island, instead of 
 redoubling their exertions, they generally pull down all sail and extend them- 
 selves in sullen despair along the bottom of their canoes, abandoning themselves 
 and their tiny vessel to the mercy of the winds and waves. 
 
 Scattered over the immense superficies of his writings, we meet 
 occasionally with passages which show how easy it would have been 
 for Dr. Lang to charm his reader as well as to convince him. Let 
 his History of the Colony furnish one or two proofs of this assertion : 
 
 If a peach-stone is thrown into the ground in a favourable situation in New 
 South Wales, a large quantity of fruit may be gathered from the tree that 
 shortly afterwards shoots up from it, without any subsequent culture, at the 
 expiration of the third or fourth year. A gentleman, to whom the colony is 
 much indebted for the zeal which he long evinced in the path of Australian 
 geographical discovery I mean Mr. Allan Cunningham was induced, from 
 this circumstance, uniformly to carry along with him a small bag of peach- 
 stones on his exploratory expeditions into the interior ; and whenever he found 
 a suitable piece of ground in the great wilderness, to dig it up and plant a 
 few of them in it, in the hope that the future trees might one day afford a 
 timely supply of food, either to the wandering native, or to Europeans who 
 might accidentally lose their way in the 'pathless solitudes of the interior ; for 
 the reader is doubtless aware that the native forests of Australia afford nothing 
 whatever in the shape of fruit for the sustenance of man. I was much struck 
 
J. D. LANG. 37 
 
 with the circumstance when it was first mentioned to me, many years ago, by 
 Mr. Cunningham ; and while I could not help commending, from my very 
 heart, the pure and disinterested benevolence it evinced, I could not help 
 inwardly regarding it as a lesson to myself for the future, and a reproof for 
 the past. Alas ! how many spots have we all passed unheeded in the wilderness 
 of life, in which we might easily have sown good seed had we chosen, and 
 left it to the blessing of God, the dew of heaven, and the native energies of 
 the soil ! Such spots we may never revisit ; and the opportunity of doing 
 good which was thus afforded us, but which was suffered to pass unimproved, 
 will never return. 
 
 And again, when he becomes descriptive : 
 
 , With the exception of the open plains, which occur on the elevated levels 
 in the interior of the country, and which, like the plain of Bathurst, are 
 naturally destitute of timber, the territory of New South Wales is, in its 
 natural state, one vast interminable forest. In many parts of the colony, and 
 especially in the interior, the land 'is but thinly timbered ; there being not more 
 than three or four trees of moderate height, and of rather interesting appearance, 
 to the acre. In such places the country resembles the park scenery around a 
 nobleman's seat in England, and you gallop along with a feeling of indescriba- 
 ble pleasure. In general, however, the forest land is more thickly timbered, 
 sufficiently so to form an agreeable shade in a hot Australian summer-day, 
 without preventing the traveller from proceeding in any direction at a rapid 
 trot or canter. On the banks of rivers, and especially on the alluvial land 
 within reach of their inundations, the forest becomes what the colonists call a 
 thick brush, or jungle. Immense trees of the genus Eucalyptus tower upwards 
 in every direction to a height of from 100 to 150 feet ; while the elegant cedar, 
 and rosewood of inferior elevation, and innumerable wild vines and parasitical 
 plants, fill up the interstices. In sterile regions, however, on rocky mountain 
 tracts, or on sandy plains, the forest degenerates into a miserable scrub, as the 
 colonists term it ; the trees are stunted in their growth and of most forbidding 
 aspect, the fruit they bear being literally pieces of hard wood similar in appear- 
 ance to a pear, and their shapeless trunks being not unfrequently blackened 
 from the action of tire. In such regions, the more social animals of the country 
 entirely disappear. The agile kangaroo is no longer seen bounding across the 
 footpath, nor the gaily-plumaged parroquet heard chattering among the branches. 
 If anything with the breath of life is visible at all, it is the timid gray lizard 
 hiding itself in the crevices of the rocks, or the solitary black snake stretched at 
 full length on the white sand, or the busy ant rearing his slender pyramid of 
 yellowish clay, as if in mockery of the larger monuments of the Pharaohs, and 
 establishing his puny republic amid the loneliness of desolation. In such for- 
 bidding regions, the mind unavoidably partakes of the gloominess of nature ; 
 and the only idea that takes forcible hold of it is, that such must assuredly be 
 the region on which the primeval curse has especially fallen. 
 
CHARLES HARPUR. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN Poetry has found its first exponent in CHARLES 
 HARPUR. This gentleman was born at Windsor in 1811, and 
 received no education beyond that given him by his father, a 
 schoolmaster. His life has been spent entirely in the interior, 
 a fact, indeed, which might be conjectured from his writings. For 
 the last ten or twelve years he has been in the service of the 
 Government as a Gold Commissioner. 
 
 In 1853, Mr. Harpur published a small volume of poems. 
 His fame as a Poet must rest upon one or two of the pieces 
 contained in it. Many of them are not likely to afford much 
 pleasure to the reader, for their author appears to have little 
 power over the heart, except as a describer of nature. There are 
 two cardinal objections to his compositions which must largely 
 interfere with their popularity. These are the want of harmony 
 in his verse, and the want of taste displayed in his selection of 
 language. Popular poetry depends more upon these qualities 
 than upon the depth or subtlety of thought displayed in it. The 
 ear must be pleased before the heart can be conquered. Mr. 
 Harpur always conveys an impression of power, and when he is 
 treating a congenial theme, he writes well : but whenever he 
 attempts the lighter graces of lyric verse, he suggests the idea of 
 a muscular man dancing a clumsy minuet 
 
C. HARPUR. 39 
 
 By far the best thing he has written is The Creek of the Four 
 Graves ; in fact, nothing else from his pen makes the slightest 
 approach to it. It is a fine piece of landscape painting, and it 
 contains at least one image that might be envied by any poet. 
 
 T verse a Settler's Tale of the old times, 
 One told me by a friend, the kindly sage, 
 Old Egremont, who then went forth with four 
 Of his most trusty and adventurous men 
 Into the wilderness, went forth to seek 
 New streams and wider pastures for his fast 
 Augmenting flocks and herds. On foot were all, 
 For horses then were cattle of too great price 
 To be much ventured upon mountain routes 
 And into brush-lands perilously pathless. 
 
 So they went forth at dawn : and now the sun 
 
 That rose behind them as they journeyed out, 
 
 Was firing with his nether rim a range 
 
 Of unknown mountains that like rampires towered 
 
 Full in their front, and his last glances fell 
 
 Into the gloomy forest's eastern glades 
 
 In golden masses transiently, or flashed 
 
 Down on the windings of a nameless creek 
 
 That, fringed with oaks and the wild willow ran 
 
 Noiselessly on, between the pioneers 
 
 And those new eminences. 
 
 Wilder grew 
 
 The scene each moment beautifully wilder ! 
 For when the sun was all but sunk below 
 Those barrier mountains, then, within a breeze 
 That o'er their rigid and enormous backs 
 Deep fleeced with wood, came whispering down, the wide 
 Slant sea of leaves stirred in the slanting rays 
 Stirred interdazzlingly, as though the trees 
 That bare them were all thrilling, tingling all 
 Even to the roots, for very happiness 
 So prompted from within, so sentient, seemed 
 The bright quick motion. 
 
 Halting wearied here, 
 
 Our travellers kindled for their first night's camp 
 The brisk and crackling fire, which also looked 
 
4 C. HARPUR. 
 
 A wilder creature than 'twas elsewhere wont, 
 
 Because of the surrounding savageness, 
 
 And soon in pannikins the tea was made, 
 
 Fragrant and strong, the freshed-sliced rasher broiled 
 
 On the live embers, and as soon dispatched 
 
 By the keen tooth of healthful appetite. 
 
 And as they supped, birds of new shape and plume 
 And strange wild voice, westward repairing by, 
 Oft took their wonder, or between the boles 
 Of the upslanting forest trees they saw, 
 Perched on the bare abutments of those mountains, 
 The wallaroo look forth : till eastward all 
 The view had faded into formless gloom, 
 Night's front ; and westward, the high massing woods 
 Steeped in a dusk and deepening beauty, lay 
 Heaped all the more distinctly for their darkness 
 Against the twilight heaven, a cloudless depth 
 Yet luminous from the sunset's fading splendour : 
 And thus for a brief interval they looked 
 Even like a mighty picture of themselves 
 Hung in some vaster world. 
 
 Their supper done, 
 The echoes of the solitary place 
 Came as in wonder round about to meet 
 Strange voices moulding a strange speech, as then 
 Lifted in glee but to be hushed ere long, 
 As with the night, in kindred darkness came 
 O'er the adventurers, each and all, a sense 
 Of lurking danger. 
 
 But all settled soon 
 
 About the well-built fire, whose nimble tongues 
 Sent up continually a strenuous roar 
 Of fierce delight, and from their fuming pipes 
 Drawing rude satisfaction, grave discourse 
 Of their peculiar business brought to each 
 A steadier mood that reached into the night. 
 
 The simple subject to their minds at length, 
 Fully discussed, their couches they prepared 
 Of the green tresses of the willows near, 
 And four, as pre-arranged, stretched out their limbs 
 Under the dark boughs of the forest high 
 O'erdoming and traced out against the clear 
 
C. HARPUR. 41 
 
 Wide gaze of heaven, and trustful of the watch 
 
 Kept near them by their thoughtful master, soon 
 
 Drowsing away forgetful of their toil, 
 
 And of the perilous vast wilderness 
 
 Around them, slept ; whilst all things there as well 
 
 Showed slumbrous, yea, the circling forest trees, 
 
 Their foremost bodies carv'd from a crowded mass 
 
 Less visible by the watch-fire's bladed gleam, 
 
 And even the shaded and enormous mountains, 
 
 Their bluff brows glooming through the stirless air, 
 
 Looked in their quiet solemnly asleep : 
 
 Yea, thence surveyed, the universe might have seemed 
 
 Coiled in vast rest, only that one dim cloud, 
 
 Diffused and shapen like a mighty spider, 
 
 Crept as with scrawling legs across the sky, 
 
 And that the stars in their bright companies, 
 
 Cluster by cluster glowingly revealed 
 
 As this slow cloud mov'd on, high over all, 
 
 Looked thoughtfully awake. 
 
 And now the moon 
 
 Up from behind an eastern hill was seen 
 Conglobing, till a mighty mass she brought 
 Her under border level with its cone 
 As thereon resting edge to edge, when straight 
 Its solid bulk seemed inwardly to grow 
 Impregnate with her radiance, whilst the trees 
 That fringed its outline, their huge statures dwarfed 
 By distance into brambles, and yet all 
 Clearly defined against her ample orb 
 Even to their sprays, out of its very disk 
 Appeared to swell in bold relief, as they 
 Were sculptured from her substance. 
 
 Egremont 
 
 On all this solemn beauty of the night 
 Looked out, still wakeful, for sweet thoughts of home 
 Ingathered to his heart, as by some nice 
 And subtle interfusion that connects 
 The loved and cherished (then the most, perhaps, 
 When past or absent) with the beautiful 
 And lasting things of Nature. So then thought 
 The musing Egremont, when suddenly hark ! 
 A bough cracked loudly in a neighbouring brake, 
 And drew at once, as with a 'larum, all 
 His spirits thitherward. 
 D 
 
42 C. HA.RPUR. 
 
 He listened long 
 
 With head bent forward, till his held breath grew 
 A pang, and his ears rung. But Silence there 
 Had recomposed her ruffled wings and now 
 Brooded, it seemed, even stiller than before, 
 Nested in darkness : so that he ere long 
 To his sweet mood of museful memory 
 Calmly recurred. 
 
 But there, again ! and hark 
 
 Oh God! have Hell's worst fiends burst howling up 
 Into the doomed world? Or whence, if not 
 From diabolic rage, could surge a yell 
 So horrible as that which now affrights 
 And upwards sends the shuddering air ? 
 
 Alas! 
 
 Beings, in their enmity as vengeful, come 
 In vengeance ! For, behold, from the long grass 
 And nearer brakes, at once, a semi-belt 
 Of stript and painted savages divulge 
 Their bounding forms ! full in the flaring light 
 Thrown forth then suddenly by the fire, as though 
 Even it had felt the shock the air received 
 From their so terrible cries ! 
 
 A moment seen 
 
 Thus as they bounded up, on then they came 
 Closing with weapons brandished high, and so 
 Rushed in upon the sleepers ! three of whom 
 But started and then weltered quivering under 
 The first fell blow dealt down on each, by three 
 Of the most stalwart of their merciless foes ! 
 But one again and yet again heaved up 
 Up to his knees, under the crushing strokes 
 Of the huge nulla-nulla, till his own 
 Warm brains were blinding him : for he was one 
 Who had with misery nearly all his days 
 Lived lonely, and who therefore, after hope 
 Hungered, and thirsted for some taste of good. 
 And now he could not but dispute the fact 
 Of death even in the fact. For oft 'tis seen 
 That Fortune's gay and pleasure-pamper'd child 
 Consents to his untimely power, with less 
 Reluctance, less despair, than does the wretch 
 Who hath been ever blown about the world, 
 
C. HARPUR. 43 
 
 The straw-like sport of Fate's unkindliest blast, 
 Vagrant and tieless ever still in him 
 The craving spirit thus graves unto itself : 
 
 ' ' I never yet was happy never yet 
 Tasted unmixed enjoyment, and I would 
 Yet pass on the bright Earth that I have loved 
 Some season, though most brief, of happiness, 
 So should I walk thenceforward to my grave 
 Whenever in her green and motherly breast 
 It might await me, more than now prepared 
 To house me in its gloom resigned at heart, 
 Soothed and subjected to its certainty 
 Even by the consciousness of having shaped 
 Some good in being. But to have lived and now 
 To die thus desolate, is horrible ! " 
 
 And feeling thus by habit, that poor man, 
 Though the black shadow of untimely death 
 Hopelessly thickened under every stroke, 
 Upstruggled desperate, until at last 
 One as in mercy, gave him to the dust, 
 With all his sorrows. 
 
 Egremont, transfixt 
 
 With horror struck as into stone, saw this, 
 Then turn'd and fled ! Fast fled he, but as fast 
 His deadly foes went thronging on his track ! 
 Fast! for the merciless yelled in the chase! 
 And as he fled, the forests beasts as well 
 In general terror, through the brakes a-head 
 Crashed scattering, or with madd'ning speed athwart 
 His course came frequent. On, still on he flies, 
 Flies for dear life, and still behind him yea, 
 Nearer and nearer, hears the rapid dig 
 Of many feet ! 
 
 And now, what should he do ? 
 Abruptly turning, the wild creek lay right 
 Before him ! But no time was there for thought, 
 So on he kept, and plunging from the brink 
 Sank to his middle in the flashing stream 
 In which the imaged stars seemed all at once 
 To burst like rockets into one wild blaze 
 Of writhing light. Then strongly wading through 
 The ruffled waters he sprang forth, and clenching 
 
44 C. HARPUR. 
 
 With iron clutch a stake-like root, that from 
 The opponent bank protruded, up its dark 
 O'erjutting ledge went clambering, in his blind 
 And breathless hurry, when O, surely God 
 Has a peculiar care of those for whom 
 The daily prayers of spotless womanhood 
 And helpless infancy are offered up ! 
 When in its face a cavity he felt, 
 The upper earth of which was held fast bound 
 By the close implication of the roots 
 Of two old tea-trees. Into this he crept, 
 Just as the dark forms of his hunters thronged 
 The brink whence he had plunged. 
 
 Thereon a space 
 
 They paused, to mark what bent his course might take 
 Over the further bank, so to hold on 
 The chase more surely. But no form was seen 
 To shoot up from its outline, nought there stirred, 
 Wherefore they augured that their prey was yet 
 Somewhere between ; and the whole group, with that, 
 Plunged forward till the fretted current boiled 
 Amongst their crowded trunks from bank to bank, 
 And searching thus the stream across, and then 
 Lengthwise, along the ledges, one by one 
 Athwart the cavity they passed so near 
 That, as they waded by, the fugitive 
 Felt the strong odour of their wetted skins 
 Pass with them. 
 
 But the search was vain. And now 
 Those wild men marvelled, and in consultation, 
 Then coupling his strange vanishment with one 
 Of their crude superstitions, fear-struck all 
 And silent they withdrew. And when the sound 
 Of their receding steps died from his ear, 
 Our friend slid forth, and, springing up the bank, 
 Renewed his flight, nor rested from it, till 
 He gained the welcoming shelter of his home. 
 
 Return we for a moment to the scene 
 Of recent death. There the late flaming fire 
 Now smouldered, for its brands were strewn about 
 And four stark corses, plundered to the skin 
 And brutally mutilated, seemed to stare 
 With frozen eyeballs up into the pale 
 
C. HARPUR. 45 
 
 Round countenance of the moon, who high in heaven 
 With all her starry multitude looked down, 
 As peacefully down, as on a bridal, there, 
 Of the warm living, not, alas ! on them 
 Who kept in ghastly silence through the night 
 Untimely spousals with a desert death ! 
 
 There afterwards, for many changeful years 
 Within a glade that sloped into the bank 
 Of that wild mountain creek midway within 
 Its partial record of a terrible hour 
 Of human suffering and loss extreme, 
 Four grassy mounds stretched lengthwise, side by side, 
 Startled the wanderer ; four grassy mounds 
 O'erstrewn with skeleton boughs, and bleaching leaves 
 Stript by the wintry-winged gales that roamed 
 Those solitudes from the old trees which there 
 Moaned the same leafy dirges that had caught 
 The heed of dying ages : these were all ; 
 And thence the place was called passingly called 
 The Creek of the Four Graves. Such was the tale 
 
 * 
 
 Egremont told us of the wild old times. 
 
 The following ballad of bush life, entitled "Ned Connor," is so 
 well executed as to make us wish that Mr. Harpur had written 
 more in the same style, instead of soaring into cloudier heights. 
 Both this and the preceding poem are perfect specimens of local 
 colouring. 
 
 'Twas night and where a watery sound 
 
 Came moaning up the Flat, 
 Six rude and bearded stockmen round 
 
 Their blazing bush-fire sat, 
 And laugh'd as on some starting hound 
 
 The crackling fuel spat. 
 
 And merrier still the log-fire cracks 
 
 As night the darker falls, 
 While not a noisy tongue there lacks 
 
 To tell of drunken brawls, 
 But most of battle with the Blacks 
 
 Some bloody tale appals. 
 
46 C. HARPUR. 
 
 Amongst them then Ned Connor spoke, 
 And up his form he drew : 
 
 What is there in an open stroke 
 To boast of? You but slew 
 
 Those who'd have done, each hell-black one, 
 The same or worse to you. 
 
 But, lost among the hills, one day, 
 Which then was well nigh shut, 
 
 I met a Black upon my way, 
 And thus the matter put 
 
 Unto him: " See ! this knife's for thee, 
 Come, guide me to my hut." 
 
 His savage eyes grew huge with joy 
 
 As on the prize they bent, 
 And leading, even like a boy 
 
 He caper'd as he went : 
 But think you, men, to give the toy 
 
 Ned Connor ever meant ? 
 
 An hour had brought us many a mile 
 And then, as closed the day, 
 
 The savage pointed with a smile 
 To where my station lay : 
 
 "There ! give to me the knife," said he, 
 " And let me go my way." 
 
 I never meant that he should touch 
 
 The thing, as I have said, 
 And when he stretched his hand to clutch, 
 
 A thought came in my head : 
 I raised my gun, as though in fun 
 
 I fired and he was dead \ 
 
 The ruffian laughed in his pitiless mood 
 
 When ended thus his tale, 
 But all the rest, though men of blood, 
 
 With horror seem'd to quail, 
 And saw, though he stood boastfully, 
 
 That Connor too was pale : 
 
 For through the moaning of the trees 
 He seem'd to hear the sound 
 
 Of his own laughter in the breeze 
 Keep roaming out till drown'd 
 
 In wild and bitter mockeries, 
 Up-answering from the ground. 
 
C. HARPUR. 47 
 
 Now what to hear had made them fear 
 
 Had also made them dry : 
 But strange ! the water-pail that late 
 
 Brimm'd in the corner nigh 
 Was empty ! In amazement great 
 
 There's not a drop ! they cry. 
 
 Their thirst grew bitter, and they said 
 
 Come, this will never do ! 
 It is your turn for water, Ned, 
 
 Then why not go ? He drew 
 Full hard His breath, and from his head 
 
 There dripp'd a sudden dew. 
 
 But shaming to be tax'd with fear, 
 
 He seiz'd the pail and said 
 "What care I ? Though the night be drear 
 
 Who ever saw the dead ? 
 And if I fail to fill this pail 
 
 The devil shall, instead." 
 
 He sallied forth. A sudden blast 
 
 Went sobbing by the door, 
 Through which they heard his footsteps fast 
 
 Recede and when no more 
 They heard them, round the fire aghast 
 
 They gather'd as before. 
 
 " I would not go alone to-night 
 
 The way that he is gone," 
 Said one, " for all the gold my sight 
 
 Hath ever fallen upon : 
 To slay that creature was not right, 
 
 I'd say't w^ere he my son!" 
 
 And now impatient all and wild 
 
 They wonder'd at his stay, 
 Till one outspake : "A weanling child 
 
 Could not make more delay : 
 If longer slack in coming back, 
 
 He'll bring with him the day. " 
 
 But while they thus were wond'ring hark ! 
 
 They hear a frantic shriek, 
 Then nearing footsteps through the dark 
 
 Come waywardly and weak : 
 And as the dogs did howl and bark, 
 
 They star'd but fear'd to speak. 
 
48 C. HARPUR. 
 
 Against the door, that to had swung, 
 
 One rush'cl then and 'twas split ; 
 'Twas Connor ! who amid them sprung 
 
 And fell into a fit : 
 And long that night in ghastly plight 
 
 He struggled there in it. 
 
 And when his sense return'd again 
 
 The sun was rising bright, 
 But shuddering as in mental pain 
 
 He turn'd him from the light, 
 And pointing said " To bed ! to bed ! 
 
 For death is in my sight ! " 
 
 The poem does not end here in the original ; it is continued 
 for some sixteen or seventeen stanzas further, in which Connor 
 relates his interview with the ghost of his victim. It is question- 
 able whether the poem is at all improved by them. They seem 
 rather to weaken the effect of the whole ; destroying the dramatic 
 effect produced by the last lines quoted above, as well as their 
 deep suggestiveness. 
 
 Although Mr. Harpur may never rank very high as a poet, it is 
 clear that he possesses a certain amount of genius. Suffering 
 in the first instance from a narrow culture, he never seems, 
 unfortunately, to have found out the limits of his power, 
 nor even the direction in which it lay. Thus it is that he has 
 written a mass of verse which will never recompense him for 
 the labour it has cost him. Apparently disdaining the more 
 common sources of poetical inspiration, he has striven to emulate 
 the lofty flights of Wordsworth : and while he has grasped at 
 objects placed beyond his reach by nature, he has left behind 
 him those which might have been attained with ease. Neverthe- 
 less he may justly claim the honour of having laid the foundation 
 stone of our national poetry. 
 
49 
 
 W. FORSTER. 
 
 WILLIAM FORSTER was born in Madras, in 1818, and came to this 
 Colony eleven years after. The early years of his manhood were 
 spent in the bush as a squatter. While engaged in this occupa- 
 tion, he commenced a series of contributions on political subjects 
 to the Sydney press. Many pieces of this kind, containing 
 much satirical force, appeared in the well known Atlas of 
 1844. One of his productions made a considerable noise at the 
 time, and has not yet been forgotten. It was a political satire, 
 under the heading, The Dei'il and the Governor, the Governor 
 alluded to being Sir George Gipps. This branch of literature has 
 been cultivated with a good deal of success by our writers, but 
 the first piece of the kind which met with more than ordinary 
 notice is the one now mentioned. 
 
 SCENE. An office : Governor discovered seated at a writing table. Devil 
 
 advances. 
 Governor (aside). What fellow is this, whose footsteps rude 
 
 On my private hours thus dare intrude, 
 
 Wfcen doors are closed, and the desolate blast 
 
 In the outward midnight is bellowing past ? 
 
 I hear the sentinel's step below 
 
 How the deuce he got in, I should like to know. 
 
 'Tis an ill looking hound ! that aspect hard 
 
 With the sorrow of sin is deeply scarr'd ; 
 
 And the records of passion deeply streak 
 
 With their infinite lines that iron cheek ; 
 
 I'm really afraid for help to cry, 
 
 For I shrink from the scowl of his glaring eye 
 E 
 
50 W. FORSTER. 
 
 And feel in his presence a sense of awe, 
 Like a felon caught in the clutch of law, 
 Would I could summon my slaves together, 
 Where's Riddell and Parker, where's Merewether? 
 Yet he rather looks like a gentleman, too 
 I'll speak to him first what else can I do? 
 His manners may please, though his look's severe ; 
 (Aloud] My honest fellow, what brings you here ? 
 Devil. Ha, ha ! my old boy ! how soft and mild ; 
 
 Why, you talk in the tone of a well-bred child. 
 Cheer up, cheer up ; dismiss alarm, 
 My time is not come to do you harm. 
 We've been friends too long to be quarreling now, 
 And I'm not the man for a foolish row. 
 I doubt not my face is strange, but still 
 You've borne me in deeds the best good will, 
 Come, come, cheer up, don't look so blue, 
 I'm a Governor, George, as well as you. 
 
 Governor. The devil you are ! 
 
 Devil. The devil I am. 
 
 'Tis an ugly name in one's mouth to cram ; 
 
 But ah ! you sly dog ! you guess'd it well 
 
 I govem the vast domains of Hell. 
 
 Why start at the word ? since, by the same token, 
 
 'Tis not the first time you've heard it spoken. 
 
 Governor. Dark prince of the deep ! what want you here 
 
 Since mortals with you must meet in fear ? 
 Dez>il. I've come, my dear soul, for an hour or two, 
 On passing events to chat with you ; 
 To render you thanks for the mischief you're brewing 
 For the State you oppress and the land you're undoing 
 And also to offer excuse my freedom 
 A few words of advice should you chance to need 'em. 
 
 Governor. As for your praise, it might not flatter, 
 So let it pass, as it don't much matter, 
 Sit down. And I hope you've taken tea 
 The hour for that meal being past with me ; 
 I'd offer you grog, but I sadly fear 
 My cupboard is lock'd, and the key's not here. 
 My servants to roost, I believe, have fled, 
 My aide-de-camp's out, and my Sec. in bed 
 Yet now I reflect, I can find you some 
 'Tis a bottle of best imported rum, 
 Just out of a batch that was seiz'd in town 
 
W. FORSTER. 51 
 
 Oh dear ! how I miss that Hutchinson Brown ; 
 
 The keenest fellow in any nation 
 
 Is he, for sniffing an information, 
 
 With the pounce of a cat, the eye of an eagle, 
 
 And a nose for a job, that would honour a beagle ; 
 
 As for me, I don't drink it, 'twas brought as a sample, 
 
 But do not be guided by my example, 
 
 You can suck from a bottle, as I suppose ; 
 
 Hold it well up, and take care of your nose. 
 Devil. Pooh, pooh ! such stuff mere children's sport is, 
 
 I now drink nothing but " aquafortis." 
 
 How long I may do so remains a question, 
 
 For I'm told it exceedingly hurts the digestion ; 
 
 And such is the general spread of sobriety, 
 
 They've got up in Hell a Temperance Society. 
 
 Now, I make it a rule though much trouble it brings, 
 
 To patronize all those sorts of things. 
 
 A sober sinner is not the less 
 
 A sinner for want of drunkenness ; 
 
 And they wrong me who say that I'm fond of riot, 
 
 I like those crimes best that are done in quiet. 
 Governor. You talk rather boldly. 
 
 Devil. Well, I'm wrong 
 
 To trench on your prejudice, if it's strong. 
 
 Your pardon I heartily beg but stay, 
 
 I've wander'd from much I meant to say. 
 Governor. Your advice, your advice, 'twere a shame to lose it, 
 
 Though I need not take it unless I choose it. 
 Devil. I grant you the praise you've fairly won 
 
 By the deeds you do and the deeds you've done ; 
 
 I know that as causes corrupt the mind 
 
 Like the chains by which tyrants have crushed mankind, 
 
 That the blighting touch of a despot's rod 
 
 Kills in man's spirit the breath of God. 
 
 That the purpose he bade your race fulfil 
 
 Is not for the meek slave's fettered will , 
 
 That the cherishing light of the holy skies 
 
 Falls barren and vain upon servile eyes, 
 
 That the weeds of evil will thrive their best, 
 
 Where the fair shoots of nature are clipped and dressed ; 
 
 Yes, under those climes where the poisonous brood 
 
 Of error is nursed by servitude 
 
 Where souls are bowed by the weight they bear, 
 
 Where their moral sky looks dark, and their air 
 
^ W. FORSTER. 
 
 Is thick with the filth that bondage breeds, 
 I scatter my foul and fertile seeds 
 Where most I am bent on man's undoing. 
 The tyrant assists my work of ruin. 
 In New South Wales, as I plainly see, 
 You're carving out plentiful jobs for me. 
 But forgive me for hinting your zeal is such 
 That I'm only afraid you'll do too much. 
 I know this well To subject mankind 
 You must tickle before you attempt to bind ! 
 Nor lay on his shoulder the yoke until 
 Through his habits you've first enslaved his will. 
 You're too violent far, you rush too madly 
 At your favourite ends and spoil them sadly. 
 Already, I warn you, your system totters, 
 They're a nest of hornets these rascally Squatters, 
 Especially when you would grasp their cash 
 Excuse me, George, but I think you're rash. 
 Governor. Rash ! d n it, rash ! 
 
 Devil. .... Don't fly in a passion, 
 
 In the higher circles 'tis not the fashion ; 
 And swearing, besides, you must allow, 
 Is neither polite nor useful now. 
 
 Governor. Would you have me forego the rights of the Crown, 
 To be laughed at all over this factious town ? 
 I'll teach these Squatters to pay their rent, 
 And don't care one rush for their discontent ; 
 They've abused me in print, they've made orations, 
 They've their papers and pastoral associations ; 
 To England they've sent their vile petitions 
 They've their Agents in swarms like heathen missions 
 They've gone to the length of caricaturing 
 But I'll show them the evil's past their curing. 
 Devil. -Come, come, be cool or your aim you'll miss, 
 Your temper's too hot for work like this ; 
 This people I say will submit the more readily 
 If you've only the wit to grind them steadily. 
 You've a snug. little tyranny under your thumb 
 But manage it well, or down 'twill come. 
 'Twere a pity to peril this rich possession 
 By a foolish rashness or indiscretion ; 
 Wentworth and Wincleyer are troublesome chaps, 
 And the Council's a thorn in your side, perhaps ; 
 But let them grumble and growl their fill, 
 
W. FORSTER. 53 
 
 You know very well their power is nil. 
 Look at the schedules by which, 'tis clear, 
 You handle a monstrous sum each year ; 
 Look at the patronage thrown in your gift, 
 To give any fawning friend a lift. 
 Didn't you find a berth for Therry ? 
 What were his merits? vast ? Oh ! very 
 When a fellow like that can be made a Judge, 
 They may prate of their freedom, but I say " fudge." 
 Look at the power you have to draw 
 On Stephen and Co., when you want a new law. 
 Look at the lands that are unlocated, 
 Where your devils of the Crown are so nicely created, 
 Then calmly proceed, and with prudence act ; 
 "In the middle lies safety," that's a fact 
 Subdue by degrees, and slowly oppress, 
 Or, I tell you, you'll get yourself into a mess. 
 While people petition, they'll find it "a sell," 
 But don't push them too hard, they might rebel. 
 Governor. Rebel ! ha ! ha ! you're surely in joke; 
 Rebellion here a mere puff of smoke. 
 What would the people of England say 
 A rebellion ! how queer ! in Botany Bay ! 
 Pick-pockets, swindlers, thieves, and jobbers, 
 Cut-throats, and burglars, and highway robbers 
 A mob that escaped the gallows at home 
 'Tis worse than the "the servile wars at Rome ! " 
 A handful of troops would put them down, 
 And the higher classes would join the Crown. 
 Devil. It might be so, but just mark, my friend 
 Who come to be losers in the end ? 
 No doubt there'd be fun well worth enjoying 
 Burning, and plundering, and destroying ; 
 Fighting for towns not worth disputing 
 Skirmishing, robbing, and rifle-shooting 
 From bushes and trees, and rocks for barriers- 
 Murdering of post boys and plundering of carriers, 
 Storming of camp by midnight entries 
 Driving off horses, and popping off sentries 
 Seizing of stock for purposes royal, 
 Pressing of men to make them loyal ; 
 Some heroes might fall in that petty strife, 
 Whom bondage had taught a contempt of life, 
 Some patriots leading in civil storms, 
 
54 W. FORSTER. 
 
 Might dangle on gibbets their martyr forms ; 
 
 Or exiled afar, to return no more, 
 
 Might bury their bones on a foreign shore, 
 
 Proscribed by the tyrants they dared to brave, 
 
 And mocked by the people they fought to save ; 
 
 But not in vain would they bear or bleed, 
 
 This land would have gained what most they need. 
 
 John Bull from his drowsy indifference waking, 
 
 Would give some of you despots a terrible shaking ; 
 
 You'd be robbed of your berth and your reputation, 
 
 For causing your masters so much vexation 
 
 And the people your chains so closely bind, 
 
 A tardy justice would seek and find. 
 
 Take my advice, I offer it cheap, 
 
 Why, as I live, the man's asleep ! 
 
 George, George, your manners much want reforming, 
 
 But I'll give your nose a bit of a warming. 
 
 ( Tweaks his nose and vanishes. ) 
 
 Governor (waking tip). Was this but a dream ? or was it real ? 
 There's a pain in my nose by no means ideal. 
 There might be some truth in what he told me 
 This place seems getting too hot to hold me. 
 I can't remain here for ever, 'tis true, 
 But I'll leave my successor something to do ; 
 If I can't turn the Squatters out of their stations, 
 I can ruin the scoundrels by proclamations ; 
 So I'll write out a draft for one this minute 
 And if it don't sting them, the devil's in it. 
 
 Mr. Forster has been a frequent contributor to different journals 
 in the colony during the last twenty years. His writings are 
 principally of a political character. He has rarely ventured in 
 the field of pure literature, but has contented himself with apply- 
 ing his literary power to the development of political questions. 
 His 'leading articles/ and his less serious efforts both in verse 
 and prose, would probably fill several octavo volumes. The 
 following article a criticism on an 'Oration' by Mr. Fowler 
 touches upon a non-political subject, and gives a fair specimen of 
 the writer's capacity for dealing with aesthetic topics. It appeared 
 at a time when the daily papers were full of the most fulsome 
 
W. FORSTER. 55 
 
 
 
 eulogies of the lecturer, and gave rise to a rather bitter contro- 
 versy. In his ' Oration/ Mr. Fowler had set himself to ' imitate 
 without parody/ the most celebrated writers of the present century. 
 It need scarcely be said that the merits of the dispute were entirely 
 on Mr. Forster's side. 
 
 What a fashion it has become to pamper colonial literary efforts with profuse 
 and indiscriminate applause ! I presume with a view to the encouragement of 
 local genius. We kindly give certificates to the merest neophytes and char- 
 latans. This must inevitably tend to depress the standard of colonial litera- 
 ture. Surely true genius need never shrink from true and honest criticism. 
 If encouragement and cultivation be required, which many doubt, are they not 
 best afforded by sweeping away with unsparing hand the mediocrities which 
 encumber the same soil, and rob the seedling we would cherish of air and 
 nutriment ? The success of Mr. Fowler's Oration has been pronounced by 
 the Press. Perhaps the Press would do well to reconsider its verdict. 
 
 Criticism chiefly concerns itself with two enquiries. First What is your 
 author's aim ? Secondly How has this aim been attained ? If high and 
 difficult, the greater, of course, the glory of success, and vice versa. But on 
 the other hand the disgrace or failure is measured by comparison of the 
 author's design with his powers and means of execution. If his estimate of 
 these be false or extravagant, if he conceive absurdities or grasp at impossi- 
 bilities, he exposes himself to just and proportionate ridicule. Nor is an 
 author's design always to be gathered from his own enunciation. , It may be 
 purposely obscured or concealed may be hidden altogether from his con- 
 temporaries, and even from himself. 
 
 In the case before us the orator proposes to illustrate and exemplify the best 
 modern English writers by professed imitations of their style and sentiments. 
 Notwithstanding Mr. Fowler's " moral reasons," the plan seems to me unwor- 
 thy a man of letters one which could never have entered the head of a fervent 
 worshipper altogether inconsistent with due reverence for and sympathy with 
 genius. Unconscious imitation is a tribute we pay, in spite of ourselves, to 
 intellectual superiority. W T e become, as it were, assimilated with great minds, 
 we lose our individuality in the enthusiasm they excite, but in general, if we be 
 wise, we dare not knowingly seek to identify ourselves with their wonderful 
 productions. There have indeed been imitations, such as Pope's, made merely 
 for purposes of literary exercise and amusement. These pretend to little and 
 must not be severely judged. Mr. Fowler's efforts are of a more ambitious 
 order : they are expressly intended as illustrations to show how Byron, 
 Wordsworth, Coleridge, &c., thought and wrote. The lecturer himself calls 
 them " specimens" an inappropriate phrase, and, to my thinking, somewhat 
 hyperbolical. In short, 'tis an attempt to pourtray genius by reflections from 
 Mr. Fowler's mirrors or " lanterns " magic or not, as may be or whatever 
 
56 W. FORSTER. 
 
 else he may please to term them, a species of literary trifling, I had almost 
 said, of profane mockery, which however it may suit the egotism of preten- 
 tious patronage to dignify with fulsome eulogies, displays in the imitator only 
 inordinate self-esteem, combined I fear with a very faint appreciation of the 
 sacredness and beauty of those great originals, from whom Mr. Fowler draws 
 his second-hand inspiration. 
 
 To what end are his imitations ? If great writers were to be illustrated, why 
 not have given us passages from their own works? Would not such 
 "specimens" have answered the purpose better than Mr. Fowler's? He does 
 not assume his copies to be equal to their prototypes I quite agree with him 
 there. But whatever their merits they are but as masks upon real faces. What 
 do we want with them at all ? Can they in any way assist our judgment ? 
 Why must we scale the empyrean upon ladders of Mr. Fowler's manufacture ? 
 
 I take then the lecturer's real design to have been this viz., to show how 
 cleverly Mr. Fowler could do imitations. Mr. Fowler is rather hard on 
 dunces, but is not particularly successful in his endeavours to rescue imitators 
 from the low position assigned them by Johnson and Emerson. Utterly false 
 and absurd is his apologetic adaptation of a remark of Shelley's " That all 
 art is mimetic." Most truly so, in her selection of details. But in her con- 
 ceptions taken as a whole, quite the reverse. From Nature, of course, those 
 materials must be taken, which Art, under altered arrangements and in nobler 
 forms, sublimes into creation. The features and the limbs are human, but the 
 statue grows into the shape and aspect of a god. The antique theories of 
 cosmogony involved that of a primeval chaos, out of which Jupiter created the 
 universe. Shakespeare's highest creations, though wonderfully human, were 
 not portraits. The work of Art is to select, to perfect, to realise Nature, who 
 in details of execution is seldom or never perfect. The ideal is the realization 
 of Nature. Above all, the artist draws from Nature herself, whereas the 
 imitator or artisan at best draws only second-hand from the artist. 
 
 Parodies and caricatures are more nearly allied to Art than such imitations 
 as Mr. Fowler's, or, to adopt his own phi'aseology, " specimens that are not 
 caricatures." The grotesque, though an inferior species, is yet a species of 
 Art. 'Tis, as it were, a second rainbow, parallel with, only dimmer than the 
 first. Caricature, no less than high Art, has its genius and its ideals. Its types 
 simultaneously exist both in Art and Nature, and its creations are of the ludic- 
 rous instead of the beautiful. The mere imitator cannot but fall far short of 
 the caricaturist, because the conceptions of the latter, even when they excite 
 disgust, have always the merit of originality. 
 
 And now within the narrow limits I have ventured to assign him, how has 
 the lecturer succeeded in his task ? For my own part, if literary imitation be 
 taken to consist in something more than mere external resemblance, that is to 
 say, in rhythmical structure and versification, I must confess my impression, 
 which I admit to.be that of a comparatively unlettered person, that Mr. 
 Fowler's copies are little better than failures, My judgment certainly labours 
 
\V. FORSTER. 57 
 
 under the disadvantage of being founded on the newspaper reports, which 
 appear not to be complete, but from the " specimens" published, I should 
 have had great difficulty in recognizing the writers. Mr. Fowler's portraits, 
 however, are wisely inscribed with the names of their subjects. This method 
 helps on the reader's lagging acquiescence in those cases where some faint 
 degree of resemblance may be conceived to exist and in these it appears to 
 me as if only the most vulgar notion of the writer were conveyed by some 
 commonplace contrivance. For instance, in the Byronic " specimen, " which 
 is certainly not the most unlike, we have the trite contrast of ' ' regal brows 
 with damp worms crowned " the disruption of the sense in the penultimate 
 line, and the prophetic mysteriousness of the last. Of Wordsworth and ol 
 Hood again we may bring ourselves to discern some faint elimination of the 
 first in mawkish inanity of the second in a string of most intolerable puns. 
 Poor Scott suffers a strange transfiguration. Seldom indeed are the comic 
 pages of Punch adorned by a more ludicrous image than that of the heroic 
 Donald, rushing about after the fashion of a Bombastes Furioso, now kissing his 
 lady-love and now "holding the baffled foe at bay." The travesty would have 
 been admirable had there been the least resemblance to Scott's style, which I 
 must own all my efforts fail to discover. Mpore's " specimen," devoid of 
 melody and softness, is like the play without the character of Hamlet. " The 
 metre of Locksley Hall" and "smiling frankly up the night" might perhaps 
 have served to remind us slightly of Tennyson, did we not find the same metre 
 and a similar quaintness of expression in Alexander Smith and a host of other 
 poets of the same school, as it is called. Some of the other specimens appear 
 to contain better poetry, but if possible, still less resemblance, which leads 
 one charitably to hope that Mr. Fowler would succeed better as an original 
 writer' than as a copyist. 
 
 But, unfortunately, in the text of his oration, he shows himself somewhat of 
 a happier imitator than in his so-called "specimens." The ambitious style of 
 the essay, thick sown with epigrammatic and metaphorical conceits, has a 
 palpable though diluted relish of Emerson. An instance doubtless of that 
 unconscious imitation to which I have above alluded, and which is indeed a 
 common fault if fault it be of young authors. Far graver errors but 
 these also years may correct are the mistaken sentiments, the false metaphors, 
 the inapt and even ludicrous comparisons with which the lecture abounds. 
 For example, speaking of modern poets, he tells us "We are as destitute of 
 colour and fancy as a plaster cast." Now plaster casts are not necessarily 
 destitute of fancy, and I rather think modern poets are not so wanting in fancy 
 as imagination. The comparison of Tennyson with Longfellow is particularly 
 absurd and still more so that of Coleridge with Johnson. What have these, 
 respectively, in common, save that all are or were eminent poets and 
 writers ? Then Emerson has " the Ionic grace and chaste simplicity of the old 
 Greeks * * * all the convolvuluted richness of the Corinthian abacus, all 
 the chaste simplicity of the Doric column" quite enough of contradictions for 
 F 
 
58 W. FORSTER. 
 
 one man in all conscience. Does Mr. Fowler really know the meaning of 
 these scientific epithets ? And how is the bewildered reader out of such 
 hodge-podge to make out the order of architecture to which Emerson's style 
 belongs? When Shelley's lyre is likened to "the sough of the pine forest, 
 whose variety is its charm" one is tempted to ask Has Mr. Fowler ever 
 heard the sough of the pine forest ? If he had, would he have praised it for 
 variety ? Again, it is not easy to conceive how Wordsworth's style, or any 
 other style, can include the qualities of both summer evenings and winter 
 mornings, nor how Moore could have contrived to "write with the scarlet 
 beak of the crane," nor how the epithet "Spenserian" can be properly 
 applied to any of Moore's love songs. Then we have an Etrurian tomb 
 peopled with very strange and rather incongruous inhabitants, viz.: "stately 
 bards and philosophers of Greece" "soldiers, statesmen, and scholars of 
 Rome" "fantastic phantasms of the Plindoos" besides Englishmen and 
 Germans. And why is the style of Keats figured by "Thessalian holly," 
 which few of us have seen, in preference to English, which, judging from Mr. 
 Fowler's own description, would have answered his purpose quite as well. 
 
 These are but a few samples of the many conceits and affectations which 
 encumber Mr. Fowler's literary sketches to such a degree that it becomes 
 almost impossible to judge of their descriptive merits. His pictures are 
 obscured by their framing and gilding, and the likenesses, if any such there 
 be, lost in meretricious ornaments. When Mr. Fowler learns to write in a 
 plain style, which perhaps he will when he has acquired by practice more 
 confidence in his own powers, and left off imitating Emerson, we shall perhaps 
 understand him better, and do more justice to his powers of delineation. For 
 the present he seems to me a dangerous model for still younger writers, and 
 one which they might be induced to follow by certain glittering qualities 
 which his style undoubtedly possesses, and by the public approbation he has 
 gained. 
 
 Criticism of this kind, free as it was from undue severity, did 
 good service to the cause of Literature. Neither its value nor its 
 justice, however, can be fully appreciated, unless the reader is 
 acquainted with the ludicrous eulogies pronounced by the daily 
 papers. 
 
 A second satire from Mr. Forster's pen, of a less personal kind 
 than the one already given, attracted considerable attention at the 
 time of its appearance in the Atlas. It was entitled, The Genius 
 and the Ghost, and had reference to the subject of Transportation. 
 The characters in the dialogue were, the Genius of the City of 
 
W. FORSTER. 59 
 
 Sydney and the Ghost of Transportation. The latter, alluding to 
 the free emigrant portion of the population, breaks out into the 
 following invective towards the conclusion : 
 
 But ye who freely sought this southern clime 
 
 Without the badge, if not the taint, of crime 
 
 Self-righteous, spotless, calculating host, 
 
 Who make morality your modest boast, 
 
 Who point, with cool and quiet self-applause, 
 
 At cherish'd statutes and unbroken laws, 
 
 Ye virtuous emigrants ! who from the brink 
 
 Of crime and woe so sensitively shrink, 
 
 Among your saintly myriads are there none 
 
 Who blush at former crimes in secret done 
 
 Know ye no moments past, however long, 
 
 When your frail virtue falter'd into wrong 
 
 No times, ere heavenly mercy bade you mend, 
 
 When fortune, more than virtue, stood your friend ? 
 
 Oh ! think, may not some friend, more dear than life, 
 
 Some father, brother, lover, sister, wife, 
 
 Some cherish'd name that fills the eye with tears, 
 
 Read in the pages of departed years ? 
 
 Oh ! may not such, by strong misfortune driven, 
 
 Herd with those outcast sons of earth and heaven, 
 
 Oh ! may not such, beneath some bitter blow, 
 
 Some sudden outrage of capricious woe, 
 
 Beset by daily want, by daily care, 
 
 In the hot impulse of his keen despair, 
 
 Urg'd by the present wish, the prompting time, 
 
 For once once only lift the hand to crime ; 
 
 Then by impatient justice snatch'd, and sent 
 
 To share with crowds their hopeless punishment 
 
 Oh ! may not such, when shivering at the last, 
 
 That forlorn spirit shudders o'er the past, 
 
 Upon your cruel heads, with gasping breath, 
 
 Launch the irrevocable curse of Death, 
 
 From you who bid the wanderer turn away, 
 
 And wrest from hopeless guilt its comfort and its stay ? 
 
 I would, when nations hoist a moral name, 
 That judge and jury might decide their claim, 
 I would not ask alone what victims swell 
 The bloated gang, or gorge the stifling cell 
 
60 W. FORSTER. 
 
 What ragged rogues the indignant tipstaff locks 
 
 In midnight dens, or convoys to the stocks 
 
 What nameless crowd some public gaol restrains, 
 
 With vulgar handcuffs and plebeian chains, 
 
 The horde of felons rear'd to deeds of ill, 
 
 Whom, scarce polluted by the blood they spill, 
 
 Malignant justice drags, with vain display, 
 
 To choke and stiffen in the blaze of day, 
 
 Or sends abroad, where she may chance to find 
 
 Some simple race of primitive mankind, 
 
 To spread, where no resisting force controls, 
 
 The rank contagion of corrupted souls. 
 
 I wish opinion to be sound and strong 
 
 Where justice flinches from the unpunish'd wrong : 
 
 I ask what system of your partial times 
 
 Bestows impunity on chartered crimes ; 
 
 What guilt some vile expediency protects, 
 
 Politeness smiles upon, or fear neglects ; 
 
 For splendid faults what sanctuary, and which 
 
 Shelters the showy vices of the rich. 
 
 What wealthy ruffian, hedg'd around by awe, 
 
 You cherish, scatheless by the arm of law. 
 
 If might can reach what merit would not dare 
 
 If men are honour'd by the clothes they wear 
 
 If patriots at the shrine of tyrants fall 
 
 If hollow consciences truckle at their call 
 
 If stubborn priests on liberty look sour, 
 
 Or base religion bow the knee to power. 
 
 When in his gay barouche, or tandem neat, 
 Some fat insolvent whirls adown the street, 
 Thinking the while, no doubt, what charming sport 
 He had with Law Commissioner and Court, 
 And meets some wretch his arts to ruin led, 
 Whom his false schedule robb'd of clothes and bread, 
 Who in his threadbare vesture shrinks, and feels 
 The sprinkled blessings of his chariot wheels ; 
 When, he, rich rogue, whose keen commercial eye 
 Each passing object glances gaily by, 
 That weeping wretch, so pale and so forlorn, 
 Shall dare accost with fashionable scorn, 
 Or to his victim impudently dole 
 The base compassion of his knavish soul ; 
 When he shall still be honour'd and caress'd 
 At social boards a sleek and favour'd guest 
 
W. FORSTER. 6 I 
 
 When crowds around him bend in servile style, 
 
 Aw'd by his frown and flatter'd by his smile 
 
 When such the bays that crown a villain's brow, 
 
 I ask is this your moral city now ? 
 
 At midnight balls, where mirth is faint and hot, 
 
 See yonder flush'd and fashionable sot ; 
 
 Behold him, staggering with his weight of wine, 
 
 Mid laughing crowds pre-eminently shine. 
 
 The devil that obscures his slender sense 
 
 Inspires a more than usual impudence. 
 
 Then see him boldly mix, with drunken skill, 
 
 In the mad polka or the stale quadrille 
 
 See some fair creature's palpitating waist 
 
 By his hot arm lasciviously embraced 
 
 See the soft cheek of virgin beauty blaze 
 
 With the wild babble of his senseless praise 
 
 See aged dames his batter'd jokes beguile 
 
 See sober matrons chuckle at his smile 
 
 Hear sons and fathers praise his "cheerful mood " 
 
 " A little swipy" or "a little screw'd"- 
 
 See next at church some slender victim stand, 
 
 Whose parents lik'd the honour of his hand 
 
 See, too, her fpnd and drooping eyes approve 
 
 His worn-out vows of mercenary love 
 
 Hear, in his praise, relations loud and warm, 
 
 "A little wild, but certain to reform." 
 
 Then turn away where stocks and dungeons bind 
 
 The wretched dregs and rabble of mankind 
 
 Where the low sons of vulgar drunkenness 
 
 Are taught the guilt of unrefined excess, 
 
 And dare you still, without a pang of shame, 
 
 Your virtue and morality proclaim ? 
 
 It is evident that Mr. Forster's writings are never wanting in 
 pungency. Perhaps they are wanting in finish ; but that may be 
 accounted for by the fact that they were simply newspaper con- 
 tributions, which seldom meet with much elaboration. Had he 
 devoted himself with more attention to letters than he has done, 
 it can hardly be doubted that he would have gained distinction. 
 He has not made many serious efforts in poetry, nor does he 
 make any pretension to the name of poet. The tendency of 
 
62 W. FORSTER. 
 
 his mind is rather to subtlety of disquisition than luxuriance of 
 imagination. He would have made an admirable Scholastic 
 Philosopher in the thirteenth century, on certain points, indeed, 
 he might have put Duns Scotus on his mettle. For a mind of 
 such a temper, the following Sonnets are very respectable pro- 
 ductions. They were written at the time of the Crimean war. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ah me ! the world's a vault that History paves 
 
 With buried nations. Egypt's awful bones 
 
 Are blanched in deserts. Hark ! the dulcet tones 
 
 Of Asian winds come whispering over graves ! 
 
 Greece only melts us as with odorous breath 
 
 Of churchyard flowers that make a friend of death. 
 
 Fair Italy in hollow accents raves, 
 
 Mingling reproach with anguish, as a ghost 
 
 Complains 'mid scenes in life she loved the most, 
 
 And Poland like a prison'd spirit sighs ! 
 
 Far off how many a dusky nation lies, 
 
 Deep hid in woods, or in oblivion lost. 
 
 Oh, Heaven ! the end shall this be ever so ? 
 
 And whither these have gone must England go ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Sebastopol ! that on the sable sea 
 Sitt'st with the blood of many nations bathed, 
 Now that war's waning tempest leaves thee free, 
 How proudly frowning from thy craggy steep, 
 With haggard looks thou dost survey the deep, 
 Sublime, though shattered terrible, though scathed ! 
 Oh ! more enduring monument than brass, 
 O marble shape, stern city ! thou shalt pass 
 From memory never privileged to bear 
 The horrid brand and character of war 
 Imprinted on thy forehead, as a scar 
 Adorns a warrior. Oh ! for ever wear 
 Thy glory so. When noble foes are crowned 
 By our own hands, we make ourselves renowned. 
 
 III. 
 
 Why shout ye thus, unthinking multitude ! 
 Why thus, with sulphurous stars and fiery glare, 
 Disturb the quiet night ? Why vex the air 
 With idle preans ? Look you ! peace is good, 
 
W. FORSTER. 63 
 
 And therefore to rejoice in sober mood, 
 We owe to God, who blesseth us thereby. 
 But why, I ask you, giddy people ! why 
 Need Freedom's sons by heartless mirth insult 
 Their brothers in affliction why exult 
 When tyrants only chuckle? Still, the sky 
 Looks down on nations trampled in the dust ; 
 Still, Poland yields her myriads to the lust 
 Of foreign foes ; still, Italy, depressed 
 With hopeless anguish, tears her bleeding breast. 
 
 IV. 
 
 'Twixt East and West, a giant shape she grew, 
 
 To both akin, and making both afraid. 
 
 Casting a lurid shadow on the new 
 
 And ancient world, her greedy eyes betrayed 
 
 The tiger's heart, and ominously surveyed 
 
 The peoples destin'd for her future prey ; 
 
 From Polar steppes and ice-encumbered seas 
 
 To where the warm and blue Symplegades 
 
 Darken the splendour of a Grecian day, 
 
 She stretched her long grasp, conquering by degrees ; 
 
 And when at length the banded nations rose 
 
 In armed resistance, their combined array, 
 
 With equal arms, she shrunk not to oppose, 
 
 But bravely stood, as still she stands, at bay. 
 
 In political life, Mr. Forster has gained a high reputation for 
 ability and honesty. His speeches display no eloquence, but 
 they are pithy and philosophical. He was Colonial Secretary 
 and Premier in 1860, but his administration lasted a few months 
 only. It was strenuously supported by Mr. Deniehy in the 
 Southern Cross. Mr. Forster was again Colonial Secretary in 
 1863, when Mr. Martin was Premier. 
 
6 4 
 
 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 JAMES MARTIN was born in Ireland, in 1820, and arrived in this 
 Colony in his childhood. He was articled to Mr. G. R. Nichols, 
 an attorney who distinguished himself in politics as well as in law ; 
 and after his admission he practised with considerable success. 
 On the introduction of Responsible Government in 1856, he 
 became Attorney General in the first administration of Mr. 
 COWPER, and a few days after was admitted to the Bar. Since that 
 period, he has occupied the position of a leader in the profession, 
 and is generally regarded as by far the ablest man in its ranks. 
 This success is the more remarkable, seeing that Mr. MARTIN, 
 from a very early date in his career, seems to have divided his 
 attention equally between politics and law. He has been a mem- 
 ber of the Legislature, almost without intermission, for nearly 
 twenty years ; and by no means either a silent or an inactive one. 
 He may be regarded as the legitimate successor of Mr. Went- 
 worth in the position which that distinguished politician occupied 
 among his contemporaries. Since the departure of Mr. Went- 
 worth from our shores, no man has appeared to dispute the palm 
 of pre-eminence with Mr. Martin. He is the ablest debater in 
 the Assembly, and the most effective advocate at the Bar. 
 
 In a remarkable speech made ten years ago, in answer to an 
 ungenerous attack upon himself, Mr. Martin traced the outlines 
 of his career. " He was surrounded," he said, " by those who 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 65 
 
 had raised themselves to high position by their own honourable 
 exertions true sons of the soil, not in the narrow sense in which 
 the term was generally understood, but in the sense of the old 
 Roman satirist, who applied the expression to those who owed 
 their success in life neither to wealth, nor pedigree, nor fortune. 
 With these and him there were many things in common. He 
 asked them, and he asked them confidently, not ungenerously and 
 unjustly to desert him on this occasion. From his outset in life 
 till that time, he had to achieve everything for himself, and from 
 the humblest beginning he had fought his way almost to the 
 highest point to which, in this colony, it was possible to attain. 
 At every step he had been met with opposition, and had been 
 compelled to make good his ground, and whatever he had 
 achieved he owed not to the favour or affection of any man. 
 He had never cringed, nor fawned, nor played the sycophant, 
 and if his conduct was open to condemnation, it certainly was 
 in a contrary direction. The lesson of self-reliance, of which he 
 trusted he might be pardoned in regarding himself as an example, 
 would not, he hoped, be shorn of its value by an unmerited 
 reverse in the moment of final triumph. As he had borne up 
 against and overcome many obstacles of greater magnitude than 
 the present, he trusted that he should successfully bear up against 
 this one also, and that, in the stand which he then took, the 
 generous and spontaneous sympathies of the House would go 
 along with him, and that the only effect of the present storm 
 would be, like those of the physical universe, to leave the atmos- 
 phere of public life purer than before." 
 
 The current has now set the other way, and Mr. Martin has no 
 longer any opposition to fear. Judging from the course of events 
 during the last few years, it seems more than probable that his 
 predominance will increase, notwithstanding the unpopularity of 
 his politics. As long as he remains in public life, his influence 
 over it must be a powerful one. So far as that is concerned, it 
 
 matters little whether he is in office or out of office. In the one 
 G 
 
66 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 case, he is Achilles in the field, and in the other, Achilles in the 
 camp but he is still Achilles. 
 
 Mr. Martin has, in past years, written a good deal in the public 
 Press. Twenty years ago, he edited the Atlas for some time, and 
 was a coadjutor of the celebrated Robert Lowe. His contributions 
 were principally on topics of a political nature ; and if they cannot 
 be pointed out as models of composition, yet they all bear the 
 stamp of a cultivated and powerful intellect, which rarely failed to 
 grasp the salient points in the case before it, and to place them in 
 the most effective light. We meet with no effort at invention 
 no display of imagination no exuberance of humour : but we 
 have keenness, fluency, and force, in a marked degree. 
 
 The following is the " peroration" of an article entitled The 
 Parting Word, written on the departure of Sir George Gipps. It 
 is not a bad piece of historical portraiture : 
 
 It is unnecessary for us now to go through all the charges that might be 
 made against Sir George Gipps. Perhaps no Governor ever had a finer op- 
 portunity of making himself popular and respected of conferring greater 
 benefits upon the people over whom he was placed, and certainly no Governor 
 ever effected a greater amount of injury, or perpetrated a greater amount of 
 injustice. Having been entrusted, amongst other matters of almost equal im- 
 portance, with the task of introducing a system of representative Government 
 amongst us, he voluntarily resigned all the credit which he might easily have 
 gained by carrying that system out, and did everything in his power to counter- 
 act it. The subordinate officer of a limited Sovereign, who can do scarcely 
 anything except through the instrumentality of Ministers responsible to Parlia- 
 ment, he claimed for himself, and attempted to exercise, the most arbitrary 
 power. He invented prerogatives before unheard of, and drew a distinction, 
 on all occasions, between the interests of the people here and the Government 
 at home. He paid no respect to the wishes or the opinions of the colonists, 
 or their representatives, but constantly disregarded them whenever they were 
 at variance with his own. Instead of being firm, he was obstinate and perverse. 
 Instead of taking pains to soften and conciliate, he did everything to embitter 
 and disgust. Placed over a community of British subjects, he acted with the 
 arbitrary spirit of a Turkish bashaw, and denied to his fellow subjects here the 
 possession of rights which the meanest man in England enjoys. Having by his 
 shameful misgovernment made the great body of the colonists hostile to his 
 measures, he collected, by the most disgraceful abuse of his Sovereign's patro- 
 nage, a horde of wretched sycophants and time-servers around him, for the 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 67 
 
 purpose of obtaining for himself the most miserable semblance of support. He 
 did everything in his power to alienate the affections of the people of this 
 colony from the parent state, and his success in this endeavour has been pro- 
 portionate to his exertions. He never retracted a statement or an opinion, 
 however false or erroneous he never admitted the impolicy or the impropriety 
 of a measure, however ridiculous, unconstitutional, or unjust. His own will 
 was always his law and in carrying out the worst measures, he displayed an 
 obstinacy which, directed towards the achievement of better and nobler ends, 
 might have been attended with the happiest results. He was rash, without 
 being bold headstrong, without being decisive and harsh and unjust in 
 detail, under the pretence of being generally impartial. In short, he showed 
 himself to be possessed of every quality necessary for a bad Governor, with 
 scarcely any one of the requisites of a good one, and his eight years' adminis- 
 tration will be a sort of plague spot in our history. 
 
 As might be expected, the departure of this Governor has called forth no 
 honourable tribute of public admiration or respect. Those public institutions 
 which he occasionally assisted, have presented him with formal addresses, con- 
 fined entirely to thanks for the benefits which he conferred upon them, without 
 making any reference to his public conduct, The officials and toadies, whose 
 good wishes he conciliated, have indeed procured signatures to an address of 
 another description ; but neither the names attached to it, nor the manner in 
 which those names were collected, entitle that address to any consideration. 
 Money, too, has been subscribed for the purpose of honouring him by the 
 erection of a public statue ; but should so injudicious a step be taken, the 
 splendour of the tribute will only be surpassed by the meanness of the cha- 
 racter which it is intended to transmit to posterity. "Non quia intercedendum, " 
 says Tacitus, "putem imaginibus quae marmore aut acre finguntur; sed ut 
 vultus hominum ita simulacra vultus imbecilla ac mortalia sunt ; forma mentis 
 aeterna : quam tenere et exprimere, non per alienam materiam et artem, sed 
 tuis ipse moribus, possis. " And we can tell the friends of Sir George Gipps, 
 that neither monuments nor statues will make that man memorable in after ages 
 whose good deeds are not sufficient to render him worthy of this distinction. 
 
 The following comments on the society introduced to Govern- 
 ment House by Sir Charles Fitz Roy afford a good specimen of the 
 writer's style. It is generally distinguished rather by rhetorical 
 power than by any other quality. The first article, headed The 
 Ball, refers to the public entertainment given by the Governor 
 soon after his arrival in the Colony. 
 
 Our late Governor, during the period of his most calamitous administration, 
 kept two objects constantly in view. The one was, to exalt the royal prerogas 
 tive into the supreme legislative as well as executive power, and thus repres- 
 
68 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 everything that was liberal and constitutional. The other, which may perhaps 
 be considered as a necessary adjunct to the former, was to level all social 
 distinctions, and reduce to the same degradation, the educated and the ignorant, 
 the elegant and the vulgar, the honest and the dishonest, the moral and the 
 depraved. To accomplish the first, he issued his squatting edicts, supported 
 his District Councils, and misappropriated the public money. To accomplish 
 the second, he invited to partake of his and his lady's hospitality, people of all 
 classes and every grade of immorality, and insulted such persons of social 
 consequence and refined habits as he persuaded to visit him, by admitting to 
 the same room with them, people, of whom Cicero's description of Catiline's 
 associates presents a strictly accurate idea or if it does not exactly correspond, 
 it is only because it falls short in comprehensiveness because the associates of 
 the abandoned and profligate Roman, were more respectable than those of His 
 Excellency Sir George Gipps. 
 
 When this miserable tyrant departed from our shores, whatever might have 
 been our hopes or our fears upon public grounds, we at all events consoled 
 ourselves with the pleasing anticipation, that the reign of swindlers and demireps 
 was at an end, and that under the rule of a gentleman claiming relationship 
 with some of England's proud and lofty aristocracy, we should be sure to see 
 the rules of decent society punctiliously adhered to. But Sir Charles Fitz Roy's 
 first party has tended very much to undeceive us. Without entering into parti- 
 culars, which of course it is" impossible for us safely to do, we can undertake to 
 say, that Sir George Gipps never invited to his house a greater number of 
 doubtful characters, than there appeared at our new Governor's first public 
 ball. In making this assertion, and in thus bringing this matter so prominently 
 forward, we do not for one moment desire to impute to Sir Charles Fitz Roy 
 any intention on his part to insult, or annoy, or treat with contempt, any class 
 of people whatsoever. He has been too short a time amongst us to know much 
 about those who call upon him, and he must necessarily depend, in a great 
 measure, if not wholly, upon the judgment and experience of those about him, 
 who have been longer in the colony than himself. His aide-de-camp must, of 
 course, have much left to his discretion, and to this gentleman, at present at 
 all events, does the responsibility attach of introducing to Government House 
 people who could not possibly be introduced into any reputable company else- 
 where. To this gentleman, then, do we attribute the blame in the present 
 instance. But while absolving the Governor from any share in the invitation 
 of improper characters, we cannot acquit him of the folly of taking into his 
 household the aide-de-camp of Sir George Gipps. The experience which this 
 young gentleman had under his former master, must have been of a character 
 calculated to do anything but improve, and having so frequently issued cards to 
 the very dregs of the people so far as position, education, and morality are con- 
 cerned it could not be expected that he would be very select in the exercise of 
 any discretion that might afterwards be entrusted to him. The result has proved, 
 that what might reasonably have been expected has come to pass, for not only 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 69 
 
 were Sir George Gipps' worst guests invited to the house of Sir Charles Fitz Roy, 
 but some persons also whom even Sir George Gipps himself never did and 
 never would admit to his presence dead as he was to any fear of contact with 
 the disreputable and degraded. As this, however, was the first party of our 
 new Governor, much may be overlooked, and many allowances may be made. 
 We may disregard in the ruler of three weeks' standing, what it would be our 
 duty to denounce in one who had been a little longer amongst us, but we hope that 
 in future Sir Charles will be more cautious than to leave his hospitality, as his 
 Sovereign's representative, in the hands of a young aide-de-camp, or in those 
 of anybody else. It is in no unfriendly spirit that we give him this advice in 
 a matter which he may think relates to him more in his private character than 
 in his public capacity. But he may rely upon it, that it is of great consequence to 
 the people of this colony that the visitors of the Governor should, at all events, 
 not be notoriously disreputable. In all young communities society has to be 
 formed and fashioned out of materials not the most pliant and tractable, and it 
 must depend, in a great measure, upon the head of the Government whether 
 virtue is to conquer vice, or honesty and decency are to yield to profligacy and 
 wickedness. Charles the Second, by his vicious example, degraded the cha- 
 racter of the British nation, and for a time made vice the rule of society, and 
 virtue the rare exception, but the influence of his own conduct did not long 
 survive him public order and decency were speedily restored. Should, how- 
 ever, a gentleman claiming his descent from this most abandoned and 
 contemptible monarch, by countenancing vice and profligacy and ignorance 
 amongst us, weaken the respect of the community for decency and virtue, the 
 evil might be of longer duration than it was in England, and we might, for 
 years to come, have to deplore the sad fate that sent to rule over us a scion of 
 the house of Stuart, with all that disregard of character and propriety of con- 
 duct which distinguished the most abandoned of his race, and with infinitely 
 greater power of perpetuating the influence, and spreading the contagion, of 
 his example. 
 
 The same subject was continued, in a subsequent article headed 
 The Dinners. After quoting the previous article at full length, 
 the writer said : 
 
 " Such was the language used by us on a former occasion, in reference to 
 Sir Charles Fitz Roy's first ball such the terms in which we felt called upon 
 to express our indignation at the manner in which he had then suffered his 
 hospitality to be abused, and our sense of decency to be outraged and insulted. 
 We thought that the mistake which he then made might have been the result 
 of unavoidable ignorance, rather than deliberate design, and we cast upon 
 others that blame which we were unwilling to charge upon him. We knew 
 
70 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 that he could then have had no opportunity of making himself acquainted with 
 the history and character of those who sought admission to his society, and we 
 confidently indulged the hope that the timely warning which we then gave him 
 would not be entirely thrown away. In this we deeply regret that we have 
 been mistaken. His conduct since that period has satisfied us that our libera- 
 lity then far exceeded our justice, and that for the invitation of improper cha- 
 ractei's to his first party he is himself directly and indirectly responsible. We 
 say nothing about his visits to the houses of people with whom, as Her Majesty's 
 representative, it was discreditable for him to associate we speak now only of 
 those whom he invited to his own table and amongst those might be enu- 
 merated some of the most disreputable characters in the community. Sir 
 George Gipps, with all his faults, drew some distinction, however flimsy it 
 may have been but Sir Charles Fitz Roy draws none. Nobody is too low 
 nobody is too ignorant nobody is too degraded, for his most familiar inter- 
 course. The most shameless prostitution the most abandoned profligacy the 
 most notorious immorality oppose no barrier against admission to his house. 
 He recognizes no beauty in virtue no deformity in vice ; but treats them both 
 with an equal share of his regard. He introduces the one to the society of the 
 other, and does his utmost to degrade it by the unaccustomed and repulsive 
 contact. The most irreproachable he has invited to meet the most abandoned. 
 In short, he has commenced a career which, unless it be at once checked by 
 the powerful voice of public opinion, will upset the morality and decorum of 
 the land. It is difficult to imagine upon what principle with what views 
 or for what reason he has thus acted. It may be that he takes this course 
 because he despises us, or because he wishes to gain popular applause by 
 breaking through all class distinctions. 
 
 In either case his conduct is equally disgraceful. Descending, or claiming 
 to be descended, from what he may perhaps consider an illustrious ancestry 
 connected with princes and with nobles by the ties of consanguinity he may 
 consider himself so far elevated above the little world in which he is now 
 placed, as to be able to treat any portion of it with contempt. Or, perchance, 
 like one perched upon a lofty eminence, he is unable to distinguish the just 
 proportions of those below, where all appears to his vision too diminutive for 
 comparison. This may be so. But he should recollect that he is not now in 
 a petty West Indian island, where education and morality are little known. 
 Here, at all events, he will daily meet with his equals in social standing, and 
 his superiors in ability and education. And these, we can tell him, are people 
 who will not suffer him to treat them with contempt. If indeed it be his 
 desire to establish a large party, favourable to his Government, by the liberality 
 of his invitations if he be only anxious to break through the absurd provincial 
 pride which is but too prevalent amongst us, he ought to adopt some other 
 course than the one which he has taken. He ought to patronise worth 
 and honesty and merit, rather than the successful profligacy which he has 
 selected for commendation. We do not consider ourselves to be in any way 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 71 
 
 cruel or unkind in desiring the exclusion of those females, who have violated 
 the laws of morality, from society. We are ready to forgive their transgres- 
 sions and forget their faults, to look with pity and compassion, rather than 
 with hatred and contempt, upon their errors and frailties, and instead of wish- 
 ing to pursue them with vindictive punishment, we would rather rather say to 
 them, " Go and sin no more." But we would not allow them to associate with 
 those who had never fallen we would preserve our wives and daughters safe 
 from the contagion which they might spread. These considerations, however, 
 in no way influence the proceedings of Sir Charles Fitz Roy. He may say 
 with the Roman satirist : 
 
 Nam vexant limen et ipsi 
 Nobiscum. Da Prsetori, da deinde Tribuno. 
 Sed libertinus prior est : prior inquit, ego adsum. 
 
 Society is no longer pure the most profligate now jostle the most virtuous, 
 and those who have lost all character take precedence. In the days of Charles 
 the Second and his concubines, this might have passed without much comment 
 or observation. Nell Gwynne and Barbara Villiers and the Duchess of Ports- 
 mouth might appear at Whitehall and Windsor Castle without outraging the 
 feelings of the noble dames with whom they mingled. In England in great 
 and virtuous England, however, these times and practices have long since 
 passed two centuries have almost swept away the memory of those disgraceful 
 scenes, and the principal actors have long since returned to the dust from 
 which they sprung : but though the mortal part of Charles the Second and 
 Barbara Villiers has perished though the example which they set in the 
 courtly palaces of our parent land, now finds no imitation there their spirit, 
 we regret to say, still exists in this remote corner of the world, in the person 
 of their inglorious descendant. 
 
 The following article on Dr. Leichhardt affords another specimen 
 of the writer's powers, in a different style. It may be mentioned 
 that Mr. Martin was 26 years old when he was editing the Atlas : 
 
 The return of this bold and indefatigable traveller, after having fully succeeded 
 in accomplishing the object of his expedition, is one of the most gratifying facts 
 that we have ever been called upon to record. It is no less pleasing than it was 
 unexpected. When, on the I3th October, 1844, he left the last station on the 
 Darling Downs with nine other persons, having with him only sixteen head of , 
 cattle, seventeen horses, and four kangaroo dogs, with a small supply of flour, ^- 
 tea, and sugar, his expedition was looked upon by many people as almost hope- 
 less. The smallness of the party, the inefficient manner in which it was equipped, 
 and the great length and supposed difficulty of the country to be traversed, were 
 looked upon as insuperable obstacles* in the way of success. Some few weeks 
 
72 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 after the return of Mr. Hodgson, vague rumours were circulated that the whole 
 of the party had been destroyed by the blacks, and these rumours had so great 
 an appearance of truth that an expedition was equipped, at some expense, to 
 proceed on Dr. Leichhardt's track and ascertain his fate. That expedition 
 returned without having met with any traces of his destruction, but still the 
 general opinion was that the travellers had been murdered by the aborigines. 
 The return of the Doctor was still looked upon as a thing beyond the range of 
 probability, and a touching and beautiful funeral dirge was written by one of 
 his friends, and set to music, no less beautiful, by another. In all circles 
 he was beginning to be forgotten, otherwise than as one of the martyrs in 
 the cause of science and discovery. As a living being he had passed away 
 from the public mind. But, to the surprise and joy of everybody, while 
 the plaintive melody in which his supposed fate was commemorated was 
 resounding through our drawing-rooms, and calling forth from time to time a 
 transient feeling of regret, he returned in health and vigour to contradict the 
 friend who had consigned him to a solitary tomb in the wilderness, and to 
 furnish the world with another memorable example of what human energy and 
 ability are able to accomplish. In the brief and hastily written journal which 
 he has been able to place before the public, we find nothing stated as to the 
 hardships which he and his party must necessarily have endured. On this 
 point his modesty has made him silent. But it is not difficult to imagine what 
 must have been the sufferings of these travellers in their long journey of nearly 
 3000 miles, through the lonely wilds of this continent, during a period of four- 
 teen months, living nearly all that time on sun-dried beef or such game as 
 accident threw in their way. The Doctor says that they lived -well upon this 
 description of diet, but we must, while according him all praise for surmounting 
 such difficulties as these, take the liberty of doubting the entire truth of this 
 particular statement. Very little mention of the blacks is made in the journal, 
 and we therefore presume that the Doctor's intercourse with them was not 
 frequent. It does however seem wonderful that he could, with his small 
 party, have traversed so vast an extent of country without having more than 
 once fallen into collision with the aborigines. Wherever he met with them it 
 appears that he entered into friendly intercourse with them, and procured their 
 assistance instead of provoking or inciting their hostility. The nature of the 
 country, and the exact direction of his route, cannot be sufficiently known until 
 the full account of his adventurous journey is laid before the public. Enough 
 however has been already disclosed to convince us that there is in this continent 
 an immense tract of land in every way adapted for the purposes of civilised 
 man. The interior of course is still unknown to us, as Dr. Leichhardt's 
 route lay all along within a comparatively short distance of the coast. Whether 
 the rivers which he passed over rise far in the interior, and whether they are 
 navigable, and to what extent, he does not in his published journal tell us. He 
 may, however, give us more ample information on this point hereafter. When 
 we contrast the triumphant success of this expedition with the signal failure 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 73 
 
 of that conducted by Captain Sturt, the superior ability, and perhaps the 
 superior fortune of Dr. Leichhardt, at once become very conspicuous. With a 
 large and well-appointed party, fitted out at an expense of ^5000, Captain 
 Sturt set out on his journey of discovery, and returned baffled and disappointed, 
 without having accomplished any one beneficial object, or in any material degree 
 added to our previous knowledge of the country. Dr. Leichhardt, on the 
 contrary, with seven persons only, and without either flour, or any provisions 
 other than his sun-dried beef, succeeded, in the short space of fourteen months, 
 in reaching his original point of destination at Port Essington, and by that means 
 acquiring a knowledge of the country which intervenes between that place and 
 this colony. Whether Sir Thomas Mitchell will meet with equal success it is 
 impossible to conjecture, though the well-known ability of that gentleman as 
 an explorer, would lead us to anticipate the happiest results. Being better 
 provided with the means of traversing the wilderness than Dr. Leichhardt was, 
 the knowledge which he may acquire may be more extensive, but in a moun- 
 tainous country, destitute of water, his baggage may be a hindrance instead of an 
 advantage to him. It is to this absence of the impedimenta usually judged 
 necessary for a regular exploring expedition, that Dr. Leichhardt owes much 
 of his success, for baggage could not have been transported over many of the 
 places which he had to traverse. The adventuring on such a journey, how- 
 ever, without this baggage, serves to render the Doctor's merits more con- 
 spicuous, inasmuch as his dangers and his hardships were thereby indefinitely 
 augmented. The task which he has now successfully accomplished entitles 
 him to be ranked amongst the most distinguished travellers to occupy a niche 
 in the Temple of Fame beside Ledyard and Mungo Park. The same spirit which 
 led the latter to penetrate to the banks of the Niger, and induced the former to 
 cross the inhospitable regions of Siberia, with a view of traversing the American 
 Continent, with no other arms than his hatchet, impelled Dr. Leichhardt to 
 undertake the hazardous expedition from which he has just returned with such 
 triumphant success. It now remains for the people of this colony to show 
 that they estimate the distinguished services of this gentleman as they deserve 
 that however great may be our apathy in other respects, we are yet prepared 
 to render due honour to one who has risked so much to extend the knowledge 
 and enlarge the happiness of his species. With small means, and in the face 
 of fearful dangers and privations, this scientific foreigner has done a great public 
 service to this colony and the honour of the colony requires that that service 
 should be adequately acknowledged. Our Legislative Council will, we have 
 no doubt, do its duty on this occasion, and the Executive, we should hope, 
 will not be backward in co-operating with it but on the people at large does 
 it in an especial degree devolve, promptly, handsomely, and in a spirit of gene- 
 rous liberality, to unite in presenting those pioneers of the wilderness with a 
 reward worthy of the wealth and standing of the country, and of the great 
 merits of those to whom that reward is to be presented. It has ever been 
 characteristic of the British Nation to honour those who have conferred services 
 H 
 
74 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 on the public, of whatever creed or country they may be let us now show that 
 in our hands the national character is worthily and honourably maintained 
 and let not Dr. Leichhardt leave our shores without having been first con- 
 vinced, that the high respect for heroic daring in the cause of science, and that 
 liberality in rewarding it, for which our parent-land is conspicuous, are also to 
 be met with in equal force in this remote corner of the Empire. 
 
 Three years ago, at a time when bushranging seemed a trium- 
 phant and established curse among us, a criminal trial occurred 
 which gave rise to much angry comment upon the administration 
 of the law. This was the trial of the Escort Robbers. Three or 
 four young men concerned in a murderous attack upon the Es- 
 cort were brought to trial, and convictions were obtained against 
 them. The evidence for the prosecution was mainly that of an 
 accomplice, and as this evidence was not supported by unimpeach- 
 able testimony, it was argued that the convictions obtained by its 
 means were not in accordance with English practice. The daily 
 papers were full of letters and leading articles on the subject 
 petitions were addressed to the Executive Council and the Gover- 
 nor in favour of the prisoners and the impending execution was 
 openly denounced as a murder. At this crisis in public feeling, 
 Mr. Martin addressed an elaborate argument on the subject to 
 the Governor, and published it in the leading journal. It con- 
 cluded in the following terms : 
 
 A large number of persons, I understand, including some, if not all, of 
 your constitutional advisers, are of opinion that, notwithstanding any irregu- 
 larities or illegalities in the trials, the public security requires that now that 
 there is a chance of making an example, the example should be made. If any 
 such mistaken policy should be adopted, it will be the surest indication of our 
 falling away from the standard of British law. It is only in revolutionary, 
 semi-barbarous, or unsettled times, that criminals are offered, not in vindica- 
 tion of the laws, but as a sacrifice. If one irregularity is to be overlooked 
 because of the presumed guilt of the party implicated, then why not ten ? 
 why not a hundred ? Once admit the propriety of so overlooking an irregu- 
 larity in any case, and that precedent will justify the same course in every other. 
 The security which the law has cast around every one, by requiring guilt to 
 be made manifest according to certain known and inflexible rules, will be 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 75 
 
 shattered to atoms. An illegality intended to touch the guilty only, may at 
 any time be applied with equal force to the oppression of the innocent, and 
 Law, the proud distinction of all orderly and civilised societies, will cease 
 to exist. 
 
 For these reasons, I trust that your Excellency will again consider the case 
 of the men now under sentence of death, and whose fate depends upon you, 
 and you alone. Your Executive Council may advise, but if their advice does 
 not correspond with your deliberate conviction, you will betray your trust, and 
 commit a great crime if you do not disregard it. In this matter of life and 
 death you cannot, in accordance with your duty, allow any one to lead you to 
 act against your own individual and deliberate opinion. 
 
 The prisoner Manns, against whom there was corroborative evidence, who 
 was not tried at the first trial, and who in open court expressed a wish to 
 plead guilty, stands undoubtedly in a different position from that of the other 
 prisoners. His execution would violate no rule of law or practice, but it will 
 scarcely satisfy the public mind that he alone, who may be thought not more 
 clearly guilty, in point of fact, than the others, should be the only one to 
 suffer. The law knows nothing of vengeance any more than sacrifice. The 
 object of punishment is to deter from crime. Will that object be more success- 
 fully accomplished by the hanging of Manns than by his imprisonment for life ? 
 There can be no reason for supposing so : while, if he be executed alone of all 
 those who were tried, the public sympathy for his fate will go a long way to 
 mar the good which the extreme punishment might be expected to accomplish. 
 The offence, too, is one for which I believe no one has for many years been 
 executed in England, and by law the judge might have directed sentence of death 
 to be recorded. Considering the hard and irregular way in which the case has 
 been pressed against all the prisoners, and the ill effect which the execution of 
 one only must necessarily have with the great body of the public, who will be 
 unable to understand the distinction between the case of Manns and that of the 
 other prisoner Bow, it will, I feel assured, be more in accordance with substan- 
 tial justice to deal with both prisoners alike ; and above all, to let the whole 
 world understand that here, amidst all our democratic irregularities and mis- 
 takes, the fate of the meanest or most atrocious criminal is treated in that 
 spirit of calm impartiality which deals at all times, under all circumstances, and 
 with all individuals alike, and allows no feeling of hate or vengeance or terror 
 to influence, in the remotest way, that even course of justice which should be 
 tempered with mercy, never more than when the people, or any portion of 
 them, are seeking for a victim. 
 
 This is the noblest protest against an Executive blunder ever 
 uttered by a public man in this colony. Although couched in 
 language "worthy of a Somers or a D'Agesseau," it was, unfor- 
 tunately, without effect, and the writer's prediction was more than 
 
7 6 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 verified. Manns was executed, not only in defiance of this pro- 
 test, but in defiance of public feeling ; and the circumstances 
 attending his execution were such as to excite horror throughout 
 the community. A more painful miscarriage of justice than that 
 which occurred in the case of the Escort Robbers, has seldom 
 occurred in any country. 
 
 In June, 1862, took place the inauguration of Mr. Wentworth's 
 statue. It was a public ceremony. A large number of people 
 was assembled in the Hall of the University, and Mr. Martin was 
 called upon to pronounce an address on the occasion. He gave 
 a concise account of Mr. Wentworth's services to his native 
 country, and concluded thus : 
 
 The next and the last of his public acts that I shall on this occasion advert 
 to, is the establishment of the Sydney University. With that noble institution 
 his name is for ever associated as its founder. Whatever may be the fate of our 
 political institutions, how great so ever may be their vicissitudes, here, at all 
 events, is an institution likely to endure. Allied exclusively with no single 
 form of religious faith, its doors are open, with a wide and comprehensive 
 liberality, to the members of every creed, class, and condition ; and within its 
 portals success is to be achieved only by the most deserving. W T ithin these 
 walls, wealth, fortune, pedigree, are of no account. Elsewhere eminence may 
 be reached by a thousand devious ways the warrior may be the favourite of a 
 court ;. the statesman may be the tool of a faction but here, there is but one 
 road to renown, and that road, with the most democratic equality, is open to 
 the lowliest as fully as to the proudest amongst us. To the elevating and 
 ennobling influence of such an institution no limits can be set. Hitherward, 
 in future times, will turn the steps of those who feel the promptings of a gene- 
 rous ambition. Conquerors in the realms of mind, they will go forth into 
 the world, vivifying the dull elements around them, and arousing, as by an 
 electric shock, the sons of toil and trade and commerce to a conception of the 
 true glories of the Universe. To the man who, in this early stage of our his- 
 tory, placed these splendid opportunities within our reach, it cannot be thought 
 remarkable, even if he had done nothing more, that the honour of a public 
 statue should be offered. Accordingly, eight years ago, his friends, comprising 
 not only those who had witnessed but some also who had aided him in his 
 labours, met together on the eve of his departure from the colony for a time, 
 and determined that, in acknowledgment of his many services, that honour 
 should be conferred upon him. The announcement was made at the moment 
 of his embarkation amidst the cheers of his friends, and the disapprobation of 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 77 
 
 a few who regarded him as an enemy to the country. He who had done so 
 much for the people, and had so often been greeted with their loudest 
 huzzas, had before that encountered their hootings and revilings ; but no 
 one knew better than he did the inconstancy of popular favour. But, 
 although they break their idols as often as they make them, the people in the 
 long run learn to do justice to their benefactors, and Mr. Wentworth has 
 enjoyed the singular good fortune of living to see conferred on him an honour 
 which is usually witnessed only by a man's posterity, and to see it conferred 
 with the assent and amidst the applause, not only of those who have ever been 
 his friends, but of those who were amongst the most bitter of his opponents. He 
 has outlived the envy, hatred, and malignity which inevitably cross the path of 
 every man who becomes eminent in public liife ; and now, in his green old age, 
 with his mind still clear, and his faculties still unclouded, he has been allowed 
 a foretaste of the posthumous renown which awaits him. The memorial which 
 we have raised to commemorate his services, is suggested by the graceful 
 practice of classic times. It is a memorial which cannot be raised without the 
 aid of Art in its highest form, and one which preserves, as long as the frailty of 
 all things human will permit, the image, the face and aspect of those whom the 
 world would not willingly let die. It is erected in this noble Hall, where he 
 himself desired to see it placed ; and surely no more appropriate site for it could 
 be found. Hare, under this magnificent roof, where gilded ornaments, elabo- 
 rate tracery, and painted windows carry us back to the dawn of a purer 
 Literature than that of ancient times, and of an Art applied to holier and better 
 purposes than of old, we feel conscious of a link which unites us to the past 
 and to the future ; and we flatter ourselves that there is something akin to 
 immortality in fame. Enclosed and overshadowed by this his noblest monu- 
 ment, let us hope that his statue will remain, for ages to come, not only as a 
 memorial of great public merit, appropriately awarded, but as a perpetual 
 incentive to honourable ambition. 
 
 In January, 1865, Mr. Martin wrote and published a lengthy 
 address to the electors of various constituencies with which he was 
 politically connected. He was then Premier and Attorney-General, 
 but his administration was not popular, and was soon after 
 brought to an end on a cry of free trade. In the course of this 
 address he alluded to the most prominent political topics of the 
 day, and sought to justify the policy which he had adopted. No 
 one who is free from political prejudice can read it without 
 admiration ; it is a manly and eloquent vindication of his public 
 acts. 
 
7 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 In the following passage he reviewed the course of political 
 affairs since the introduction of Responsible Government: 
 
 When, eight years ago, responsible Government was conceded to us, the 
 concession found us without party organization of any kind. There were the 
 partizans of the old nominee Government, and there were the opponents of that 
 Government, and that was all. Administrations were formed, not by the leaders 
 of great sections of the people who held certain principles in common, and were 
 bound together by the usual party ties, but by such accidental combinations as 
 might appear to be able to command a majority in the Legislature. The 
 Donaldson, the Cowper, the Parker administrations were thus constituted, and 
 this state of things continued until the era of free selection. Free selection, as 
 everybody knows, was carried under the auspices of Mr. Cowper, who had 
 always opposed it until he saw that it was inevitable, and who never was at 
 at any time a believer in its virtues. But it was (as it might well be expected to 
 be) a most popular cry, and on the strength of that cry a singular legislative 
 body was called into existence. I am sure that I shall not be considered as 
 overstepping the limits of truth when I say that the persons then elected 
 were not fair average samples of the wealth, intelligence, or respectability 
 of the country. With their advent the floodgates of corruption were 
 thrown wide open. Votes were bartered, seats were bought and sold, 
 high patriots were purchased for low bribes, the magistracy was degraded, 
 sinecures were created, useless offices established, the most profligate expendi- 
 ture was indulged in with the most imperfect means for ensuring efficiency or 
 preventing fraud, electioneering and parliamentary hacks of the most contemp- 
 tible kind were thrust into important appointments, and in every way, so far as 
 the Legislature and the Government which was the faithful reflex of the 
 Legislature could accomplish it, the public administration was degraded. 
 From such a Government, supported by such a Legislature, no statesmanship 
 could be expected. Corruption and incapacity went hand in hand, until at 
 length the imminent bankruptcy of the public finances brought about a change 
 of Ministers. 
 
 Alluding to the necessity for cultivating our internal resources, 
 he said : 
 
 I thought then, and I think now, that this most magnificent territory, 
 teeming with the elements of every kind of wealth, mineral, pastoral, agri- 
 cultural was intended for other purposes than a sheep walk, like a vast Asiatic 
 steppe, or a mere commercial emporium, like some small city of the middle 
 ages. With a territory larger than the greatest European kingdom, and a popu- 
 lation no greater than a sixth-rate European town, I thought that there was an 
 ample field to which the starving thousands of the mother country might be 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 79 
 
 removed to the great relief of that country to the great advantage of this. 
 I knew that the skilled artizan of Britain could not be honestly asked to come 
 to a country where the necessaries of life were dear, and the articles in the 
 manufacture of which he was an adept were imported at a price with which he 
 could not compete ; and I felt that his position was not mended by the oppor- 
 tunity afforded of taking his wife and children to some remote gun yah on the 
 Namoi or the Darling, or settling down on some alluvial patch, the fruits of which 
 might, at any time, be reduced in price below the cost of their production by 
 imports from foreign countries. There is a limit to the number of shepherds 
 and bullock drivers, dock labourers, porters, warehousemen, and mercantile 
 clerks, that are required, and there are many other occupations equally desirable 
 and equally ennobling. I knew that the greatness of England arose not from 
 commerce, not from manufactures, not from agriculture alone but from all 
 combined. By the opportunities which a wise legislation afforded for every 
 kind of industry and enterprise, those small islands became the habitation of 
 the greatest and the wealthiest people on the globe. The coal, the iron, the 
 copper, the lead, the wool, the fertile soil, which constitute the foundation of 
 England's greatness, are here as well as there, and in a larger measure ; but 
 while the British Islands support their thirty millions, this colony is unable to 
 maintain in comfort four hundred thousand. I knew that such a state of things 
 was most unnatural. I knew that, however lucrative it might be to supply 
 cotton silks to the nobility of the Sandwich Islands, and shoddy cloth and 
 Brummagem rubbish of all kinds to the simple savages of Oceanica, but a very 
 small number could participate in those advantages. We might by trade of 
 that kind constitute a rude, barbaric, bastard sort of Antipodean Venice, with 
 nothing of the greatness or grandeur of its prototype ; but we could never by 
 those means reproduce here a manly, vigorous, numerous British population. 
 I wished to see this country largely peopled with such a population. And 
 with that object I strove rather that every one should be comfortable than that 
 a few should be rich that there should be fair scope for every man to follow 
 himself, or to bring up his children to, that pursuit to which his judgment or 
 his fancy inclined him ; and that no man should be found starving in a land of 
 plenty, or begging, and begging in vain, 
 
 A brother of the earth 
 To give him leave to toil. 
 
 Certain unpleasant particulars in our social history were thus 
 referred to : 
 
 For myself I am in no way solicitous as to the fate which may attend the 
 Government of which I am a member. I have sustained much loss, much 
 annoyance, much inconvenience by my tenure of power. I look upon office as a 
 means not of livelihood, but of conferring great services upon my fellow-citizens. 
 For years past the true functions of the Government in this country have been 
 
80 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 utterly disregarded. In a degrading squabble for the acquisition or the reten- 
 tion of office, the true interests of the country have been overlooked. With a 
 boundless territory and a small population not the fiftieth part of what the 
 country is capable of maintaining we have had, and still have, an amount of 
 distress and of crime which is positively disgraceful. In a country and with such 
 a population as ours, distress and crime ought to be reduced to a minimum. 
 I make every allowance for the improvidence and vice which \vill be found 
 more or less in every community, but I cannot account for the deplorable state 
 of the country except by some perverseness or want of foresight in our legisla- 
 lation. I am not now referring to protection. I leave that to a more fitting 
 opportunity, and to that not far distant period when it will force itself upon 
 men of thought, and through them upon the masses. But I speak of the absence 
 of any real or substantial effort to afford assistance to those who are unable to 
 assist themselves. Year by year, hundreds of children of both sexes are grow- 
 ing up, uninstructed and uncared for, with scanty clothing, insufficient food, 
 and miserable shelter, surrounded from the first dawning of reason to 
 manhood with scenes the most revolting and companions the most vicious 
 and degraded ; and the Government has never yet been in a position to stretch 
 out a helping hand to rescue these poor creatures from the doom that inevitably 
 awaits them. The private beneficence of individuals has done something to grap- 
 ple with this gigantic evil. We have ragged schools and asylums for the destitute, 
 but they are utterly unequal to the full performance of the noble task, which it 
 is their object to accomplish. It is in dealing with evils such as these instead 
 of agitating for changes in the constitution, and lauding with drunken and in- 
 sensate clamour -vote by ballot and universal suffrage that our legislators 
 would find the best field for the gratification of their ambition, and reap their 
 richest reward. To duties such as these, our loud-mouthed patriots have never 
 yet directed their attention, but have rather devoted their energies to the injury 
 or degradation of the wealthier, than to the protection and elevation of the 
 poorer, classes of the community. 
 
 The conclusion was as follows : 
 
 For these and other objects connected with the development of our resources, 
 and the ameliorating the condition of our people, it is worth the while of those 
 who wish the country well, to undergo much labour, receive much obloquy, 
 and make many sacrifices. If I could see my way to their accomplishment, I 
 would be content still to encounter an opposition more wearying than any I 
 have yet experienced. The "friends of the poor man" in other words, the 
 most ignorant, worthless, self-seeking, and dishonest of our demagogues have 
 made it a part of their vocation at all times to stigmatise me as an enemy to 
 the working classes. If to have ever been desirous to promote the welfare of 
 the people constitutes me their enemy, then these demagogues have rightly 
 described me. I know no nobler task to which any man can devote his atten- 
 
JAMES MARTIN. 8 1 
 
 tion than the task of diminishing the distress, augmenting the employment, 
 extending the comfort, and promoting the contentment of those who constitute 
 the great bulk of the community. . I have never been their flatterer, I have 
 often been their servant. I know as well as any man their prejudices and 
 their infirmities, and I have had as large an experience of their enmity as of their 
 favour. But I hope I never shall forget that they constitute the bone and sinew 
 of the country, and that in the proportion in which they are prosperous so will 
 the country become great. "The mob," says Victor Hugo, "is the human 
 race in misery. The mob is the mournful commencement of the people. The 
 mob is the great victim of darkness : Sacrifice to it ! Sacrifice thyself ! Let 
 thyself be hunted ; let thyself be exiled. Sacrifice to it thy gold, and thy blood, 
 which is more than thy gold, and thy thought, which is more than thy blood, 
 and thy love, which is more than thy thought ; sacrifice to it everything except 
 justice. Receive its complaint listen to its faults and the faults of others. 
 Listen to what it has to confess, and to denounce to thee. Stretch forth to it 
 the ear, the hand, the arm, the heart. Do everything for it excepting evil. 
 Alas ! it suffers so much and it knows nothing. Correct it, warn it, instruct it, 
 guide it. Put it to the school of honesty. Make it spell truth, teach it to read 
 virtue, probity, mercy, generosity. Hold thy book wide open. " I desire to act at 
 all times in accordance, as far as I can, with the principles here so eloquently 
 expressed. I wish to see our legislators turn their attention to real reforms, 
 which have a dii'ect influence upon the condition of the people. I wish to see 
 the people better housed, better clothed, better taught, and better fed. I wish 
 to see crime checked in the bud, and where it cannot be so checked I wish to 
 see it promptly punished when fully developed. I wish to see all enjoy equal 
 rights and equal security. I wish to see a gradual elevation of the poor, and 
 not a rapid degradation of the wealthy. I wish to remove all causes of enmity 
 and misunderstanding between those who are prosperous and those who are 
 not. And, above all, I wish to see the affairs of legislation and government in 
 the hands of men, who, by character, intellect, temperament, and culture, are 
 not unworthy of such a trust ; who will neither truckle nor domineer, who will 
 do what they conceive to be right, regardless of consequences and to whom 
 office can hold out no attractions nor give any gratification one moment longer 
 than it affords the means of conferring benefits upon the country. 
 
 Without possessing any distinctly literary faculty, Mr. Martin 
 has all the qualifications of a clear, vigorous, and eloquent 
 writer. His compositions are evidently those of a man who 
 has studied oratory. We seem to hear them rather than to 
 read them. They are suggestive of loud tones, flashing eyes, 
 and animated gestures, with an excited audience in front, and 
 
82 JAMES MARTIN. 
 
 busy reporters in the gallery. This, perhaps, is unavoidable in 
 the case of a man whose life has been almost spent in speaking. 
 Mr. Martin has never written a line of verse, and with the excep- 
 tion of a few essays published in his youth, has made no attempt 
 in literature, except as allied with politics. It is in what might 
 be called the "State Paper" department of Literature that his 
 intellect is qualified to shine. It is decidedly practical in its 
 tendencies. Eminently fitted for legal discussions as well as poli- 
 tical debate, he has capacity enough for much higher questions than 
 either politics or law generally give rise to. In constitutional law, 
 in political and in economical science, he has given abundant 
 proof of his powers not only in the familiarity he has displayed 
 with the greatest writers on those subjects, but in the arguments 
 he has brought to bear upon them. Evidence on these points 
 may be found in his speeches. * It is enough to say that the range 
 of his attainments is incomparably greater than is usually found 
 either in lawyers or politicians : and that this, united as it is with 
 great intellectual powers directed to unselfish aims, would make 
 him a distinguished man in far higher society than that in which 
 he moves at present. 
 
 Mr. Martin was Premier and Attorney-General in 1863. and 
 holds those offices at the present time. 
 
HENRY PARKES. 
 
 HENRY PARKES was born in England in 1815, and arrived in 
 this colony in 1839. The death of his father at an early period 
 in his life threw him on his own resources. Without friends and 
 almost without education, he was compelled to earn his living by 
 manual labour. During his stay in England he suffered much 
 privation, his life being a perpetual wrestle with poverty. For 
 some time after his arrival here, his circumstances were hardly 
 bettered. He obtained employment in some industrial estab- 
 lishments, and afterwards became a Custom house officer. This 
 appointment he did not hold long. A letter appeared in a certain 
 newspaper exposing some malpractices in his department. It 
 became known that he was the writer, and he was immediately 
 suspended. He soon after sent in his resignation, and then 
 established himself in a shop. In 1850. he commenced the pub- 
 lication of the Empire., and carried it on for seven years. At 
 the time of its appearance there was but one daily journal in the 
 colony, which, so far as political theories were concerned, was 
 in opposition to an immense majority of the population. This 
 majority, powerful as it was in one way, was exceedingly helpless 
 in another. It had no recognized organ calculated to exercise the 
 slightest influence on the course of legislation ; and at that time 
 legislation was in the hands of a body which did not altogether 
 possess the confidence of the people. The establishment of the 
 
84 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 Empire worked a revolution in the political existence of the 
 colony, just as the establishment of the Australian worked a 
 revolution twenty years ago. Whether we regard the difficulties 
 encountered in this enterprise, or the results accomplished by 
 it, it may be said without exaggeration that he could scarcely 
 have devoted himself to a nobler or more arduous task. Few 
 indeed can form any adequate conception of the difficulties, 
 although every one may form his own opinion as to the results. 
 Mr. Parkes was without capital when he began his career as a 
 journalist, and no speculation depends more upon capital for its 
 success than a daily newspaper. Competition between two papers 
 merely raises a question as to which has the most money. The 
 paper which gives the earliest and fullest intelligence or which, 
 in other words, best meets the requirements of a commercial 
 community, is sure to have the largest circulation. But intelli- 
 gence cannot be procured without a lavish expenditure of money. 
 The endeavour to overcome this difficulty involved Mr. Parkes in 
 still greater difficulties ; and at last, when the Empire had appa- 
 rently secured its prosperity when its circulation as well as its 
 political influence was largely increasing the proprietor was com- 
 pelled to abandon it. During its existence under his manage- 
 ment, it was decidedly one of the best papers out of England. It 
 was well printed, well written, and well edited. Perhaps no man 
 was better qualified for the duties of an editor than Mr. Parkes. 
 An editor, properly so called, does not mean a man who writes 
 leading articles, but one whose business it is to direct the literary 
 management of a paper. He makes himself acquainted with the 
 events, political and other, of the day decides what particular 
 subjects shall be treated in the next issue, and assigns to each 
 contributor his particular task. It is obvious that there is no 
 other manner in which an important daily paper can be properly 
 carried on. Here, however, the practice is different, and the result 
 is of course prejudicial to the character of our Press. Mr. Parkes 
 understood the rationale of journalism better than any other jour- 
 
HENRY PARKES. 85 
 
 nalist in the colony, and endeavoured to carry it out so far as 
 circumstances permitted. He could not command the services of 
 an efficient staff, but he numbered some of the ablest men in the 
 country among his contributors. Among others, there were Mr. 
 Martin, Mr. Forster, Mr. Deniehy, Sir Thomas Mitchell, Mr. 
 Evelyn, and Mr. Butler. He himself was a very frequent con- 
 tributor. 
 
 It is interesting at the present time, when so much distress exists 
 among the working classes, to refer to a Parliamentary Paper on 
 that subject, published six or seven years ago. Mr. Parkes had 
 moved for a Select Committee to enquire into " the condition of 
 the working classes" in Sydney. The matter was investigated 
 thoroughly ; startling facts were brought to light ; and an exceed- 
 ingly able Report was drawn up by Mr. Parkes. This is one of 
 the many proofs afforded by that gentleman of his ability to deal 
 with topics generally shirked by politicians. In the scuffle of 
 political life, matters of vital importance to the social progress of 
 the people are rarely attended to ; but these are the subjects 
 to which Mr. Parkes has especially devoted his attention : and it 
 is not too much to say that more has been done or at least 
 attempted to be done by him, in the cause of social science, 
 than by any other politician amongst us. As regards his capacity 
 as a writer, the following extracts from the Report in question 
 will furnish satisfactory evidence. 
 
 The general facts of the case are thus put : 
 
 A large number of persons belonging to the working classes are at present, 
 and have been for some time past, suffering much distress from want of employ- 
 ment. In too many instances this is attributable to intemperance or improvidence 
 on the part of the sufferers ; but, supposing these cases to be undeserving of 
 or beyond relief, there are still left several distinct forms of distress, arising 
 from want of employment, which cannot be so easily explained, and ought not 
 to be found in a well-ordered and progressive state of society. As might be 
 expected in so large a city as Sydney the principal seaport of a new country 
 there are many persons of better education and social habits, who are reduced 
 to much suffering for want of any kind of employment for which they are fitted, 
 and who make their distress the more Severe by their struggles to conceal it. 
 
86 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 And of this class there appear to be competent clerks and accountants, who 
 cannot obtain situations. Since the discovery of gold, the unsettled courses of 
 many working men, and their frequent absences from home, seeking their 
 fortunes at the diggings, have left numbers of women and families in Sydney 
 without protection or any regular means of subsistence, and the consequence is 
 a large amount of destitution and misery. Still more unfortunately, we find 
 that there are many men, both mechanics and labourers, of good character and 
 sober habits, able and willing to work for their "daily bread," who, neverthe- 
 less, cannot obtain employment. There seems to be among those who have 
 resided for any length of time in the city a feeling of unwillingness to accept 
 employment as labourers in the country, which is not accounted for by some of 
 the witnesses, and is variously accounted for by others. Some raise objections 
 because there are no schools for their children ; others have heard unfavourable 
 reports from the interior and are apprehensive of ill-treatment ; and others again 
 prefer the cheap and ever present enjoyments of the town to any advantages 
 that are remote and contingent. It is also shewn that some men will not accept 
 reduced wages even when expressing their anxiety to obtain work ; but the 
 refusal appears to be dictated by the fear of permanently injuring their class 
 by the reduction, and a feeling that they would not be more secure of future 
 employment themselves if the lower rates were submitted to. But in the face 
 of this evidence there is the fact that wages have greatly receded in some 
 cases to about one-third of former rates during the last few years ; and it is 
 admitted on one hand that neither the desire to keep up the present standard 
 nor the feeling of reluctance to leave Sydney operates in all cases, while on the 
 other the prevalence of such feelings is strongly denied. 
 
 Facts are then given as to the actual amount of suffering among 
 the unemployed. Upwards of 3,000 persons were in a state of 
 destitution. The Report proceeds to point out the various 
 features of the prevalent suffering ; and in the first place, it dwells 
 upon the miserable character of the house accommodation pro- 
 vided for the working classes. This is an evil which has not since 
 been mitigated in the slightest degree. 
 
 The house accommodation of the working classes of Sydney is admitted on all 
 hands to be deplorably bad ; even in the more recently erected dwellings the 
 means of drainage and ventilation are almost entirely neglected, and many of 
 the older tenements are so unfit for the occupation of human beings, that one 
 witness declares them to be "past remedy without a general fire." The 
 suburbs to a great extent are as unhappily situated as the city ; in both cases, 
 one general description of the lowest class of houses is applicable. A block of 
 twenty or twenty-five wretched hovels affords shelter for perhaps a hundred 
 
HENRY PARKES. 87 
 
 human beings. The rooms, two in number, are ten or eleven feet square, and 
 scarcely high enough for a man to stand erect ; the floor is lower than the 
 ground outside ; the rain comes in through the roof, and filth of all kinds 
 washes in at the door ; the court or yard, that is common to all, is covered with 
 pollution that must be endured by all ; and, inside and out, everything is an 
 object of disgust, and wears a look of loathsomeness that would terrify men 
 away, if it were possible to meet with its resemblance not familiarised to their 
 senses through being created by themselves. In smaller groups there is no 
 provision for greater comfort. The houses are constructed as if they were not 
 intended for homes ; and, strange as it may appear, nothing has been gained by 
 experience, except in a very limited degree, to lead persons in occupying new 
 ground, to make better provision for health, cleanliness, and comfort. In 
 many parts of Woolloomooloo, which have been built over during the last fifteen 
 or twenty years, there are narrow lanes of houses with all the evils insepai'able 
 from improvident construction, insufficient living room, confined space outside, 
 and want of drainage, in forms as aggravated as in the old cities of Europe. Nor 
 does it appear that any of the superior contrivances for domestic convenience, 
 such as indoor sinks, fitted pantries, suitable stoves, and clothes' closets, which 
 are so great a comfort to the humble housewife in England have been 
 generally introduced into the better class of working men's houses, which, it is 
 gratifying to learn, have been lately erected in some parts of the city. 
 
 The buildings, originally so ill-adapted for human habitations, are rendered 
 still more unhealthy and wretched in frequent cases to a degree perfectly 
 frightful by the general system of over-crowding which has been induced by 
 high rents. Some cases that are stated in detail, it is hoped, may be con- 
 sidered abnormal even in the condition of social life described. A den of two 
 rooms is occupied by seven men and seven women ; seventy human beings are 
 found herded together in a common lodging-house of six rooms ; and no fewer 
 than 315 Chinamen are lodged in one building. Leaving the haunts of vice 
 and promiscuous association, still we cannot leave behind us the types of 
 similar misery and disease. Necessity often forces honest and striving families 
 into dwelling-places so inadequate to their wants that their jostled and over- 
 loaded existence may be supposed to be lightened only by their higher range of 
 moral qualities. The instances appear to be few where one of these miserable 
 tenements is allotted to the exclusive use of one family. The consequences of 
 this state of things to the moral and physical well-being of the inhabitant is 
 forcibly stated by two of the medical witnesses. " The want of proper accom- 
 modation," says Mr. Aaron, "has a direct effect on the moral sense of the 
 occupants, because they are obliged to do everything in public, you may say ; 
 and the state of bodily feeling which is induced by the absence of sanitary 
 conditions, no doubt, induces many of these people to resort to intemperance. 
 They sleep in ill-ventilated and over-crowded apartments get up in the morn- 
 ing, especially in the summer time, unrefreshed, and want something to rouse 
 them. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that they should go to the public- 
 
05 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 house for a morning dram." Such is the effect on the hard nature of the men; 
 but there are others the weaker members of the abject household who are 
 constantly exposed to the gradual process of human slaughter that is silently 
 going on. This is the evidence of Mr. Roberts : "I should say it would be 
 utterly impossible for a housewife to keep a bad house tidy. When she is 
 placed in such a house she soon ceases to strive to preserve order and cleanli- 
 ness in her house ; the husband does not care about coming home to his wife ; 
 she becomes careless and neglects her children ; their diet is also neglected, 
 and they are allowed to expose themselves to the sun. This all re- acts, not 
 only upon the health of the man and the woman, but also upon that of the 
 children, and ultimately upon the habits of the people. A large number of 
 the deaths of children arises indirectly from the same cause. " 
 
 A second ulcer in the body politic is thus alluded to : 
 
 The streets of Sydney are infested by a large number of vagrant children, 
 or children entirely neglected by their parents ; and some of the relations of 
 juvenile depravity are appalling and almost incredible. According to the 
 evidence of an intelligent officer of the Metropolitan Police, the traffic in female 
 prostitution has extended its meshes around unhappy children scarcely above 
 the age of infancy, and the closest ties of nature are converted into the bonds of 
 their perdition. Cases of such extreme depravity, it is hoped, are rare even 
 among those precipitated into courses of early wickedness, but it can no longer 
 be doubted that such cases are to be found among the many hideous forms of 
 ignorance, squalor, and sin, that fill some of the lanes and alleys of this wealthy 
 city. Female prostitution itself seems to have increased in undue proportion 
 to the increase of the population during the last few years, and the accelerated 
 increase has been largely fed by the sacrifice of girls of tender years. The vice 
 is fostered by system, and, there are wealthy persons who refuse to let their 
 houses, except for its purposes. The number of boys in a vagrant state is variously 
 estimated, and it may be doubted that there are many entirely destitute of 
 home and kindred ; but the evidence abundantly shews that a large class exists 
 to whom the possession of parents is of no value in giving direction to their 
 lives, and who are growing up to be an incumbrance and a curse to society. In 
 the language of one witness, they are "floating about the streets and lanes like 
 fish in a pond." It has not been found practicable to obtain a classified return 
 of these unfortunate children, but it is assumed, from the information collected, 
 that the moral features of their condition which are susceptible of reformation 
 are much the same in all cases. 
 
 Your Committee have considered it their duty to present, without softening 
 the deepest colours, the worst features of the disordered state of things, which 
 is fast undermining the social happiness of the community. It is lamentable to 
 discover the darkening mass of physical and moral disease much of it 
 obviously arising from preventible causes in a city where the natural aids to 
 
HENRY PARKES. 89 
 
 beauty and sanitary precaution in its streets and structures, the variety of land 
 and water, and the brilliancy of climate, are all in favour of the largest amount 
 of health and enjoyment ; where wealth abounds, and the luxuries and refine- 
 ments of Europe have been extensively introduced. It would seem, that in 
 the short space of a lifetime we have reproduced all the criminal enormities 
 which have grown up through centuries of ignorance, pestilence, arbitrary 
 government, and civil war in the cities of the old world. But there is another 
 side to the picture : the region of depravity and moral death is limited. The 
 highest calculation numbers our destitute children at one thousand ; and that 
 would seem to indicate, though imperfectly, the extent of the worst state of 
 human existence, as these ' pariahs of the streets ' must be supposed to belong 
 to the most abandoned classes. These dark features do not belong to the 
 character of the labouring classes of society. The witnesses who have had the 
 best opportunities of forming correct opinions concerning them, concur in 
 assigning to the general body of the working classes in Sydney the mechanics 
 and others permanently settled as citizens a high character for honesty, intel- 
 ligence, and sobriety. 
 
 The causes of this misery are next dealt with. From the fact 
 that a still greater amount of distress exists at the present time, 
 it may be inferred that the absence of ' facilities for freehold 
 occupation ' is not the chief cause, as stated in the Report. 
 
 The diminution of the comforts of life, and the positive distress which prevail 
 among the well-ordered portion of the working population, are attributed to 
 different causes, but chiefly, and by the greater unison of testimony, to the 
 mal-administration of the public lands. If the land policy of the colony had 
 offered facilities for freehold occupation to the industrious and thrifty, it is 
 contended that the continuous withdrawal of such families from the wages- 
 receiving masses of the city would, by leaving fuller employment to their 
 necessitous fellows, and by creating new demands for labour in their own 
 operations, have obviated much of the evil. This view is taken, alike by 
 witnesses who are thorough free-traders and by those who are decided protec- 
 tionists, in their opinions on purely fiscal questions. One witness, consistently 
 with his free-trade opinions, traces the mischief in part to the ' ' Government 
 tampering with the labour market," or, in other words, supporting immigration 
 from the public treasury, and maintains that the law of supply and demand in 
 regulating labour, as in all other things, would work most healthily by being 
 left entirely to itself. In answer to what he terms the ''spasmodic demands" 
 for labour m particular localities, he says, if the want was real, "immediately 
 men found there was something worth coming for, they would come. Others 
 consider that nearly all the social derangement has been produced by the 
 operation of the principles that regulate our trading intercourse with other 
 J 
 
90 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 countries, and argue that the only effectual remedy would be the imposition of 
 protective duties, to foster our infant manufactures, and to sustain a remunerative 
 market for our agriculturists against foreign competition. In support of these 
 views they point to our perished manufactures of cloth, cordage, nails, pottery, 
 and tobacco, and to our farmers unable to obtain for their wheat and potatoes 
 the cost of carriage. 
 
 In respect to the evil of intemperance, which extensively aggravates the pre- 
 vailing distress, Mr. Justice Wise and other witnesses, who appear to have 
 bestowed much study on social subjects, consider it frequently rather the effect 
 than the cause of the discomfort and misery in the houses of the poor. The 
 remedies they suggest are increased means of public education, greater sanitary 
 provisions for the regulation of buildings, more rational modes of popular 
 recreation, and more active sympathy in the intercourse of classes. But your 
 Committee cannot resist the conviction that intemperance has been a prolific 
 instrumentality in producing the distress complained of, and they are of opinion 
 that the present licensing system requires complete revision. The subject, 
 however, is so vast, and involves so many subordinate questions, that they 
 consider it should be referred for further inquiry. 
 
 The connection of cause and effect is in some measure to be traced between 
 the fiscal laws of the colony and the existing social evils, and a revision of our 
 entire taxation is a matter of necessity. We have the authority of eminent 
 economists in support of raising revenue in a new country by the imposition of 
 duties that would tend to foster manufacturing enterprise, and such encourage- 
 ment to our own people, within well considered limits, would not be incon- 
 sistent with practical freedom in our commercial intercourse with the world, 
 while no nation affords us an example of the establishment of manufactures 
 without such encouragement. But it is respectfully submitted that we are not to 
 follow blindly the course of other countries, but to be guided in our economical 
 arrangements by such principles as are most applicable in the peculiar circum- 
 stances of our own. An original thinker in the department of Political 
 Economy observes, even of the Mother Country: "England, I say it with 
 regret, but without the very slightest hesitation, is not to be taken as a safe 
 specimen of the career of a people developing their productive forces. Unto- 
 ward events have dogged the progress of the nation ; some connected with 
 faults of legislation and administration ; some arising out of circumstances 
 over which neither legislators nor administrators exercised any influence, and 
 which escaped perhaps any timely attempt to control them, because the annals 
 of the world gave no warning of them, and afforded no opportunity of 
 observing them elsewhere. If this suggest many regrets for the past, it still 
 gives better hopes for the future. The evil that has mingled with our institu- 
 tions or our habits, may be weeded out ; the good influences we have missed 
 may still be won to purify and protect us, and other nations, if they assume 
 our economical organization and power, may escape many of the evils that 
 have afflicted our progress, or from which we suffer now. " The spirit of these 
 
HENRY PARKES. 91 
 
 reflections should be infused into any efforts to improve our institutions and 
 laws, if we are to make the best of the resources placed at our disposal. 
 
 Various suggestions for dealing with these social evils are then 
 thrown out: 
 
 The improvement of the dwellings of the working classes appears to be a 
 matter that admits of no delay, and cannot be over-estimated in importance. 
 Accepting the definition of wealth to which the expositions of economical 
 science all tend as the means of human happiness, and regarding the action 
 of good government as directed to its attainment, for all the members of 
 society, it cannot be for a moment questioned that the moral and physical 
 well-being of the greatest number of our households should be an object of 
 the highest public concern. Not in a spirit of false philanthropy, but with an 
 enlightened view of the end of civilization, every danger should be anxiously 
 eradicated which threatens the mental power and bodily vigour of the race. 
 The members of the future nation can never be strong, if the springs of life 
 are suffered to be vitiated. Manly and contented citizens can hardly be 
 expected to rise up from the arms of unhappy and unwomanly mothers. 
 Attachment to the soil is of too delicate growth to receive its nourishment from 
 the desecrations of the family hearth. 
 
 Much maybe done by legislative measures in mitigation of this evil. JSo 
 apartment in houses within the city should be allowed to be built under certain 
 dimensions, determined to be necessary for the preservation of health in ?. close 
 and cotistantly respired r.':mospl)ere, and without sufficient means of ventilation. 
 Blocks of houses should in all cases have adequate outdoor conveniences, 
 including space for the exercise of children. Public baths and washhouses 
 should be established in different parts of the city. Common lodging-houses 
 should be licensed and regulated by law. Some more effective means should 
 be devised for the suppression of the odious traffic in vice which has been 
 described. 
 
 If searching improvement could be carried into the homes of the adult 
 population, it is believed that one effect of it would be a decrease of the 
 juvenile destitution found in the streets. But the evil is one pregnant with the 
 most dangerous consequences to society, and should be combated wherever it 
 is met ; and your Committee strongly recommend the early establishment of a 
 Reformatory for juvenile delinquents. At present it appears that these young 
 offenders are frequently discharged by the magistrates because there is no place 
 for their confinement except the common gaol, where they would be associated 
 with the adult prisoners, and the knowledge of this among the police often 
 saves them from apprehension. The great success of reformatory establish- 
 ments in Europe does not leave the question in doubt as to the value of such 
 an experiment here. La Mettray, near Tours, opened by M. De Metz in 1839, 
 and Rauhe Haus, near Hamburgh, founded by Dr. Wichern in 1833, are 
 
92 HENRY PARKES. 
 
 about the oldest and most celebrated ; and the many hundreds of young pro- 
 fligates who have passed through those establishments have, with few exceptions, 
 been thoroughly reclaimed, and become respectable members of society. 
 
 As one means of reclaiming our vagrant children, which at the same time 
 would meet a growing want in the maritime trade of the colony, your Com- 
 mittee recommend the establishment of a Nautical School, separate from other 
 educational institutions, in accordance with the report of a Select Committee 
 of the Legislature in 1854, where boys with a propensity for the sea might be 
 trained in all the arts of seamanship, and apprenticed out under respectable 
 masters. 
 
 These observations have not lost their value in the six or seven 
 years that have elapsed since they were penned. They will not 
 lose their value for many years to come. We are still suffering 
 from the evils so emphatically dwelt upon by the writer. The 
 dwellings of the working classes are still built upon the same 
 principles the streets are still crowded with vagrants the great 
 vice of modern cities still flourishes in our midst. No attempt to 
 do away with these abominations was made by the Ministry in 
 existence at the time when this Report was presented to Parlia- 
 ment. It is gratifying to record, however, that the matter has not 
 been left out of sight since Mr. Parkes has himself been in office. 
 Among other measures for the improvement of our social condi- 
 tion, an Act for the establishment of a Juvenile Reformatory has 
 been passed. Nothing is more imperatively needed than this. 
 From the prominent manner in which Mr. Parkes has identified 
 himself with these topics, there is reason to believe that more 
 will be done in the shape of social legislation during his tenure 
 of office than has been done during the last ten years. 
 
 But Mr. Parkes is a man of letters as well as a social reformer : 
 and the interest he has already displayed in the intellectual 
 advancement of the people will doubtless lead to some practical 
 measures in that behalf. This city is perhaps the only English 
 city of any importance which does not possess a Free Public 
 Library. As yet, we can hardly be said to possess any public 
 Library at all worthy of the name. We have two Circulating 
 Libraries with some 30,000 volumes between them ; but it may 
 
HENRY PARKES. 93 
 
 be doubted whether they do much to assist our mental progress. 
 They certainly feed an appetite for fiction, but they have not the 
 means of cultivating scholarship. 
 
 As a prose writer, dealing with topics of practical importance, 
 Mr. Parkes exhibits not only vigour of style, but comprehensive 
 and logical habits of thought He throws a net round his subject 
 from which nothing of any value can escape. He is not eloquent 
 he is not imaginative he is not ornate. Qualities of this kind 
 are not in keeping with those branches of investigation for which 
 nature has fitted him. We do not look for airy flights of fancy in 
 the Wealth of Nations, or for subtle imagery and graceful diction 
 in the Principles of Political Economy. Mr. Parkes has certainly 
 published two small volumes of poems, but they exhibit the feeling 
 of a poet without an adequate power of expression. He has never 
 been able to master even the trifling difficulties of rhyme, and his 
 versification is consequently as rugged as if it belonged to the 
 sixteenth century. We read of great men amusing their leisure 
 hours with carpenters' tools, and we never imagine that the results 
 of their handiwork displayed much skill. Mr. Parkes has amused 
 himself with iambs and anapaests instead of saws and chisels. 
 
 Mr. Parkes has been a "prominent member of the Assembly for 
 some years past. In 1862, he was appointed by the Government 
 to lecture throughout Great Britain on the advantages of this 
 colony as a field for emigration. Soon after his return, he was 
 again elected a Member of Parliament, and is now Colonial 
 Secretary. The biographies of self-taught men rarely exhibit so 
 marked a triumph over difficulties as his. 
 
94 
 
 D. H. DENIEHY. 
 
 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY was born in Sydney, in 1828. When 
 a child, he went with his parents to England, but his stay there 
 was not a long one. On leaving school he was articled to Mr. 
 Stenhouse, and subsequently enrolled as an attorney. Me prac- 
 tised a short time in Sydney, and afterwards in Goulburn ; but 
 his devotion to literature was too intense to admit of the neces- 
 sary attention to business, and unfortunately he soon became 
 equally devoted to politics. His first appearance in public life 
 took place in 1853, at a time when the new Constitution Act 
 framed by Mr, Wentworth, and adopted by the Council was a 
 subject of absorbing interest. His speeches on this occasion 
 gained him a great reputation for eloquence, and naturally led to 
 his election as a member of the first Representative Assembly. 
 He achieved no success as a politician ; and as a man of letters, 
 he has left little behind him to convey a just idea of his extraor- 
 dinary powers. He contributed to several newspapers; with 
 one, the Southern Cross, he was especially identified, and in its 
 columns and in those of the Freeman's Journal of eight years 
 ago, we must look for whatever may be worth preserving. It was 
 in the former journal that the most elaborate production of his 
 pen appeared, a political satire, entitled, How I became -Attorney- 
 General of New Barataria. As a piece of literary workman- 
 ship, no other production of the kind can be said to surpass it. 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 95 
 
 There has never been any man in this country whose know- 
 ledge of books was more extensive than Mr. Deniehy's : and it 
 may be added that there has never been any one who possessed 
 a finer critical capacity. The range of his attainments was not 
 less surprising than the depth and penetration of his criticism. 
 All that was best worth knowing in modern literature was familiar 
 to him, and the zest with which he appreciated it may be judged 
 from the language he employed. The following waifs will give 
 some proof on these points. They are, alas ! but the spars scat- 
 tered on the sea-beach, when the hurricane has subsided and the 
 ship gone down for ever. They cannot do justice to the splendid 
 faculties with which he was endowed : to his power of imagina- 
 tion as well as fancy; to his intense admiration of Beauty, both 
 in Nature and in Art; but they will afford some indication of 
 these qualities, and suggest to critical readers how much might 
 have been accomplished under happier circumstances. Let it be 
 recollected that w r hat is here given was not the result of studious 
 elaboration. These extracts were simply a series of hasty con- 
 tributions to a newspaper, of so little account in the writer's eyes 
 that he scarcely seems to have taken the trouble of correcting 
 them. 
 
 During the years 1857 and 1858, Mr. Deniehy contributed a 
 series of critical papers to the Freeman's Journal. The following 
 is one on The Elder Roscoe and his Poems : 
 
 Charles the Fifth once caustically remarked, that although Scripture 
 abounded with precepts to pardon our enemies, we were nowhere directed to 
 forgive our friends. How many a distinguished writer, laid for his last long 
 slumber in cathedral marble, or folded in the green rural sod, could he rise 
 again to walk the world's ways, would echo bitterly the imperial mot! 
 Enthusiastic executors and legatees empty the waste-paper baskets of departed 
 genius into the compositors hands, and conceive that they are supplementing 
 the glories of the calm thinker, so calm noiv, would men leave that little 
 terrene immortality he worked for wisely and won well, but rest as he left it. 
 Unfortunately, these assiduous friends have a passion for publishing in one 
 dangerous direction for the integrity of a great man's fame that of verse. 
 They seem beyond all things anxious that the world should be benefited by the 
 
96 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 nugce metrictz, of however doubtful quality, of the illustrious dead. In youth, 
 as experimental efforts, or occasionally as a solace in melancholy hours, 
 
 Smoothing the raven down of darkness till it smiled, 
 
 men with purely the faculty and afterwards the fame of great prose-writers, 
 have written verses trifles traced to amuse and vanish, like a child's inscrip- 
 tion with his father's staff on the moist sands of the retiring sea. The thought 
 that, after their reputation had been built up and they themselves had departed, 
 those attempts would be paraded before the public eye as a claim additional on 
 the remembrance of mankind, would only and reasonably enough have 
 horrified them. And who, besides, cares for such an embodiment of the axiom 
 non omnia possumus omnes, as the hymns of so grand a prose-writer as Jeremy 
 Taylor, the verses of Burke, or the jingles of poor Gerald Griffin, a master in 
 the province of prose fiction, or the sterile rhymes of women with the wonderful 
 imaginative powers of the sisters Bronte ? Indeed, here is a reason, and a 
 philosophical one, why people should care not to see them. They go far to 
 impair that ideal of plenary strength which every genial reader finds comfort in 
 cherishing, of a great writer who has taught and purified him. An ideal 
 which is beneficial, too, because it widens belief for the man who feels it in the 
 capabilities of human power. No book has fully done its office that stops with 
 satisfying you as a work of art ; it should enrich and exhilarate the spirit, by 
 suggestions flowing from the very fact of the existence of a man who could and 
 did produce it. 
 
 A collection of the poems of William Roscoe, the historian, made within 
 the present year, has just reached Australia. Roscoe belonged to an order of 
 modern writers, of which Hallam is the archetype. A class this, with the 
 qualifications of solid learning, clear vigorous understanding, and an honest 
 purpose to find out and tell what it believes to be true. We have every 
 respect for this class the positif of literature, and every recognition of its 
 value. But it altogether wants the philosophical and imaginative endowments 
 which this age (so loudly abused as "shallow") more than any preceding era, 
 severely exacts in those who pretend to teach it. Within the range of facts, 
 and in judgments upon facts, they can be pretty safely trusted. But in matters 
 perceptible only by loftier and subtler faculties such, for instance, as the 
 sociological value of the Christian institution of a sisterhood of virgins, as 
 giving a basis for the independence of women unknown in Pagan society the 
 scholastic philosophy, or the real nature and actual worth to mankind of Art 
 and Ideal Literature, what they say, when they do say anything, is worthless 
 enough. With William Roscoe, Italian literature was a passion, and his 
 strength lay altogether in it. Latterly, the pretensions of Roscoe have been 
 assailed by one of the highest critical authorities of modern times. But it is, 
 nevertheless, questionable, if any English writer was on the whole as well 
 fitted as Roscoe, by specific cast of mind, united with the necessary attain- 
 ments, to execute the Medici biographies. A man of Roscoe's temperament, 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 97 
 
 breathing so ungenial a moral atmosphere as that of Liverpool sixty years 
 ago with an enthusiastic though an unintelligent eye for the finer world 
 mirrored in pictures and prints, a keen sense of those elegances of life 
 which in his earlier days lay at a distance from him, and above all, with that 
 intense appreciation of the particular sections of wisdom locked within books, 
 and the technical appliances of literature, which belongs specially to the 
 self-taught man, was pre-eminently the person to see the great Pontifical 
 reviver of letters and his magnificent father, from the right point of view a 
 point of view from which most men won't consent to survey them. The growth 
 of Roscoe''s own inner life was perhaps largely the social growth of the 
 Augustan age of Italy. 
 
 In saying this, we by no means endorse all the admiration with which it is 
 conventional to speak of Roscoe's biographies. Horace Walpole praised them 
 enthusiastically, and so did Dr. Parr, and the historian Gillies. ' ' Pursuits of 
 Literature," Matthias grew lyrical on reading them, and blew a complimentary 
 flourish on his scholastic cowhorn. For the critical powers of these "grave and 
 reverend signiors," we profess no very extraordinary respect. But we have, as 
 behoves us, for their scholarship great deference. It is easy to see that what 
 called for and obtained the praises of those notabilities, was that Roscoe's 
 information was derived from fontal sources, and that his books, instead of 
 being shadows of other books, were new and genuine contributions to historical 
 knowledge. A historian of the greatest age of Art since the era of Pericles, 
 and of the world's most magnificent connoisseurs, Roscoe labours under cardinal 
 defects. We allow him with the respect and gratitude due to one who has 
 instructed us to be genial, learned, and impartial. But his aesthetical criticism 
 is valueless. It is doubtful if he had any higher idea of the creations of Art 
 than as "objects of taste." He had never caught a glimpse of the calm 
 majesty so sorrowing and so yearning, of that strong spirit who dwells in the 
 palace called Beautiful, while yet the mystery of doubt and the mystery of 
 death prowl without at the gate that looks far over into the world. Unlike 
 the German mind, and the mind of England and France, the Italian intellect 
 has alone in plastic Art adequately revealed all its grandeur and creative 
 capacity. Dante, and at a later period a few of the great composers of 
 hieratic music, throw themselves across this rule as exceptions. The man who 
 cannot see and see without a misgiving, that the business is mainly one of 
 ornament or superfluity with an eye at once pious and philosophical, into 
 manifestations of power and character through Art, will be unable to tell what 
 is best worth hearing about the tinles of Lorenzo and Leo. He can, in fact, 
 knoiv little of the great men upon whom the Medici fame rests, like an airy 
 baldacchino of golden tracery upon the stupendous jasper columns of some 
 august sanctuary. Mrs. Jamieson's brief notice of Correggio in her little 
 book on Italian Painting that he was "a true servant of God in his Art" 
 above sordid ambition, and devoted to truth not only gives you a 
 master-key to the higher criticism of Correggio, but opens a historical idea that 
 K 
 
98 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 reaches like a corridor into the heart of Correggio's age. A proof of how 
 imperfectly Roscoe appreciated the masters of Italian painting, is furnished in 
 the following lines from an Ode, in the volume before us, on the Foundation 
 of a Society for the formation of the Fine Arts in Liverpool. The theme is a 
 parallel of Poetry with Painting : 
 
 Opposed to Waller's amorous song 
 His art let wanton Titian try, 
 Let great Romano's free design 
 Contend with Dryden's pompous line, 
 And chaste Correggio's graceful air 
 With Pope's unblemished page compare. 
 
 Scarcely as much ground is there for any parallel here drawn as for one of 
 Homer and Horace Vernet, they both paint fighting men. What could a 
 man like this, who looked upon his Italian engravings through spectacles that 
 might have been forgotten on the table of Button's coffee house or Wills', 
 really perceive of the triumphant strivings of grandly endowed and religiously 
 earnest human beings to bring out and bequeath the divinity within them ? He 
 has nothing to tell you of their relation to the great problem the evolution, as 
 far as may be, here below, of what is finest and purest in human nature. In 
 the memoir of Lorenzo, after a few biographical details, he gets rid of Michael 
 Angelo, by an anecdote of a French painter, long incredulous of the master's 
 powers, who exclaimed, after gazing at two statues Cardinal Richelieu had 
 brought into France, " Jai vu Michel Ange ; il est effrayant" I have seen 
 Michael Angelo ; he is terrific ! Roscoe's own criticism flows in a runnel of 
 this kind : " Of the sculptures of Michael Angelo some yet remain, in an 
 unfinished state, which strikingly display the comprehension of his ideas and the 
 rapidity of his execution." Get an idea of your own out of that, reader, if you can! 
 * ' Such, " he proceeds, ' ' are the bust of Brutus and the statue of a female figure in 
 the gallery at Florence. In the latter, the chisel has been handled with such 
 boldness as to induce a connoisseur of our own country to conjecture that in 
 the finishing it would be necessary to restore the cavities. " This "jargon of the 
 connoisseurs' 1 '' is the substance of what Mr. Roscoe gives you as the genius and 
 art of Michael. And he quotes from a wretched silhoiiette of a book on 
 pictures, written in French by a poor arid creature named Richardson, who 
 stands in much the same relation to painting that old Nichols or honest Joseph 
 Spence, the anecdote-mongers, do to Poetry. A judgment on Buonarotti as a 
 Painter is, in effect, avoided, and we can do nothing better than place what Mr. 
 Roscoe says before the reader. " Already it is difficult to determine whether his 
 (Michael's) reputation be enhanced or diminished by the sombre representations 
 of his pencil in the Pauline and Sistine Chapels, or by the few specimens of 
 his cabinet pictures, now rarely to be met with, and exhibiting only a shadow 
 of their original exellence ! All the highest criticism on those great epic orna- 
 ments of the Leonine age has been produced, and they have shed their grandest 
 inspiration upon the hearts of poets, since Roscoe's day. Besides, Michael, was 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 99 
 
 no colourist ; men of his Miltonic cast never are. The late gifted David Scott, 
 who so worthily dwelt within the sublimer austerities of Art, for instance, was 
 not. Men of this kind have the sensuotts faculties too much subjugated. Be 
 this a comment on as much of the question of preservation as lurks in Mr. 
 Roscoe's remarks. The essence of the criticism, however, leaks out at the 
 word "sombre." It is, in reality, objections to the conception and the genre 
 that Mr. Roscoe echoes. " Sombre ! " why by the sombreness of the thing 
 of the Last Judgment, or, as the matter might be more fairly or more boldly 
 put, the dark apocalyptic grandeur of it the shadowing out of doom, would 
 the supreme Michael himself, be content to stand. And the improvement 
 Michael Angelo's works effected in public taste, is summed up as the claim 
 upon posterity of that marvellous man who ranks with Shakspeare and Beeth- 
 oven, as arch-exponents of that awful potential world that lives in the depths of 
 our common nature world of grandeur and of sorrows so sublimated as to be 
 worthy the endurance of angels, of pleasure abysmal and ineffable, and of 
 victorious and everlasting beauty that pierces the soul as flame the living flesh ! 
 
 Roscoe's reputation should have been left to stand upon a cippus of modest 
 historical prose. William Stanley Roscoe, and Mrs. Sandbach of Liverpool, had 
 done sufficient, with whatever amount of success, to represent the poetical 
 pretentions of the distinguished family of Roscoe. The unlucky verses before 
 us display scarcely an original idea of any kind scarcely a single gleam of 
 native fancy, or even a memorable felicity of expression. They are echoes of 
 the tinkles of Pope and Shenstone and Dyer, without even an approximation to 
 the merits of that meagre music. Pope, like Boileau, had the good sense of a 
 man comme il fattt, and melody beside ; and poor Shenstone held his varnished 
 crook as prettily, and looked the sentiment et ego in Arcadia as nicely, as any 
 gentleman that flirts in pastoral costume beside the sculptured fountain 
 basins of Watteau. How the name of Dyer evokes images of schoolboy years 
 of the dim, secluded, somewhat sleepy, schoolroom in Phillip-street, in that 
 dear city of Sydney, with small old-fashioned windows enchased with grape- 
 vines and honeysuckle, and darkened by antique and bowery lemon-trees, in 
 which, of sunny mornings, with many a lapsus, we were wont to recite octo- 
 syllabic praises of "the Groves of Grongar Hill," from "Enfield's Speaker." 
 Dyer had a good eye for "still life," and his modest landscapes have many a 
 touch of sunshine and tender colour. 
 
 "The Wrongs of Africa," the longest composition in the volume, though 
 dull enough as a poem, recalls one of the noblest of the many noble episodes 
 in Roscoe's beneficent life a life beautiful and unobtrusive withal. He took 
 an early and intrepid stand against the slave-trade, and that in one of the 
 chief marts of that horrible traffic in a city-" every stone in whose buildings 
 was bought and cemented with the blood and marrow of the kidnapped and 
 murdered African," as George Frederick Cooke pointing his phrases with 
 hiccups, in one of his fits of sublime drunkenness, once took occasion from 
 behind the foot-lights to remind a Liverpool audience. 
 
IOO DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 The poem of "Mount Pleasant," produced by Mr. Roscoe between the 
 ages of sixteen and twenty, might have been very well left without republica- 
 tion. It contains such an instance of equivocal grammar as this : 
 
 At intervals the red-breast's throat 
 
 Pours the clear warblings of his closing note. 
 
 And the writer also alludes to a polar region, 
 
 Where the faint sun scarce liquidates the main. 
 
 The word, besides being a synonym for pecuniary payment, means certainly 
 also to clear and to make smooth. But it strikes us as pretty plain, that the 
 poet means liquefies. This image also occurs in Mount Pleasant 
 
 So stands some lake amidst the sheltering vale, 
 Its waves unruffled by the rising gale ; 
 On the green surge are poisonous insects found, 
 And putrid vapours spread black mists around. 
 
 But the criticism is not worth a cowrie, that leaves the poorest poem without 
 endeavouring to find, if not a flower, yet some cool green leaf worth carrying 
 away. Here are two tolerable things four lines about the portraits of friends 
 the third bombastic enough, the fourth good. 
 
 The sparkling eye, the blooming face, 
 
 The shape adorned with every grace, 
 
 To Nature's self scarce yields the doubtful strife, 
 
 Swell from the deepening shade and ask the gift of life. 
 
 Let us also show these lines about Burns ; the two first enclose a striking image ; 
 the two last are very queer stuff 
 
 And let Despair with niggard light 
 Disclose the yawning gulf below, 
 And pour incessant on his sight 
 Her spectred ills and shapes of woe. 
 
 The writer of this essay had evidently studied something else 
 besides books. Painting and Sculpture were no "lands unknown" 
 to him. ' His very style seems to have been largely influenced by 
 his appreciation of the Fine Arts. This is one of the most 
 remarkable features in Mr. Deniehy's mental character. Nearly 
 his whole life having been passed in his native land, he could 
 have had little or no opportunities for making himself acquainted 
 with the works of the great Masters. His personal knowledge 
 could have been little more than recollections of his childhood. 
 Yet his criticisms betray no sign of defective knowledge : on the 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. IOI 
 
 contrary, they convey an impression that he was just as com- 
 petent to criticise a painting as a book. 
 The next paper is on Gray : 
 
 Gray, in the degree to which taste and scholarship flowed about and fed the 
 root of his poetical faculty, eminently resembles Longfellow in our own day. 
 But Longfellow has enjoyed wider opportunities of culture the spiritual 
 element shooting down from German literature, and the privilege of following 
 instead of preceding the great modern poets. Both, to use Dryden's illustra- 
 tion, see Nature for the most part through "the spectacles of books." Indeed, 
 were one to judge from Longfellow's poems, one could scarcely say he had ever 
 observed external nature for himself, much less loved it with a poet's passion ; 
 but there is evidence in his prose that he had, in some charming passages of 
 "Hyperion," and above all in "Kavanagh," our favourite among all Long- 
 fellow's books. "Roaring Brook" is a sketch transferred from among the 
 living woods and the living waters. Longfellow digs, dilettanti-vtise, into the 
 mines of the Minnesingers, as Gray loved to quarry in the bardic strata of the 
 Scandinavians and the Welsh. Both are never happier than when working up 
 other men's gold. Supply them the metal, and they bring fancy and artistic 
 finish of their own. The result is a beauty of design all men can appreciate, 
 and appreciate, too, aj; a single glance. In the process of re-casting, no 
 writers were ever so successful. As La Bruyere remarked of the felicities of 
 Boileau, they seem to create the thoughts of other people. In Gray, the 
 reflective faculties altogether overpowered the perceptive. He picked up his 
 images in the grounds of all sorts of people, and had no objection to say so. 
 Indeed he was often not as much indebted to others as he led people to believe, 
 " The curfew tolls the knell of parting day " for instance, owes very little, if 
 anything at all, to Dante's squilla di lontano. No man ever had the judicious- 
 ness of artistic taste in a higher degree. Who but Gray would have expunged 
 from the Elegy one of the loveliest verses ever written in English a verse 
 which he with his scant store of imagery was likely to appraise to the last iota 
 of its value simply because its happy morning radiance and sweet dewy 
 freshness of colour might beat up and spot, as it were, the sombre tone and 
 dim shadowy breadth of the composition : 
 
 There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
 
 By hands unseen, are showers of violets found : 
 The red-breast loves to build and warble there, 
 
 And little footsteps lightly tread the ground. 
 
 This circumstance of flowers strewn upon a grave by " hands unseen," is the 
 most exquisite thing in all Gray's poetry. The " hands unseen " is a touch of 
 the true poetical gramarye a gleam from the Spirit Land. Lord Byron has 
 borrowed it without acknowledgment in a famous stanza of "Don Juan." 
 He has made, by the way, as able use of it as Gray himself ever did with any 
 
102 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 of his own peculations, or Milton with the wonderful epithets he was now and 
 then to old Gifford's unspeakable disgust in the habit of borrowing from the 
 elder dramatists. Lord Byron has given the words historic dignity : 
 
 When Nero perish'd by the justest doom 
 
 That ever the destroyer yet destroyed, 
 Amidst the war of liberated Rome, 
 
 The shout of nations and the world o'erjoy'd, 
 Some hand unseen strew'd flowers on his tomb ; 
 
 Perhaps the weakness of some heart not void 
 Of feeling, for some kindness done when power 
 Had left the wretch one uncorrupted hour. 
 
 Gray's sensibilities were exquisite. He had a fusing power, borrowed from 
 the melancholy light under which things presented themselves to his eye. It 
 did for him, to a very considerable degree, what imagination does for 'greater 
 poets. A pensive, tender, moralising sadness, born of the temperament of the 
 man native, in his spirit, and not expressly put on with his "singing robes" 
 coloured, harmonised, verified all reflections and fancies into one whole of 
 melancholy grace, just as the evening horizon melts together and atones all 
 things into grave repose making earth look for awhile a pensive but a happy 
 place ! You have this in the Ode on a prospect of Eton, as well as in the 
 Church-yard Elegy. The essence of the sentiment lies in Burke's saying 
 "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue." 
 
 I remember my accomplished friend, Mr. Frank Fowler, in a collection of 
 sparkling thoughts and images published some three months since in the 
 Sydney Morning Herald, conceived he had found the root of the first stanza 
 of the Elegy in these lines from the thirteenth book of Pope's Homer's 
 " Odyssey :" 
 
 As the tired ploughman, spent with stubborn toil, 
 Whose oxen long have torn the furrowed soil, 
 Sees with delight the sun's declining ray 
 When home with feeble knees he bends his way. 
 
 My friend's praise of Gray's verse is as charming as a rural sunset of Cuyp's 
 "calm, evening-like, and beautiful," he calls it. But I can see nothing but 
 a coincidence in the verse from the Odyssey and Gray's the use and to some 
 extent the necessarily similar treatment of one of the most obvious circum- 
 stances of country life. The weariness of the ploughman "plodding" home- 
 ward must have struck every rural loiterer for centuries. Surely that vesper 
 image of rest from toil had so often met the eye as to suggest use of it, if 
 neither Pope nor Gray had ever existed, to all English poets of rustic life to 
 Thompson and Bloomfield, and Bowles and Bamfylde, and Crabbe and Clare, 
 and Hurdis. 
 
 Hard fighting men, and men of the world, have ever loved Gray's "Elegy." 
 Wolfe praised it passionately, shortly before he expired on the heights of 
 Abraham. There was, perhaps, a strange feeling stirring in his breast when, 
 
DA.NIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 103 
 
 as he gazed from his boat on the dark, swift tide of the Canadian river, 
 imaging the stars " thoughtfully awake," he whispered to himself 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 In his last moments Daniel Webster gasped, "Poetry Gray's Elegy" 
 when in the evening of age, as in the morning of childhood, the feeble tongue 
 could only enunciate the nouns, and leave those around to fill up and complete 
 the structure of the sentence. 
 
 Under the title of Books and Things a Table Talk, he strung 
 together a series of critical and philosophical remarks, which 
 are well worth reading : 
 
 "I cannot," said Dr. Arnold, "enter fully into these lines of Wordsworth's 
 
 To me, the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears. 
 
 There is to me something in them of a morbid feeling life is not long 
 enough to take such intense interest in objects in themselves so little." Sad 
 sort of talk this for so great a man as Thomas Arnold, of Rugby. His 
 remark might, to some little extent, apply to a mere maniac entomologist, or 
 to a man midsummer-mad in field botany. Wordsworth, though, according 
 to the most illustrious of his critics, he saw by some rare quality of organization 
 in the eye every natural object under forms of sublimated beauty unknown to 
 mankind generally, was the last man to take an intense interest in a little object 
 purely for the object's own sake. He gives no extraordinary attention to the 
 trivial thing itself, if any product of God's handiwork can, rightly viewed, be 
 called trivial. The flower may be " little," but who shall say the " thoughts 
 too deep for tears " which it gives, are little ? And why should Dr. Arnold 
 have assumed that such thoughts must of necessity be altogether about the 
 flower itself, when reflection wakened in its tenderest moods by the lowly 
 blossom may, -when arrived at that stage of intensified pathos to which the 
 poet refers, be a thousand leagues away? "The meanest flower" is only 
 impressive to Wordsworth from the suggestive function it performs. Only in 
 the profound heart and the ^Eolian sensibilities of a meditative poet would a 
 stray meadow flower stir ineffable things that dwell below the source of tears. 
 The homely memories of by-gone life " departed never to return," not less 
 than the yearning questions passionately, and as Wordsworth himself says, 
 ' ' obstinately " whispered by the soul, as to the meaning and purpose of this 
 glorious equipage of physical creation which has so much to do with that soul, 
 may have been thus called up. And what Wordsworth implies is, that he as 
 a poet is endowed with a range of sensibilities so wide as equally to touch the 
 grandeur of the mountain valley, with the rainbow resting, as it were, the 
 
104 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 basis of an aerial architecture in its elemental walls, or the tropical heaven, 
 amid the thunders of the typhoon, opening up its apocalyptical abyss of 
 ethereal fire, or any other image of terror, of beauty, or of splendour, alike 
 with the fairest blossom of the fields. Not in a handful of violets gathered 
 from Arnold's early home at Laleham, simply as violets, would Arnold have 
 felt the only interest about which a true poet would care to speak ; but in the 
 tender thoughts they would give, perhaps, of the time when Thomas Arnold 
 took his bride to that happy home of Laleham. 
 
 The distinguishing faculty, I think, of recent great American statesmen, is 
 not what we ordinarily call genius great originality of ideas, or splendid action 
 under the direction of speculative wisdom, with the higher form of eloquence as 
 concomitant so much as a clear common sense faculty, altogether exquisite in its 
 perceptions of the real palpable relations of things, as things happen to be in 
 this world, and the best way of managing them. This, I think, applies to 
 men ranging from Webster down to George S. Milliard ; even to Edward 
 Everett with his rhetorical robes on. They have inherited the mind of the 
 great printer who represented the Infant Republic at the Court of Versailles ; 
 they are Franklins, with the advantage of having been at college. Their's is 
 intellect of the type of Paley's and Whately's ; they only see ordinary things, 
 but to see them as they see is a rare and precious gift ; and sophistry has for 
 them no more a principle of resistance than a smoke-wreath for the rushing 
 arrow. 
 
 The best and the briefest definitions of wit and humour that I know of, 
 occurred some years back, in a notice of Leland's translation of Heinrich 
 Heine's "Reisebilder," in that most brilliant of London weekly publications, 
 the Leader. The notice is, I presume, Mr. Lewes's. "Humour affirms all that 
 is generally human instead of denying it, and it is, in fact, an exuberant sympathy 
 acting in company with a sense of the ludicrous, while wit is the critical intellect 
 acting in company with that same sense." 
 
 "Life's Problems " is a little book, much in the tone of the Essays of Arthur 
 Helps the feelings and opinions of a thoughtful, thoroughly cultured mind put 
 into pure and simple English. In his papers, " Sexual Difference in Mental 
 Constitution," he approaches the real solution of that vexed psychological ques- 
 tion of the superiority of the intellect of one sex to that of the other. "Created 
 apart," he says, "with separate individualities, counterparts to each other, 
 alike in what they have and have not, it was most palpably designed that neither 
 should live alone, or singly achieve that which, united, follows in the order of 
 Nature. Each, mentally and physically, is the complement of the other. Two 
 halves, both are necessary to make a perfect whole, and in their union only 
 can each find its own most perfect development as an individual." The two 
 last sentences are, in substance, the property of Wilhelm von Humboldt, less 
 
DANIEL HKNRY DENIEHV. 105 
 
 known, but a man of greater native intellect, than his illustrious brother 
 Alexander. Humboldt alone satisfactorily answered the question of a superior 
 intellect in either sex. According to him, there is an ingenitely masculine and 
 feminine mind two hemispheres of one orb ; and to compare them is to com- 
 pare things which, as the logicians say, are disparate and admit of no com- 
 parison. In that extraordinary book of the extraordinary Count de Montlosier, 
 Des Mysteres de la Vie Humaine, there is this striking passage which, as regards 
 human existence, is perhaps, not unworthy of note "We shall know one 
 day that the distinction of sexes belongs to the whole of nature ; we shall know 
 that the sex resides in the principle of life, and not, as is generally believed, in 
 the external form." 
 
 That charming writer, Robert Aris Wilmott, once, said that, in Southey's 
 biographies, the departed were laid in "tombs of crystal." The figure is 
 beautiful. But did Mr. Wilmott, who knows and loves the rich elder literature 
 of England better than almost any of his cotemporaries, extract his gem from 
 this pebble-like conceit of Drummond's of Hawthornden, in the lament for 
 Mceliades : 
 
 The Muses, Phoebus, Love have raised of their tears 
 A crystal tomb to him, through which his worth appears. 
 
 The greater part of Madame de Stael's philosophy and criticism, bears 
 much the same relation to what is genuine in both, that roses in buhl do to the 
 living flowers. The mechanical copy has a flush of colour of its own about it ; 
 and the ingenuity that makes the artificial singularly like the real, ought 
 perhaps in strictly equitable appraisals of talent, to be taken into account. The 
 only approach, as far as my memory goes, that Madame made to a sound 
 philosophical sentiment, is an expression in her recantation of her early ideas on 
 suicide. When she first wrote, it was with the vivacity and the impertinence 
 of youth ' mais CL quoi servirait il de vivre, si ce rfetait dans Cespoir de 
 s 1 ameliorer ?' What would be the use of growing older, if it were not with the 
 hope of growing wiser ? 
 
 There is a certain thoroughly imaginative subjection of the perceptions in the 
 presence of supreme feminine beauty, an atoning of all surrounding things at 
 one point, which only belongs to the movements of passion in the highest 
 poetry. This is really the piu neW uno of the Italians. I have met with two 
 notable instances of it recently. One in N. P. Willis's tragedy of ' ' Bianca 
 Visconti," and the other in Aubrey de Vere's graceful volume of sketches in 
 Greece and Turkey. The Condottierro Sforza in the play, speaks to his bride, 
 a young Milanese Duchess, on their wedding night 
 
 I remember 
 
 The fair Giovanna in her pride at Naples. 
 Gods ! what a light enveloped her ! She left 
 Little to shine in history ; but her beauty 
 L 
 
I06 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 Was of that order that the universe 
 
 Seem'd govern'd by Ijer motion. Men look'd on her 
 
 As if her next step would arrest the world ; 
 
 And as the sea-bird seems to rule the wave 
 
 He rides so buoyantly all things around her, 
 
 The glittering army, the spread gonfalon, 
 
 The pomp, the music, the bright sun in Heaven 
 
 S eem' d glorious by her leave ! 
 
 Mr. de Vere paints a picture of an Eastern beauty he had the rare fortune of 
 seeing unveiled at Constantinople, with a mixture of Etty's luxurious feeling and 
 the purity of Stothard. "The favourite wife was a Circassian, and a fairer vision 
 it would not be easy to see. Intellectual in expression she could hardly be called ; 
 yet she was full of dignity as well as pliant grace and sweetness. Her large 
 black eyes, beaming with a soft and stealthy radiance, seemed as if they would 
 have yielded light in the darkness ; and the heavy waves of her hair, which, in 
 the excitement of the scene, she carelessly flung over her shoulders, gleamed like 
 a mirror. Her complexion was the most exquisite I have ever seen, its smooth 
 pearly purity being tinged with a colour unlike that of flower or of fruit, of bud 
 or of berry, but which reminded me of the vivid and delicate tints which some- 
 times streak the inside of a shell. Though tall, she seemed as light as if she 
 had been an embodied cloud, hovering over the rich carpets like a child that 
 does not feel the weight of its body ; and though stately in the intervals of 
 rest, her mirth was a rapture. She, too, had that peculiar luxuriousness of 
 aspect, in no degree opposed to modesty, which belongs to the East ; around 
 her lips was wreathed in their stillness an expression at once pleasurable and 
 pathetic, which seemed ever ready to break forth into a smile ; her hands seemed 
 to leave with regret whatever they had rested on, and in parting to leave something 
 behind ; and in all her soft and witching beauty she reminded me of Browning's 
 lines 
 
 No swan-like woman, rubb'd in lucid oils, 
 The gift of an enamour'd god, more fair." 
 
 What a fine wit L. E. L. had, though life did seem to her fancy like an 
 etruscan vase -folatre figures running on a back ground. Do you recollect 
 her making lady M. W. Montagu, in "Ethel Churchill," remark that she found, 
 "with great mortification, she was every day getting wiser ! " 
 
 How touchingly true is that remark of a female friend of John Kenyon's 
 "To be happy, w r e must not only forbear to anticipate the future, but must teach 
 ourselves to forget the past ! " 
 
 There is a good lesson, notwithstanding the dash of sadness about it, in the 
 fact that the powers and achievements of genius are bounded by the merest 
 material circumstances. The being born a quarter of a century, sooner or later, 
 often makes huge difference in what the gifted effects in his day. What could 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 1 07 
 
 not Bichat, the Napoleon of modern medicine, have done with the microscope, 
 so ineffective in his time, as it became a few years after his death ? And again, 
 think of the harmonic grandeurs and splendours, such as human ear hath never' 
 heard, which the genius of Mozart would have evoked from those recent 
 colossal appliances of orchestral instrumentation, upon which, as on a plinth of 
 Theban proportions, rests so much of the fame of Meyerbeer and Berlioz ! 
 
 How beautiful to contemplate Genius, undistracted by ambition or envy, 
 perfecting itself for the life to come amidst the quiet daily discharge of duties ! 
 I know one such instance a person in whose society I have never spent an hour 
 without leaving it a better man, with aims purified and elevated. Who would 
 expect that a man of encyclopsediac learning and the finest perceptions of 
 beauty who could throw truths in exquisite forms, such as I am about to 
 quote 
 
 Easily as the oak looseneth its golden leaves, 
 
 was content here in Sydney to toil through diurnal drudgery, at a conveyancer's 
 desk, satisfied to maintain those dear to him, and endeavour to keep himself, in 
 St. James's words, "unspotted from the world?" Is not this, which I once took 
 down from my friend's lips, truly beautiful ? "In seasons of grief, the effect of 
 those grand passages of poetry which shake the soul to its very foundation, is 
 merely that of the storm which leaves behind it a wreck without any purifying 
 influences ; but the effect of that poetry which is based on Christian solaces, 
 resembles the commotion in the pool of Bethesda, which indicated that, with the 
 disturbance healing virtue had been communicated to the reposing waters, 
 by the presence of an invisible an%el" 
 
 " The down on the breast of an eagle." What a beautiful image of Charles 
 Drake's that is in allusion to those gentle humanities which are never so tender 
 and so pathetic as in the strong heart of a hero. With rough old Zachary 
 Taylor, the green waving wheat field was one of the sweetest things on God's 
 earth, and visions of the autumnal uplands must have been his cheer through 
 the crush and carnage of his splendid Mexican campaign, whenever the tense 
 brain relaxed from attention to the matter of the moment. Priceless were the 
 tears that coursed down the " iron cheeks" of Pitt, that terrible night in the 
 Commons, when 216 votes were given for, and 216 against, the impeachment 
 of Lord Melville, and the Speaker, after ten minutes' pause, recorded his 
 casting vote with the ayes. 
 
 Most people know something of Henry Taylor's "Philip van Artevelde," 
 but I am surprised that his "Notes from Life "are not more generally read 
 and more frequently quoted. For pure, ripe, weighty wisdom, the book is 
 surpassed by few in our literature, and it foreshadows much of the tone which 
 belongs to the writings of Taylor's friend Arthur Helps. Is not this passage 
 remarkably fine? " If there be in the character not only sense and soundness, 
 
T08 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHV. 
 
 but virtue of a high order, then, however little appearance there may be of 
 talent, a certain portion of wisdom may be relied upon almost implicitly ; and 
 that they will accompany each other may be inferred, not only because men's 
 wisdom makes them good, but also because their goodness makes them wise. 
 Although, therefore, simple goodness does not imply every sort of wisdom, it 
 unerringly implies some essential condition of wisdom ; it implies a negative 
 on folly, and an exercised judgment, within such limits as nature shall have 
 prescribed to the capacity." 'One of the best commentaries on this noble 
 passage will be found in the female character. There have been hundreds of 
 worthy,, high-principled women, simple, unassuming, and without a shadow 
 of pretension to being " clever" who never could fall into the fallacies or per- 
 petuate the follies of their lax though brilliant brothers and husbands. 
 
 In Balzac and Thackeray, you have a deal of what may be called in a good 
 sense, the Pre-Raphaelitism of literature. 
 
 There is largely in literature and life, a practice of praising by comparisons, 
 and the criticism, like the vehicle it employs, is odious. One celebrity can only 
 be praised by some people as it operates to depreciate another ; one achieve- 
 ment is lauded just as the eulogist conceives it throws another achievement into 
 shadow. In the heyday of Mr. Lever's popularity, one stupid periodical could 
 only indicate its heaped up and overflowing admiration of " Harry Lorrequer " 
 by exclaiming "We had rather be the author of this book than of all the 
 'Pickwicks' and ' Nicklebys' in the world." This is a side-thrust at Mr. 
 Dickens. Now, I cannot see why the rollicking dashing fun of Mr. Lever's 
 book could not have been enjoyed without a gird of abatement at the rich 
 humour of " Pickwick," or the tragic power and delicate pathos which are the 
 higher characteristics of "Nicholas Nickleby." There is not only room 
 enough in the world for perfectly new and dissimilar beauties, but for beautiful 
 things that resemble each other in a great many respects. Ever after the 
 mighty explorations of De Quincey into that psychical realm which obeys a law 
 of material stimulants, there is place for the experiences of luxury and terror of 
 the American Hasheesh (or hemp-eater). Bailey's idea of the Graces is 
 welcome, even after Canova's has for half a century ruled our conceptions of a 
 perfect embodiment of that exquisite myth. I felt much annoyed lately by 
 meeting this kind of criticism in a notice of Stothard in Leigh Hunt's "Table 
 Talk." Stothard is there placed above Flaxman . Except in the divine purity 
 of their ideal of the female face and form, the two men are utterly unlike ; and 
 it would be as unfair to back one against the other as artists in a general sense, 
 as to contest if Milton or Spenser were in the abstract the greater poet. The 
 genius of Flaxman was epic ; Stothard's was idyllic. 
 
 Most men, when praising others warmly, are unconsciously praising images 
 struck from the die of their own ideals of themselves. 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 109 
 
 Criticism should be gentle ; all life, literature, politics, are but processes of 
 approximation. "Even solar time," said Julius Hare, "is not true time." 
 But it does. 
 
 The hope that suggests, and the achievement that embodies, our youthful 
 endeavours bear the relation to each other of the Baptistry at Florence, and the 
 gates of bronze Ghiberti moulded for it. The building and the achievement are 
 alike excellent things in their way, though 
 
 A thousand such there are elsewhere 
 As worthy of your wonder. 
 
 But the young hope, and the portals of breathing imagery, "they" as Michael 
 Angelo said of the latter, " are worthy of Paradise !" 
 
 Mr. Deniehy was of Irish extraction, and when very young, he 
 spent a few months in Ireland. This was but a small foundation 
 for such a structure of patriotic feeling as he contrived to rear 
 upon it. How intense his sympathies were with everything con- 
 nected with Ireland, the following paper, headed John Mitchell as 
 a Literary Man, will sufficiently shew : 
 
 A sad stage in the later career of so brave and gifted a spirit as that dashing 
 North of Ireland attorney who threw himself, like another Arnold of Winkelried, 
 on the spears of Anglo-Irish policy, who, by an act, to say the worst of it, of 
 heroic precipitancy, solved the question if there was to be anything in the Young 
 Ireland movement besides fervid and picturesque writing and bold and brilliant 
 speaking, was his advocacy of American slavery, and uncharity and abuse all 
 the worse because in the dark hours of defeat, and amidst the ruin's of a life's 
 purpose, of him who, if not chief, was a loyal and lofty brother in arms. Of 
 course I think and write of the men and deeds of Young Ireland as one who, out 
 here in Australia, must form his judgment mainly from what he reads, partly from 
 what he has heard. Among the litterateurs of an organization which largely and 
 on principle operated in literary forms, Mitchell seems to me to have been 
 le beau sabrettr the Murat of the movement. Duffy, with devotion deep as 
 the foundation of his soul, to the cause, not alone of Irish political" welfare, but 
 of the whole regeneration of Irishmen, shewed a literary character broad, 
 abundant, luminous as a river, and yet chequered with soft sad autumnal 
 hues, with that wisdom which is ripened by mournful convictions and sad 
 experience brings ; and its movement had " the deep rush," to use in a higher 
 sense what Sheil so finely said of Yelverton's eloquence. In Davis, you had 
 the archetype of Young Ireland culture, and of the masculine purity of genius 
 hallowed to lofty purposes. He, in the. true meaning of the word in Fichte's, 
 and not the grammar-school sense was the scholar of his party. And he was 
 
HO DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 their poet too. Neither his imagination nor his fancy was remarkable though 
 in the " Sack of Baltimore" there are gleams of the former, the " starry trance" 
 of the hushed landscape and the waters, for instance of exquisite subtlety and 
 delicacy ; and of the latter, the bane of Irish poets, if he possessed much of it, 
 his nature was too earnest and too strong to play with the pretty things it might 
 have moulded for him. His real power as a poet lay in that principle which 
 *s at the heart of all lyrical power -passion. Analyse Burns, analyse Beranger, 
 and you get a similar result. Not in flashes which reveal, as in ethereal fire, 
 objects which for most lie self-withdrawn in psychical darkness, not showing 
 ordinary things in that tempered and tender atmosphere which is to the atmos- 
 phere of logic and the understanding what the rarified and roseate morning of 
 Alpine peaks is to that of the lowermost valleys. Passion pulses through every 
 lyric of Davis's alike in the " Surprise of Cremona" or " Fontenoy," and the 
 " Bride of Mallow," or that song which would have kindled every capacity of 
 splendour in the eyes of Burns, "The Girl of Dunbruce" 
 
 I never can think upon Bantrey's bright hills, 
 But your image comes up and my longing eye Jills, 
 And softly I whisper, Again, love, we'll meet, 
 And I'll live in your bosom and lie at your feet. 
 
 This vital current rushes as powerfully and as fast through "Native Swords," 
 or any other copy of verses justifying the political sentiment of the hour, as 
 the proud stanzas of the "Convention ot Dungannon," or that heartrending 
 caoine at the grave of Wolfe Tone, which itself ranks with ' ' The Burial of Sir 
 John Moore," the " Convoi de David, " and "Who Fears to Talk of Ninety-eight" 
 the noblest elegiacs of modern literature. " Cet Jiomme ira bien loin parceqii'il 
 croit tout ce qu'il dif that man will go great lengths because he believes in 
 what he says, a remark applied to a very different person, might have been said 
 not only of Davis's life, but of the promise that burned in all his literary efforts. 
 What are Southey's Life of Nelson, Stanley's Dr. Arnold, Crabbe's Life by his 
 son, or any other recognized biographical master-piece, Carlyle's Memoir of 
 Sterling excepted, and John Mitchell's Hugh O'Neill, compared with Davis's Life 
 of Curran ? It has the fire and the living and lucid splendour which a statue of 
 the Orator, struck by necromantic force from molten lava, might present. It has 
 the shadowed freshness and purity of the holy well under the twilight hawthorn, 
 when the little offerings, affixed to spray and twig by peasant piety, flutter in 
 the dying breeze 
 
 The summer evening's latest sigh 
 That shuts the rose. 
 
 His studies in Angustin Thierry, in Scott and the glorious old repertoire of 
 Scottish ballad, suggested, and his archaeology and picturesque learning aided, 
 in imparting to his poetry costume and local colouring, correct and effective in 
 an extraordinary degree. 
 
 Mitchell's, it strikes me, is an intellect of noble and robust type, under the 
 control of an arbitrary and ill -disciplined will. A man, methinks, born under 
 
, DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. Ill 
 
 some particular star presiding over revolutionary genius ; ready at all points for 
 wars of independence, to talk what the Crown lawyers call " seditious and 
 inflammatory harangues " to write articles in which the essence of all the 
 rebellion of all the hereditary bondsmen on the face of the earth, is condensed 
 and intensified within vade mecum dimensions, to govern "clubs" beard 
 Judges spit upon juries lead armies patent novel and readier types of barri- 
 cades, ransack arsenals, and experiment with infernal machines on the naval 
 property of Her Most Gracious Majesty, with a hand as cool as if he were 
 addressing, before all Ireland, battant le chien devant loin, letters to my Lord of 
 Clarendon, and his logical and rhetorical Grace of Dublin. 
 
 With a strong, keen, swift intellect, disciplined and even philosophically 
 cultured in one or two directions, there are pretty broadly defined imaginative 
 and spiritual characteristics about his thinkings. Lonely and narrow we should 
 think, but deep as a tarn and mountain heather, is the ideal vein in his nature 
 poetic feeling of his own, fresh, genuine, and thoroughly idiosyncratic, as poetic 
 feeling always is in the man of caractere. Not the result of mere aesthetical 
 results or hyper-refinement, as in the majority of scholars and critics, but the 
 endowment nature only refuses to every Strong Man for some reasons like those 
 for which she sends imperfect physical developments into the world. A vein 
 this which Robert Browning, the everlasting struggle and the obstinate ques- 
 tioning of the race, in the person of a poor heart-broken quack, who strutted 
 and fretted his hour in the sixteenth century amidst college classes and cliques 
 in Switzerland; still less creates the dream lands of Morte Arthur, or Kubla 
 Khan, or gives, like Clarence Mangan, a wild song of "Boating on the .Bos- 
 phorus," "Youth at the helm, and Pleasure at the brow," sadder than an 
 
 epicedium, yet 
 
 Bright as fever, or the dreams of wine. 
 
 But it is the faculty which, when the lonely man broods over and reminds 
 you, as he sits a lonely exile chained but not conquered, one might say, on the 
 hot, white crags of Bermuda of the dear scenes in the land he ' ' loved not 
 wisely but too well," till the moan and murmur, the gliding whisper, and the 
 swirling glee of sylvan waters, and the blossoming bushes, whose noontide 
 photographs on the quiet stream are ever and anon broken by the darting trout, 
 and the melancholy sunset that bathes the stretch, mile after mile, of heather, 
 come before you, so sweet, so soft, so dear, so old in the intense shade of 
 pathos, affection attaches to that simple word applied to persons and places, as 
 to make the eye fill and the heart quicken its pulses. Ever to me, an Australian, 
 who spent but a swallow's season in Ireland, there are passages in Mitchell's 
 "Jail Journal" that affect me, I scarcely know why, and set my memory re-touching 
 Irish landscapes, as I remember the chorus of Tom Campbell's noble song, 
 " Erin mavourneen, Erin go bragh, " did one night, sung by one of the peripatetic 
 Minnesingers of London, in a strong Minister brogue, to a harp of dilapidated 
 pretensions, on the pave of Ratcliffe-highway. They conjure up the places I 
 know best in lerne, however unlikely the spots they refer to the brimming Lee 
 
112 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 with a midnight flash of the mill-wheels at Dripsey, Gongena Barra with its 
 " pomp of waters un withstood, " sung by poor Jerry Callanan in strains where, 
 as often in martial music, the victorious mingles with the plaintive, and the 
 black-waters shimmering by the home of Raleigh, and those sacred shades 
 wizard woods of Kilcolman, that with useful and shadowed beauty closed 
 in about the visions of the dying Spenser. It scarcely enters within the scope 
 of these desultory remarks to say much about Mitchell's journalism. His 
 articles were written at a desperate period, with a view of bringing about 
 the crisis, and under feelings not only of desperate excitement, but of that 
 headlong bitterness which must always belong to the chief of an organization 
 wherein, from the very nature of things, there must be in some quarters 
 vacillating hesitations and perhaps conflicting counsels. The power, too, which 
 Mitchell hated, as only a revolutionary tribune can hate, was also, he well 
 knew, attempting to precipitate action before things on his side were altogether 
 ready. As there was little time for preparing weakened Ireland for her work, 
 the stimulants applied were accordingly as powerful as might be. I suppose the 
 world has seldom seen as strong leaders as those of The Irish Tribune. As 
 literature, they come up marvellously close to Milton's canon of poetry ; they 
 were "simple, sensuous, impassioned." Splendid sarcasm, vitriolic in its 
 specific quality as a destructive ; argument close and conclusive, couched in 
 eloquent execration, taunt, and curse, and defiance, jest and jeer, as grim in 
 their way as attainders or excommunications. But above all, history Irish 
 history, pointed out week after week, in such a light as from the flames of a 
 burning church one might see the inscription on mural tablets a minute ere the 
 slabs crack and drop into the blazing chaos. The " thunderers" of the Times 
 were, compared to them, weak rum and water to Russian quass or the Tartar 
 distillation from equine milk. The denunciations of Junius, the flimsy preten- 
 sions of which to power as political literature De Quincey has, among a host of 
 similar services, shown the world were as lemonade and inferior lemonade, 
 too beside the arrack of the Mitchellian diatribes. 
 
 I have alluded to evidences in Mitchell of philosophical thinking and 
 culture. I myself was certainly not prepared for anything like the criticism of 
 Lord Macaulay's remarks on the Platonic and Baconian philosophy, in the shape 
 of entries in the patriot-felon's journal trenchant, sparkling, but sound and 
 solid. The jaunty, devil-may-care tone might perhaps seem unsuited to the 
 dignity of philosophical argument ; but otherwise, after hearing the eminent 
 essayist's case, and the advocate for Plato in reply, I think even Plotinus or 
 Schleiermacher would certainly declare their illustrious teacher amply vindicated. 
 I myself believe little in the prevalence of Platonic Greek ; I am prepared to 
 believe that Mitchell has read and can read it nevertheless ; but perhaps the 
 brilliant defender had sharpened his victorious blade not a little on those 
 Alexandrian stones with which Emerson has paved his noble temple for the 
 worship of truth and beauty. It is a rare sport to see how the Irish attorney 
 knocks about the -learned and luxurious man of letters the historian, critic, 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 113 
 
 poet, essayist, orator, literary artist par excellence of the generation. The Ulster 
 rebel, too, slates his Lordship on points on which, as involving the superiority 
 of the eternal and super-eternal -to the material and temporary excellent and 
 absolutely indispensable as many things in the latter category are no man with 
 a just sense of what is demanded from a philosophical thinker would like to be 
 worsted. Facts rather than truths, and forms the most fascinating and brilliant 
 for the presentation of the former, seem to be alone within the domain of 
 Lord Macaulay's intellect. Mr. R. H. Home, now of the neighbouring city 
 of Melbourne, has shewn, in some volumes of masterly criticism, how incom- 
 petent Lord Macaulay is to appraise the specific power upon which the 
 intellectual character of a great poet is based. 
 
 When the first number of the "Month" appeared, in July 1857, 
 he wrote a complimentary critique in the journal from which the 
 previous articles have been taken. It was as follows : 
 
 We are glad to see Mr. Fowler at the head of a literary journal. A 
 respectable publication specially devoted to literature and art has long been a 
 desideratum in the Australian metropolis. Into no hands could the manage- 
 ment of it more happily fall than Mr. Fowler's. His taste and knowledge 
 his practical acquaintance with those literary technics so necessary to raise a 
 project of the sort above the pointless and purposeless quality of an amateur's 
 miscellany and beyond all, his sparkling talents as a prose-writer, pre- 
 eminently qualify him for the editorship of a serial of this kind. Mr. Fowler's 
 delightful sketches in the daily newspapers are the only local productions, 
 within our observation, which present the brilliant finish of English Magazine 
 writing of the first class with all its virtues and, it is but fair to add, a dash 
 of its vices. But the vices are not the peccancies for which "Prometheus" 
 has been recently "pitching into" Mr. Fowler in the Empire; and the 
 cleverness of "Prometheus" is cleverness of the wrong sort ever to point out 
 where the disorders and they are not very grave ones are seated. We 
 earnestly hope our readers will patronise this periodical. As a matter of 
 personal gratification, they can scarcely spend a shilling better than in the 
 purchase of fifty-six pages of reading so pleasant, and of so elevating and refining 
 a character, as this first number of the "Month." As a public duty, we know 
 none more important for parents particularly than to aid in the cultivation 
 of native literature by encouragmg projects like Mr. Fowler's. Young men 
 begin to see a living fact in literature, reaching at and touching themselves, 
 when they find it, with all its power to win minds and hearts all its splendid 
 fascinations produced in the place they live in and by men they meet daily in 
 the street or market-place. Fires of emulation are in this way very quickly 
 kindled, and fanned in many a genial bright young heart. And then look a 
 M 
 
114 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 little further on at possibilities. The little packet of juvenile manuscript 
 dropped with a nervous hand and beating heart into the slit of a letter-box at a 
 publishing office, may prelude grave and noble labours in riper years labours 
 which may perhaps make men speak with a lingering note of kindness in their 
 voices of Australia, for the sake of things done by the hand, once so shame-fast 
 and so small, that quivered at a letter-box one afternoon long, long ago. 
 
 From the initial number of a periodical of this kind, one ought not, perhaps, 
 to expect even a close approach to perfection ; but the typography and general 
 appearance are anything but pleasing. There is a slop air about the mecha- 
 nical part of the publication. It is printed on indifferent paper, generally with 
 a shabby thin type, in some places with a mean ill-cut brevier, anything but 
 worthy of the contents. The rich images and delicious pictorial touches of 
 Mr. Fowler's own Lecture on Coleridge are made palpable through a paltry 
 little type, that suggests the print of those limp loose leaves of testification to 
 the virtues of a quack's panacea which, in the days of our European travels, 
 sallow melancholy men were wont to thrust into our hands at street corners. 
 The wrapper is the best part of the brochure, and that might be vastly 
 improved by the Substitution of some elegant medallion on wood for the 
 miniature month-almanac. The consummation of effect in a jewel does not 
 more depend on the setting, or the hue and freshness of a beautiful face on a 
 judicious bonnet-lining, than purely literary writing on its visible embodiment 
 in typography. W. J. Fox, a man by no means of that connoisseiir-class 
 which regards Baskerville and Whittingham impressions as among the most 
 valuable items of a scholar's personalty, has a philosophical remark or two on 
 this subject, in one of his Finsbury Chapel lectures, worth quotation. Speak- 
 ing of the cheap reprint of Lord Bacon's Essays, the fine old teacher of the 
 people, who has recently been taught a lesson as old as the days of Socrates, 
 says " I think it requires something for the eye as well as the mind. Until 
 a man is satisfied with the coarsest food that will support existence ; until a 
 man is satisfied with the coarsest kind of clothing that will shield him from 
 the vicissitudes of the weather; until a man is satisfied with the poorest shelter 
 that will form a dwelling and screen him from the storm, it is not reasonable 
 nor desirable that he should be satisfied with the very cheapest and coarsest 
 kind of printing and of publication. He will desire something more, on which 
 the eye can rest with satisfaction, and which may help truth to find its -way 
 with more facility and gracefulness into the intellect. " We do not mean to say 
 that the "Month" is printed in the very coarsest form we merely cite the 
 observations to justify the importance here attached to typographical details 
 in belles lettres publications. The ' ' Month " ctJmes from one of the best printing 
 houses in the city, and we are inclined to place the shortcomings of the Maga- 
 zine to haste, and want of this specific matter rather than to lack of executive 
 taste and ability. 
 
 The paper, "Art Education in Australia," is ably written. But the sug- 
 gestion for establishing professorships of painting and design, in connection 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. , TI5 
 
 with the mechanics' institutions of owns likely to be incorporated, betrays some 
 very naive notions of the state of the institutions in question, and of society in 
 rural towns. Our own idea about those institutions is, that, for the present, 
 they should be mainly taken into the hands of the government, as educational 
 establishments schools for the adult. They should be placed under the 
 Secretary for Education when we have one as a portion of the hierarchy of 
 establishments for public instruction, reaching from the university to infant 
 schools, and including museums and public libraries. Each town should, 
 under this regime, elect trustees as a local executive council, for the advice of 
 the Minister. The article is full of fresh and vigorous thought ; and our 
 readers will thank us, we feel sure, for extracting these remarks : [a passage is 
 here given, and the writer continues : ] 
 
 Eloquent and true. We shall never forget the delight with which, in child- 
 hood, we first beheld a few well-known sites in this wild native land of ours, 
 pictorially rendered by a few poor lithographs. The vignettes on wood in 
 Braim's "New South Wales" were a fascination for our school-boy eyes. In 
 riper years, Claxton's sketch in oils full of fine warm colour and vigourous 
 handling of the Valley of the Weatherboard, immersed in the glory of sunset, 
 helped to strengthen a love of country which had lacked the food on which that 
 love best thrives Home, shewn in 
 
 The light that never was on sea or land, 
 The consecration and the poet's dream. 
 
 " My Ferry Boat" consists of a few hasty random strokes from a hand that 
 has drawn and can draw with the humour of Doyle or Gavarni. There is an 
 excellent notice of Mr. Norton's Australian Essays ; and a review of some 
 illustrated books, in which one can see the charming pen of the Editor, as you 
 trace the hand of some elegant woman in the draping of a curtain. Here is a 
 group of the book-furniture of a drawing-room table, finished with a luxe 
 that would even have satisfied Balzac. [Extract given.] 
 
 We invite the reader's attention to the exquisite beauty of diction in this 
 passage. Every epithet has been chosen and applied as a mosaic-worker 
 employs his crystals and tinctured stones. There is really a feeling in the 
 selection of the words profoundly artistic. And after the strange talk we have 
 lately heard, of Mr. Fowler's diction being but a "dilution of Emerson," we 
 cannot resist remarking that the extract goes far to prove, what we have always 
 believed, that the writer has that not very common endowment, a style of his 
 own. 
 
 The " World of Books " is a series of those notices of what is doing in 
 Literature in Europe generally, which forms so striking a feature of the "West- 
 minster Review." Like most good things, it has its drawback. It makes 
 unlettered bores and idle sparks, with a spice of tact, look walking libraries 
 learned in books they never saw the covers of. An impudent jackanapes can, 
 thus equipped, sometimes abash honest scholars, whose conscientious pride of 
 sterling acquirements makes them refuse to speak of works with which they are 
 
Il6 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 unacquainted, except with the proviso that they have but heard of them, or seen 
 notices in the periodicals. We shall have sharp police-office attorneys, after 
 twenty minutes' perusal of the "Month," speaking of the new Paris edition of 
 Plotinus, the Abbe Lamennais' translation of Dante, and entering into the question 
 of Alexander Smith's annihilation, and Dobell's failure to prevent the catastrophe. 
 Nothing so much tends to retard real culture, in a young community almost 
 wholly engaged in money making, or living very fast, than these facilities for the 
 factitious. Who would labour hard to put a single silver epergne on his side- 
 board, when for a few shillings he may safely display a whole service of nickel 
 or albata, seeing that few can detect an imitabile fulgur, and few are provided 
 with detective tests. We should, at whatever loss of general information, much 
 rather see critical articles on specific books. Those who did quote the ' ' Month " 
 on such occasions, would be more likely to have some ideas, and sound ideas, 
 about the works they mentioned. With several of the notices in the "World 
 of Books" we differ. Mrs. Browning':; "Aurora Leigh" is full of loveliness 
 and power in every sense a fine poem. But it will not "precipitate her fame " 
 beyond Tennyson's, or that of her husband, "the noblest Roman of them all." 
 Critics should guard against this practice of finding every new production, 
 however really charming, the most beautiful thing ever written. We know the 
 temptation ; we know what it is to write or speak with the spell of novel 
 beauty upon the heart and the imagination. But, irrespective of improving 
 the wise considerateness which should characterise the literary judicature, it is 
 the over-lauded writer himself who suffers most by this ; the rebound is often 
 terrible. A case in point is Alexander Smith's. Upon that author's appear- 
 ance, legions of the hyper-enthusiastic newspaper-writers of Great Britain 
 warned Tennyson to hide his diminished head. Even the Nation cannot 
 praise Thomas Irwin's graceful " versicles " without placing the writer on a 
 level with the Laureate, and claiming higher merit for him than belongs to 
 Smith and Robert Lytton Bulwer, or to a truer poet than either, Matthew- 
 Arnold. Again we doubt much if that spoiled child of the critics, the afore- 
 said Alexander Smith never particularly a favourite of ours has been "utterly 
 annihilated as a literary man by the 'Athenaeum's' article of the 3rd of January. " 
 Heaven help literary men ! Devout indeed should be the prayer, pereant qtu 
 ante nos nostra dixerunl % if the sixty ' ' glaring plagiarisms " pointed out by 
 the critic of the "Athenaeum," crush the character of a writer like Mr. Smith, 
 who, though not a great poet, is nevertheless a young man of genius, who has 
 done some things with glowing grace, and may do others of higher beauty. 
 Are history and biography never to preach wise charity and fostering forbearance ? 
 Comes there from that early urn of Keats, amid the Roman violets, no 
 mournful prayer for his boyish successors? Is it not just possible the "Life 
 Drama, " with its auroral flush of fancies fancies everywhere and little else may 
 be to the works of Mr. Smith's matured years, what that voluptuous midsummer 
 dream of Endymion was to Keats's last volume of poems ? " No genius," says 
 Sir Egerton Brydges, with his quiet thoughtful elegance, "when he feels the 
 
DA.NIEL HENRY DENIEHY. I 17 
 
 feebleness of his first steps, can guess the mighty course he is capable of running 
 at last, by the aid of energetic and long enduring exercise ! " And in a profound 
 recognition of the truth embodied in this saying, lies the modest hope that 
 is nearest our own heart. If the sixty passages put upon their trial by the 
 detective police of the "Athenaeum" were altogether " glaring plagiarisms "- 
 which, to a very considerable extent, with the critic of the Leader, we deny 
 still, enough remains the bonafide property of unfortunate Mr. Smith to give 
 him a place among English poets. Where, for instance, could he have stolen 
 the first thing in the " Life Drama " that exclamation of the reckless man of 
 genius, waking out of the splendid waywardness of his sins at the strong 
 words of the poor repentant girl 
 
 Thou noble soul, 
 Teach me, for thou art nearer God than I. 
 
 The number contains some verses by the late Mr. Evelyn, full of that manly 
 purity and delicacy of feeling which is the very aroma of love poetry. The 
 painful affair in which Mr. Evelyn, some months since, appeared in connection 
 with Mr. Parker, the present First Secretary, will be present in our readers' 
 minds. The young poet died at the age of twenty-seven; and never, we 
 believe, has a purer or more graceful spirit descended into the austere peace 
 peace nevertheless of an early grave. " Whom the gods love, die young !" 
 
 [After quoting the verses referred to, the critique concluded with a few com- 
 ments on Mr. Fowler's Lecture on Coleridge, a report of which was published 
 in the "Month."] 
 
 We have left ourselves scarcely more than sufficient space to express simply 
 our admiration of Mr. Fowler's glowing Lecture on Coleridge. A part only 
 is given of it this month. It is full of charming things, and displays all the 
 fine keen brilliant qualities of the lecturer's writings. It is all keenness and 
 point, under a surface of delicately-wrought enrichment like a damaskened 
 sabre imagery of glowing gold on a blade of polished steel. 
 
 On the publication of "Peter 'Possum's Portfolio" a collection 
 of miscellaneous articles written by Mr. Richard Rowe the 
 following critique was written by Mr. Deniehy : 
 
 Alas ! for poor Peter 'Possum. With one frailty one that, to use Bishop 
 Hall's expression, too frequently "hung plummets on the nobler parts," a 
 finer being never existed. Genius (we use the word advisedly), a heart princely 
 in its abounding generosity, a lofty sense of honour, and a modesty rare in 
 these days, were all Peter's. There was no principle of adhesiveness in Peter's 
 coin; half his last shilling would have been held "in trust" for his friend 
 half a shilling earned by labour, may you never know, reader, how bitter. 
 
IlS DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 We have accredited Peter with genius. Writing for his daily bread, com- 
 menting upon passing events upon men and things so small and so common- 
 place that Heaven only knows by what ingenuity poor 'Possum ever screwed 
 a comment out of his brain upon them at all the author of the volume before 
 us had little opportunity, and unfortunately cared less, for writing up to the 
 higher mark of his powers. His humour, that when some donkey in position 
 came athwart it, broke fresh and glittering in a thousand atoms, as the phos- 
 phorescent wave of these southern waters at the stroke of the midnight oar, 
 was of the finest quality. The specimens in the book before us give faint idea 
 of it. Peter's facetiae sparkled most about transient topics. He would 
 enchase with jokes some ninnyhammer's absurdity of the hour, as a jeweller 
 enriches an emerald with brilliants in the bezyl of a ring. The aim in the 
 " Portfolio" has been to reprint his papers of a more permanent interest. His 
 faculty for poetic translation was something wonderful. There are in the book 
 some specimens of northern poetry "Gam le Norge," the national song of 
 Norway, "Nostalgic" from the Swedish, and a charming copy of verses, 
 called " Birds of Passage," originally contributed to this journal which were 
 rendered from versions of the original in French prose. Now it hath never 
 entered into the heads of man to conceive anything 'more barren, balder, or 
 more dreary, than a French translation in prose from foreign poems. An Irish 
 bog is in comparison a lively suggestion of Eden. Blair's sermons, or the 
 old English prose translation of honest Solomon Gessner's death of Abel, are 
 but incomplete types and feeble foreshado wings of the thing. A broomstick or 
 the piston of a steam-engine is not more devoid of ornament, than Peter's 
 media for northern song, of poetry or music. And yet these translations, in 
 common indeed with all Peter's, are almost equal to Clarence Mangan's 
 renderings from foreign tongues, and quite the peers of Thomas Smibert's in 
 "Chambers's Journal"; and this those who know anything of the writers named 
 will consider no mean laudation. ' Peter, with his really fine imagination and 
 his opulent fancy, was not a poet. The original verses in the volume, except 
 "Farewell to the Bow," " Don Francia, " "Death," and the really powerful 
 "Soul Ferry," are below the writer's powers. In some of the chapters of 
 " Arthur Owen" it is that a glimpse of what was in the writer, and a vindica- 
 tion of his claims to rank as a man of genius, are alone, we think, obtained. 
 
 The ' ' Portfolio " contains some nineteen prose pieces, and forty or fifty 
 poems, original and translated. We know few ways in which our readers 
 could better invest a few shillings than in the purchase. "Arthur Owen's 
 Biography," which originally appeared piece-meal in the "Month" is, in its col- 
 lected form, worth the whole sum demanded for the book. Some of the prose 
 papers are remarkably fine thought and feeling genial and graceful, sparkling 
 with novel images, and always characterised with felicity frequently by very 
 high beauty of style. The opening, for instance, of the pleasant paper, "John- 
 son's Chambers," is, to our mind, delightful prose; it is a sketch of a classic 
 locality in London. [Extract.] 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 119 
 
 Addison's courtly lips would have relaxed into a smile of pleasure at that 
 delicately sketched full-length of his own Sir Roger. Honest Dick Steele 
 who has left on record how nobly, how chivalrously, how reverentially, a scamp 
 can love his wife ('Even a negro has a soul, your Honour') honest Dick 
 would have sallied forth, had this sketch appeared in his day, and after the 
 Lake Tchad sort of exploration necessary to find Peter at all, carried 'him to 
 Wills's, with a view to what the missives of attorneys designate " further pro- 
 ceedings." But we protest against a peccadillo of Peter's in the matter of 
 recasting "Johnson's Chambers. " As it originally stood in the Sydney Morning 
 Herald, we liked it better. A paragraph in truer keeping with the general 
 treatment of the subject, occupied the place of that quoted .above. We are 
 firmly convinced that all literary rechauffes are failures. From Leigh Hunt's 
 "Rimini," this holds good down to the new edition of Father Faber's poems 
 where one of the deepest cries of anguish ever uttered over a lost Beloved, is 
 made to apply to a sister, not only with very bad taste, but in defiance of all 
 canons of Art ; for men never mourn sisters in the way the passionate strain of 
 the poem laments the catastrophe. 
 
 The magnum opus of Peter 'Possum, however, is " Arthur Owen." A degree 
 of passion and imaginative power, a pathos and altogether exquisite delicacy of 
 feeling, a perception of, a faculty for, reproducing rural beauty in artistic 
 forms, is shewn in this. remarkable story, of which there is not an inkling in all 
 the author's . minor sketches with all their versatility, their humour, their 
 graphic talent. It is, in fact, the Autobiography of a Childhood. The story is 
 that of a Deformed Boy, morbidly alive as what deformed was not and is 
 not ? to his misfortune, and making it tinge and shape the medium through 
 which he sees and hears all things. Out of the hewn sandal-wood and the 
 bruised herb, however, comes sweetness ; and though hideous malformation 
 only provoked the bitterness, the woe, in "Arthur Owen," that ended in 
 madness to Mrs. Marsh's exquisite story, "the Deformed," in "Two Old 
 Men's Tales," we refer our readers for the psychology of depravity " figured " 
 from another point of view. Not that we hint at anything wrong in the 
 conception of " Arthur Owen," by this comparison ; both are right ; and both 
 are pieces of high class fiction. But Mrs. Marsh's tale, we think, for many 
 reasons, a fitting pendant to that before us. Arthur Owen, the son of a clergy - 
 man, is born in Wales, and pictures of the scenery of truly imaginative kind, 
 that is, coloured with deep human feeling, are given, which no sketches of 
 the beautiful principality have ever excelled, save those in Mr. Downe's 
 "Mountain Decameron." He loses his father in early childhood, and the 
 circumstances connected with this ruling event of his life for misery the death- 
 bed, the funeral, the changes in the household, the men and women drifted in 
 upon the almost broken-hearted child's field of vision by reason of the catas- 
 trophe, are described with marvellous pathos and power. The boy's sufferings 
 at school, his escape from the thraldom, his wanderings in dens and through 
 depths of darkness his glimpse of one creature who had been kind, to whom he 
 
I2O DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 yearned for whom he felt in his lonely shattered soul capacities of love carry 
 the autobiography down to chapter xviii. where it abruptly breaks off in some 
 disjointed fragments altogether lyrical in their passionate eloquence, hinting 
 the author's madness and his return to a drear sanity to "a sluggish calm." 
 
 Samples of inadequate extent we can alone give our readers of "Arthur 
 Owen." Did space and time permit, the entire transference to our columns of 
 the second chapter one charming and highly finished series of landscapes, 
 would best evidence the literary excellence of the story and the genius of the 
 writer. Here however is an incident told with touching grace : [Extract.] 
 
 It is. scarcely necessaiy to recall the reader's attention to those lonely images 
 "the blackbird in the hazels cooling the air with his gushing song," and the 
 niche in which "the empty robin's nest" was "half-hidden with primrose 
 leaves." To more delicate, albeit very circumstantial, touches of imagination 
 would we point : the thought how things would look when the boy came 
 down ; the gray cromlech glowing warm in the evening sun ; the impertinent 
 intrusion of a ludicrous image (that of the wagtail's resemblance to the squire's 
 lady) on what was felt to be holy ground ; the black park-trees in the twilight 
 "stretching out their arms, as if they were ogres" about to snatch him from 
 his father, "over the dim wall"; and the omen that came with the night, 
 and descended with that paraclete the unlooked-for assiduity of affection in 
 his father's heart. Another and a different scene we shall now present, the 
 catastrophe and close of which particularly its workings on the thoughts of 
 the boy, and the " environment " of circumstances and images all tinctured by 
 his sense of what had taken place we regard as manifesting very high qualities 
 in the writer. [Extract.] 
 
 We shall now turn to the poetry. To this we have already, in general terms, 
 alluded. Our estimate of the original pieces, though they are often graceful 
 and musical in expression, is, we feel certain, much what Peter's own is not a 
 very high one. The translations, as we have already hinted, are of the very 
 first order. Perhaps, no poet has ever been so often translated, alike by sage 
 and schoolboy, as Horace. Yet, to our mind, nothing has ever equalled 
 'Possum's versions of the ode to Pyrrha, and the duet, Horace and Lydia, given 
 below. And his translations from the Greek Anthology have a warmth and 
 colour unknown to the scholarly and correct, but frigid renderings of Bland 
 and Merivale are more compact, and have, therefore, more of the special 
 character of the Greek epigram than the sprightly translations of William Hay, 
 published in " Blackwood's Magazine," some years ago. [Extracts from 
 Possum's poetical writings are here given, and the notice concludes with a 
 friendly farewell.] 
 
 In the Southern Cross he published a series of obituary notices 
 of eminent men of letters. In the years 1859-60, many illustrious 
 names were enrolled in the records of Death. The great writers 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 121 
 
 of the last generation followed each other to the grave in quick 
 succession. Among these were De Quincey, Macaulay, Leigh 
 Hunt, and Mrs. Jamieson, and on each of these, as the news 
 reached here, Mr. Deniehy wrote a few critical comments. The 
 following article on De Quincey has a special value, inasmuch as 
 it throws some light on the mental growth of the writer : 
 
 The mightiest master of the English language, and one of the mightiest 
 masters of style in any language, has passed away. All the opium excesses of 
 his youth, and the unappeased and pursuing grief and misfortunes of his life, 
 notwithstanding the small, frail, world-worn organization " Life in its house 
 of bones" with that thin luxuriously sweet voice which R. P. Gillies said 
 " seemed as if it came out of Dreamland," had survived to an age far beyond 
 that usually allotted to the sons of men. To ourselves, personally who are 
 under intellectual obligations to De Quincey's writings greater than we are to 
 any modern author the intelligence was literally a shock. The great critic 
 said, in his earlier papers on Wordsworth in "Tait's Magazine," in one of 
 those sentences no man but De Quincey ever framed in English, having that 
 harmony subtle as organic beauty, when compared with the mechanical forms, 
 however clever, which are generally termed Style, that the deeper admiration 
 of Wordsworth would be found to grow in the hearts of men and women 
 located in the austere melancholy loneliness of the American and Australian 
 Continents. It was one of the dearest hopes of our heart that we should our- 
 selves one day live to see the great Master of philosophic criticism, and of all 
 forms of the expression of Thought, Imagination, and Passion, and pour at 
 his feet the whole enthusiastic treasures of a life-long admiration, and a life- 
 long gratitude, of one whose mind the illustrious writer's influence had done so 
 much to mould here in Australia, and to contemplate and understand all 
 literature and philosophy from stern majestic summits of the ideal and spiritual, 
 which, but for him and that pure and pathetic medium of deep human affection 
 through which he loved to contemplate all things, would never have been 
 afforded us. 
 
 To us, one of the saddest lessons in modern literary history, is the slow and 
 reluctant acknowledgment of the paramount claims of De Quincey. Not simply 
 by the public at lai'ge ; that is easily explained ; but by literary men and critics. 
 For years, the most omnivorous of readers knew little more of De Quincey than 
 that he was the person who had written The Confessions of an English Opium 
 Eater. To dozens of grateful persons with some real pretensions to letters we 
 have, ourselves, had the pleasure of introducing a Prince in English Literature 
 with claims as unknown to his natural subjects as the Russian verses of Puschkin 
 or the Diablo Mundo of Espeonceda. Dean Trench, in a foot-note to one of 
 his books on the English language, couched in terms of the profoundest admira- 
 N 
 
122 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 tion, recommended De Quincey's writings. But the only worthy "appraisal," 
 to use a pet phrase of his own of his pretensions, was in the Leader news- 
 paper, from the pen, we suspect, of that masterly critic, G. H. Lewes, and also 
 in a paper which appeared some years ago in " Hogg's Instructor," purporting 
 to be the experiences of a German scholar in his study of English Literature. 
 The Leader said boldly that De Quincey was the greatest of the masters of the 
 English language. And the writer in Hogg remarked, with keen critical truth, 
 that it was literally impossible to know the capabilities and resources of English, 
 without an acquaintance with this great writer's productions. Perhaps, one way 
 of accounting for this obscurity of position under the magnificent proscenium of 
 literary fame, was that De Quincey's writings were scattered through periodicals, 
 and so embedded in strata of comparatively ephemeral and comparatively value- 
 less matter. It is a fact that till very lately till the American corrections and 
 the author's own reprint in serial volumes, De Quincey's writings had alone this 
 disadvantageous form of book-existence. But where were the critics and in- 
 tellectual teachers of the people not to disclose the existence of this treasure 
 to quote what had been said on specific subjects by De Quincey better than any 
 man, living or dead, had before spoken ; and to show there was a grandeur and 
 a glory of expression, a music, a disciplined but almost lyrical passion in the 
 English language which and we know exactly what we are saying we defy 
 the national literatures of the world, ancient or modern, to parallel. At the 
 close of last year a stupid pedagogue in Edinburgh, hight Mr. Demaus, 
 brought forth a class-book of English Literature, most elaborately arranged in 
 historic periods, and so ostentatiously exhaustive as to range its modern speci- 
 mens of great English writers from Carlyle to Mr. Austen Layard, his claim 
 to the honours of a classic in the richest of literatures being the book on the 
 Nineveh excavations. But De Quincey, in a work published in the city, where, 
 in the intimacy of John Wilson, the most brilliant episodes of his literary life 
 took place, is not even mentioned. Even Mr. Robert Aris Wilmott, one of the 
 best judges living on what is majestic and profound in alliance with beauty and 
 nobleness of form, has no niche in his beautiful "Parlour Table Book," ranging 
 from Hooker, Sir Phillip Sydney, Taylor and Donne, to Coleridge and Landor, 
 for the most powerful vindicator of Christianity in our language for what Mr. 
 Gilfillan has aptly called, "the most gifted of scholars, and the most scholarly" 
 of men of genius ! 
 
 The range of De Quincey's acquirements was, as has been before remarked, 
 literally encyclopsediac. Seldom has imagination so grand and poetic so much 
 passion and sensibility been mated with learning and knowledge so profound, 
 so various, and so accurate. Burke's case is scarcely an exception. Burke is 
 rather comprehensive than deep, though unquestionably among the greatest 
 thinkers. But he had neither the subtlety of De Quincey, nor his philosophic 
 instincts. De Quincey sees a truth at once ; Burke searches, and reasons 
 himself into seeing it. Besides, with all the florid quality of his style, and his 
 opulent fancy, he had not the Miltonic breadth and massiveness of De Quincey's 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 123 
 
 imagination. Often, in a word, this faculty of the Opium Eater's appears, as 
 when speaking of the element of cruelty in heathen worship, he says of the 
 Gods, "their eyes smiled darkly" on human sacrifices. There are few things 
 Burke has done that De Quincey could not have done. But Burke could not 
 have written De Quincey's philosophic criticisms of poetry, nor, under any 
 possible circumstances, the raptures, deep as the principles of love and grief in 
 the human heart, of the Suspiria de Profundis. We think that De Quincey's 
 mind had more of the Roman than the Greek quality. Power and grandeur 
 were rather his chief mental attributes and the objects of his sympathy, than the 
 forms of pure beauty, of repose, and pleasure. In this, it strikes us the 
 contrast with his great friend Coleridge, whose main haunt and region, when he 
 was not discussing theology and metaphysics, stood among the luxuries of 
 Beauty. De Quincey had a virility that would have made him a politician and 
 astatesman; Coleridge, with his "Condones ad Populum " and his "Manuals," 
 never would have made either. 
 
 The masterly writer in the Leader already referred to, notices what must have 
 struck every reader of De Quincey, the excursiveness which is so frequently a 
 character of his essays. He has a habit of wandering away from the main line 
 or paths, that diverge or rather travel off from his subject. The critic of the 
 Leader suspects in this an infirmity of the Will, arising perhaps, more or less, 
 from a morose paralysis induced by the use of that drug with which the Prince 
 of Dreamers has for ever connected his fame. In this, the writer sees, too, a 
 clue to the somewhat fragmentary character of most of De Quincey's per- 
 formances. Will in character he can scarcely be said to have lacked, for he 
 conquered perhaps the most fascinatingly tyrannical, the most inexorable in its 
 charms, of all evil habits, Opium eating. And, as a dear and honoured 
 friend of De Quincey's remarked to us, some days since, there must have been 
 Will, and plenty of it in the man who, a refugee within the precincts of the 
 Abbey of Edinburgh, under pressure of misery so terrible as to approach 
 positive want among those he loved so dearly, those to whom allusions of 
 majestic tenderness threw such tender shades of pathos as never before fell over 
 prose literature, would nevertheless contribute to " Blackwood " masterly 
 disquisitions the most calmly and deeply considered, and the most philosophic 
 de omnibus rebus, and to "Tait" all the Ionic beauty of his Lake reminis- 
 cences. Then, as to the excursiveness, though we think it very frequently 
 mars the effect of much of De Quincey's historical, critical, and polemical 
 writing, for directness is, in all speaking and writing, one of the prime elements 
 of power, we think it may be accounted for in another way. Where a very 
 able writer indeed would see but one or two sides to his subject, the unique 
 subtlety of De Quincey's mind would see sides and angles numberless, 
 examination of which he deemed collateral aids to the approfondissement of 
 the theme. Then making the divergences from the main point of inspection 
 more signal, it is the nature of human character that the collateral question, 
 once started, a mind, not only wealthy in speculative thought, but so richly 
 
124 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 furnished with almost all that could be known on the subject thoroughly a 
 master of the facts and opinions on the point of those who preceded him so 
 full of illustrative anecdote and historical suggestion, should employ it to a 
 perhaps inartistic augmentation of a mere appendage. It was as if over 
 zealous and over wealthy Piety should lavish its appliances on making the side 
 chapel in a cathedral so rich and so unduly large, as to leave what might have 
 been an additional circumstance of beauty and state an excrescence on the 
 mother fabric. As to the fragmentary character, it must always, more or less, 
 belong to all writing for the serials of the day, executed to order, almost under 
 the pressure of immediate demand, and still worse, of immediate wants in the 
 executant himself. Think of De Quincey sitting calmly and comfortably down 
 surrounded by the magnificence and light of mountain and lake scenery, in the 
 seclusion of Lausanne, as Gibbon did, to write, as the object of a life, some 
 great cardinal history of a nation. How much fairer if, once so situated, he 
 did no better than his still superb papers on the Caesars, it would be to seek for 
 a key to the fragmentary character of his Essays in psychologic causes. Besides, 
 we have a suspicion that all human speculation, so lofty and so grand as those 
 in which De Quincey's intellect loved to dwell, as the eagle on lone cliffs that 
 look out evermore on the mysterious and melancholy sea, and, indeed, all the 
 loftier exercises even of the imaginative faculty leave on the mind a subcon- 
 sciousness (the word is De Quincey's own) of the incomplete and the 
 fragmentary. We do not now refer to the unfinished character of so many of 
 this great writer's magazine papers, where the causes are much nearer the 
 ordinary circumstances of life, and the meaner necessities and characteristics of 
 our common nature. One thing we cannot help alluding to, before closing, 
 the pathetic profundity with which the religious conviction and the unfaltering 
 belief in Truth, of De Quincey, everywhere shew themselves. Even to one 
 rejecting the writer's belief, this quality gives his speculations a deep and 
 touching beauty. 
 
 O sad ! sad ! the life-story of this grandly endowed being this man so 
 gifted, as seldom, in all the ages, God gives to His creatures powers so 
 exquisite and so vast ; and capacities of suffering co-equal in their exquisiteness 
 and their vastness. When we think of the lonely boy a fugitive in the streets 
 of London, and rescued from starvation by the generosity of the poor street- 
 walker, Anne, her that he wished to follow, were it possible, "into the 
 darkness of the grave, to waken her with an authentic message of peace and 
 forgiveness and genial reconciliation ! " Then his lonely life in his eyrie at 
 Westmoreland, his thoughtful visits across the hills at midnight to W'ords- 
 worth. His domestic bereavement, his deep sorrows ; the interregnum of actual 
 happiness and peace which must have stretched from the date of his commencing 
 to his resigning the use of opium a season of darkness, ploughed at times by 
 weird lightnings and Elysian ineffable glimpses of beauty through the rifts of the 
 abiding clouds, come before us mournfully. Equally melancholy, with all the 
 surpassing splendour of his intellectual activities and his services to literature 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 125 
 
 his growing old, unappreciated, while the Macaulays and the Hallams, with 
 all the sparkle and finish of the one, and the dry, weighty literature of the 
 other but runnels and fountains compared to the stately Danube of De Quincey's 
 intellect, were among the dii majores of the nation ! One recollects, too, his 
 deep devotion and his fervent admiration of Wordsworth for whom his noble 
 criticisms do more with "thinking hearts" than anything else that has ever 
 been written about him and for Coleridge. And the reader, with an eye and 
 an ear for the grief which is too noble for the slightest cry of resentment, hears 
 in the occasional moan, as it were, of a self-sequestered sorrow, how bitterly 
 the deep omnificent spirit had been stricken by the coldness cold, albeit as 
 pure as his own Skiddaw, of Wordsworth, and perhaps the selfishness of 
 Coleridge. Both were good and great men, but there were those with 
 infinitely less intellect and a good deal less of the severer virtues, we should be 
 inclined to love more. But the end has come, and the august dreams of the 
 Unseen which girdled his way through life are long since, we trust, realised for 
 De Quincey. And one thing is certain that wherever the literature and the 
 language of England exist, as that of one of the noblest of her intellects, will 
 the memory of Thomas De Quincey be cherished, and his writings regarded as 
 one of the grandest of the national possessions. 
 
 The following article on Macaulay was written and published 
 at the same time : 
 
 Perhaps no name is more intimately identified with what is classic in English 
 Literature than Lord Macaulay's. To perfect mastery of facts, and the whole 
 field of opinion as connected with the subjects he treated, Lord Macaulay added 
 the charms of a style in some senses the most brilliant in the language. The 
 purely rhetorical graces of composition everything that mind could do, 
 divorced from an impassioned temperament were manifested in the writings of 
 this distinguished man. His magnum opus his "History of England" of 
 course remains unfinished ; but it is questionable whether any literature presents 
 a work so unique. The noble author did not realise the ambitious project he 
 announced in the opening chapter of his book, in phrases not unworthy of 
 Cicero or of Gibbon. But he did not achieve this : for the first time in history 
 a man appeared to depict national progress, who had not only political science 
 and vast learning, but who, with a knowledge of facts and events elaborately 
 extracted from sources the most recondite muniment rooms, private family 
 journals, and forgotten books and pamphlets, printed when there were perse- 
 cuted travelling presses in England, which no man in his generation but Lord 
 Macaulay knew of, combined a pictorial power of realising and presenting 
 scenes and actors never before possessed by a historian. The reader who wishes 
 to see what the Painter would term high art and low art in Literature, should 
 
126 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 pass from one of Lord Macaulay's tableaitx in the History of England for 
 instance, the death-bed of King Charles II. to what is generally termed the 
 ' ' graphic " portion in the writings of the very best novelists of the day. You turn 
 from an Italian master to Wilkie or Mulready. Both are "true;" but the 
 grandeur and the dignity which men associate with historic truth belongs to the 
 one. The other gives the every-day vraisemblance of town and village life. 
 
 But Lord Macaulay's reputation will be most enduring as the Essayist. His 
 papers upon historical subjects are rather what the French call etiides, than what 
 we English ordinarily understand as Essays. Everything that is known on the 
 subject is exhibited and exhibited in a masterly way, and sound critical 
 inferences are uniformly drawn. But then the defect comes ; fine writing, great 
 learning, exquisite handling of what has been handled : but no such turning 
 over the topic in a fresh and unsuspected light, such as one would have had 
 from Coleridge, or Carlyle, or De Quincey, or even John Sterling, and many an 
 "inheritor of unfulfilled renown. " A gifted man Lord Macaulay was in a very 
 high sense, and especially the type of an accomplished man, but his success in 
 letters among his countrymen proves and illustrates the salient quality of the 
 Anglo-Saxon mind. Lord Macaulay could deal brilliantly with anything, but 
 he took care always to deal with facts ; and there lay the secret of his success. 
 English readers, with small taste for abstract truths, who have the privilege of 
 reading Emerson and Julius Charles Hare in their own language, preferred to 
 either the American or the Englishman, the point, the decision, the character 
 of being posted up to facts, and the muscular grace with which Macaulay 
 handled things on a level with every reader's intelligence. Lord Macaulay 
 could be a slashing critic, too and he extinguished Robert Montgomery but as 
 the noble Lord had no pretensions to philosophical criticism, he could be 
 extinguished in turn. One distinguished contributor to the pages of the Southern 
 Cross, Mr. R. H. Home, of Melbourne, uprooted and scattered to the winds 
 for ever, in a notice of Macaulay's Essay on Milton, in the New Spirit of the 
 Age, the pretensions of the brilliant essayist to the character of a critic in 
 aesthetics. Lord Macaulay had said that some degree of madness was inseparable 
 from the poetic character in its higher manifestations. Mr. Home triumphantly 
 shewed that a man who really had pretensions to the sacred name, must base 
 his claims, not upon some Sybilline frenzy, but upon a finer and clearer sense, 
 a keener and profounder perception of great truths, than belongs to his 
 cotemporaries. 
 
 We have to say a word or two of Lord Macaulay in his characters of Orator 
 and Poet. And first as an Orator. Perhaps the speeches smell too much of 
 the lamp. And we all know that he wrote and got them by heart before he 
 delivered them. So did Sheil so did Plunkett, whom Lord Dudley and 
 Ward called the first speaker in the House of Commons of his day ; so did the 
 old Greek Orators. But read them ; and there are no speeches in print so 
 finished and so felicitous as Macaulay's speeches on Parliamentary Reform and 
 the Government of India. 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 127 
 
 Lord Macaulay in earlier life, if we recollect rightly, in Knight's "Quarterly 
 Magazine," produced some brilliant verses. The noble Lord could be always 
 brilliant, but never poetic. Still it is a question if there is anything finer in the 
 language than the Armada, and what heart has not thrilled to the ballad of the 
 fourth French Henry at Ivry ? 
 
 Press where you see my white plumes shine amid the ranks of war, 
 And be your Oriflamme to day the helmet of Navarre ! 
 
 But Lord Macaulay's most ambitious production was the " Lays of Ancient 
 Rome." The book showed that Lord Macaulay, though not a poet, was 
 poetic, and unquestionably a scholar in whom the older literatures had 
 kindled and become a fire. He himself has brilliantly described triumphs such 
 as the laureation of Petrarc at the Capitol, but here was the triumph of a 
 scholar with the average endowments of fancy and feeling. So close, with all 
 the art, and the lore, and the versified rhetoric, did it bring the author to the 
 true post, that the best judges were at times puzzled as to which was the 
 true Dromio. 
 
 Gone to his grave. Perhaps his fame reposes on the exercise of those 
 faculties which literary men, using philosophic terminology, call Talent as 
 distinguished from Genius. But it is much to be questioned if any names of 
 recent days will go down to posterity with higher prestige than that of Thomas 
 Babington Macaulay. Young men of Genius, mark the moral ! Men of the 
 most splendid faculties and the richest endowments, William Maginn, for 
 example, have passed and left poor traces upon their country's literature, 
 which the next century will efface. Take the example of Macaulay, who 
 husbanded every talent, who used every virtue of prudence and economy, and 
 who great as his abilities certainly were has a thousand fold greater chance 
 of living as a British classic than men of almost infinitely higher powers. 
 
 The next paper was on Leigh Hunt : 
 
 In the obituary of September, brought us by the Malta, is the name of 
 Leigh Hunt. He died at Putney on the 28th August, in the 75th year of his 
 age. Forty years ago Shelley addressed him from Rome in the dedication of 
 ' ' The Cenci. " ' ' One more gentle, honourable, innocent, and brave one of 
 more exalted toleration for all who do and think evil, and yet himself more 
 free from evil ; one who knows better how to receive and how to confer a 
 benefit, though he must ever confer far more than he can receive; one of 
 simpler, and, in the highest sense of the word, of purer life and manners, I 
 never knew : and I had already been fortunate in friendships, when your name 
 was added to the list." Loftier tribute of respect has rarely been paid, or 
 sincerer for the man was never born that Shelly would have flattered. How 
 precious this truth of character in a world where our friends tell as many lies to 
 please, as our enemies to pain us ! 
 
128 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 Leigh Hunt's nature was of the most graceful and beautiful kind, fresh, 
 resilient, and flowering to the last. Like the Shepherd Boy in Sir Philip 
 Sidney's "Arcadia," he piped as if he never would grow old. His mission 
 seemed, as Spenser said of the presence of Una, to make sunshine in the 
 shady places of the earth. There was too much boyish goodness and sweet- 
 ness in him, to sympathise very heartily with the fiercer struggles of men. At 
 his heart was for ever the whispering consciousness that things might be better 
 brought about by the Power of Gentleness he has sung with a grace more 
 delicate than the grace of the Sicilian muse he so loved. He was right, if 
 men would only look upon the thing as the loving poet did. But meanwhile, 
 Leigh Hunt had Philosophy as well as Pleasure on his side. "Nothing," says 
 Goethe, "is an illusion that makes us happy." 
 
 No truer heart than Hunt's and no more courageous intellect in the cause of 
 Right, and what he held to be Truth, will you find in the history of modern 
 literature. His faith in good, his unquenchable hope, his charity, tender and 
 boundless, made his writings a fountain and an oasis in an era when Sahara 
 under the breath of "the most lone Simoom," was thought a type of the higher 
 ideal ; and this will make them lovely and a solace for ever. He had his own 
 sorrows and his struggles ; and his circumstances in life were always dim and 
 sorry enough, now, a poor man tossing with his family in Italy, trying to 
 throw up a giinyah under the somewhat bleak and gloomy ranges of Lord 
 Byron's friendship, now in late age, flying into such raptures as saw in 
 Royalty, after its decided liking for the " Legend of Florence" at the theatre, 
 something like an embodiment of all human virtues conceivable. We allude 
 to this, because we see, or think we see in it, the pathos of an overflow of 
 gratitude from one who had grown old in comparative neglect. It 
 
 Flattered to tears that aged man and poor. 
 
 Yet no moodiness of hate, or shade of uncharity, in his poetry the while. 
 There, the precious elements of his genius its sweet airs, its sunbeams, and 
 its dews the bloom and the fragrance of a nature more like Chaucer's or 
 Boccaccio's than any in modern times, were gathered as his contribution in 
 aid of that cause of Human Happiness which he looked upon literature as 
 altogether created ro serve. 
 
 He was the Stothard of poetry. The region of Grace deepening ever and 
 anon into Beauty, was the haunt and vantage ground of his genius. His poems 
 were sensuous, but with a spontaneous organic growth out of his own nature, 
 which neither the sensuousness of the great living poet Tennyson, nor Mr. 
 Dobell's, nor that of any of the laureate's other disciples, possesses. Art is 
 with them often conscious, and has to seek. The thing was in Leigh Hunt 
 part of his temperament ; the weakling tendril as much as the rich bough grew 
 out of and belonged to mother Earth. He was deficient in passion ; and this 
 disqualified him not only for dramatic Art, but, combined with the sunny 
 hilarity of his nature, made the depths of tragic strife and tragic woe distasteful 
 
DANfEL HENRY DENIEHY. 1 29 
 
 to him. He shows in his preface to the " Stories from the Italian Poets," 
 one of those charming critical prefaces which Leigh Hunt alone could write, 
 alike fitted for schoolboy and sage, from the transparency of expression and 
 simple directness of thought the superiority in Shakspere to Dante, because 
 of the large element of human gladness. We suspect, that even if Shakspere 
 had been inferior to the "sad Florentine" in essential poetic power, Leigh 
 Hunt, on the one ground that the former had admitted more of the light of 
 human gaiety and cheerfulness into his world, would have preferred him. The 
 grim images of the Dolorous City, we conceive, were not a whit less in unison 
 with his natural tastes than "the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes." But 
 this scarcely ever impaired his fine critical instinct. He devotes pages to an 
 attack on the sort of taste and feeling exhibited in the mediaeval theology of 
 the "Inferno," for reasons which would make the "Paradise Lost" only a 
 degree or two less objectionable. But Carlyle himself, with all his worship of 
 Power, has said nothing finer of the intensity of Dante. A single passage will 
 give one who has never read the "Divina Commedia," either in Italian or 
 English, a livelier, more concrete idea of the general characteristics of the poet 
 than a volume of tolerably good criticism. ' ' The invisible is at the back of the 
 visible ; darkness becomes palpable ; silence describes a character, nay, forms 
 the most striking part of a story ; a word acts as a flash of lightning, which 
 displays some gloomy neighbourhood where a tower is standing, with dreadful 
 faces at the window; or where, at your feet, full of eternal voices, one abyss is 
 beheld dropping out of another, in the lurid light of torment." And the ineffable 
 majesty and beauty of Dante's angels, and the Elysian interspaces of repose in 
 the poem, are described with almost equal felicity. 
 
 He was the kindest and most, genial, as well as one of the best of critics. 
 He came disposed to find merit, high or humble, much or little, in the book 
 before him. He had a word of praise so wise and so gentle it was ! for the 
 poor daisy that grew beside the field-style, as well as for the most gorgeous 
 blooms. Search through the wide range of his miscellaneous writings, from the 
 days of the Indicator upward, and you will find no one harsh, much less 
 arbitrary, phrase of criticism. A blow at Cant he aimed whenever he 
 could, but his nature always overflowing with ruth, in nine cases out of ten, 
 when the blow fell, the Canter was dead and gone. A collection of Leigh 
 Hunt's criticisms, inclusive as well of his special essays on books and of the 
 notices scattered throughout his numerous publications, as of such compara- 
 tively brief observations as occur in his notes and prefaces, would make one of 
 the most fascinating books in the language. 
 
 The ' ' Legend of Florence" was his dramatic effort. It is very graceful ; full of 
 purity, gentleness, tenderness, pity. The husband is a wretch ; the lover much 
 to be sympathised with ; the lady a sweet and noble creature to love and to be 
 sad for. But it is not a great drama. To compose one, there was, as we have just 
 said, too little sympathy or self-identification in Leigh Hunt with the grandeur 
 O 
 
130 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 of passion the magnificent warfare of the daring spirit with circumstance. He 
 thought far overmuch this world too beautiful and good, ever to be a great 
 dramatic poet in any sense, much less a tragic poet. The "burthen and the 
 mystery" pressed on him too lightly : his spiritual being had struck no root deep 
 enough in the Unseen, where the solutions wait. It is perfectly impossible, 
 under any circumstances, to conceive Leigh Hunt creating such grand types of 
 the struggle as Robert Browning's Djabal, or Luria, or King Victor, or 
 Richard Home's Cosmo de Medici, or his magnificent Marlowe, 
 
 Bright is the day, the air with glory teems, 
 
 And eagles wanton in the smiles of Jove. 
 
 Can these things be, and Marlowe live no more ? 
 
 Circumstances long prevented Leigh Hunt's recognition as a poet, which 
 shows how much tact might have done in the world of letters as it does in lower 
 and coarser regions. He was saluted by the scribblers of the day as the Cory- 
 phceus of the Cockney School. Keats, as his protege, of course belonged to it ; 
 Hazlitt was sometimes ranked on the forms, (as by Maginn in his parody on 
 "Yarrow Unvisited,") and so was John Hamilton Reynolds, whose promise 
 never gave fruition. So might have been Hood. Now if there was any internal 
 weakness in the school any affectations at all Barry Cornwall, in his earlier 
 and longer efforts, exhibited them in common with Hunt and his friends. But 
 he had never written sonnets about Hampstead and the other pleasant environs 
 of London. " He sang of Africa and golden joys" he took himself in fact to 
 
 Sicily, and 
 
 The shores of old romance. 
 
 And if Hunt had consented to burn a great many occasional verses, written 
 under suburban inspirations, he might have saved himself much annoyance. 
 His beautiful story of " Rimini," in its own history affords a proof of how 
 little ground, as regarded Hunt's poems, there was either in philosophy or fact 
 for the cry of cockneyism how little a man of genius requires the culture of 
 " travel " to enable him to write fine poetry of which the scene happens to be 
 laid in foreign lands. " Rimini " with its landscapes the wood of Ravenna 
 included, was published before Leigh Hunt visited Italy, and the beauty of 
 scenic description sank into the soul of every reader of sensibility, to remain 
 there for ever. After the poet had beheld the actual places, he altered the 
 scenery treated the thing photographically, but with so deep and pursuing a 
 sequence of failure that, late in life, in the last editions of his poems, the 
 original landscapes were restored as the " environments " of Francesca and her 
 lover. How the beautiful . episodes of "Rimini" live in the memory the 
 Nuptials, the Journey through the Pine Forest, the Garden, and the Funeral 
 of the Lovers, at close of autumn, with the last few leaves flying over the chill 
 and darkening road, and the crowd awaiting till the^ sad cortege made its 
 
 appearance, when 
 
 Turn'd aside both young and old, 
 
 And in their hands the gushing sorrow roll'd. 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 131 
 
 But the poem of the "Nymphs," so full of "the warm South," and the 
 sonnets in the volume called " Foliage," long out of print appear to us most 
 to exhibit the specialise as a poet of Leigh Hunt. Of his prose writings, his 
 romances of real life, his charming revivals of classic story, copies as it were by 
 Fiamingo and Canova of the women and children on a Greek frieze, and his 
 exquisite essays, forming, in themselves, the freshest and merriest work in the 
 great literature of the day which saw them produced, we have no time to 
 speak. They will never be read by a man fitted to appreciate the grace and 
 affection for all good that inspire them, without a love for the author, simul- 
 taneous with admiration for his work. 
 
 In that grave of Leigh Hunt sleeps as true a Friend of Human-kind as ever 
 drew the breath of life. An earnest, we trust, of the living admiration which 
 awaits his memory, wherever the language and the literature of the land is 
 known, is the poor offering we have tried to hang up, as it were in funeral 
 honour, the tribute of one born and bred in a community which had scarcely 
 existence at all in the days when Leigh Hunt began the noble labour of his life 
 long years ago. 
 
 The fourth paper, on Mrs. Jamieson, affords some further 
 evidence of the writer's familiarity with Fine Art topics : 
 
 One of the first female critics in Literature, and the only female writer 
 deserving the title of a critic in Art Anne Jamieson is, we regret to find by 
 the latest European obituary, no more. Thick as the autumnal leaves of Mil- 
 ton's Vallombrosa, the maturer celebrities of English Literature are, week by 
 week, falling to earth. Each mail-steamer brings us tidings that the place of 
 some illustrious writer, whose nobler part has passed into the "life of life" of 
 millions, knows him no more. Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, Washington Irving, 
 Macaulay ; the fact that these men departed, one after another, some months 
 ago recent ships bringing successive obituaries how it seems to loosen a link, 
 beautiful as some golden clasp covered with the historical chasings of a Cellini, 
 that bound the palmiest days of modern English genius with present time. 
 Leigh Hunt, his tribulations, trials, and cheerfulness for him, enchanted Hope 
 ever smiling and waving her golden hair, were of the days of " Lord Byron 
 and his Cotemporaries," and far back therein. Shelley wrote to him, a lad at 
 Oxford, fire even then at the root of his spirit ; " Zastrozzi" and " The Rosi- 
 crucian" all he could do " Prometheus Unbound" and " The Cenci " among 
 the things that were not. De Quincey's Opium Confessions are incidentally 
 mentioned in ' ' Don Juan. " With Washington Irving how far back it must be 
 dates belief in England that a Yankee could write readable English prose. 
 But the other day, as it were, an American who handles English as only 
 three or four writers have ever done, Emerson, painted British society a 
 portrait of itself which made British society open its eyes. A philosopher 
 abroad on his travels was for the first time a fact ; and something new realised 
 
132 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 in that most impertinent department of literature voyages and travels namely, 
 persons and places, landscape and character, depicted from a philosophic point 
 of view. Macaulay's youthful essay, " Milton," with its solid richness of dic- 
 tion and its sesthetics as shallow as Burke on the Sublime, carries us on to the 
 time of Robert Hall. The account of Dante made the fascinated preacher 
 think of learning Italian at an age as advanced, or more so, than Alfieri's, when 
 the poet tackled the Greek conjugations. What a success, in the broadest and 
 most emphatic sense, the career of the man from the publication in the 
 "Edinburgh" of his early papers, to the hour, almost, when Baron Macaulay of 
 Bothwell was laid at the foot of Addison's statue in the august glooms of 
 Westminster, to rest him in honour for all time. 
 
 Though Mrs. Jamieson's specialite was the criticism of Art, yet her rank as a 
 critic of literature is very high. Her distinction was won, too, in the loftiest 
 field the Shaksperian drama. Wilson made her "Female Characters of 
 Shakspere" the basis of a series of papers in "Blackwood." The eloquence 
 is Wilsonian that is saying a good deal but for real criticism for fine 
 analysis the lady's book has stuff in it that you nowhere find in the writings 
 of the great critical authority. Judging from her books, no more exquisite 
 womanly instincts could have existed than those of Mrs. Jamieson ; and then, 
 with the finest sense of the ideal and of poetic art, she proceeds, from the 
 woman's point of view, to examine and report on Shakspere's women. And 
 she does it with consummate truth and grace and beauty. Neither Margaret 
 Fuller, nor George Sand, nor Rahel, nor any of the great women, could have 
 done it as well. Their really vast intellects particularly in the case of 
 Margaret Fuller and Rahel, both endowed with a high analytic faculty, 
 left them scarcely -woman enough for the task. Talk as we will, ex- 
 traordinary intellect, which means extraordinary strength in one specific 
 direction, has a tendency to subtract from the morale of womanly nature 
 and to lessen somehow what Chaucer and the Ettrick Shepherd call 
 "feminitie" Pallas, with the broad, lofty, and serene forehead, the gaze that, 
 as Winckelmann said of the Belvidere Apollo, looks forward as it were stead- 
 fastly into the Infinite, and the straightly pure, calm Greek profile is very 
 good in marble ; but Pallas in charge of a baby in long clothes would be a 
 bright idea ! Vittoria Colonna must have been an august impersonation of 
 womanly intellect and womanly character, and those noble Platonic attentions 
 of Michael Angelo's did him quite as much credit as they did her. But then 
 the Signora Colonna was hardly the person that, restored to one's Lares after 
 a long journey, one could suddenly throw one's arms about with a view to 
 osculatory proceedings. Those stately and pensive lips could hardly be 
 expected to utter any Italian synonym for "duck of diamonds." The style 
 of the work is as pure, as fresh, and as sweet as a flower. The man who owns 
 a refined and high-bred woman "yestreen a blushing bride," could, in the form 
 of wedding-gift, pay his wife no more delicate, no truer compliment, than the 
 donative of Mrs. Jamieson's "Female Characters of Shakspere." 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 133 
 
 This beautiful womanly element is the charm of Mrs. Jamieson's writings. 
 Beautiful it is, reader, when you bear in mind that this gifted lady was neither 
 a poetess nor a novelist with prerogative for all sorts of overflowing love for 
 everything in the first instance, and unlimited right to put any amount of fine 
 things into the mouths of her dramatis persona in the second. She was a 
 critic ; as true and as thorough when she looked at historical fresco or at 
 portrait, as William Hazlitt. The result, as seen by woman's eye, and the 
 effect on the feminine soul, she gave you clearly, steadily with the science of 
 a connoisseur, with the gentleness and the mild truth of a woman. England 
 had patronised Angelica Kaufmann, and has seen Horace Walpole's friend, 
 Mrs. Darner, (" Non me Praxiteles fecit sed Anna Darner"} and Mrs. Thorny- 
 croft cutting marble ; but no female critic in art and a critic in high art is not 
 quite so easily made as a critic in literature, because of certain peculiar elements 
 which are absolute conditions of existence till Mrs. Jamieson appeared. The 
 literature of France and Germany has no equivalent ; and though George Sand 
 has talked grandly and profoundly of music for the highest type of female 
 opinion upon pictorial art every inquirer, either artistic or purely psychologic, 
 must consult English literature and the writings of Anne Jamieson. 
 
 The following article, written on the death of Mr. Whitty, may 
 be taken as another specimen of his critical appreciation. It 
 possesses a deeper interest than that, however, for the early 
 death of the writer suggests to us reflections painfully similar to 
 those with which he mourned the death of Whitty : while the 
 sympathy he so tenderly expressed for another was felt far and 
 wide in these colonies when his own death became known : 
 
 "Alas, for poor Whitty! He died last night in Boroondara," was the 
 telegraphic message from a dear and honoured mutual friend* of Edward 
 Whitty 's and our own, put into our hand on Thursday morning. The 
 author of " Friends of Bohemia " and " The Governing Classes," had passed 
 away in the very spring-tide of his youth having given the world early indica- 
 cation of his extraordinary powers. For years few things have more shocked 
 and saddened us than this. Mingled with our intense admiration of his genius, 
 was a deep sympathy with grief which made his case signal and salient in the 
 annals of domestic sorrow. We had never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. 
 Whitty, but kindly letters had been exchanged mutual friends had created 
 mutual interest and he once wrote of his intention to visit Sydney. Some 
 weeks since, however, we met in this city the amiable physician who had 
 
 R. H. Home. 
 
134 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 attended Mr. Whitty with fraternal care, and his notification at once quenched 
 a hope we had very dearly cherished. In the opinion of the medical man, Mr. 
 Whitty's health would not even sustain the slight fatigue of the voyage up from 
 Melbourne. But still we had not thought the dark hour was so near. 
 
 Only a few months since, he arrived at Melbourne. In England, his wife 
 and his two children had been carried off within the space of a fortnight by 
 typhus fever. Far advanced in consumption, he was driven abroad to seek, 
 in change of scene, some little relief from the terrible weight of his anguish 
 some little solace, too, for his own poor withering frame. And with the dark- 
 ness of these things about him, in a strange land though well we know he 
 had beside his pillow, in the last hours, friends as true and tender and loyal as 
 ever man had Edward Whitty died on the night of the 2ist instant, in 
 his thirty-fifth year or thereabouts. 
 
 There is, to our mind, no story in the whole melancholy chronicle of the 
 misfortunes of men of genius so sad as this of Edward Whitty. That he 
 was something more and something higher than a man of genius that his 
 nature was moulded of the profoundest sensibilities, and that he altogether 
 lived upon deep and passionate affections, is evinced by the utter shattering 
 and subversion of health, hopes, and interests in the world, which followed 
 the loss of his dear ones. Others, and men of fine mind and fine feeling, too, 
 would, perhaps, have come out of the typhoon, dismasted and with broken 
 timbers, but eventually to regain and to ride quietly for years on the world's 
 waters. So young, too so gifted so abounding and ebullient with the 
 life-blood of intellectual power, not the mere faculty of writing graceful 
 verses or beautiful trifles of any kind, but with that power disciplined by 
 learned experiences of the ways of life to deal with men and things hard 
 and cold and clear, and bright, warm, and joyous, just as they are. He knew 
 life. He knew Men and Women, as it is only given to those destined in time 
 to become Masters in Literature to know them. And in indications of this lies 
 the value of "Friends of Bohemia," as an implement for guaging the author's 
 genius. The book, it is true, is a mere bundle of sketches, with no connecting 
 thread of story, and a very shadowy and undefined plot. It was obviously no 
 intention of the author's to make it specifically a story. He only cared to 
 present sketches of life and character of a peculiar kind. But there are 
 scattered through it gleams of insight into human nature worn and haggard 
 and wilful as it is under the regime de Boheme, such as are seldom found 
 beyond the pages of Thackeray or Balzac. Any writer with adequate " expe- 
 rience" can write of Bohemia; but to know and tell how the poor, jaded, 
 wild heart beats in Bohemia : to see and depict clearly and keenly, without 
 cloud or impediment of any kind the story of a human life flowing forward, 
 all heartless and reckless through the systematic vice of communities with an 
 intensified civilization, only Edward Whitty could do. His creation of Nea, 
 in "Friends of Bohemia" the poor girl-wife that her father, a selfish peer 
 deeply in debt to an old commercial speculator, had given to the latter's 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 135 
 
 Bohemian son, though but a sketch, is a creation of the very highest beauty, 
 and positively a contribution of the imaginative literature of England. 
 
 Saddest of all, now that Edward Whitty has passed away, is the fact that 
 his genius has developed itself in no adequate degree, and in no work com- 
 mensurate with its power. "The Governing Classes" is a collection of the 
 most brilliant, and, as a hostile reviewer admitted, the "justest" political 
 sketches of modern times. But they are the mere croquis of an artist who 
 could paint, if he chose to work, like Hogarth. "Friends of Bohemia" was 
 thrown off so hastily, and with such little purpose of matching his abilities 
 with the task, that we are told Mr. Whitty never even corrected his proofs. 
 But we have no heart to write criticism of his genius and his writings now. 
 Some other time, perhaps. Enough to pay this tribute to his memory. And 
 to think, too, with a sad, sad heart all that might have been, and all that 
 never will be to shape sorrowfully for ourselves some image of the face and 
 presence of the man we admired so deeply, and hoped once to know per- 
 sonally, and to learn to love. 
 
 His last letter to us was as cheerful as if written by a healthy and prosperous 
 man in the sunshine of a happy home. He spoke of several projects, and said 
 he was engaged in writing "a Frenchy little book." How that gay little 
 expression haunts us ! Poor Whitty! it is to us somewhat like the little watch 
 and the trifles taken by the friends out of Jack Wortley's pocket "things 
 that women who had loved him had given him" when the poor youth fell 
 with Diego's bullet in his heart. Alas! alas! poor Edward Whitty ! many 
 of the vastest and dearest projects that employ those foolish hearts of ours 
 must yet lie away in that dim, melancholy region where the " Frenchy little 
 book," which the wasted hand with a sad wistful purpose of amusement was 
 writing when the cloud descended, must stop for ever ! 
 
 Another series of brief critical remarks appeared in the Southern 
 Cross, under the title Horo* Otiosores : 
 
 What a royal movement there is in Bossuet's sentences ! Only a hand 
 clothed with an episcopal glove, flashing with embroidery of jewels, could give 
 gesture in keeping with the stately sweep and the aulic magnificence of his 
 periods. He seemed born to preach only to Congresses of Princes. With 
 the elegiac grandeur of the funeral oration of Henrietta Maria of England still 
 flashing dimly about one's mind, as the echoes of the dying organ-notes of 
 some vesper Miserere wander through the aisles of a darkening cathedral, 
 how like the finger of Mephistopheles is History's, as she points to a picture 
 (hung in an obscure corner of the gallery) of the widow of King Charles the 
 Martyr beaten by her degraded paramour, Jermyn. She suffers, and History 
 (with almost the fiend's chuckle) whispers " avec quelle grace vous le savez, 
 Afessieurs," from that sentence of Bossuet's sermon, engraved upon every 
 
136 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 educated Frenchman's memory, as one of the most exquisite in his country's 
 language. 
 
 De Stendhal's (Henri Beyle) book "De /' Amour" is intended to be an exhaus- 
 tive treatise on Love. The diagnosis of the passion in its earlier stages, 
 though elaborate, is perhaps of necessity incomplete. One undescribed 
 symptom of a nascent tendre occurs to me which many will, possibly, out of 
 the fullness of their own experience, recognize as worthy of tabulation in the 
 schedules of Beyle's gate science. When a glance, a tone, a gesture, or any 
 little peculiarity of gait or bearing in a woman for whom you have no special 
 regard, or perhaps casually meet, pleases because it recalls something not dis- 
 similar in another, depend upon it that other is already on the marches of what 
 is in old English termed your "fancy." 
 
 I think Heinrich Heine, of whom you speak so unkindly, Olga, had not 
 only wit, humour, and intellectual power of rare order, but far more of the 
 poetic faculty than all the later German Poets Uhland, Freiligath, Schwab, 
 et tons ces garcons la, put together. Can you, a woman and an accomplished 
 Teutonic scholar, forget all the love-lays, fresh and delicate as the pearls 
 fashioned on the leaves of that myrtle by the shower which has just passed away 
 into the dim purple depths stretching within the arch of yonder rainbow brief, 
 but wild and sweet as the call of a bird in summer from the green vestibule of 
 the woods to be found in the "Buck der Lieder" particularly in the "Lyrische 
 Intermezzo" ^'Dii bliebst mir treti am langsten" Wenn ich in deine Augen 
 seh ; "Die lotosblume anstigt" and scores of others? His satire had the 
 subtle edge and nimble strength of flame. There was somewhat of Thackeray's 
 man of th world sense and judgment about him, but it flowed through an 
 artist-temperament as fantastic as the scenery of a Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 Then, Olga, his criticism ; " into the sap of his subject," in a few sentences. 
 I met these critical passages only yesterday : the translation is not mine, but 
 that of a Mr. John Stores Smith, an accomplished man, who took it into his 
 head, some time ago, to write a book in Carlylese, called, "Mirabeau, a Life 
 History" : " The rose tint in the poems of Novalis is not the line of health, 
 but the hectic of consumption ; and the purple glow of Hoffmann's phantasies 
 is not the flame of genius but of fever." And here is Heine, piercing into the 
 central idea of Cervantes, in Don Quixote, with the same subtlety and the 
 same result as Coleridge : " Has he not in his tall lean knight represented 
 Ideal Spirituality, and in the squat squire parodied Common Sense ? Every- 
 where the latter cuts the more sorry figure ! for Common Sense, with all its 
 hoard of thrifty proverbs, after all jogs along on its steady-going donkey in the 
 rear of Spirituality ; in spite of its clearer sight, must it and the ass share all 
 the mishaps that so often repel the noble knight ? Yes : Ideal Spirituality is 
 of such a potent dynamic nature, that Common Sense, with all its asses, must 
 ever follow in its wake. " And the ' 'Riesebilder, " the finest, perhaps, of his prose 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 137 
 
 writings, is full of profound observation and beauty, the style everywhere of 
 as finished grace as the group of a Roman cameo. It is often alive with a 
 humour that has that terrible motif of cynical pathos about it, which trickles 
 through Hamlet's talk to the skull of Yorick. 
 
 What a tract of imaginative grandeur, lying away dim, sublime, and gloomy, 
 like the isle Hy-Brasil of popular legend Irish writers of poetry have left 
 untouched in portions of the early religious history of Ireland ! Lough Dearg, 
 with so much of what is mightiest and most lasting in relation to the heart 
 and soul floating dimly about it, is an instance. Calderon, the Catholic, soars 
 into this region for the poetic ; but the Purgatorio del San Patricia though 
 Shelley dug the finest image in the " Cenci " from it is only a scratch on the 
 surface of an auriferous soil . 
 
 Some of the best prose descriptions of forest scenery in our literature are 
 from Charles Reece Pemberton's sketches of Sherwood. Ladies draw wood- 
 land effects beautifully. There are delicious glimpses of landscape in the 
 " Francesca Carrara " of poor Letitia Landon, (L. E. L.'s prose had a hundred 
 times over finer imaginative beauty than her poems), in Mrs. Hewitt's prose 
 fictions, and, if I recollect rightly, in Lady Fullerton's " Grantly Manor." But, 
 irrespective of the results of exquisite observation, there is, in Pemberton's 
 vigorous descriptions, the moral element. You have the wild abounding sense 
 of freedom and of joy of a great athletic spirit, who loved Nature as the child 
 its mother (always kind when everything else is cold) let loose in the woods 
 among the silvery lady-birches, and the cool brown onyx lustre of the shadowed 
 streams, and the aroma of the heather. Once in among the patriarchal trees 
 to quote his own words " in twenty steps the world is quite shut out ; you are 
 in a strange, solemn, and old universe." Whately and Gilpin and Sir Uvedale 
 Price work you in the effects of a landscape elaborately. They describe, with 
 the minuteness of Van Huysurn painting a bouquet. The poor way-worn 
 wanderer gigantic of soul without neglecting essential detail, dashes you off 
 his sketches with the sprezzatura, careless but consummate, of the master's 
 hand. The genius loci is caught and bound for you in the croquis, whiie he 
 remains unknown in the highly finished and gem-like miniature. "Walk down 
 that sweep of undulation " says Charles, "like the mighty magnificent curve of 
 a vast and green Atlantic billow, which, by some omnipotent, some invisible 
 hand, has been suspended in its rolling, and fixed thus, as we see it. " What 
 a grand and free what an honest, robust nature, poor Pemberton's was. With 
 its gigantic strength, the sad yearning character of the man had a mighty shaft 
 of tenderness loving tenderness surpassing the tenderness of woman, pouring 
 always through its recesses, like some shy, lonely waterfall of the hills, nourished 
 by thunderstorms, and through gates of savage shattered pines throwing its 
 columns of irridescent glory and its music into the gloom of the ravines, unheard 
 and unseen for ever. He loved children with a feminine love, and the man 
 never lived that he feared. A thorough man he was, like Burns, and my own 
 P 
 
138 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHV. 
 
 friend Harpur. Here are some verses of his, more like the carol of a bird than 
 anything since the snatches of song in Shakspeare : 
 
 APRIL : SMILES AND TEARS. 
 
 Her cheek is pale, her eyes are wet ; 
 
 Her voice in murmurings 
 Grieves lowly to the morn, that yet 
 
 No sunshine brings. 
 Why linger ye, laughing hours? 
 Uncurl, ye buds ! unfold, ye flowers ! 
 
 Sad April sings. 
 
 The paleness fleets, the tears are dry, 
 
 Her voice with gladness rings ; 
 The sunshine over earth and sky 
 
 It's brightness flings. 
 Come revel through my laughing hours, 
 Ye warbling birds, ye buds, ye flowers. 
 Glad April sings. 
 
 Notwithstanding the wilderness of verse on Eastern subjects, in English and 
 the languages of continental Europe, I know of only two instances where the 
 patriarchal grandeur simple but massive and the wild pathos of the finer 
 Oriental poems, have been rendered. In Matthew Arnold's noble " Sohrab 
 and Rustum" you have the first of the two qualities. In " Les Orientales " 
 of Victor Hugo, the lonesome primitive poetry of Desert Life alternately wrestles 
 and weeps, like the imprisoned night wind in the melancholy palm. 
 
 Political verse is seldom likely to yield essentially poetic results. What can, 
 for the most part, alone be expected from it, is terse, vigorous, and memorable 
 expression of passing opinion felicitous condensation of the dogma and argu- 
 ment of the day in one point of view. Only where a broad lurid colouring is 
 furnished by historical struggles, or the bitterness of the passion which clothes 
 lyrical denunciations of national wrong, will political rhymes ever ascend into 
 any region of the poetic. Then they appeal to feelings and imaginative sym- 
 pathies common to all mankind. Herein lay and will live for centuries the 
 verve and power of the Irish songs and ballads of the Nation the best political 
 poetry in the language. And from kindred, though not strictly identical sources, 
 Beranger drew that fusion so fascinating of patriot wrath and passion (the scn>a 
 indignatio of Swift's epitaph), with his own ineffable graces of lyric vogice la 
 galere gaiety. The party politics of the hour can scarcely ever ascend above 
 the temperature of a " squib. " There is everywhere a narrowness as well as a 
 practical hardness a character of business warfare and business tactics about 
 actual politics, which keep them within the domain of the understanding. 
 When not attacked by argument, they are only assailable by ridicule, clothed 
 as that ridicule may be with the sparkling opulence of a fancy like Winthrop 
 Praed's, or Moore's in "The Twopenny Post Bag." 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 139 
 
 The amount in literature, as well as life, of respectable learned lying lying 
 with " a position," as the social phrase of the day goes, is positively frightful. 
 You first get an idea of it when Lingard opens English history for you ; or 
 Dr. Maitland gives you, across whole mountain ranges and gullies of erudite 
 falsehood, a glimpse of the actual state of the mediaeval religion ; when De 
 Maistre calmly walks down and unlocks for the historical student the portals 
 of the Spanish Inquisition, or Mr. Addison takes one into the torture chamber 
 of the hapless Templars "the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ and of the 
 Temple of Solomon." 
 
 Milton, you will perhaps recollect, in the " Eikonoclastes," sarcastically 
 quotes from the " Eikon Basilike " the words, "as the mice and rats overtook a 
 German bishop." T am astonished to find so great a scholar as Mr. J. A. St. 
 John remark of this in a foot-note : "I have been unable to discover the story 
 here alluded to, which no doubt would have proved of a laughable character." 
 And, as a parallel, he cites from Herodotus the Egyptian account of the 
 destruction of Sennacherib's army by field mice. The story alluded to is no 
 laughing matter at all. The tradition is that Hatto, Archbishop of Mentz, 
 was devoured by rats at the beginning of the tenth century. According to 
 some accounts the catastrophe was brought about by mice. The legend sets 
 forth that, at a time of great famine, Hatto shut up in a barn a number of 
 poor people who had come to buy grain, and then set fire to the building, 
 burning to death all within. His Grace of Mentz was pleased to remark, of 
 this intrepid experiment in political economy, ' ' that poor people of the soil 
 were like rats good for nothing but to eat corn." "But God, the just 
 avenger of the poor," says the legend piously, " did not long let this iniquity 
 go unpunished." Rats were sent, which at all times and in all places attended 
 the Most Reverend Prelate, with a pertinacity as dread and as dogged as that 
 with which the same members of the domestic fauna favoured the Flemings 
 of Hamelin in Robert Browning's ballad. The Archbishop at length 
 retired to a tower on an island in the Rhine, as an asylum; but the rats 
 followed him thither, swimming the river, and, scaling and entering his tower 
 of refuge, eventually devoured him piecemeal. Southey has a ballad on the 
 subject. 
 
 De Quincey's style is, I think, the most organically, the most essentially 
 metaphorical, in any literature. I mean metaphorical in a deep and broad 
 sense, reaching to the innermost machinery by which all thinking processes are 
 carried on, and to every verbal revelation made of the results. Metaphor, not 
 always immediately perceptible delicately defined at times, as the serrations 
 in the moonlight shadow of a leaf pervades the opium eater's style with the 
 ubiquity of an electric principle. De Quincey not only thinks, but expresses 
 himself in and by things. To use a word he himself once applied to Burke, 
 he is the most schematising of prose-writers. 
 
140 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 A course of Lectures on Modern Literature in the year 1853 
 when he was 25 years old was the first public manifestation of 
 Mr. Deniehy's talents. In these Lectures he discussed the most 
 eminent English, French, and Italian authors of modern times, and 
 gave convincing proof of his powers as a critical analyst. The 
 following passage, taken from one of these lectures, will show the 
 manner in which his subject was handled : 
 
 Among the distinguished writers of recent times, generally regarded as 
 representatives of the female intellect in its higher phase, there is none com- 
 parable to this extraordinary woman. In Madame de Stae'l you have the very 
 acme of talent, a brilliant and accomplished mind in fact, a female Sir James 
 Macintosh, with a dash of romantic feeling superadded. Genius is the soul 
 working through the organs of the intellect. Take this definition, and you see 
 at a glance the difference between genius and talent ; one not, as is often sup- 
 posed, of degree, but of kind. The latter is the operation of bare intellect, 
 cultivated by observation, by experience, by literary training, or by instruction 
 in the technics of literature, or of any art or science. Madame de Stael's talent 
 was of the highest order, but in composing such a book as " Corinne," she 
 struck into that particular path of literature for which her defect of artistic 
 morale altogether unfitted her, and the consequence was, that like Chateau- 
 briand, she perpetually confounded highly- coloured and impassioned rhetoric 
 with poetry the prettinesses, the blushes, the language of over-refined sentiment 
 with the grand simplicities of all elemental human feeling. She had a certain 
 faculty of philosophic observation possessed by no other female writer ; analytical 
 powers, besides, of rare subtlety and keenness, and she wrote in a style superior to 
 that of any French contemporary prosateur. Rahel, the celebrated Jewess, from 
 what is recorded of her conversations, and the letters published by her husband 
 Varnhagen Von Ense, seems to have presented in her beautiful intellect the 
 flower of German idealism and German aesthetical culture. In Margaret Fuller, 
 the American, coupled with a moral nature of serene statuesque grandeur, you 
 have, to my thinking, the archetype of a female scholar. Her learning, though 
 genuine and extensive, seems to have been built up (and this evidently without 
 a shade of consciousness of the fact in the scholar herself) on a principle of 
 eclecticism. Everything she studied seems to have come recommended to her 
 by some animating grace or beauty ; or as endowed with some refining influence, 
 or as containing some spiritual truth, or some ulterior power of working good. 
 An orbicularity or encyclopaedic completeness of erudition, or the pursuit of 
 knowledge simply as knowledge, or as a motive power, will never, I think, 
 characterise female scholarship. I can hardly imagine, even with the excep- 
 tional case to the general rule of la savante Dacier before me, a woman devoting 
 herself to chronological compilation, or Greek verbal criticism, or to the arid 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 141 
 
 analysis of literary hypothesis ; following at humble distance Person's labours on 
 the lexicon of Photius, or the Phalaris Dissertations of Dr. Bentley, or storing the 
 memory with obsolete beauties of expression, like that worthy, Dr. Samuel Parr, 
 who wrought in exquisitely selected cantos and orthodox combinations of classic 
 phrase, as a mosaic- worker does in porphyries and jaspars and coloured marbles. 
 But I can, at the same time, perfectly understand Mrs. Browning's ability to 
 execute an excellent English version of the " Prometheus Bound" of ^Eschylus, 
 or Margaret Fuller's criticising the same tragedy in a manner admirable for the 
 philological knowledge it manifested, and a perception withal so true and so 
 profound of the distinctively solemn and Titanic grandeur of the play, that would 
 have affected the great Bentley with a little of that amazement with which one 
 of Coleridge's criticisms on the Shaksperian drama would, beyond all ques- 
 tion, have oppressed Bishop Kurd, or Mr. Mason, the poet (and Precentor 
 of St. Peter's Cathedral at York, ) or Mr. Edmund Malone, or Mr. Garrick, of 
 Drury-lane Theatre, or that very clever man, Mr. Murphy, who "did" 
 Tacitus into English. Entirely different from the leading female intellect of 
 latter years, is George Sand differing from them, most of all in that colossal 
 individuality which is behind her books, and overshadows them. Of her 
 errors and her accountabilities, not less than of certain unjust and erroneous 
 opinions pretty generally entertained concerning her writings, I shall hereafter 
 speak. Her powers as a delineator of character we shall consider when placed 
 beside those of Balzac, which we shall presently analyse. An artist, she has an 
 imagination the pure creative faculty in a degree beyond any other French 
 writer of the age. Her perception and her sense of beauty are clearer and 
 stronger too, and invested with a passion seldom found under the precise frigid 
 regime of French rhetoric. For a broad fresh sunny loveliness, and a healthy 
 treatment of the subject, and a certain delightful pictorial character a resem- 
 blance to what I can conceive of the brighter landscapes of Gaspar Poussin, 
 or the Venetian site-pictures of Turner, (we Australians can, for the most 
 part, only dream of the chef d^ceuvres of painting) those tales of 'George Sand, 
 written during the middle epoch of her career, are uniqxie in literature. 
 Perhaps, after all, her style is her most wonderful characteristic. French, that 
 language in which it was a matter of astonishment to Walter Savage Landor, 
 that Voltaire could have written with such ineffable grace, that most artificial 
 of European tongues becomes, in the hands of George Sand, like a new and 
 marvellous instrument that should emit every tone, from the roll of an organ to 
 the dipping notes of a violin. Thackeray said in his "Paris Sketch Book," 
 that her brief rich melancholy sentences affected him like country bells, 
 provoking he knew not what vein of musing and meditation, and falling sweetly 
 and sadly on the ear. It is that quality of style for which you can scarcely 
 account on any received principle of rhetorical arrangement. There is a certain 
 bloom and aroma about it, that goes far beyond all that, which Shelley evidently 
 felt evaporating in the grasp of critical analysis, when saying he could only 
 describe Plato's diction as " something like the language of a superior being." 
 
I4 2 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 Mr. Deniehy went to Melbourne in 1862 to edit the Victorian, 
 a weekly newspaper established by the Roman Catholic party. 
 He remained there for about two years, till the death of that 
 journal, and then returned to Sydney. His mind was at that time 
 so far affected by constitutional causes that all literary power had 
 well-nigh vanished. Even then, however, an occasional flash 
 served to remind the reader of the flame that had once burned 
 so brightly e'en in his ashes lived the wonted fire. A few 
 articles contributed to Punch still remain to testify to this ; and 
 among them the following is perhaps the best. It will serve at 
 least to illustrate another side of the writer's mind his exquisite 
 humour. This was shown rather in the delineation of character 
 than in anything else. His capacity in this direction was very 
 great so great, indeed, as to qualify him for the highest style of 
 fiction, that in which knowledge of life and character forms the 
 chief merit of the writer. In the following sketch, entitled Honi 
 soit qui mat y pens e, he contrasts the vulgar "aristocracy" of the 
 present day, which bases its pretensions on its wealth, with the 
 refined society of early times a society in which officers of the 
 army represented the noblesse. The setting of the sarcasm is 
 ingenious : 
 
 Dear Mr. Punch, I know, you charming old gentleman, that you are the 
 determined foe, not only of public abuses and immoralities, -but also of everything 
 that invades the minor morals of life. Above all, that you are a knight ready to 
 break a lance at anjr time with people who trifle with the weaknesses of ladies 
 and females generally. In this colony particularly, where many of us ladies 
 (and we are after all as good as any ladies, and don't lower our heads to the 
 best at pic-nics and flower-shows) are the ladies of gentlemen who have got on 
 (God bless 'em) and made ladies of us, and kicked your fine aristocrats out of 
 Parliament, and sit there and are called your Honours, and have us with 'em at 
 the opening of the House, with as much money's worth on our backs at once as 
 the Governor's daughters in old times ever saw in their chests of drawers in five 
 years. But I must be quick, for Mr. Slapup is punctually home at five to 
 dinner, and unless I am ready in the new Mecca-and-Medina caftan-patterned 
 dress he brings from Madame Bene's, ordered by himself, he will perhaps 
 punish me by not taking me to the play for three successive nights. Dear duck 
 of a lamb ! He is that kind since we've got on, that I sometimes lock myself 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHV. 143 
 
 up in my bed-room to cry over the thoughts of him. And to think that I was 
 hired from the ship and taken up to Campbelltown only fourteen years ago, 
 and that when I first knew Mr. Slapup he had only twenty-two shillings a week 
 and his board at Bradawl and Co.'s wholesale hardware, in George-street, 
 established 1828. Gracious me, old Bradawl, with all his fashionable daugh- 
 ters, and his branch-houses in all the colonies, was never an M.P., and had 
 never gentlemen like Mr. Cowper to call him " his honorable friend, " as Mr. 
 Cowper calls Mr. Slapup right before the whole Parliament, and well knowing 
 the very compliment to my husband will be published all over the colony in 
 the next morning's papers. And I know that Mr. Cowper means what he says 
 and speaks the truth ; for don't I remember his dear old cherubim of a father 
 preaching in the old church now pulled down on Church Hill, and is not his 
 brother a clergyman and a Dean ? To be sure, a gentleman like Mr. Cowper 
 wouldn't disgrace his pious family by falsehood, and saying anything that he 
 doesn't mean ? Therefore, when he not only acknowledges Mr. Slapup as his 
 friend, but his " honourable friend, " he means it. It's all very well to say a 
 thing, as that spiteful little Gus. Turquoise did, who was a fellow-clerk at 
 higher salary than my Mr. Slapup, and married a lady wife with no money (she 
 certainly had a sweet, long face, like those in Lady Blessington's old Books of 
 Beauty Mr. Slapup brings home) and is very uncomplaining, and pretends 
 that she is not stuck up, though in my heart, without reflection at all, / know 
 she is, and couldn't be flesh and blood if she wasn't, with that calm Countess- 
 like face, and long, white hands, almost as transparent as the ground-glass 
 shade on the hall lamp I ordered yesterday. It was all very well when I used 
 to say jocosely to that idle, do-nothing Gus. Turquoise, that I expected an 
 "honourable" person home, for him to pretend to quote Shakspere and say 
 " we're all, all honourable men." An " honourable man," sir, if I wished to 
 moralise, and be what they call in some of Mr. Slapup's book? " dogmatic," is 
 a man that gets on and makes his wife happy with plenty of money, and is 
 fashionable, and the envy of people who havn't got on, and does the same by 
 his children. As ladies, we of course have nothing to do with hcnv he gets on ; 
 and we know the world is censorious and spiteful, and has been since the time of 
 the Patriarchs and Martyrs and Roman Catholic Confesso'rs. Enough for us 
 ladies to know our husbands do get on, and respect them accordingly. You l^now 
 there is a proverb about where the proof of a pudding lies. But I am taking up 
 your valuable time, and I am therefore coming to the point, in fact, I must, for 
 my music-mistress comes at three. I am a leetle advanced in years, but my sweet 
 lamb, Slapup, insists even now on my taking lessons. I never try to pronounce 
 Italian myself; but Slapup, with his dear domestic fun, when he comes home 
 asks if I've mastered Non scold there at tea from the opera of Throw ittftryou\* 
 By the way, poor Miss Hermione Alfreton, who gives me lessons, is an officer's 
 
 * Does Mrs. Slapup allude to the divine Non mi scordar di te of Verdi ; and is Throw it 
 o'er you an auricular misconception of the word Troraiore? 
 
144 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 (laughter, and her father was a captain in the 28th or 5Oth, I forget which, when 
 the regiments were out here. Long before there was an Assembly, you know, 
 and when, as I have heard, the highest civil honour in this country even 
 captains in the army could get, was to sit on "a military jury," which anybody 
 could have that liked, if they only chose to go and do something wrong ; 
 and those juries used to try a man for stealing a bundle of slops, or a female 
 for not being particular about a couple of fowls. She is foolishly proud at the 
 bottom, I think, that Miss Alfreton, though a good creature, and with a voice 
 so rich and deep when she speaks it is the only thing, that kind of voice in 
 talking, that we ladies ever envy the other ladies, for it is a thing our husbands 
 really cannot buy for us. But still she is impertinently as well as foolishly 
 proud. When last Christmas she was receiving her quarter's fees the only 
 time I ever saw her really gentle face change Mr. Slapup was paying her, he 
 happened to add a sovereign additional in token of approval, when her pale 
 forehead flushed crimson, and she said politely and very quietly, as she placed 
 the coin before him, ' ' There is a mistake, sir ; three pounds only are due to 
 me. " But I have at last come to my story. 
 
 Over and above my eight pounds a week for house-keeping, Mr. Slapup 
 allows me six for myself, for what he politely calls my toilette. Heavens ! 
 how much he has acquired of fashionable habits and language since first we 
 met, and I used to look for him at the gateway of old Captain Trevelyan's, in 
 Macquarie-street, of a Sunday evening, when the Captain and the ladies had 
 gone to St. James's. I think really there have been scarcely any novelties, 
 London or Parisian, for the last four years that I haven't had in heaps ; indeed, 
 and in fact, anxious as I am to appear distinguished for Mr. Slapup's dear sake, I 
 really can scarcely carry all the things, this weather particularly, that fashion 
 allows us to put on. And my husband insists on so much at a time, for he 
 likes, he says (but it is his parliamentary talk), that "people should carry 
 weight with them ! " Ah ! Joseph William Slapup, well may your wife be 
 proud of you, and laugh at the notions about you of eloquent and brilliant and 
 scheming and fast and restless people, who were all a-gog in Parliament when 
 you were on four pounds a week, and who have come since then to nothing or 
 to grief, or what is all the same to that shocking, shameful place at the top of 
 King-street, where I am told it is quite common for men to take false oaths 
 when they are questioned about their wives' extravagances. 
 
 Well, dear Mr. Punch, I actually had exhausted all the superior places in 
 fashionable novelties. I really was sick of going over what they had. As for 
 the recamier pardesstis and the harouda, Mr. Slapup had already bought them 
 for me in different materials. I wore the haroiida at Mrs. Finnigan's party. 
 But on the morning of Monday last, as I was looking over the paper I found 
 that some people in Hunter-street advertised a "just received " novelty called 
 jarretieres. I had never heard of this affair before, though even Miss Alfreton, 
 who was educated at Paris, does often translate the French words for me in 
 the fashions out of the Folly periodical. Thought I, it must be very delightful 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 145 
 
 and (from the unheard-of name) quite the newest thing out. What kind of 
 fashionable article can it be ? But, heavens ! to be one of the very first in it. 
 And then Mr. Slapup and I were going on Tuesday evening to the Kraut's 
 Ball ; they were German bakers on Brickfield'hill originally, but they are long 
 since become distressingly rich ; and their son, Mr. Karl Maria Kraut, is a magis- 
 trate ; and their second, Mr. Heinrich Wolfgang Kraut, was studying for the 
 Bar, but gave the thing up in disgust some three weeks ago. when he heard 
 that a gentleman, formerly a clerk in the District Court, was admitted a bar- 
 rister. " Jd, mein sohn" said the German, " dere is noddink left in dis gussed 
 kundree in de way of purvesshun for a jendilman ! " I don't know myself, of 
 course, what the first words mean ; but as we all laughed at the old fogey, 
 he seemed so much in earnest, I got Fanny Cratcher to take the sentence down 
 that it might amuse Mr. Slapup, and there it is for you, Mr. Punch. 
 
 Well, I took Mrs. Trumper with me, and down we went to Hunter-street to 
 "shop" for the newest thing out \h&jarretieres. Mrs. T.'s husband, in the 
 oil and colour line, was born next door in London (Cock-hill, Ratcliffe-high- 
 way) to Mr. Slapup, and Mr. Trumper was in our Assembly last time. We 
 wondered whether it was a head-dress or a basque, or anything the Empress 
 Eugenie had invented as a substitute for hoops, or if it were anything in the 
 point-lace collar way. I don't know why it was, but poor dear Mrs. Trumper 
 got it into her head somehow that it was a new style of silk corsage to wear 
 under "bodies " of muslin dresses in summer. Heigh o ! However, we got to 
 the shop, and the shopkeeper, I trust, you will show up at the first opportunity, 
 in justice to the ladies. Why should little hosiery and fancy dealers play tricks 
 upon the wives of members of Parliament and the lady-public generally ? I 
 suppose, Sir, to know French in this case, haberdasher's French is not 
 indispensable to a lady ? How many French ladies at the Toolleries, that's the 
 Emperor's palace, I believe, are there who can speak English ? How many 
 English gentlewomen with husbands in Parliament, and blood as old as the 
 Normans, who, away from town ways and town vices, know no more of 
 French than they do of Jew's Hebrew or Roman Catholic Latin ? 
 
 Well, in we went, and as neither Mrs. Trumper nor myself were quite sure 
 about the pronunciation, I took up the newspaper and laid my gloved finger on 
 the advertisement (my gloves were silvery grey, gauntlet tops). The young 
 man he had lovely hair, and the parting was as smooth as bridal satin smiled 
 politely, and asked us to take chairs. Poor Mrs. Trumper whispered nervously 
 to me, "I don't know ; but there doesn't seem any caps, bonnets, or articles of 
 that kind about ! " The young man took down a large cardboard box, such as 
 hosiery or ribbons might be very well kept in. " Ladies," said he "do you 
 prefer any particular colour ? there are cendre de rose, pearl grey, brides' white, 
 camelia pink, hacarat, blue louis, and bishop's purple. " Then, earnestly looking 
 out of the door into Hunter-street, where a vegetable man was bargaining with 
 an Irish servant girl about some wretched cabbage, this nice young man, Mr. 
 Punch this nice young man took out six pairs of different coloured O Mr. 
 Q 
 
146 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 Punch O Mi-. Slapup, M. P. O Mrs. Trumper (and Mr. Trumper) six 
 pairs of 
 
 diartes ! 
 
 If we compare the literary disquisitions given above with the 
 ordinary run of critical notices in periodicals of the present day, 
 we shall not exaggerate the merits of Mr. Deniehy in saying 
 that his qualifications as a critic were of the highest order. It 
 may be said, indeed, that we rarely meet with such criticisms 
 as his in any periodical whatever. Whether we look at the 
 ' slashing ' notices in the Saturday, or the more elaborate -produc- 
 tions of the quarterly Reviews, we shall not easily find any criticism 
 that can be read with greater satisfaction. The art of 'cutting up ' 
 an unfortunate author has undoubtedly been brought to perfection 
 some time since ; and in this particular branch of analysis we 
 can claim no praise for our countryman. He never desired it ; 
 at least we have no proof that he ever sought it. Perhaps he 
 erred, if he erred at all, the other way. He was evidently dis- 
 posed to find something to admire in every book he took up, and 
 where the book happened to be written by a personal friend, his 
 judgment was evidently swayed by his feelings. This was the 
 more remarkable in him, inasmuch as a gushing benevolence of 
 disposition formed no part of his character. Few could be more 
 cautiously deliberate in weighing the merits of others, and few 
 were greater adepts in the use of biting and remorseless sarcasm. 
 Except in matters of Art, he had apparently no faculty of venera- 
 tion whatever. But Art, and all that appertained to it, were sacred 
 in his eyes. With the exception mentioned, his judgment was 
 rarely, if ever, at fault. Let us recollect that he brought to his 
 task a knowledge of Literature and the Fine Arts, marked as much 
 by its accuracy as by its extent, a knowledge gained by the 
 intense and unremitting study of his early years. This is an indis- 
 pensable ' pre-requisite,' to borrow a phrase from Coleridge, of 
 all criticism of any value. Before a man can conscientiously pro- 
 
DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 147 
 
 nounce judgment on a work of art, be it a book or a painting, his 
 mind must be familiar with much, if not with everything, that has 
 been done before in the same direction. Now, it is evident that 
 the criticism in our periodicals is, to a large extent, written by 
 men whose knowledge of the subject may be profound, but is 
 rarely accompanied by a full development of the higher faculties. 
 Hence we have either dry, colourless scholarship, or the flashy 
 pretentiousness of the Cockney School. It was Mr. Deniehy's 
 signal merit that he combined both the qualifications of which we 
 speak : that he was a scholar, and at the same time a man of vivid 
 imagination. Keen and subtle in the highest degree, he possessed 
 a mind at once comprehensive and minute, equally capable of 
 grasping principles and appreciating facts. Analytical power was 
 perhaps the ' individualising ' faculty of his intellect in other 
 words, it was the power by which his intellect could best display 
 its strength, and through which its greatest triumphs could be gained. 
 Recollecting the difficulties under which every scholar must 
 necessarily labour in this country, we shall be able to appreciate 
 the earnestness of his labours, at the same time that we feel 
 astonishment at their success. The want of necessary appliances 
 is so great here, that deficient" scholarship can never be without 
 an excuse. We have only temporary substitutes for a library, while 
 an Art Gallery has not yet been dreamt of by our legislators. 
 The higher manifestations of artistic power must consequently 
 remain, more or less, unknown to us. They can be known only 
 through the medium of imagination, like the scenes of foreign 
 lands. What credit is not due to one who. barely arrived at man- 
 hood, had yet contrived to master difficulties which were little 
 less than insuperable 1 who not only passed from one language 
 and one literature to another, conquering as he went, but made 
 himself familiar with Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, and 
 those minor arts in which human ingenuity is most happily dis- 
 played 1 Everywhere throughout his writings we find traces of 
 these incredible attainments ; we track the steps of one who 
 
148 DANIEL HENRY DENIEHY. 
 
 followed Beauty wherever she led him, into her deepest and most 
 secret recesses as well as on the open plain. We think of Chat- 
 terton in the garret, peering into ' Mr. Canynge's cofre,' and then 
 of the fatal manuscripts which gave him both death and immortality. 
 That a mind so stored should have produced so little as it did, 
 may by some be thought a strange matter ; and it may be thought 
 that this mind, rich as it was in other gifts, was devoid of creative 
 power. As to these points, it must be borne in mind that Mr. 
 Deniehy's early entrance on the political stage precluded, in a 
 great measure, all hope of distinction in literature. The period 
 at which he turned his attention to politics was a peculiar one. 
 Responsible Government had just been introduced, and the 
 country was anxiously watching the working of the new machi- 
 nery. His powers of speaking made him at once a prominent 
 figure, while his reputation as a man of letters served still more 
 to arrest attention. With the enthusiasm natural to his character, 
 he flung himself wholly into the stormy strifes of faction ; but he 
 was not ' cut out ' for a working politician. That which acted as 
 a gentle stimulant to coarser minds, was rank poison to his, and 
 soon ' fretted the pigmy body to decay.' Then came the reaction 
 of the long strain upon his constitutional energies during his years 
 of study ; and then too came the result of the disastrous remedy 
 in which he sought relief He died at the age of thirty-five, but 
 even in that short space, the last few years were little more than 
 years of torpor. That he was not deficient in creative power will 
 be readily believed by those who are familiar with his writings as 
 well as his personal history, and perhaps it will not be doubted 
 even by those who have no other means of judging than the con- 
 tents of these pages. Minds of his stamp are essentially creative. 
 They are never satisfied with absorbing the productions of others. 
 Plastic power is part of their natural constitution. Instances are 
 only too numerous in which the most brilliant faculties have gone 
 down to darkness without leaving any adequate result behind them : 
 and Mr. Deniehy, unfortunately for us, adds another to the list. 
 
149 
 
 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 ROBERT SEALY was born in Ireland in 1831, and came to this 
 Colony in 1852. Arriving shortly before the establishment of the 
 University, he entered himself among the students of the first year, 
 having previously kept several terms at Trinity College, Dublin. 
 He obtained a scholarship, and was considered among the best 
 classical scholars in the University. He did not remain long 
 enough to take a degree, but soon after accepted an appointment 
 in the Government service a clerkship of Petty Sessions at 
 Molong, subsequently exchanged for a clerkship in the Colonial 
 Secretary's Office. He died in 1861. 
 
 Under the title of Scraps, he distributed among his friends, in 
 1859, a small volume of miscellaneous pieces principally in verse. 
 Nearly all of them are humourous. In some he ridicules the pro- 
 minent absurdities of the time at which he wrote ; and in a few 
 others he expresses himself seriously. Mr. Sealy never professed 
 authorship, and seems to have written for the occasion merely. 
 His productions appeared, from time to time, in different Sydney 
 journals, under the signature of " Menippus :" Menippus being a 
 character in one of Lucian's Dialogues an author whom Mr. 
 Sealy must have thoroughly appreciated. 
 
15 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 The following ballad, addressed To Miss F , exhibits true 
 
 Irish humour : 
 
 If I might make so free without boldness 
 I'd ask but two favours, at most ; 
 The one is for lave to address you, 
 Discoorsing by manes of the post ; 
 The next and you can't well withhold it 
 Is the pleasure of seeing your face, 
 When you sit in your stall at St. Patrick's, 
 And I'm poked by that chap with the mace- 
 Hard case, 
 / never can get a good place. 
 
 'Tis elegant pious divarsion, 
 To hear the fine tunes that they play, 
 And to see all the quality sitting, 
 While I stand as I'm told in the way, 
 The sermon least said soonest mended 
 A hint by the way apropos, 
 If it's preaching we want sure there's plenty 
 At churches wherever we go 
 I know 
 At St. Patrick's the likes is thought slow. 
 
 'Tis yourself takes the shine of the Meeting 
 Though the pick of the City go there ; 
 Why them sweet little boys in white linen 
 Feel bothered by features so fair, 
 And the martial young haroes from barracks 
 Forget their own selves when you smile, 
 The deceivers a squinting through glasses, 
 And hiding their grins in their tile 
 
 In th' aisle, 
 Neglecting their duty the while. 
 
 What's the good of comparing your beauty, 
 The like wasn't known to the Greeks ; 
 Thim haythens may talk of their Helen, 
 Or Briseis with beautiful cheeks ; 
 Oh ! 'tis you set me all in a fluster, 
 Not one word of the service I hear, 
 I'm snared by your dark shining tresses, 
 And lured by your bright eyes, my dear 
 
 I fear 
 You'll think that I'm going it here. 
 
ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 When the blessing's been read by the Clergy, 
 
 And all make a rush for the street, 
 
 I linger about in the passage 
 
 A watching the stairs for your feet ; 
 
 I hate those long dresses that hide them, 
 
 With your lave I'll just say 'tis a shame, 
 
 No chance in the world but the crossings, 
 
 I'm thankful, dear knows, for that same 
 
 Small blame 
 If I watch at a turn I won't name. 
 
 Another in the same style is entitled, Farewell to the Seventy 
 Seventh. It was written on the departure of the Regiment for 
 India, at the time of the Sepoy Mutiny. 
 
 Is it going ye are to the Indies, 
 
 To fight with them murdering blacks, 
 After licking the Roosians and Proosians, 
 
 Circassians, Sclavonians, Cossacks? 
 Sure it's chillies all day ye'll be eating, 
 
 And curries as hot as Ah ! well 
 Take it out of the spalpeens in beating, 
 
 If you find that their feeding's a sell. 
 
 Troth 'tis sorry we are that you're leaving 
 
 Australia for furriner parts, 
 For though short's been your stay on the Island, 
 
 You've carried by storm many hearts. 
 And when, by the means of the papers, 
 
 We hear of your glory and pluck, 
 We'll say to our colleens, "by jabers ! " 
 
 May the Lord never send them worse luck. 
 
 Though many a loved one we're mourning 
 
 Who fell in that far distant land, 
 We'll bury our sorrow in prayer, 
 
 For we know the Avenger's at hand. 
 Then farewell, gallant hearts, God be with you, 
 
 When you fight with them Turks of Sepoys : 
 Here's the Seventy-seventh for ever ! 
 
 (They're devils for fighting, them boys !) 
 
152 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 As a piece of classical humour, the following has hardly been 
 excelled : 
 
 CORESSUS AND CALIRRHOE. 
 
 As Bacchus one morning beside the beach wandered 
 He met his pet priest looking very so so : 
 
 Says Bacchus, "God bless us, 
 
 Is that you, Coressus, 
 Old fellow, what's up? 'Pon my life, you distress us. 
 
 " If they cut off your liquor you could not look glummer, 
 Perhaps you feel seedy, you don't look the thing, 
 
 Take a nip of my brandy, 
 
 I have some here handy, "- 
 ('Twas a Greek word he used meaning 'nobbier,' or 'dandy.') 
 
 Says Coressus, ' ' I've not been queer since the last Orgies, 
 'Tis love, Sir, not liquor, that bothers me so ; 
 
 There's one Calirrhoe, 
 
 I call her 'mou Zoe,' 
 And 'tis she'll be the death of me, I'll bet a joey. 
 
 " She has put the come hither upon me, entirely, 
 The boys and Bacchantes all laugh me to scorn, 
 
 The devil receive her, 
 
 I wish I could leave her, 
 And I would, for two pins, but I know 'twouldn't grieve her. " 
 
 Says Bacchus in wrath, ' ' I'll astonish those natives, 
 And bring them to reason by driving them mad 
 
 They shall go on the batter, 
 
 As mad as a hatter, 
 Them ould Caledonians, until you get at her." 
 
 He ended : each man in the district grew tipsy, 
 Some asked of the oracle what they must do, 
 
 Which said, "Would you know, eh? 
 
 Well, drunker than Chloe 
 You'll be till Coressus gets Miss Calirrhoe ! 
 
 "But if she runs rusty and shies at the parson, 
 The God. has decreed there's but one thing to do, 
 
ROBERT SEALY. 153 
 
 Cut her throat at the altar, 
 Cut boldly, don't falter, 
 You've got full permission from me to assault her." 
 
 To cut short the story : at no price she'd have him, 
 So up to the altar they led her to die ; 
 
 When, seeing the victim 
 
 Who used to afflict him, 
 Coressus cried, " Kill me, and spare her !" they nick'd him ! 
 
 This may be set off by another piece in a very different style. 
 It is entitled, A Cabman 's Philosophy. 
 
 Tell me, Cabman thou hast studied 
 
 Human nature on thy stand 
 Is there any truth in Woman, 
 
 Any faith in plighted hand ? 
 
 Slowly putting down his pewter, 
 
 Thus that Cabman spoke his mind, 
 ' ' Gammon, if you trust such cattle, 
 
 That they're bolters, you'll soon find. " 
 
 Cabman mine, your words are bitter, 
 
 Haply wrong'd in love, you speak, 
 You have trusted " Not I, blow me ! 
 
 Trust a Woman ? trust a Beak ! " 
 
 Bitter fruit of observation, 
 
 Sad experience sours your heart, 
 But thy words are words of wisdom, 
 
 Prythee all thy love impart. 
 
 " Draw it mild," replied the Cabby, 
 
 "And I'll tell yer wot I think, 
 If yer wants my conversation, 
 
 Why, you'd better stand my drink." 
 
 Then he dipp'd his nose in porter, 
 
 Sigh'd, and wip'd it on his cuff, 
 And express'd a firm conviction, 
 
 That that 'ere was just the stuff. 
 
 " Keep gals well in hand," he added, 
 
 "Touch 'em gently on the raw, 
 Don't be gammon'd by their sawder, 
 
 Nor be bullied by their jaw." 
 R 
 
154 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 Another piece in the same style is entitled, The Publican's 
 Daughter : 
 
 Than the beer which she served, 
 
 Her complexion was clearer ; 
 Than the price which she charged 
 
 For that beer, she was dearer ; 
 And stronger than spirits, 
 
 (For spirits they water) 
 Was my love for fair Ellen, 
 
 The Publican's Daughter. 
 
 Oh why did she add 
 
 To my score on the shutter, 
 And tell me to pay 
 
 And be something'd or other ? 
 I saw at a glance 
 
 She was not what I thought her, 
 For falser than fair 
 
 Was the Publican's Daughter. 
 
 Alas ! that another 
 
 My pewter is filling ! 
 That she charged one-and-four-pence 
 
 Instead of a shilling ! 
 Alas, that she cheated ! 
 
 Alas, that I caught her ! 
 And alas, for my love 
 
 For the Publican's Daughter ! 
 
 Some of Mr. Sealy's prose writings have a great deal of quiet 
 graceful humour about them ; especially those in which the quaint 
 peculiarities of Old English are reproduced. As a specimen of 
 the latter class, we may take the following, entitled Some love to 
 roam : 
 
 Now am I bound in a vessel sore wind-baffled, wave-buffeted to a land 
 attorneyless, where bailiffs dwell not, and beadles are unknown gratissima 
 tellus so far ; yet is it a country pestilent, infested by mosquitoes that bite like 
 terriers, and drone like bag-pipes ; where creeping things disport themselves 
 terra omnino repentibus dedita, such as triantilopes, falsely so called ; centipees, 
 so mis-named of the inhabitants, if inhabitants there be ; yet of this solitude 
 it may not be said ne muse a quidem, for it is the capital and stronghold of 
 flydom. Jupiter Hospes ! aid me in these straits, going, even as he who 
 
ROBERT SEALY. 155 
 
 bilked Dido, ignotits egens, among strange folks, strange faces, other minds. 
 I doubt not that in a place so sun-smitten, fly-bitten, snake-beset, I shall sigh 
 sorely for familiar faces catchpolls, et hoc genus omne, not to name my 
 familiars, friends, sodales, who used to wander with me through Sydney per 
 devia viartim, for to us indeed George-street was no thoroughfare, and Pitt- 
 street but a cut de sac. O ! thrice and four times happy ye whose lot it was to 
 stroll through the main streets, tricked out bravely; but to me and mine it was 
 
 not given, aliter dis visum. Yet was there pleasant beer in P street, and 
 
 reeking rumbos in taverns ye wot of; nor do I envy those who spend their 
 time and money with the Gaul, quaffing costly Badmintons, marry, a shilling 
 drink cost of two goodly pints ! Do ye still, F. and M. and O., at four of 
 the clock wash down the dust of office with a cheering pint ; for mark you, my 
 masters, beer is a notable disperser of melancholy, concerning which our great 
 Milton hath well sung 
 
 Tired Nature's best restorer, bitter beer. 
 
 Yet would I not deciy claret, sack, and other light wines of France, which do 
 well accord with the stomachs and purses of some ; now I am none of these. I 
 
 marvel does our N , called among his familiars, Torquatus, by reason of his 
 
 collars still care-oppressed, aes alienum cogitans, and morally drunk, urge the 
 smooth balls upon the level green, despite resolves to the contrary. 
 
 The thought of leaving the Sydney beauties doth especially disquiet me, for 
 "what is knight without ladye fair?" concerning which I might quote at 
 large. For my sins, I go to a land where no woman is, or hath been, save the 
 dark daughters of the soil, of whom I may say that which was writ of Rosa- 
 mond, called the Fair, non redolent sed olent. Methinks I see the young and 
 fascinating S., "the darling of his crew, " proudly bedight, walking with her 
 he loves in the gardens. Is he happy ? Meseemeth something disquiets him 
 alea anget he hath lost at play. 'Tis better to have tossed and lost, than 
 never to have tossed. Courage, Patientid vine i inns. 
 
 P , ever faithful to the South Head Road ; so serious in thy gaiety, high 
 
 priest of the Salii ! Still go the giddy round nee tit, piier, sperne choreas. 
 
 Alack and well a-day ! As the land lessens, memory fades. I go from fair 
 faces and gay attire, perchance for ever. Even clean linen is rare "in the 
 land I'm going to," at least among the commonalty; the gentler sort, albeit 
 rudely clad, are easily known. A gentleman noscittir a sociis, is known by his 
 socks. 
 
 And now, valete omnes, including him who once graced London's gayest 
 haunt, cabbage-consumer, graceful cane-carrier, moodish maid follower: still 
 may men say of thee, "Incedit Reg-ent Street." 
 
 The same peculiar humour is shown in the following Extract 
 from the Chronicle of Hcraldus Matutinus. It refers to some 
 
156 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 delay in the payment of Civil Service salaries at a time when Sir 
 S. A. Donaldson was in office as Treasurer : 
 
 Atte thys time, one Donaldson did addresse ye people, a portly man, tricked 
 out in all manner of braverie, and after much belauding of himself by dispraise 
 of others and such like surquedrie, he set forth fluently, (he has a trick of words) 
 how hee would manage the Revenue of ye country, promising prompt payment 
 to ye poore man, and readie attention to Dives, whereby he was chosen Trea- 
 surer. Now one poore clerk, noting how poorly hys performance did tally 
 with hys promises, wrote a pleasant ballade, showing how he suffered from a 
 scurvy catchpoll by reason of ye Treasurer hys delay in payment. " 
 
 Now wherefore here, thou proude Bailiffe, 
 
 Now wherefore here, I pray ; 
 What would'st thou with my poore chattels ? 
 
 I prythee go away. 
 
 Then answere made that Bailiffe proude 
 
 From our Sheriffe soe dear, 
 ' ' I hold a writ, and not a bit 
 
 Will ever I move from here. " 
 
 " I hold thy hosen, eke thy shoon, 
 
 Thy smalle hair-trunk also, 
 Thy linen all is held in thrall e." 
 
 Gramercie, Bailiffe, go ! 
 
 Sweet Bailiffe, 'tis our Treasurere, 
 
 Whom Donaldson men calle ; 
 Go tell that swelle how greate a selle 
 
 He hath sold hys clerklings alle. 
 
 " Nay, nay, now nay, thou clerkly wight 
 
 I will not go him to, 
 With words at wille he would talk until 
 
 I'd be fulle fain to go. 
 
 "I would rather stay by thy blucher boots, 
 
 And by thy shirts of blue, 
 And would rather keep thy chattels cheap, 
 
 Than listen him unto. . 
 
 " O, a wordie man is the Treasurere." 
 
 Soe saide that Bailiffe proude, 
 " He would talk off your hede," soe that Bailiffe said, 
 
 " Hys voice and hys dresse are loude." 
 
ROBERT SEALY. 157 
 
 " O some to a bagman liken him, 
 And some to a prince of pride, 
 But they call him here the Treasurere, 
 
 And a lot of names beside." 
 
 % 
 
 The Bailiffe sits on my small hair-trunk, 
 
 Nor hosen nor shoon have I : 
 'Tis the Qth to-day, and I've got no pay, 
 
 And I ask ye reason why. 
 
 Mr. Sealy was happy in his imitations of the old ballads. A 
 serious effort in this style, called Robin Hood, is equally good : 
 
 FYTTE THE FIRST. 
 
 The noble Earl of Huntingdon 
 
 Gaz'd through the casement drearily, 
 While friar Tuck, with cassock on, 
 
 Yawn'd o'er his missal wearily ; 
 
 Maid Marian with her gosshawk toyed, 
 
 Scathlock and Scarlett nodded near, 
 Pall'd were they all of bower and hall, 
 
 And sigh'd again for woodland cheer. 
 
 " By God his death," quoth Robin Hood, 
 
 ' ' I'll off to Bernysdale again, 
 To bended bow, and Lincoln Green, 
 
 And stout meyne of merry men. 
 
 "The licensed hunting of the deer, 
 
 In royal livery suits not me, 
 Nor can I teach my English horn 
 
 The blasts of Norman venerie. 
 
 "Of state and fee I weary all, 
 
 I've lost the cunning of the bow ; 
 But yester e'en I missed the butts \ 
 
 By half a cloth-yard shaft or so. 
 
 ' ' And all these knaves of mine grow fat 
 
 On nut-brown ale and warden pie, 
 Not one can wield a quarter staff, 
 
 Or wing an arrow to the eye. 
 
158 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 "I mind me when yon burly priest 
 Could play at buffets with our king, 
 
 Ring nine with quarter staff on pate, 
 And stand best wrestler in the ring. 
 
 " And who like him could troll a stave 
 Waking the forest echoes wide, 
 
 After the breaking of the deer, 
 
 As we reclined by some brook side ? 
 
 " What time the evening sun streamed down, 
 Casting long shadows at our feet, 
 
 When all the dappled herd had strayed 
 To uplands fair, and pastures sweet. 
 
 " At night we held a merry rouse 
 On wine from some sleek Abbot ta'en, 
 
 Then slept beneath the trysting tree 
 Until the east was red again. 
 
 " O merry 'twas in woodlands, then, 
 To scour the woods with tough yew bow, 
 
 Bring down the wild goose on the wing, 
 Or lay the antler'd booty low. 
 
 " Or watch for ambling jennet pass 
 With portly churchman on its back, 
 
 Or steed of knight of high degree, 
 Or merchant's mule with heavy pack. 
 
 " Or be it pedlar, prior, or knight, 
 I trow he paid us toll and fee ; 
 
 Nor any passed withouten pay ; 
 
 We brook'd not then scant courtesy. 
 
 " Sometimes a churlish miller passed 
 With dusty sacks towards the town, 
 
 Who liked a bout at quarter staff, 
 I mind one crack'd our friar's crown. 
 
 " Sometimes the sheriff came on quest 
 Of outlaw bold to forest green, 
 
 And, by the rood, we prick'd his hide 
 Right shrewdly with our arrows keen. 
 
ROBERT SEALY. 159 
 
 " And once it chanced, on summer eve, 
 
 A full tryste knight, all wan of blee, 
 Pac'd on his way-worn destriere 
 
 Beside our ancient trysting tree. 
 
 " All soil'd and rent, his nightly gear, 
 
 His last rose-noble long since spent ; 
 We bade him welcome to our fare, 
 
 And to our sylvan merriment. 
 
 " He told us how a prior knave 
 
 Had robbed him both of land and fee, 
 While he did battle with our Lord 
 
 King Richard against Paynimrie; 
 
 " We filled his purse with red, red gold, 
 
 We clad his limbs in harness new, 
 And sware by him who died on tree 
 
 The shaveling monk this wrong should rue. 
 
 " And so each day fresh venture brought, 
 
 In forest glade 'twas merry then : 
 What belted Earl is half so free 
 
 As outlaw 'mid his merry men ? 
 
 ' ' Then wind a bl^st upon your horn, 
 
 Will Scathlock, for my leal yeomen, 
 I'll doff these weeds for Lincoln suit, 
 
 And seek green Bernysdale again. " 
 
 Then up rose Tuck : " By cock and pye 
 
 This carpet life it irks me sore : "- 
 He tore his cassock from his breast, 
 
 And dashed his missal on the floor : 
 
 His Lincoln suit was all too scant, 
 
 His baldrick lacked a span or twain, 
 He roundly swore he'd go in buff, 
 
 Until his belt should meet again. 
 
 And how these yeomen fared in wood, 
 
 With cloth yard shaft and bended bow 
 I trow another fytte shall tell, 
 
 If that ye gentles care to know. 
 
160 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 FYTTE THE SECOND. 
 
 On bush and spray the birds sang clear, 
 The heron soared above the lake, 
 
 The rabbits sported in the fern, 
 
 The deer sought cover in the brake. 
 
 When yeomen three in Lincoln green, 
 Rested beneath a spreading oak, 
 
 Quoth one, "Beshrew the laggard monk, 
 He bears our dinner in his poke. 
 
 " But see the knave comes toiling up, 
 The sweat-drops running from his brow, 
 
 And, by the mass, the wallet's slack ; . 
 He did not lag for nought, I trow." 
 
 " Ho, masters mine ! ye speed apace ; 
 
 I stayed but at Saint Hubert's shrine, 
 To breathe a passing orison " 
 
 Quoth Robin shortly " Where's the wine? " 
 
 " Alack, my masters, when sore spent 
 With travel, and a heavy mass, 
 
 A beggar churl upon me set 
 
 And spilt the vintage on the grass. 
 
 " But an this staff of mine 'tis sooth 
 Tann'd not his hide, I'll ne'er fast more ; 
 
 A stouter villain never crossed 
 A quarter-staff with mine before." 
 
 "Ye lie, false priest," quoth Robin Hood ; 
 
 Ye drank the wine, and ate the pie." 
 May all the Aves I e'er said, 
 
 Fail me," said Tuck, "if that I lie." 
 
 " Well, since it mote not better be, 
 I'll beat the thickets for a deer" 
 
 Said Robin, " Scathlock, you can seek 
 For feather'd game to mend our cheer." 
 
 The dewdrops on the fern were dry, 
 A blue haze bounded all the wood, 
 
 When forth in quest of forest cheer, 
 
 Fared Scathlock and bold Robin Hood. 
 
ROBERT SEALY. l6l 
 
 Broad-back'd lay Tuck beneath the shade, 
 
 Untruss'd, his jerkin open wide ; 
 While Scathlock, resting on a root, 
 
 With cutting jests the friar plied. 
 
 At eve they shot a bout at butts, 
 
 Will Scarlett won a silver crown ; 
 For buffets next the garland tried, 
 
 The chaplain knock'd the yeoman clown. 
 
 Footsore, bemoiFd, his arrows spent, 
 At set of sun Will Scathlock came, 
 
 Without a feather at his belt, 
 Or any head of sylvan game. 
 
 " A sorry larder," quoth the Priest, 
 " Greets our return to gay green wood 
 
 But mercy, God ! whom have we here ? 
 By God his pine ! 'tis Robin Hood ! " 
 
 With bow unstrung, and broken brand, 
 Halting, with garments soil'd and torn, 
 
 Came Robin to the trysting tree. 
 Never was yeoman more forlorn. 
 
 When all the West was red, he said, 
 He, toiling through a briary maze, 
 
 Came sudden by a brawling brook, 
 Upon a hart of grace at graze. 
 
 Swifter than falcon when she stoops 
 To pierce her quarry, from his bow 
 
 The grey-goose shaft unerring sped, 
 'And laid the antler'd monarch low. 
 
 When out there stept a Ranger proud 
 Smote Robin sorely on the head ; 
 
 "Marry, come up ! I trow, here's sport, 1 ' 
 Quoth he, as Robin lay for dead. 
 
 Then with yew bow across his back, 
 He laid such strokes 'twas sin to see, 
 
 The stranger gone, up Robin rose ; 
 
 "My curse," he said, "on venerie." 
 S 
 
1 62 ROBERT SEALY. 
 
 Up from the marsh the grey mist curled, 
 A chill wind crept beneath the wood, 
 
 Four never pray'd for dawn as these, 
 Tuck, Scarlett, Scathlock, Robin Hood. 
 
 And never more, as legends tell, 
 Did Robin and his freres again 
 
 Leave castle tower for leafy bower : 
 God rest him and his merry men ! 
 
 There is little here in the way of action to satisfy the reader, 
 but in other respects he has not much to complain of. Nothing, it 
 has been said, is so easy as to write a ballad, and nothing so 
 difficult as to write a good one. Mr. Sealy hits off the pecu- 
 liarities of the old ballad very happily. Here and there, perhaps, 
 he is at fault ; but unless we determine to be hypercritical, we 
 are bound to admit that the foregoing stanzas are excellent. 
 
 We cannot take leave of this writer better than by quoting 
 two short pieces in which he is speaking seriously. They are 
 both addressed to ladyes fair : the first, to W. M. ; the second, 
 to Minnie. The latter is said to be the last thing which his hand 
 attempted. 
 
 You should have lived in olden time, 
 The golden time of chivalry, 
 When knights to beauty bent the knee, 
 And for the guerdon of a glance, 
 Did battle with the sword and lance. 
 
 Methinks it would have liked you well, 
 Sitting among your maidens there, 
 To work a scarf of quaint device, 
 To flash in many a foughten field, 
 Upon the breast of that true knight 
 Who held you fairest of the fair. 
 
 And, had he fallen on distant plain, 
 Crying your name with latest breath, 
 You would have said " He met his death 
 
ROBERT SEALY. 163 
 
 In harness, as became a knight 
 Doing devoir for ladye bright." 
 
 I trow you would not shed a tear, 
 
 But sitting in your castle bower, 
 
 With steadfast, haughty face would sing 
 
 An ancient Lay of Troubadour. 
 
 Of Lancelot and Bedivere, 
 
 King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, 
 
 Of Knight and Squire, of helm and spear. 
 
 The bower maidens would wonder all, 
 Up-gazing from their tapestrie, 
 At your set lip, and tearless eye : 
 But in your turret-chamber high, 
 For him who fell, I wis you'd sigh, 
 And break your heart, unseen, and die. 
 
 TO MINNIE. 
 
 I'm all unskill'd in tuning lays of love, 
 For I ne'er bow'd at Aphrodite's shrine, 
 The golden-girdled goddess of the sea, 
 Until my heart leap'd forth to cling to thine. 
 
 My life has been one sorrow : From my youth 
 Hopeless I've trod the thorny brakes of life, 
 Without one wild flower cull'd to cheer my path, 
 Or loving smile to nerve me for the strife. 
 
 And so, uncomforted, sad, motiveless, 
 I never join'd in issue with my peers, 
 To win renown, and glad a ladye-love, 
 But lonely stood, heedless of passing years. 
 
 And now, youth's stream of grief full fed by time, 
 O'erwhelming sweeps me to that precipice 
 Which men call death ; then turn, my love, and strain 
 Thy lips to mine, and speed me with a kiss ! 
 
164 
 
 W. B. D ALLEY. 
 
 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY was born in Sydney in 1831.* After his 
 education was finished, he read for the Bar and was admitted in 
 1856. A public speech or two delivered shortly after, on political 
 questions, furnished evidence of brilliant ability, and Mr. Dalley 
 became at once a distinguished man. He was elected a member 
 of the first Representative Assembly in 1857, and was appointed 
 Solicitor- General by the then Premier, Mr. Cowper. By this 
 time he had secured the reputation of an orator. With unusual 
 quickness of perception he combines great command of language, 
 irresistible humour, and all the minor essentials of oratorical 
 success. As an impromptu humourist he has never been excelled 
 in this country. His humour is an instinct, and not a result of 
 study. In fact, he possesses no faculty for study or elaboration 
 of any kind. So much is this the case that it is questionable 
 whether any amount of elaboration would at all improve his 
 powers. There are men of letters who, while totally devoid of 
 all humour in their conversation, and of all power to impress a 
 public audience by its means, can yet manufacture with pen and 
 ink the finest and most delicate specimens of this delightful quality. 
 But it is probable that, were Mr. Dalley to attempt this kind of 
 manufacture, his humour would evaporate in the process, and 
 
 * In "Literature in' New South Wales," the date of Mr. Dalley's birth is 
 incorrectly stated to be 1833. 
 
WILLIAM BEDE D ALLEY. 165 
 
 nothing would be left but a bare network of elegant sentences. 
 It is a natural result of this peculiarity that his writing should be 
 no adequate representation of his powers. We listen to an impro- 
 visatore with feelings of astonishment : but what should we think 
 of him if we tied him down to a desk, and then compared the 
 result of his labours with Balzac or Thackeray ? At the same time, 
 there is no defect in the writing itself. As a matter of style, 
 simply, it deserves the highest commendation. It is equally clear 
 and vigorous ; the language is faultless ; and there is a degree of 
 gracefulness about the whole that is not often met with in our 
 newspaper contributions. 
 
 A series of political sketches were contributed by Mr. Dalley to 
 Punch a short time ago, entitled, Political Biographies, and in 
 these he has described, with exquisite irony, the most prominent 
 of our political characters. The following is devoted to Dr. Lang : 
 
 We are told in the Lives of the Illustrious Fathers of the Catholic Church, 
 that when a rather pretentious Prelate held the see of Ravenna, during the 
 Pontificate of St. Gregory the Great, it was his custom (the archi-episcopal 
 Brummell) to wear his pallium, not only in the services of religion, but as an 
 ordinary decoration. Thereupon, we are informed, St. Gregory wrote him a 
 severe reprimand (the letter is extant) telling him that no ornament shines so 
 brightly on the shoulders of a bishop as humility. Had John Dunmore 
 Lang occupied the see at that time, the letter never would have been 
 written. The adorning virtue of the episcopate is the characteristic one 
 of our subject. We cannot give an idea of his splendid career. We 
 propose simply to sketch his character. The extreme courtesy of his nature 
 has carried him, unstained and uninjured, through conflicts in which violence of 
 manner and extravagance of expression would have brought down signal and 
 deserved punishment. Continuously engaged in great public employments, 
 he has always, with marvellous skill and admirable self-control, so conducted 
 himself as to inspire general sympathy and avoid individual offence. With his 
 clerical brethren of all denominations, he has been uniformly the object of the 
 highest esteem and purest affection. The purpose of his priestly life has been 
 the accomplishment of a perfect union of ministers of religion of all denomi- 
 nations. Although no one could pretend to such high qualifications as such a 
 leadership imperatively demands humility, forbearance, charity he was, un- 
 happily, not successful in achieving a result which would have immortalised 
 him and conferred lasting benefits upon .society. The glory of a heroic straggle 
 for that cause is his of that no one can deprive him and the sympathies 
 
1 66 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 and love of his brother ministers have been augmented by a contemplation of 
 his unaided efforts. Like Wolsey, (of the genius and character of whom he is 
 a fervent and outspoken admirer,) the venerable priest has been a munificent 
 patron of public education. As the great English Pontiff founded his colleges 
 in Oxford and Ipswich, so the great Australian clergyman established his col- 
 lege in this city. The princely halls of this institution were reared by a noble 
 and devoted band of Caledonian masons, and adorned with professorial chairs 
 filled by the leading men in their departments of scholarship of the ' ' modern 
 Athens." The founder undertook the great responsibilities of the office of 
 Principal in this institution, and with the occasional exception of a long vacation 
 for two or three years, in Europe and the United States of America, exercised 
 a vigilant and unremitting superintendence over the course of studies and general 
 management of the College. As the vast genius of the- greatest of the 
 Spanish Princes of the Catholic Church embraced at the same time the govern- 
 ment of Spain and of America, the generalship of armies against the Moors, the 
 foundation of the University of Alcala, and the publication of the polyglot 
 Bible so our Presbyterian Ximenes ruled his College, sat in Parliament, 
 edited several papers, governed his Church, travelled over the whole world, 
 and published books and pamphlets innumerable. His scrupulous avoidance 
 of all purely controversial topics, and his exquisite discretion in treating all 
 matters upon which difference of opinion generates a strong hostility of feeling, 
 have saved him repeatedly from condemnation, which less prudent and more 
 bigoted essayists would undoubtedly excite. Unfortunately, it is the pecu- 
 liarity of most ecclesiastics who take a prominent position in secular affairs, to 
 manifest an enthusiasm unqualified by deference to the opinions of others, and 
 as loudly to condemn honest error as unreasoning opposition. Such people 
 begin to libel when they fail to convince. Unable to demonstrate the truth of 
 their own views, they denounce their opponent's ; and in proportion to the 
 sincerity of their own convictions is the danger of their unscrupulousness. To 
 this class the venerable Dr. Lang does not belong. In his polemical difficulties 
 the crosier has never been used to knock down his antagonists. His priestly 
 acrimony only contains those apostolical weapons of which the greatest of 
 Apostles has given us the catalogue. His sweet persuasive accents have been 
 listened to with reverence by those at whom the thunders of the Vatican 
 would have been launched without effect. St. Francis de Sales has always 
 been his great model as a priest, and he has studied with a profound appre- 
 ciation of their policy and politeness, the lives of the illustrious followers of 
 Loyola. Scholarship without sophistry concession to the extremest verge of 
 principle a Christian recognition of the merit and virtues of his opponents 
 these have been his characteristic qualities as an expositor of the Gospel. 
 There have been some who have mistaken his prudence for pusillanimity his 
 mildness for a want of earnestness but none have doubted his sacerdotal 
 charity. As a politician, he is a devoted admirer of the British constitution, 
 and on one or two remarkable occasions has testified his faith in the glory and 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 167 
 
 advantages of our alliance with England. His touching and eloquent allusion 
 to the sacred protection which the British ensign gives to the British citizen, 
 is remembered and quoted by all who admire eloquence and love England. 
 At his own expense, without aid of any kind, he has been the means of trans- 
 porting many hundreds from the old to the new world of ours. His own 
 limited resources, combined with his holy ambition, led to some slight incon- 
 veniences in carrying out this great object, but while a few entertained a mei'e 
 shadowy doubt of his prudence, none dared to question the purity of his 
 motives. Such a character is as far above, as many are beneath criticism. We 
 shall not, therefore, presume to lift the veil which conceals the early history of 
 " Cooksland." Rather let it be our grateful part to paint the statesman, the 
 scholar, the priest, and the journalist, as he is as he legislates, teaches, 
 preaches, and writes in our midst. Though a minister of the Presbyterian 
 Church, he loves the Catacombs as well as Antonelli. He can talk to 
 you of the sculpture and the paintings of those dreary sepulchres of their 
 terra cotta lamps and glass chalices as glibly as a Parisian would talk of the 
 immortelles of Pere le Chaise, or a Dublin carman of the tombs of Glasnevin 
 or a Newtown 'bus boy of the Camperdown cemetery. We shall not intrude 
 further upon a learned leisure which his friends know the illustrious divine is 
 employing in revising for a new edition the great work, Mabillon AnnaL 
 Bened. 
 
 Mr. Holroyd, the present Master in Equity, is the subject of 
 the following sketch : 
 
 The adventurous spirit which so strongly characterises our race furnishes us 
 with colonists of strange history large acquaintance of mankind and 
 immense stores of information. Among these the subject of our notice is not 
 the least remarkable. Of a grand and gloomy religious nature, his attention 
 was in eai'ly life naturally directed to Palestine. His studies were undertaken 
 and professions selected with the sole view of assisting him to be of service to 
 mankind as a traveller in the Holy Land. With this object he became a 
 barrister, and regularly attended the Middlesex sessions. The precise con- 
 nexion between this occupation and his subsequent employment we cannot 
 perceive, but at a later period of his life his recollections of his generous 
 struggles for innocence and honesty in that tribunal furnish him with the purest 
 sources of pleasure. He was then known in small forensic circles, formed of 
 the youngest and most innocent members of his profession, as the ' Dragoman 
 of the rope-walk." 1 No amount of ridicule or misconception of the purity of 
 his motives could in the least degree divert him from his lofty purpose. 
 Having taken an affecting leave of his friends, he started in 18 from the Old 
 Bailey for Jericho. He had procured . an appointment from the Palestine 
 Colonisation Society as Colporteur, and those who know him require no 
 
1 68 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 assurance that he discharged the duties of his office with affectionate solicitude 
 towards those to whom he came as a missionary. Having had some slight 
 difference of opinion with the Jews at Saphet (mainly about the style 
 and dimensions of their turbans, to which he took exception, ) he returned to 
 England, and after some time became a physician. Immediately after this 
 he left England for this country, where he remained for some time in a state of 
 uncertainty as to which of his numerous professions he would employ as a 
 means of ameliorating the condition of society. Having visited the offices of 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, three apothe- 
 caries' shops, the Police Office, and the Central Criminal Court on the day of 
 his arrival, he was led by an accidental circumstance to devote his genius and 
 energies to the succour and support of hapless wretches wrongly charged with 
 criminal offences. The cause of this solemn determination was briefly this : 
 An unhappy man, who, a few days before, had left with the highest character 
 one of the most humanely conducted of our penal establishments, had the 
 misfortune to meet at night, a few hours after his release, an inebriate and 
 insolent citizen in one of the back streets of the metropolis. Through the 
 violence of the latter, a quarrel was forced upon the accused, and the police 
 coming up during its progress, insisted that he was in the wrong (as they 
 always are), and basely sought a confirmation of their suspicions in the 
 circumstance that some hundred pounds, which the citizen affirmed to 
 be his property, was found in the breast pocket of the accused. Mr. 
 Holroyd made an earnest and successful appeal to the Jury in his 
 behalf, denounced the infamous conduct of the constabulary, was com- 
 plimented by the Judge, and secured the acquittal of his client, who 
 munificently rewarded the genius and devotion which had been employed 
 in his rescue from a groundless prosecution. From this moment, the learned 
 gentleman assiduously prosecuted his humane labours in the cause of all innocent 
 persons charged with criminal offences. To widen the circle of his philanthropy, 
 a place was procured for him in Parliament, and as a number of constituencies 
 in the course of his career were ambitious of the honour of being represented by 
 him, it became absolutely necessary that he should never be re-elected for the 
 same place. No circumstance could be more conclusive in considering the 
 evidence of his rare popularity. His chief characteristic, as a politician, is his 
 extreme unselfishness. He was for years Chairman of Committees, with a 
 large salary, which he devoted to sumptuous entertainments. He was also for 
 some time (during a temporary absence from Parliament) District Court Judge. 
 In the latter office, his judicial conduct, decisions, and the ordinary proceedings 
 of his Court, were modelled upon the solemnities of Oriental tribunals. He 
 retired from the Court amidst the most complimentary expressions of public 
 and professional satisfaction. His opinions have not been obstinately opposed 
 to the popular tendencies, but have been humbly and philosophically moulded 
 to correspond with the varying phases of the views of the majority. In a word, 
 his political faith is a safe one, its great principle being elasticity. He is a 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 169 
 
 man of remarkable intellectual activity, and extremely versatile accomplishments. 
 He has frequently in the same day made a successful defence for a burglar of 
 unimpeachable character presided at the adjudication of prizes to the exhibi- 
 tors at a Poultry Club and lectured in the evening on the Well of En-rogel. 
 His great measures have been freely criticised as of too revolutionary a character 
 for immediate acceptance but he has tried to smile down from the heights of 
 legislation upon those puny critics who attacked while there was a chance of 
 injuring, and prophesied failure .when schemes too vast for their understanding 
 had obtained the solemn protection of law. To those among our readers in 
 whose recollection the brilliant struggles of his mature genius are still fresh, 
 we triumphantly recall the "Amended Pawnbrokers' Act," and the " Sale by 
 Green-grocers of Colonial Wine." The titles of these pieces of legislation 
 are the proudest he can claim as their author and will be the noblest epitaph 
 we can inscribe to endear his memory to posterity. 
 
 The following sketch of Mr. Martin may be compared with the 
 remarks on that gentleman given in a previous part of this volume : 
 
 Many superficial judges of genius and character would pronounce the subject 
 of this memoir a wonderful example of what may be accomplished by a clear 
 head, inflexible will, and unfailing industry. They would point him out as one 
 of the victorious workers, the men of self-help. It is our pleasing and con- 
 scientious duty to dispel such illusions. The Honourable James Martin was 
 born a poet, and although circumstances have interposed to deny hhn the 
 privilege of being recognised as a master of song, it is a melancholy truth that 
 we have lost, in the misdirection of his genius, a great bard. From an extremely 
 early age he exhibited a love for verse. ' ' Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the 
 Butterflie," the sweetest of Spenser's minor poems, was his favourite in child- 
 hood. A dreamy, imaginative, and delicately sensitive youth, his modesty was 
 mistaken for dullness. He grew up shy, pensive, abstracted, passionately 
 devoted to the Muses, and having, or manifesting, no interest in the practical 
 affairs of life. We shall pass over his boyhood hurriedly, for two reasons : 
 firstly, because it is the period of all human life least likely to furnish matter 
 for edifying or improving reflection ; and secondly, because in this particular 
 case we are not fortunate enough to possess a scintilla of information on the 
 subject. His early manhood presents to us the picture of a tall, slight, and 
 languid figure, of a face shadowed with tearful melancholy, full of the 
 
 Glimmering incarnation 
 Of hopes, and fears, and twilight fantasies. 
 
 The profession of the law, to which this young and tender nature had been 
 compelled to bend his energies, was, we need hardly say, the most distasteful 
 of pursuits for one whose large heart was longing for the golden fields of old 
 T 
 
I 70 WILLIAM BEDE DALLF.V. 
 
 romance and the fountains of classic song. But do many of us walk in the 
 paths to which our hearts would direct our feet ? Does not Placidus, whose 
 gentle spirit would have shed a mild radiance upon the life of the cloister, 
 usually get a commission, and fall pierced with a Kaffir or a Maori bullet ; 
 whilst Iratus, whose only priestly quality is his sympathy with anathemas, takes 
 off his boxing gloves and puts on the surplice ? Thus it happens every day. 
 Could humanity devise no other employment for our young poet, with the 
 vision and the faculty divine, than to make him an accountant of six and eight- 
 pences ? We think of Burns and of Wordsworth, and pass from the early life 
 of our distinguished subject with a tear for the world's misunderstanding of its 
 great men. Having been torn away from the Muses, and compelled to 
 exchange the divine Spenser for the nisi prius Selwyn, the young and accom- 
 plished practitioner felt as the great commentator of our jurisprudence, who 
 celebrated his farewell to the Muse in those touching lines with which articled 
 pupils of literary tastes are so familiar : 
 
 No room for peace, no room for you, 
 Adieu, celestial Nymph, adieu. 
 
 A brief, but not inglorious career as an attorney, naturally and properly termi- 
 nated in our hero's becoming Attorney-General. He had, meanwhile, by the 
 same perverse misconception of his peculiar faculty on the part of the vulgar, been 
 dragged into the storms and contentions of public life. Nothing could have been 
 more alien to his poetic nature. The marriage of a skylark to a stormy petrel 
 could scarcely furnish a stronger illustration of a mesalliance than the wedding 
 of our subject, brimming o'er with "harmonious madness," to the savage dis- 
 cords of parliamentary life. But in his exalted, though hateful station, the 
 world had a glorious opportunity of seeing how the man of genius can, like the 
 man of the world, accommodate himself to circumstances. Spurning the old 
 delusions of politics, which would fetter commerce by vain attempts to foster 
 its expansion, our poet-politician led the van of great and beneficent Reform. 
 That unrestrained intercourse with the noblest thoughts of the loftiest spirits of 
 all times and ages which he had enjoyed, at once suggested to him, that the 
 policy of nations should be based upon an unrestricted intercourse of all com- 
 modities. At Protection, its old professors, and besotted believers, he laughed 
 with all the strength of his powerful intelligence. His advocacy of principles 
 now universally acknowledged, anticipated the political wisdom of the old 
 world. Firm, resolute, and uncompromising on great matters, he was reveren- 
 tial, submissive, and yielding on minor points, happily combining the purpose 
 of the conscientious statesman with the student's gentleness. His victories 
 were admired by those who were vanquished by his argument, and his loudest 
 praises were sounded by his opponents. To the prestige of unsurpassed talent, 
 he added those inimitable charms of manner which belong to deep sympathies 
 and heroic natures. Abhorring that self-assertiveness which is characteristic 
 of the despot in politics, he fascinated those who would have been repelled by 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 17 I 
 
 his opinions, and alienated from him by his associations. Thus, in his matui-e 
 age, one who should have dwelt with "the cherub contemplation," with "looks 
 commercing with the skies," r ;his "rapt soul sitting in his eyes," became a 
 leader of practical men, a pillar of the State, an example of the highest and 
 rarest virtues. As the advocate of the causes of widows and orphans, and 
 indeed of mankind in general before our courts, he is not less distinguished for 
 the variety of his learning than for his diligence and attention to his duties. 
 Miraculous as are his attainments, he is not ubiquitous, and consequently when 
 his engagements necessitate his attendance in three courts at the same moment, 
 and in a spirit of perfect equity he denies to each the advantages which all 
 ought to enjoy, the unreasonable clamour at his absence, and hint at the 
 expensiveness of his impartiality. We, who know that on these occasions he 
 is solacing himself with the sweet recollections of his boyhood, that he is 
 wandering in the elysian fields of imagination, and singing the songs of his 
 early life, we pity his detractors and respect his retirement. 
 
 Mr. Cowper, who is next treated, has been at the head of the 
 liberal party for many years. It was under his auspices that 
 manhood suffrage and vote by ballot were introduced into the 
 Constitution : 
 
 Although frankness is one of the most fascinating traits of social character, it is 
 also a dangerous virtue for the politician. No man is more charming in the 
 domestic circle than he who, in the plenitude of his confidence, in the affection 
 and secresy of his friends, pours out his attachments and antagonisms, his hopes, 
 his apprehensions lays bare his heart, so that children may read what is written 
 there. Such revelations, however, are of a highly perilous nature when made 
 publicly and unreservedly by politicians of the highest position. The subject of 
 this memoir sadly illustrates the truth of these reflections. The basis of his 
 character is undoubtedly a most confiding simplicity. Incapable of thinking 
 meanly of mankind, he is the victim of each crafty speculator in politics who 
 tries to deceive him. Preserving all the attractive ingenuousness of his early 
 boyhood, Mr. Cowper has never acquired from his intercourse with mankind 
 the knowledge which places limits to an excessive trust in human perfection. 
 Believing that all by whom he is surrounded are as open, candid, and generous 
 as himself, he speaks as freely to the world as to his family. His opinions 
 on every question are consequently as widely diffused as possible ; and it is his 
 noble, but still to be deplored ambition, that all the world may not only 
 hear of his actions, but be informed of his motives. The most relentless of 
 his antagonists have never accused him of concealment ; but the most devoted 
 of his friends have frequently had the strongest cause to complain of his indis- 
 creet disclosures. It is well that he is not a member of any religious com- 
 
172 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 munion which prescribes private confession. The whole world is his 
 confessional, and he tells us his most secret thoughts as if he were under an 
 obligation to confess, and we to absolve. It is hardly necessary to say that 
 this lovable sincerity has frequently led him into great public errors. Asso- 
 ciated with men who, though they admired his talents, could hardly appreciate 
 the almost saintly innocence of his nature, he was left without that protection 
 which colleagues of a larger acquaintance with, and a lower faith in, man- 
 kind, might have secured to him. Knowing the facility with which the least 
 contriving might make him the dupe of artifice the most transparent, it would 
 have been a worthy occupation for even superior talent to have stood sentinel 
 over the treasures of his heart exposed to the thefts of every passer-by. Mr. 
 Cowper, for a longer period than perhaps any statesman in the colonies, held 
 the post of First Secretary in our Government. He had of course during this 
 time the dispensation of a vast amount of patronage. The distribution of those 
 prizes, which most public men regulate by considerations of expediency, he 
 effected solely on the ground of his own faith in the virtues of the recipient. 
 To reward the attachment of a friend to disarm the virulence of an opponent 
 to strengthen and augment party by the inspiration of hopes in the fulness of 
 time to secure votes that were wanted for party triumphs, by promises to 
 remove those that might prove inconvenient, by holding out temptations all 
 these operations of craftier politicians were quite foreign to the nature and 
 principles of Mr. Cowper. Capable of the most generous friendships, and 
 prepared to make any sacrifices, he was only selfish in preferring the mainte- 
 nance of his honour to the preservation of friendships which were inconsistent 
 with his principles. It will not be a matter of surprise that a man of such 
 Quixotic sensibility on all matters of public morality should have manifested a 
 reverence, almost amounting to religion, for the administration of justice. 
 During his long career no man was placed in any judicial position who was not 
 remarkable for his learning and his piety. The combination was insisted on in 
 two cases, which first directed public attention to the severity of his require- 
 ments in estimating men's fitness for the magisterial office. He refused to 
 place in the commission of the peace a senior wrangler, who in his youth had 
 committed some indiscretion, and a churchwarden of high character who had 
 left an English University without graduating, alleging that the union of 
 cultivated intelligence with unstained character was absolutely essential, and 
 playfully observing that if he could unite the qualities of both in the single 
 person of either the church officer or of the wrangler, he would be at once 
 appointed. The consequence of a line of policy so pure and exalted, was the 
 collection of a body of men engaged in administering justice in the humbler 
 courts, whose talents and virtues would adorn the highest. In the far interior 
 the courts of Petty Sessions are presided over by gentlemen whose scholarship 
 would be admired in cities whose manners are of the best school of courtiers 
 whose morality is unexceptionable ; while in the metropolis itself the benches 
 of our police offices are packed with the elite of our intelligence and virtue. 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DA.LLEY. 173 
 
 It is no detraction from the merits of Mr. Cowper to remark that in this great 
 result of his labours as a minister, Mr. John Robertson is entitled to some 
 share of the glory. More discriminating and reticent than Mr. Cowper, 
 Mr. Robertson supported as high a standard as his colleague. Indeed, it was at 
 one time asserted that in doubtful cases Mr. Robertson insisted upon all candi- 
 dates submitting themselves for legal and theological examination to the 
 Attorney-General and Dr. Lang before they were gazetted. 
 
 Within the limits of a slight but truthful sketch of this kind, it would be 
 obviously impossible to discuss the scope and tendency of the numerous acts 
 of Mr. Cowper's public life. We content ourselves with pointing to one or two 
 of the triumphs of his government, and endeavouring to convey some idea of 
 his character. The absence of all subtlety in his organization, while it has 
 interfered with temporary advantages, has secured to him the allegiance of 
 those who would doubt a diplomatist and despise a schemer. His candour, 
 while it has exposed him to attacks, has naturally diminished their malignity. 
 Nobody disbelieves in his assurances, and everybody knows what he means. 
 Mr. Punch expresses a hope that Mr. Cowper will not be displeased with this 
 portrait, and that a fair contemplation of it will not be without beneficial 
 effects when Mr. Punch's friend (Mr. Cowper) returns, as he undoubtedly will, 
 to office. When he looks back upon his public life 
 
 coecosque volutat 
 Eventus anirao secum, 
 
 Mr. Punch believes that Mr. Cowper will find this record to be the most 
 friendly, as well as the most truthful, of his biographies. 
 
 Mr. John Robertson, a very prominent politician, is the subject 
 of the next sketch : 
 
 It is the pleasing duty of Mr. Punch to uncover to the world this moniing 
 the statue of the most remarkable of our modern statesmen ; and in the con- 
 templation of that fine face the metallic indifference of Mr. Punch as a judge is 
 somewhat softened by the warmth of his artist nature. It is really a good 
 face ; but it is of the life and character of the possessor that Mr. Punch is 
 called upon to speak. Well, would anybody credit that the owner of that 
 noble countenance (with an expression of comprehensive benevolence which 
 would suit the features of a Shaftesbury, a Peabody^ or a high official of the 
 Royal Humane Society), was first heard of as a Poisoner ! ! ! Mr. Punch dis- 
 dains sensational writing, he abhors the white-handed murderer who lives in 
 good society, rides in Rotten Row, and puzzles Taylor and Herapath but, 
 being a truthful biographer, it becomes his melancholy duty to state that 
 Mr. John Robertson and the wholesale administration of strychnine to 
 native dogs, were first heard of together. In a series of letters, as remarkable 
 
174 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 for their bitterness as their chemical knowledge, the future statesman then 
 preached his poisonous crusade against the aboriginal hounds of his native 
 country. In this employment of humanity he first manifested those marvellous 
 powers with which, at the present time, we are all so familiar. It would be 
 entirely out of place in these columns to attempt anything like a review of his 
 splendid career as a public man. The monuments of his labours are to be 
 found in our statute-books ; and the living witnesses of his genius are upon the 
 electoral rolls of his country. The destructive policy which he at first advocated 
 as an extensive agriculturist was abandoned when the necessity for its adoption 
 had disappeared. He then became what he has been consistently for many 
 years, a member of the high conservative party in the Government. Avoiding 
 popularity with the solemn consciousness that it is not unfrequently a pitfall 
 for independence, he has only sought the approbation of the thoughtful and the 
 cultivated. His oratory has been condemned by those who prefer impassioned 
 appeals to the prejudices of the masses to the philosophical discussion which 
 fairly considers and equitably adjusts universal interests. Though not a lawyer 
 by profession, his acquaintance with the great principles of jurisprudence has 
 frequently proved of inestimable value when the ordinary tribunals have un- 
 happily mistaken the law. With regard to enactments of which he is himself 
 the author, his opinions of their scope and tendency have been occasionally at 
 vai'iance with the elaborate judgments of the Supreme Court. Under such 
 circumstances he has with that becoming reverence for judicial authority which 
 is the glory of British citizenship enlightened the Bench and satisfied disap- 
 pointed suitors. It was, probably, owing to his extensive acquaintance with, 
 and high regard for, the law of England, that the crowning honour of his life 
 was conferred upon him without canvas or solicitation on his part. When a 
 survey is taken of the leading men of our limited society, and their qualifications 
 for positions requiring judicial calmness, combined with great firmness, are 
 considered it will be at once conceded that no man in our community could 
 compete with Mr. Robertson in a candidature for the presidency of the 
 Australian branch of the Irish National League. This distinguished office he 
 has been recently called upon to occupy. That he will discharge its onerous 
 duties satisfactorily, no one doubts and that, under his direction, this body 
 will become a formidable engine of agitation, those who know the character 
 and intelligence and power of '.the president, feel assured. The ceremonies by 
 which his inauguration was celebrated are described as in the highest degree 
 solemn and impressive. Led up to the presidential chair, amidst solemn silence, 
 a liqueur glass of pure and untaxed spirit was placed in his right hand. Eleva- 
 ting the vessel to his lips, he bowed to the assembled crowd, and drank to a 
 change of Government, and a replenished Treasury. The acclamations of his 
 hearers were deafening. The regeneration of that beautiful but unhappy island 
 which has expatriated so many patriots^ seemed on the verge of accomplishment. 
 Who would despair, now that a peaceful revolution was about to be headed by 
 a fearless statesman who could hesitate in following a leader so crafty and so 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 175 
 
 courageous ? It was thus that he insph'ed an enthusiasm for the cause, mingled 
 with an admiration for himself, which no one else would have dared to excite. 
 The vast amount of time and labour which he devotes to this object, with the 
 numerous public engagements which an imminent general election necessitates, 
 are the most undoubted evidences of his single-mindedness. Some of those 
 unblushing detractors of all public virtue who, when the action is honourable, 
 attempt to stigmatize the motive as infamous, have been hardy enough to hint 
 that the League is rather an Australian Central than an Irish Branch Com- 
 mitteethat the attention of the illustrious President is more particularly directed 
 to the actual Parliament in Macquarie-street, than the possible one in College 
 Green. But it would be beneath us to do more in noticing such aspersions 
 than to remark that history furnishes us with no career which has not been 
 darkened by the malice of the impotent, and the jealousy of the unsuccessful. 
 Had the sceptical hydropathist, who now fills the office lately occupied by Mr. 
 Robertson, been invited to the higher and nobler office as President of the 
 I.B.N.L., we should, of course, have expected to hear the most biting things 
 whispered of his motives and his actions ; for is he not in office ? and is it 
 not essential to retain it by all means, and at any sacrifice ? But when we 
 know the high moral standard of opposition, the reluctance of even the most 
 unprincipled to imperil his independence by the acceptance of ministerial 
 responsibilities ; when we know that we have some men who could only be 
 forced into these high offices at the point of the bayonet, as it were ; we can 
 admire the unselfishness, the large-hearted sympathy, the nobility of nature, 
 of our hero. 
 
 Mr. Darvall, an eminent barrister, comes next : 
 
 It was once humourously said of the subject of this notice that he was a kind 
 of compromise between Coriolanus and Beau Brummell. It might be suggested 
 as an improvement that Antoninus Pius and the younger Matthews would be 
 more likely to convey a fair idea of his character, cast of rnind, and peculiar 
 talents. Or, if historical combinations are capable of pourtraying most faithfully 
 modern celebrities, perhaps the union of Alcibiades and Major Pendennis 
 would be regarded by some of our readers as more satisfactory. The Athenian 
 should, of course, be a member of the United Service Club, and enjoy the 
 friendship of the Marquis of Steyne. Mr. Darvall is a politician of large 
 experience, a barrister of large practice, and a gentleman of large fortune. 
 He has resided nearly all his life in this country, but was once tempted to 
 transplant himself to the neighbouring colony of Victoria. The temptation 
 presented itself in the form of the Chief Justiceship of that colony, and at a 
 time when its society was hardly so well regulated as at present. Mr. Darvall 
 visited the place, and having speedily ascertained that at that period the capital 
 
I 76 WILLIAM BEDE DALLE V. 
 
 was mainly inhabited by the proprietors of bowie-knives and nuggets, returned 
 at once, and immediately recommended several young surgeons of his acquaint- 
 ance to start incontinently for the El Dorado of their profession. With the 
 exception of this public service rendered to Victoria, he has been for a great 
 number of years a settled inhabitant of this colony. His character can only be 
 sketched with difficulty. A political epicurean, he discovers enjoyments on all 
 sides. To him every falsehood has some truth every truth some falsehood. 
 His mind is so exquisitely balanced that his impartiality, in matters of public 
 opinion, can hardly be called into action. With the sole view of possessing a 
 thorough political independence, he has successively occupied the stand-points 
 of all parties. The advantage of these diverse views of all questions is that he 
 becomes familiar with all opinions and commands all arguments. His natural 
 urbanity of disposition is fostered by his consciousness (as he would express it) 
 "that something can be said in favour of everything, and that nearly every 
 fellow is right on most subjects." It may be supposed by the superficial that 
 this intellectual Dundrearyism is combined with a langour of thought and an 
 indecision of action somewhat inconsistent with the successful and conscientious 
 discharge of important public duties. This is a mistake. As the military 
 dandies the creatures of wasp waists, perfumed linen, and gazelle-like softness 
 of manners have been in all ages the most dashing and daring warriors as 
 these " curled darlings" ride boldly and with a loose rein into bloody trenches 
 and up to belching cannon so the political dandy is occasionally capable of 
 courage of opinion and heroism of expression from which the ordinary parlia- 
 mentary soldier would shrink. In the stormy agitation of public questions 
 which preceded the possession of our present constitution, our readers will 
 recollect in various public assemblies one remarkable figure that which our 
 artist has attempted to depict at the head of this memoir. In the midst of 
 violence and insolence, wild assertion, and revolutionary extravagance, he sat 
 with an awful Sphinx-like calm, and with that air of grand repose of perfect 
 super-sensualism which belongs to that lofty brotherhood in whose robes our 
 artist has dressed him for this portrait. Having no particle of sympathy with the 
 motives, the objects, the hopes or the fears of those by whom he was surrounded, 
 he lent his name, his powers, the prestige of his position to gentlemen whose 
 existence, except upon a public platform, he would hardly care to acknowledge. 
 With a persuasive eloquence as sweet as the honey of the Sicilian mountain, 
 he could second a resolution for the five points of the charter, and with the 
 most delightful imperturbability cut the mover dead in the street in the next 
 half hour and both operations would be marked by a grace and appropriate- 
 ness which none could hope to emulate. He has been more than once 
 Attorney-General of this country, and of course'on each occasion transferred his 
 genius and attainments to gentlemen irreconcileably at variance with each other 
 on all questions. This delightful eccentricity has been more than atoned for by 
 his marvellous industry in the service of each. As a public prosecutor one 
 almost envies the criminal against whom he is stating a case. The misfortune 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 777 
 
 of the accused seems to augment the high-bred courtesy of the accuser. 
 Appearing for the Crown, he upholds its dignity by his conduct, and sheds a 
 lustre upon his office by his eloquence. In an assembly where the large 
 majority are not always actuated by the loftiest motives, and where some not 
 infrequently adopt and encourage a tone somewhat lower than that of the best 
 society, it is gratifying that Mr. Darvall remains to correct, to improve, and to 
 adorn our Parliament. 
 
 The following sketch of Mr. Plunkett was written at the time 
 when that gentleman held office as Attorney-General with Mr. 
 Cowper. It is necessary to explain that, a few years ago, when 
 Mr. Plunkett was Chairman of the Board of Education, he was sum- 
 marily dismissed from that office by Mr. Cowper : whereupon he 
 resigned various offices held by him such as the Presidency of 
 the Legislative Council, the Commission of the Peace, etc., and 
 declared that the 'reign of terror' had commenced. The circum- 
 stance occasioned a great sensation at the time. However, he was 
 subsequently induced to join Mr. Cowper as Attorney-General : 
 
 The Honourable John Hubert Plunkett, the most graceful, mirthful, and 
 genial of lawyers, is a native of a small and fertile island, which has for a long 
 time been celebrated for abundant crops of brilliant, patriotic, and subtle advo- 
 cates : Mr. Plunkett is an Irishman. In his early professional life he was the 
 Yorick of the Bar Mess on circuit, and was always engaged to perform that 
 delicate and Punch-like operation of laughing cases out of court. So irresistible 
 and contagious was his humour, that men of great solemnity, engaged in 
 business of the highest importance his grave seniors at the Bar were 
 repeatedly carried away by the sparkling, rollicking, and dashing young advocate. 
 At that period of his life, he was a kind of compromise between Mercutio and 
 Father Prout ; or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, Falstaff and the 
 gifted author of the "Biglow Papers." Humour, however, like shamrocks and 
 patriotism, being a commodity always rather in excess of the demand for home 
 consumption in Mr. Plunkett's native country, the gay youngster then one of the 
 " curled darlings" of Dublin, the merriest of the jeunesse dor6e of the Phaynix, 
 and the most popular lawyer in the Four Courts resolved upon emigrating. 
 Eyes that had sparkled at his mots were wet with tears when his resolve was 
 known. Men who could look upon bankruptcy without terror, and the haughty 
 domination of the Saxon with indifference, felt a keen pang of suffering when 
 the light, airy, and graceful wit was about to leave the capital of his country. 
 The then Secretary for the Colonies was an inveterate punster. He accidentally 
 U 
 
178 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 met Mr. Plunkett, and the Minister was delighted with the young fellow's 
 brilliancy. The morning following this memorable interview Mr. Plunkett wa5 
 appointed Attorney-General of this country. In this remarkable way were 
 most of the appointments to the colonies made in the good old times. There 
 was then a chance for genius. The prizes now are only taken by the boisterous 
 and the impudent. Having arrived in this colony, he addressed himself to the 
 discharge of the onerous duties of his high position with commendable industry. 
 His passion for a joke was so irrepressible that even the solemnity of his func- 
 tions could not restrain the exuberance of his fancy. He kept the Court 
 couvulsed with his good things, and even the prisoners in the dock enjoyed 
 their trials as if these gentlemen were spectators of the comedies, in place 
 of being actors in tragedies. They could hardly get the form of the mad-cap 
 prosecutor out of their heads before the Judge put the black cap on his 
 head, and sentence of death wound up an otherwise delightful entertainment. 
 A solemn and melancholy advocate of those days (Mr. Broadhurst), whose 
 constitutional gloom no mirth could altogether dissipate, was sometimes sur- 
 prised into a feeble smile at the overpowering gaiety of the leader of the Bar. 
 Victorious in his profession, Mr. Plunkett was equally conspicuous in his success 
 as a politician. On ceasing to hold office, he attached himself to the party of 
 Mr. Cowper and Mr. Martin. United in opinion, bound to each other by 
 many mutual obligations, and by the tenderest ties of friendship, these gentlemen 
 formed a powerful and popular coalition. They were reproached by the cynical 
 (who hate all praise of virtue) for taking advantage of every opportunity to 
 proclaim the purity of each other's motives, and the value of each other's public 
 services. But the thoughtful and the good only saw in such conduct the 
 devotedness of chivalrous friendship, and that noble sincerity which is now, 
 alas ! so rare. Short as is the period of our constitutional history, it is long 
 enough to familiarise us with many examples of friendships shattered by politics, 
 and attachments broken by the heavy hand of party. Those who were in 
 perfect agreement a year ago, are now as hostile as the opposing military 
 commanders in a faction fight. Of the graceful subject of this sketch nothing 
 of this kind can be said. As Mr. Cowper was the object of Mr. Plunkett's 
 early admiration, so has he always been; and now the two men, who know each 
 other thoroughly (if the depth and tenderness of Mr. Cowper's heroic nature 
 can ever be thoroughly known to any one), are once more associated in the 
 sublime labour of governing this infant empire. If the rumour be true which 
 assigns the Solicitor-Generalship to Mr. Martin, the three dearest friends in 
 public life will form the most powerful Administration that this country has 
 hitherto seen. Let those who have scoffed at the inconsistencies, the deceits, 
 and the living lies of our rulers, for ever hold their peace. There are bonds 
 which unite men of honour, of the strength of which the vulgar can form no 
 opinion. When we are asked to defend our public men from charges of 
 caprice, utter want of principle, and reckless disregard of the laws of party 
 prevailing in civilised communities, we shall simply say the Honourable John 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. , 179 
 
 Hubert Plunkett has occupied office in the Government of the Honourable 
 Charles Cowper. 
 
 Under the title of The Autobiography of a Public Man of Four 
 Weeks' Standing, Mr. Dalley paints the suffering? of a mercan- 
 tile gentleman who suffered himself to be put in nomination for a 
 seat The unavoidable brutalities of an election, as they present 
 themselves to a sensitive and cultivated mind, are certainly not 
 exaggerated : 
 
 Hateful as my reminiscenses of political distinction are to me, I feel com- 
 pelled to give them to the world. They may serve as a warning to others of 
 my class whom a similar conjunction of circumstances may expose to a similar 
 temptation. Be it known, then, that I am a man of middle age, and of some 
 means. My life, passed in strict attention to my business, was, up to a recent 
 period, an uneventful one. My experience of public affairs was limited to an 
 occasional glance at the reported debates of Parliament, and on two occasions 
 to a view of the Assembly from behind the Speaker's chair. This privilege was 
 enjoyed at an extremely late hour at night on each occasion, and had been the 
 consequence of two dinners, of which, for many days subsequent to each ban- 
 quet, I had an extremely painful recollection. The entertainments form an era 
 in my domestic history, and are invariably referred to by my wife when she is 
 engaged in unfavourably reviewing our married life, as chronological finger- 
 posts pointing to my moral deterioration and ultimate ruin. 
 
 On the morning upon which the melancholy intelligence was announced that 
 the country was without a Parliament, I felt, in common with the rest of my 
 fellow-citizens, that proper degree of sorrow which so mournful an event ought 
 to inspire. The expression of grief which I saw upon the countenances of 
 many estimable men who had formerly occupied seats in Parliament moved me 
 to pity ; and I thought of the bitterness of their suffering with a sympathy 
 which, I trust, was honourable to my nature. I am, I may confess at once, a 
 man easily affected by the spectacle of misery in all its multifarious forms ; and 
 I know of no sight so calculated to inspire a deep and respectful sorrow as that 
 of a brave man stripped of the honours of a public station, and in a state of 
 extreme uncertainty as to whether he will again be clothed with those distinc- 
 tions, or allowed, by the tyrannical caprice of the multitude, to remain in a 
 state of political nudity for ever. One or two gloomy faces passed me in the 
 streets, the faces of men who were only a few days before pillars of the State, and 
 I marked with painful surprise the humbled expression of those haughty counte- 
 nances. Can it be, I thought, that this meekness of aspect this submissiveness 
 this gentleness born of affliction is all brought about by a damp sheet of the 
 
l8o WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 Government Gazette? Can an official notification in this by no means exciting 
 journal inflict deeper wounds than the stings and arrows of outrageous leaders in 
 the daily press ? On the morning of the eventful day of which I write, there 
 were, however, many faces which spoke of hope, of joy, of coming pleasures. 
 Entirely unaccustomed to the uncertainty of political contests, I was then 
 unaware of the employment of the people whose insolent happiness seemed to 
 be an outrage upon the public mourning. Since that period I have ascertained 
 that these people were mainly journalists, canvassers, poll-clerks, printers of 
 placards, and licensed victuallers. The unseemly merriment of these person^ 
 pained my sensitive nature. Their loud voices broke discordantly upon my ears. 
 I felt as a man might feel who, seated in a chamber of death near the coffin of 
 some loved object, with his heart breaking, and his eyes wet with tears, is 
 suddenly disturbed by the strains of a German band pouring out the music of 
 waltzes and galops beneath the windows of the house of sorrow. This crew of 
 mercenary hirelings offended me. It was like a banquet of the undertaker's 
 men after the funeral, the grave hardly filled up, the pall just folded and put 
 by, and the wretched mimes of the funeral pageant laughing and joking over 
 their day's work and their beer. Full of this sadness I reached my place of 
 business, and read the epitaphs upon the defunct Parliament contained in the 
 leaders of the daily press. I was disturbed in this distressing employment by 
 the entry of some four or five gentlemen, who immediately affected the 
 ordinarily scentless atmosphere of my counting-house with a decided aroma 
 of spirits which are not generally known as " perfumed." The leader of this 
 body, all the members of which are personally unknown to me, then proceeded 
 to inform me (in a voice of great depth, and marked with a huskiness from 
 which I at once inferred that the owner was a public speaker, and had been 
 engaged in the exercise of his profession uninterruptedly for a number of years, ) 
 that I saw before me a " deppytashun. " My visitors were a small number of 
 free and independent electors, who were desirous of securing my services 
 at this important juncture. My trepidation at this moment was, I candidly 
 confess, considerably in excess of my sense of the proposed distinction, 
 and my nervousness would certainly have discouraged any less indulgent 
 friends, and inspired strong doubts as to my capacity to explain precisely 
 what I meant to convey to any audience. I attempted to decline the candi- 
 dature, and endeavoured to temper a resolution so offensive to my audience 
 with a coui'tesy of expression which I thought they might appreciate. But T 
 found that their earnestness in my behalf was exactly proportioned to my 
 timidity. It is a strange sensation, that of finding for the first time that a number 
 of your fellow-citizens discover you to be the possessor of genius of which you 
 have been yourself conscious for a long period. The leader and spokesman of 
 the deputation particularly impressed upon me the fact that society was 
 immensely interested in my resolve, and frankly intimated to me that the 
 general public expectation was decidedly in favour of the view that I would 
 accept the nomination of my friends. To find oneself the centre of popular 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. l8l 
 
 interest, the cause of public anxiety, the dispenser of bliss or suffering to one's 
 fellow-creatures, according to one's simple resolve, is indeed a painful discovery. 
 I pictured the thousands of men and women who at that moment were awaiting 
 with feverish impatience the dread fiat of my determination. I thought, too, of 
 the sweetnesses of obscurity, of the delightful immunities of a merely social 
 life, of the awful publicity which I was courting by a consent, and I hesitated 
 for a moment. My friends were loud in entreaty, and in that moment I was 
 lost. I have a vague recollection of the deputation pressing round me of my 
 hands being seized in those of the individual members of the body of my being 
 vaguely but affectionately directed to "go in and win," and I was sensible for 
 the first time of the excitement of a contest. I was more composed after this. 
 Tranquilised by the great effort I had made, I surveyed with the calmness of 
 an indifferent spectator the faces of my friends. A strict regard for truth 
 compels me to declare that a collection of more forbidding countenances was, 
 perhaps, never presented to the view of a critical, though benevolent, observer 
 of his species. I have a distinct recollection of the thought flashing through 
 my mind upon the instant, why all the repulsive men should have resolved upon 
 inviting me to be their representative in Parliament ? To this fleeting inter- 
 rogatory I was unable to furnish myself anything like a satisfactory reply. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The suddenness with which intimate friendships spring up in public life is a 
 phenomenon worthy of philosophical attention. My principal supporters were 
 continually hanging about my business premises, tendering me valuable sug- 
 gestions with regard to my course of action, and highly commending certain 
 popular opinions for my adoption in the forthcoming contest. These gentlemen 
 were never weary of pledging my political success, a ceremony which was 
 repeated so frequently, that in a short space of time a number of sample bottles 
 of delicate wines and superior spirits, which in my days of private life adorned 
 my counting-house, were speedily emptied of their precious contents. I am 
 not a hater of the soothing weed; indeed, no man more highly appreciates a 
 cigar of superior quality when the fatigues of the day are over ; but I had a 
 commercial prejudice against transforming my office into a smoking divan. 
 This, however, I now discovered, was a matter of absolute necessity in order 
 to ensure my return to Parliament. The chairman of my committee invariably 
 waited upon me at an early hour of the morning, and uniformly commenced 
 our intercourse by filling and lighting a short black pipe. Though possessed of 
 a respectable knowledge of figures, I should hesitate to furnish any precise 
 information of the number of times during the day on which he availed himself 
 of this means of enjoyment. He would sit sometimes for a long period, 
 noticing my movements through a dense cloud of by no means fragrant smoke. 
 My natural timidity my inexperience of public affairs the horror which I still 
 foolishly entertained of the violences and excesses of public contests, seemed 
 to inspire him with mingled feelings of pity and '.urprise. He would sit there, 
 
1 82 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 looking at me with an expression of boozy sympathy with an aspect of 
 maudlin compassion which I could hardly regard as complimentary. As far as 
 I was enabled to ascertain from an intercourse of the most open character 
 which subsisted between us during my candidature, the literature of my/riend 
 was limited to a familiar acquaintance wilh the Electoral Roll, in which we 
 were both so much interested. This document he constantly carried about 
 with him, and seemed never weary of perusing it with all the devotion of a 
 scholar poring over a precious M.S. of the Vatican. The filthy appearance 
 presented by this entertaining and engrossing document probably prejudiced 
 me against its interest and value as a means of literary enjoyment. It was 
 always produced from the coat-pocket of my friend in a state of increased 
 dilapidation. I remember that on one occasion nearly the whole of the Smiths 
 had been reduced to ashes, by the pipe of the Chairman having been incau- 
 tiously dropped into the pages of this document, before the fire was extinguished. 
 On another, the Browns were found to be entirely undecipherable, and their 
 political qualifications could not be in any way discovered, from the circumstance 
 that the leaves devoted to the political status of this family were saturated with 
 some thick fluid (which looked uncommonly like inferior treacle) and coated over 
 with bread-crumbs and ashes. The delight of my friend at these two incidents 
 at first almost inclined me to believe that the obscuration was premeditated. 
 He laughingly gave me to understand that among these two families of voters 
 my supporters were not to be found. " They're agin yer," he observed with a 
 roar, and I was silent, though somewhat astonished that two such powerful 
 and respectable sections of the community should at once, and apparently by 
 instinct, have resolved upon meeting me with the bitterest opposition. 
 
 I now determined to prepare and publish my address to my constituents, and 
 having gone home somewhat earlier than usual, and immediately locked myself 
 into a small apartment in which the most prominent and serviceable articles 
 are a hip-bath, two chairs and a small table, a wash-hand stand, and two or 
 three cases of bottled beer I began to think about the first publication of which 
 I was so soon to be the author. The privacy of my chamber and the occupation 
 of my intellect were rudely disturbed by a violent knocking at the door, accom- 
 panied with the most piteous and tender entreaties on the part of my devoted 
 wife to open the door at once. With a heart pierced by the apprehension 
 of some domestic misfortune (I am the father of twins of three years old, whose 
 aquatic predilections invariably lead them to the banks of a neighbouring 
 pond, and in imagination I saw at once the drowned bodies of those lovely 
 babes), I sprang to the door, and, on opening it, the mother of my children 
 rushed into my arms, exclaiming, "Thank Heaven !" Thinking that this ex- 
 pression of religious gratitude could have no reference to the calamity which I had 
 anticipated, I asked for an explanation. It is not my intention to lift the veil 
 which hangs between my hearth and public curiosity, but I may be permitted 
 to say that my unusually early return home, my paleness and distraction, and 
 the secrecy of my movements, had alarmed one who truly loves me ; and, sus- 
 
WILLIAM BEDE D ALLEY. 183 
 
 pecting I had sustained some heavy commercial losses, she feared I was 
 resolved upon suicide. I kissed away her anxiety, but guiltily concealed the 
 cause of my disquiet. I thought, one day she will glory in my strength of mind. 
 When she takes up the daily paper at the morning meal, and reads column 
 after column of her husband's eloquence notes the approving " hear, hears" 
 which close each rounded sentence, and the cheers amidst which her soul's idol 
 resumes his seat she will think, amidst her pride in his genius, of his tender- 
 ness in hiding from her the anguish of his early struggles, and her tears of joy 
 and love will fall upon the glowing page. But I must go on with the history 
 of my first published composition or perhaps it will be better if I furnish it 
 now to myreaders. It never was published before (having been immediately 
 and unanimously condemned by my committee, to whose critical inspection it 
 was submitted the morning after it was written) : and the address which really 
 appeared in the newspapers was the production of those gentlemen, with some 
 of the peculiarities of expression dispensed with, and the grammatical eccen- 
 tricities restrained by myself. This is the original work : 
 
 " To the Electors of . 
 
 "Gentlemen, To my great surprise, although the intelligence has occasioned 
 me a feeling of sincere gratification, I am informed by some of your body that 
 you have resolved upon nominating me as a candidate for your representation 
 in Pai-liament. 
 
 " Having never taken any part, however humble, in public affairs, but con- 
 tented myself with, I trust, the conscientious discharge of my duties to my 
 family and my fellow-creatures, I fear you will find in me few of those qualities 
 which ought to adorn the man to whom so great a trust is committed as that 
 with which you purpose to invest me. I can offer you nothing but very 
 ordinary intelligence, zeal in your service, and, I devoutly hope, a conscientious 
 consideration of all matters submitted to me ; and, should these humble qualifi- 
 cations appear to you insufficient, I shall accept your refusal to support me as a 
 proof that, while you respect my character as a citizen, you are indisposed to 
 permit my imprudence to imperil it in a public station. 
 
 " I shall take an early opportunity of presenting myself before you at a 
 public meeting, for the holding of which I am now engaged in making 
 arrangements. 
 
 "I have, &c." 
 
 I have said that this address was never submitted to my political constituency. 
 It now goes before a far larger, nobler, and wiser constituency, and I humbly 
 but confidently ask you, electors of the vast electorate of Punch, whether great 
 and successful and honoured men have not put forth manifestoes more impudent, 
 less truthful ? if containing more, only an excess of that which degraded the 
 writer and insulted the readers ? 
 
 I do not say that mine is eloquent, profound, or even taking ; but it is the 
 composition of a sober man. (I have read some very intoxicated addresses 
 
184 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 since, which, if literature had a police office, might and ought to have been 
 taken up, charged with being "drunk and disorderly.") I do affirm that my 
 address is not that of a snob writing to snobs, but it is the sincere statement 
 of a man to his fellow-men of his desire to serve them, and his consciousness 
 of his defects. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was the night of my first meeting, and if, instead of the assumption of an 
 extremely wide-awake air, I had, with all the confiding simplicity and candour 
 of childhood, bravely and honestly confessed that I had made a terrible mistake 
 in consenting to become a candidate at all, I should to-day be very^much more 
 satisfied with the truthfulness of my nature than, I am grieved to say, I am. 
 As I entered one of a series of public apartments in various parts of my 
 electorate, which had been (as I was then informed, and subsequently in an 
 unpleasant way reminded) expressly retained for the convenience of myself and 
 friends during the election, I was received with one of the feeblest and dreariest 
 attempts at what the reporters style acclamation that I had ever witnessed. A 
 long table was admirably provided with business appliances for a full meeting 
 of my committee. My experience of election meetings has placed me in 
 possession of the articles necessary for the conduct of committee business. 
 Spirits of all kinds are indispensable ; hot water also plays a conspicuous part, 
 and it is regarded as a matter of the last importance that every one should 
 speak at once, and in tones of voice in no way subdued. The intelligence of 
 such a gathering, with the marvellous mode of conducting its deliberations, 
 struck me as being one of the most noticeable features of my canvass. As 
 everybody talked and nobody listened, the result was, no doubt, if we could 
 have ascertained it, a delightful unanimity of sentiment. At least, no man, 
 unless he had an uncontrollable spirit of contradiction, could commit himself 
 to opposing statements and opinions which he refused to hear. Somewhat 
 bewildered by the tumult, I was actually thinking about an escape from the 
 apartment, when I heard my name shouted from a hundred voices in the 
 streets, and, rapidly and incautiously advancing to the front windows I was 
 saluted with some applause, and boisterously exhorted by some, and sarcasti- 
 cally implored by others, to "go it, and not keep the public waiting. " Looking 
 down upon the sea of upturned faces, in none of which I could discover any 
 kindly feeling but that of pity, which shone in one or two intellectual counte- 
 nances, I confess my first resolve was to "go it " in the direction of my home, 
 and to be guilty of the discourtesy of keeping the public waiting for the rest of 
 the public's life. The scene was so new, so terrible my feebleness in the 
 presence of such an awful and irresponsible power as that before me oppressed 
 me so heavily the undisguised contempt for, the loud insolence of these 
 people towards, me excited an aversion mingled with terror. I should have, 
 I say, recoiled ; but providentially for the existence of a still subsisting but 
 delusive faith in my pluck, I became aware of the presence of a couple of pale- 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 185 
 
 faced, slight, and gentlemenly-looking men, whose sobriety and intelligence 
 were strikingly at variance with the intemperance and brutality of most of those 
 about them. The two were reporters ; and when I saw with what placid 
 patience they sat there, with their little slips before them and pencil in hand 
 with what calm indifference they glanced over that raging sea beneath with 
 what inoffensive and furtive curiosity they occasionally glanced at me, I was 
 ashamed of my cowardice, and bowed to the crowd. I shall not weary -my 
 readers with my own report of my speech. Indeed, the work would be 
 one of some difficulty, as I have no distinct recollection of a single sentence 
 of it. My memory is only full of unpleasing incidents the cries from the 
 crowd, the prominent and pertinacious interest taken by one gentleman in 
 a man bearing my name, and of whose life he expected me to give some 
 particulars of thrilling interest, and did not attempt to conceal his bitter dis- 
 appointment at my reticence. As it accidentally transpired that the object 
 of this engrossing anxiety had been hanged some years since, and as this was 
 the only information concerning the individual of which I was ever possessed, 
 I was of course unable to gratify the curiosity of my interrogator ; but he had 
 possessed the assemblage with a sense of the appropriateness and importance 
 of his examination; many were apparently of opinion that the unfortunate 
 deceased was an immediate relative of mine, and one gentleman ventured to 
 affirm that it was I myself, upon whose lips the audience were hanging, who 
 had been legally suspended ; and a large majority were manifestly of opinion 
 that my suspension ought to have taken place long since. Hoarse, trembling, 
 perspiring, humiliated and almost in tears, I thought of the sweet faces at my 
 own fireside of the loving tenderness of my household of the round, warm 
 arm of my wife encircling that neck about which the people below me would be 
 quite resigned to see a hempen collar, and I invoked upon the heads of all my 
 fellow-citizens a fearful curse an imprecation which dishonoured freedom and 
 degraded society, an anathema so terrible that, but for the necessity of procuring 
 that absolution which can alone be given to full confession, I should blush to 
 acknowledge. I d d the Constitution! 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The melancholy narrative of my experiences is drawing to a close. I could 
 have hardly believed that so much distress of mind, so much remorse for indis- 
 cretion, could be compressed into so short a space of time. The expense of 
 the agony also struck me as something fearful. The luxury of public grief is 
 beyond the means of a man of ordinary fortune. To lose the comforts of home, 
 to gain the intense hostility of men who were your friends yesterday, and to 
 become the subject of the compassion or contempt of those who are your 
 friends to-day all the pleasures of public life cost immense sums. The acci- 
 dental omission on the part of my committee to bury a copy of my address in 
 the columns of an obscure newspaper, was doubtless the cause of the appear- 
 ance in that journal of a biographical notice of me, which was certainly not of 
 V 
 
l86 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 a flattering character. The gratification of reading one's own life is usually 
 reserved only for that limited class whose acts and speeches are the materials 
 of national history. But in my case, obscurity even did not protect me. In 
 this veracious publication I became acquainted for the first time with many 
 important circumstances in my life, and ascertained that in a humble and 
 quiet way I had industriously earned a rascally reputation. I was surprised at 
 the discovery. I learnt with horror that I was untruthful, and with terror that 
 I was a trimmer. When I thought upon the practical falsehood of addressing 
 my committee as "gentlemen" (of which I had been repeatedly guilty), I was 
 compelled to acknowledge the truth of the first charge ; when I reflected upon 
 my abhorrence, both of my supporters and antagonists, I was obliged to admit 
 that the second was not entirely without foundation. Still I lamented that the 
 world believed me to be an impostor, and I grieved that I should have been 
 instrumental in obtaining a public expression of the world's opinion. 
 
 The circulation of my biography was very much enlarged by the admiration 
 for it, as a purely literary work, entertained and proclaimed by the friends of my 
 opponent. A large number of copies of the journal in which it appeared were 
 immediately procured, and promptly disseminated through the electorate. The 
 life appeared to excite very great attention and interest, but little astonishment. 
 I discovered that the public presumed me to be a rogue or a fool, and that 
 the indication of popular opinion was decidedly in favour of the adoption of 
 the first view of my character. I have only incidentally alluded to my opponent. 
 I shall not, I trust, in describing him wound charity, cause pain, or stain these 
 pages so generously given up to my confessions. My opponent was a gentle- 
 man whose commercial career had not been a success, and I was astonished to 
 learn that his creditors were not among the most prominent of his supporters. 
 His opinions appeared to me somewhat revolutionary, and his oratory of an 
 extremely boisterous character. His voice was eminently suited to the require- 
 ments of a monster meeting held during a gale of wind. But perhaps the most 
 remarkable thing about him was the intense malignity which he invariably 
 displayed towards myself. Anything like the bitterness of this animosity I had 
 never witnessed before, and being a creature fond of inspiring love and attach- 
 ment, I deplored this unreasonable malevolence almost with tears. His 
 frequently and forcibly expressed contempt for my opinions, expressive of my 
 incompetency, and denunciation of my baseness, were universally greeted with 
 loud demonstrations of approval. I was informed of the vigour of his eloquence, 
 and I resolved to hear him. I attended one of his meetings, concealed myself 
 in a convenient corner, and heard him. He was so utterly unscrupulous, so 
 unnecessarily violent, so cool and confident in misrepresentation, so courageous 
 in slander, that I felt a virtuous craven in the presence of such heroism. I 
 bowed in spirit before his superiority for public life. I felt (and perhaps I 
 thanked heaven for the feeling) that I was not, and could not be, the equal of 
 this man. I repented of my presumption, and commenced my atonement. 
 The first fruits of my repentance were seen in my immediate abandonment of 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 1 87 
 
 the canvass; the last are now submitted to you Peccavi! Father Punch, 
 Peccavi ! Absolve, and let me go ! 
 
 Some of the minor characters in our political drama are described 
 in the following papers, entitled Political Snobs, by One of Themselves: 
 
 When the great historian of Snobs resolved upon the re-publication of his noble 
 work, he purposely omitted the precious papers on Political Snobs. His reasons 
 will be found in a foot-note, and are sufficiently strong to inspire a reasonable 
 apprehension of failure in the endeavour to imitate so illustrious a master. But 
 it may be urged in our favour that we are in this country essentially political. 
 We have no "Noble Snobs," no "Military Snobs,-" and very few "Party- 
 giving Snobs;" but we do possess a host of political Snobs, and the present 
 serene season of politics seems specially suited to the portraiture of some of 
 them by one of themselves. Now that Parliament is closed, that our indolent 
 snobs have no occupation of a more improving character than perusing these 
 pages, we shall not be charged with political hostility. We shall escape the 
 perils of privilege, and avoid the ignominy of being quoted in the House. The 
 most prominent of our political snobs the one deserving most censure is the 
 man who is perpetually on the watch for flagrant offences among the subordinates 
 of the Government. He is fond of a continual search in each of the Govern- 
 ment offices, would haveporters detective policemen, and office-keepers spies. 
 To gratify his passion for information, the contents of the waste-paper should 
 be preserved, indexed, and bound ; blotting paper pads should be seized each 
 evening, and kept under lock and key till impressions were read. His notion 
 of the contract between the State and its servants is that the latter sell not only 
 their service, but their privacy of life, their sensibilities, their secrets, to the 
 former. He has no difficulty in asking the House to consent to the production 
 of returns shewing, in a tabular form, the number of times in each day on which 
 various officers have left their desks, or writing tables, with the causes or 
 pretences of their absence whether they are in the habit of looking about more 
 than is absolutely necessary and whether they are ever thirsty between 9 and 4, 
 with some account of the preparations used to quench thirst. This important 
 information is published for the snob's gratification, and to the terror of the 
 unhappy wretches who may have snatched a moment to write to a sick wife, or 
 a boy at school or who may have gone out for a glass of beer, or profaned the 
 majesty of a public department by procuring from an adjoining public a couple of 
 glasses of sherry and a biscuit. Oh, think, my dear snob, for these letters are 
 written for your edification and improvement not to expose and chastise, but 
 to counsel and instruct you think, I say, what a melancholy fate were yours if 
 heaven had determined that you should be a gentleman and a public officer ! 
 Reflect upon the strange dispensation of Providence, which has made you a 
 
1 88 WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 much higher a far more powerful creature a snob and a member of Parliament. 
 You might have had the training, and the consequent necessities of a poor 
 swell, with the responsibilities of a large and young family. You might have 
 experienced the bitter trials of supporting and educating these children upon a 
 sum barely sufficient to humbly feed, and not extravagantly clothe them and 
 yourself. You might have felt the double misery of an increasing family and a 
 decreasing income. Oh, snob, if you thought sometimes of these things, you 
 would not dare to cry so loudly in divisions on the estimates against that little 
 increase of ^25 or ^30 to Brown's or Jones's salary. That little increase on 
 the paper tells perhaps of a large increase in poor Brown's or Jones's family. 
 The last baby, snob, is to be carried through all his infantile ailments by that 
 little sum. Nurse and accoucheur have to be paid, little comforts to be 
 bought for poor Mrs. B. or Mrs. J., and the coral, and the electro-plated mug 
 all look for payment to the increase. How much more merciful, tender-hearted, 
 and nobler you would become, did you think for awhile over these matters. 
 Don't be too exacting ; throw down that duster which you are eternally flipping 
 about desks and tables. Disregard the advice of Ovid (if you know what it 
 was), "si milhis erit pulvis, tamen excute mtllum." Go down to J. or B. and 
 humbly and affectionately ask them to translate it for you, and resolve not to 
 do it again. When you feel tempted to be too patriotic, let the angelic image 
 of the infant J. or B. rise before your mind's eye, and vote the child his baby- 
 linen and his go-cart. Contrast that helpless dependent upon your political 
 conduct with the independent little Parliamentary snobs who enliven your 
 leisure and noisily gladden your private life. Reflect upon the possible calamity 
 of their little shoes appearing upon a " Supplementary Estimate," and a heart- 
 less majority being against the procurement of those necessary articles of costume. 
 And when the dread possibility softens your heart, and disposes you to clemency, 
 thank the snob who has suggested the means of your regeneration. 
 
 A second paper treats The Omniscient Snob : 
 
 One of the most conclusive proofs of the genius and wisdom of our Consti- 
 tution is the high degree of cultivation which characterises our public men. 
 Yesterday Brown may have been a deficient arithmetician, struggling with 
 educational and pecuniary difficulties to-day he is a member of the Assembly, 
 fitted to discuss the most complicated questions, and to control the expenditure 
 of a nation. Last week his intelligence was severely taxed in the negotiation of 
 an insignificant piece of paper at which bank clerks smiled, and which directors 
 peevishly put aside not anticipating the possible historic value of the autograph 
 with which it was adorned. Last night, from his place in the House, he voted 
 for the issue of debentures to the extent of half a million, and spoke familiarly 
 of the money markets of Europe. You perceive that Brown must have under- 
 gone a marvellous change. In the instant of his return to Parliament he who 
 
WILLIAM BEDE D ALLEY. 189 
 
 knew no more of figures than you or I became not merely an accountant, but a 
 financier. How is this transformation effected ? Brown's friends are astounded 
 his enemies endeavour to conceal their surprise beneath a mask of incredulity 
 and the only person who seems to preserve his self-possession and manifest 
 no astonishment is, Brown himself. We must confess that we are ourselves 
 believers in the inspiration of the representative system, if we may be permitted 
 so to describe the intellectual change which takes place in an elected senator. 
 The reader will perceive that this confession of faith is limited to the elected 
 the chosen of the populace ; for in the case of the nominated senators no such 
 transition is noticeable. These gentlemen remain precisely as they were men 
 of genius or the reverse of academical training or mere commercial education. 
 They cannot graduate in the Political University which showers its learning and 
 honour upon the friends of the people instructs them de omni scibili. Let us 
 take an illustration of this surprising faculty to deal with the most difficult 
 matters in the most masterly manner.. Civil engineering is generally looked 
 upon as a profession requiring the possession of average intelligence considerable 
 mathematical education a large space of a student's life with varied expe- 
 rience and opportunities for experimental study. Jones, we know, did not 
 employ his early years in bewildering studies of Archimedes or Euclid, nor 
 waste his riper manhood under Brunei and Stephenson. Indeed, we are pretty 
 well aware (living in a small community where biographical dictionaries of our 
 remarkable men could be written by almost anybody) that Jones was permitted 
 the fullest natural development without the restraints of any kind of scholastic 
 discipline, and in his mature age knew no more of these matters than he might 
 have attained in the deviation of water-courses to 4 his various claims on the 
 diggings. But Jones becomes a senator, and the construction of some mighty 
 viaduct is proposed for his consideration, involving the most intricate calcula- 
 tions, and enormous outlay. Convinced of its usefulness and importance, Jones 
 sanctions the expenditure ; but, in the progress of the work, doubts the scientific 
 accuracy of the estimate, disapproves of the design, and proposes important 
 alterations. The engineer is brought to the bar of the House and is examined 
 by Jones cross-examined by Brown and again examined by Jones. The 
 position of the engineer is a pitiable one. Fancy Porson, on Greek particles, 
 under the terrifying cross-examination of a body of sixth-form boys, with the 
 most absolute power to torture him at any length. Realise the late Duke of 
 Wellington on the movements of an army in the field similarly placed before a 
 tribunal of volunteer subalterns with commissions a fortnight old. And yet 
 these will give you a very faint idea of the position of the engineer, for the boys 
 know something of Greek, and the citizen soldiery a little of drill, but Jones 
 knows nothing absolutely nothing of engineering. And yet the officer 
 an accomplished and able man, it may be a conscientious public servant 
 perhaps (there are such phenomena, though Jones will not believe it) leaves 
 the bar with the conviction that both Jones and Brown are extremely dissatisfied. 
 They are. They propose a select committee (with power to send for persons 
 
IQO WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 
 
 and papers) to enquire into the plans, specifications, and progress of the work. 
 The motion is carried, and the awful .tribunal is created. Jones is, of course, 
 the president ; and, from day to day, shell-hand writers are employed 
 chronicling the interminable examinations of contractors, engineers, and all 
 kinds of officers, of Government. The reporter does more (he puts the inter- 
 rogatories into English), and months afterwards a report is published condemn- 
 ing everybody engaged in the work and glorifying Jones and his friends. 
 Now what does this all mean ? Well, it means in the first place a partial 
 suspension of the efficient performance of important public duties ; it means the 
 disorganization of departments the encouragement of popular suspicion of all 
 intelligence in the public service ; and it lastly means a most shameful extrava- 
 gance of public money in printing the memorials of Jones's audacious ignorance 
 and intolerable self-sufficiency. A fellow like this would examine Ericsson on 
 his caloric engine before a select committee, and report a condemnation of 
 his slide valves, his cylindei's, and his pistons. As of engineering so of any 
 other question submitted to the House. This kind of man may be described as 
 the omniscient snob. And, oh ! my brothers and sisters of snobbery, when we 
 think how great men have devoted their precious lives to profound study, and 
 how diffidently, how humbly, they have spoken of themselves how generously 
 of others in the end, shall we not do well to remonstrate with the senatorial 
 snob of whom this paper treats. Is it not an insult to education, and an outrage 
 of our sensibilities, to tolerate his dictatorship ? Why should we suppose that 
 men of high position, superior training, and large responsibilities, are necessarily 
 asses or rogues when they take the pay of the Government. And yet this is 
 the fundamental principle upon which the reputation of the omniscient snob is 
 built. Let us denounce it and chastise him, and we shall become economists 
 of the public money, guardians of our own reputation, and priceless patriots. 
 
 It deserves to be pointed out that these sketches and every- 
 thing else from the same pen were written ' at the spur of the 
 moment/ and never subjected to revision. Most men who write 
 well do so at the expense of some labour, and their 'copy' is orna- 
 mented with many erasures. De Quincey's manuscript, we are told, 
 exhibits a degree of elaboration that would scarcely be credited. 
 Whatever may be the worth of Mr. Dalley's compositions, they 
 are certainly not the result of laborious efforts. A bitter satirist 
 once said of him that he possessed 'a mind of so much instinctive 
 grace and brilliancy, so much tact, as to manifest genius, and 
 genius of a charming nature.' He who wrote this had certainly no 
 intention to exaggerate. But Mr. Dalley's genius does not tend 
 
WILLIAM BEDE DALLEY. 19 1 
 
 to literature so much as to oratory. In the one, impromptu 
 manifestations of power go for little : in the other, they go for a 
 great deal. Now Mr. Dalley's qualifications as a speaker are 
 of a rare order. He has evidently a full command of language. 
 Let the reader examine the foregoing sketches Carefully, both as to 
 the construction of sentences and the selectioipjbf language. To 
 what exceptions are they open 1 The strongest impression they 
 convey is that of eloquence eloquence combined with graceful 
 humour and refined feeling. But we do not detect any evidence 
 of literary art in their composition. They do not present the 
 brilliant finish of what may be called magazine-writing a species 
 of writing which is as much the result of art as any mechanical 
 process whatever. In conversation and in public speaking, Mr. 
 Dalley's powers of humour are irresistible; no gravity can be 
 proof against them ; and this humour is invariably clothed in 
 faultless diction. This indeed is the peculiarity of it. The 
 conversation of wits and humourists generally derives its charm 
 from the idea rather than the expression. In Mr. Dalley's case 
 the one is as exquisite as the other. Recollecting that he owes 
 absolutely nothing to the ' limce labor] and yet that, whether 
 writing or speaking, he displays an elegance of style that would 
 please the most fastidious critic, we may fairly conclude that the 
 gifts which nature has bestowed upon him are not often met with 
 even in much wider circles than our own. 
 
192 
 
 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 HENRY KENDALL was born at Ulladulla, near Shoalhaven, in 
 1842. His father was an officer in the Navy, and had served under 
 the celebrated Lord Dundonald. His death, which took place 
 soon after his son Henry was born, left his family in straitened 
 circumstances ; and his children consequently suffered in their 
 education. At the age of fourteen Henry Kendall went to sea, 
 and spent two years among the South Sea Islands. It is strange 
 that the poetry he has since written bears no traces of that period 
 of his life. 
 
 On his return to Sydney, Kendall made some attempt to study 
 law in the office of an attorney, but soon abandoned it. At this 
 time, he appears to have endured much suffering, and this, com- 
 bined with a natural despondency, has served to colour his 
 subsequent writings with a shade of morbid melancholy. None 
 of them are wholly free from it, and this peculiarity has done 
 much to affect their reception by the public. In 1862, he 
 collected various pieces, and published a volume. Considering 
 the circumstances under which this volume was produced the 
 author's youth, his privations, his want of sufficient education it 
 is entitled to the very highest praise. Its merit is so great as to 
 justify us in pronouncing it a work of genius. Let us compare 
 it with the " first volumes " of men renowned in letters, and see 
 how far it suffers in the comparison. To mention an unknown 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 193 
 
 writer in the same breath with the demigods of literature would 
 provoke ridicule ; but there can be no absurdity in examining the 
 earliest efforts of the demigods in question with a view to a 
 correct judgment of the work before us. In most cases we shall 
 find that, so far from this comparison being a damaging one to 
 Kendall, it is quite the reverse. If his fame be compelled to 
 rest upon the productions he has already published, then there is 
 certainly little chance of that fame being a very extensive one. 
 The value of his book lies principally in the promise it affords 
 of future excellence. It may be that Mr. Kendall is incapable 
 of higher efforts, and that he has already exhausted the powers 
 bestowed upon him. In that case, we can look for nothing but repe- 
 titions of what he has already written repetitions marked rather 
 by mannerism than by thought. That remains to be. seen. But, on 
 the other hand, it is equally possible that Mr. Kendall is capable 
 of infinitely higher things : and if so, it will be no small credit to 
 this colony that it should, at so early a period of its history, have 
 produced a man of great poetic genius. 
 
 One striking merit in Mr. Kendall's poetry is, that its colouring 
 is strictly local, and that he has endeavoured to give voice to the 
 majestic scenery of his native land. Whatever opinion may be 
 formed of his poetry, it cannot be denied that it is distinctly 
 Australian poetry. This is a hopeful sign ; inasmuch as it speaks 
 of a mind naturally original, and averse to imitation. He has not 
 commenced the practice of his Art by studying Tennyson, but by 
 studying the wild and splendid scenery that surrounded him at 
 his birth. His capacity in descriptive poetry is very great; in 
 fact, it appears to be the distinctive mark of his genius. He has 
 an artist's eye for a landscape, and if his shading is rather too 
 dark, his outlines are none the less true. No local writer has 
 reproduced the scenes familiar to us with so much effect. And 
 again, he has sought inspiration in the characters and events of 
 this country endeavouring to paint the wild society of the 
 
 interior as well as its peculiar scenery. He has chanted the 
 w 
 
194 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 savage melodies of the aboriginals painted the sufferings of the 
 explorers and given a poetic interest even to the life of stock- 
 men. These are facts which mark him out as an Australian poet, 
 and an original poet : for there is no writer in this field whom he 
 could imitate. This portion at least of his writings may be 
 pronounced perfect. 
 
 The agonizing catastrophe of Burke's Expedition to the Gulf 
 of Carpentaria is thus rendered by Mr. Kendall, under the title 
 of The Fate of the Explorers a Fragment : 
 
 Set your face toward the darkness tell of Deserts weird and wide, 
 Where unshaken woods are huddled, and low languid waters glide ; 
 Turn and tell of deserts lonely; lying pathless, deep, and vast, 
 Where in utter silence ever Time seems slowly breathing past ; 
 Silence only broken when the sun is flecked with cloudy bars, 
 Or when tropic squalls come hurtling underneath the sultry stars ! 
 Deserts thorny, hot, and thirsty, where the feet of men are strange, 
 And Eternal Nature sleeps in solitudes which know no change. 
 Weakened with their lengthened labours, past long plains of stone and sand, 
 Down those trackless wilds they wandered, travellers from a far-off land ; 
 Seeking now to join their brothers ; struggling on with faltering feet, 
 For a glorious work was finished, and a noble task complete. 
 And they dreamt of welcome faces dreamt that soon unto their ears 
 Friendly greetings would be thronging with a nation's well-earned cheers ; 
 Since their courage never failed them, but with high unflinching soul, 
 Each was pressing forward hoping, trusting all should reach the goal. 
 
 Though he rallied in the morning, long before the close of day 
 He had sunk, the worn-out hero, fainting, dying, by the way ! 
 But with Death he wrestled hardly : three times rising from the sod, 
 Yet a little further onward o'er the weary waste he trod ; 
 Facing Fate with heart undaunted, still the chief would totter on, 
 Till the evening closed about him, till the strength to move was gone. 
 
 Then he penned his latest writing, and, before the life was spent, 
 Gave the records to his comrade ; gave the watch he said was lent ; 
 Gave them with his last commandments, charging him that night to stay, 
 And to let him lie unburied when the soul had passed away. 
 
 Through that night he uttered little, rambling were the words he spoke; 
 And he turned and died in silence, when the tardy morning broke. 
 Many memories come together, whilst in sight of death we dwell, 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 195 
 
 Much of sweet and sad reflection through the weary mind must well ; 
 As those long hours glided past him, till the east with light was fraught, 
 Who may know the mournful secret who can tell us what he thought ? 
 
 Very lone and very wretched was the brave man left behind, 
 Wandering over leagues of waste land, seeking, hoping help to find ; 
 Sleeping in deserted wurleys ; fearful, many nightfalls through, 
 Lest unfriendly hands should rob him of his hoard of wild nardoo. 
 
 'Ere he reached their old encampment 'ere the well-known spot he gained, 
 Something nerved him something whispered, that his other chief remained. 
 So he searched for food to give him, trusting they might both survive 
 Till the aid so long expected from the cities should arrive ; 
 So he searched for food, and took it to the gunyah, where he found 
 Silence broken by his footfalls death and darkness on the ground. 
 
 Weak and wearied with his journey, there the lone survivor stooped ; 
 And the disappointment bowed him, and his heart with sadness drooped. 
 But he rose and raked a hollow with his wasted feeble hands, 
 Where he t;ook and hid the hero, in the rushes and the sands ; 
 But he like a brother laid him out of reach of wind and rain, 
 And for many days he sojourned near him on that wild-faced plain. 
 Whilst he stayed beside the ruin whilst he lingered with the Dead, 
 Oh ! he must have sat in shadow, gloomy as the tears he shed. 
 
 Where our noble Burke was lying where his sad companion stood, 
 Came the natives of the Forest came the wild men of the Wood ; 
 Down they looked and saw the stranger he who there in quiet slept 
 Down they knelt, and o'er the chieftain bitterly they moaned and wept : 
 Bitterly they mourned to see him all uncovered to the blast 
 All uncovered to the tempest as it wailed and whistled past. 
 And they shrouded him with bushes, so in death that he might lie 
 Like a warrior of their nation, sheltered from the stormy sky. 
 
 Ye must rise and sing their praises, O ye bards with souls of fire ! 
 
 For the People's voice shall echo through the wailings of your lyre ; 
 
 And we'll welcome back their comrade, though our eyes with tears be blind 
 
 At the thoughts of promise perished, and the shadow left behind. 
 
 Now the leaves are bleaching round them now the gales above them glide, 
 
 But the end was all accomplished, and their fame is far and wide ; 
 
 Though this fadeless glory cannot hide a grateful nation's grief, 
 
 And their laurels have been blended with a gloomy cypress wreath. 
 
196 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 Let them rest where they have laboured ! but, my country, mourn and moan ; 
 
 We must build with human sorrow grander monuments than stone. 
 
 Let them rest, for oh ! remember, that in long hereafter time, 
 
 Sons of Science oft shall wander o'er that solitary clime ; 
 
 Cities bright shall rise about it : Age and Beauty there shall stray, 
 
 And the Fathers of the People pointing to the graves shall say, 
 
 "Here they fell, the glorious martyrs ! when these plains were woodlands deep; 
 
 Here a friend a brother laid them ; here the wild men came to weep." 
 
 Here is music in a livelier key, in the shape of a Song of the 
 Cattle-hunters. Those who are familiar with station life can hardly 
 fail to relish verse of this kind, where we have exquisite melody 
 combined with perfectly accurate description : 
 
 While the morning light beams on the fern-matted streams, 
 
 And the water-pools flash in its glow, 
 Down the ridges we fly, with a loud ringing cry 
 
 Down the ridges and gullies we go ! 
 And the cattle we hunt, they are racing in front, 
 
 With a roar like the thunder of waves ; 
 As the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet 
 Start the echoes away from their caves ! 
 As the beat and the beat 
 Of our swift horses' feet 
 Start the echoes away from their caves ! 
 
 Like a wintry shore that the waters ride o'er, 
 
 All the lowlands are filling with sound, 
 For swiftly we gain where the herds on the plain, 
 
 Like a tempest, are tearing the ground ! 
 And we'll follow them hard to the rails of the yard, 
 
 O'er the gulches and mountain-tops gray, 
 Where the beat and the beat of our swift horses' feet 
 Will die with the echoes away ! 
 
 Where the beat and the beat 
 Of our swift horses' feet 
 Will die with the echoes away ! 
 
 Another piece of the same kind, and equally good, is entitled 
 The Barcoo : 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 197 
 
 From the runs of the Narran, wide-dotted with sheep, 
 
 And loud with the lowing of cattle, 
 
 We speed for a Land where the strange Forests sleep, 
 
 And the hidden creeks bubble and brattle ! 
 
 Now call on the horses, and leave the blind courses 
 
 And sources of rivers that all of us know ; 
 
 For, crossing the ridges and passing the ledges, 
 
 And running up gorges, we'll come to the verges 
 
 Of gullies were waters eternally flow ! 
 
 Oh ! the herds they will rush down the spurs of the hill 
 
 To feed on the grasses so cool and so sweet ; 
 
 And I think that my life with delight will stand still 
 
 When we halt with the pleasant Barcoo at our feet. 
 
 Good-bye to the Barwan and brigalow scrubs ; 
 
 Adieu to the Culgoa ranges ! 
 
 But look for the malga, and salt-bitten shrubs, 
 
 Though the face of the forest-land changes. 
 
 The leagues we may travel down beds of hot gravel, 
 
 And clay-crusted reaches where moisture hath been, 
 
 While searching for waters, may vex us and thwart us, 
 
 Yet who would be quailing, or fainting, or failing ? 
 
 Not you, who are men of the Narran, I ween ! 
 
 When we leave the dry channels away to the South, 
 
 And reach the far plains we are journeying to, 
 
 We will cry, though our lips may be glued with the drouth, 
 
 " Hip, hip, and hurrah for the pleasant Barcoo !" 
 
 In the following verses, entitled Kooroora a dirge on the 
 death of an aboriginal chief we feel that true poetry may be drawn 
 from a source which is too often regarded as a degraded one : 
 
 The gums in the gully stand gloomy and stark ; 
 
 A torrent beneath them is leaping; 
 And the wind goes about like a ghost in the dark, 
 
 Where a chief of Wahibbi lies sleeping ! 
 He dreams of a battle of foes of the past, 
 But he hears not the whooping abroad on the blast, 
 Nor the fall of the feet that are travelling fast. 
 Oh ! why dost thou slumber, Kooroora ? 
 
 They come o'er the hills in their terrible ire, 
 And speed by the woodlands and water ; 
 
198 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 They look down the hills at the flickering fire, 
 
 All eager and thirsty for slaughter. 
 
 Lo ! the stormy moon glares like a torch from the vale, 
 And a voice in the beela grows wild in its wail, 
 As the cries of the Wanneroos swell with the gale 
 
 Oh ! rouse thee, and meet them, Kooroora. 
 
 He starts from his sleep and he clutches his spear, 
 
 And the echoes roll backward in wonder, 
 For a shouting strikes into the hollow woods near, 
 
 Like the sound of a gathering thunder. 
 He clambers the ridge, with his face to the light, 
 The foes of Wahibbi come full in his sight 
 The waters of Mooki will redden to-night. 
 Go ! and glory awaits thee, Kooroora. 
 
 Lo ! yeelamans splinter, and boomerangs clash, 
 
 And a spear in the darkness is driven ; 
 It whizzes along like a wandering flash 
 From the heart of a hurricane riven. 
 They turn to the mountains, that gloomy-browed band, 
 The rain droppeth down with a moan to the land, 
 And the face of a chieftain lies buried in sand 
 Oh ! the light that was quenched in Kooroora. 
 
 To-morrow the Wanneroo dogs will rejoice, 
 
 And feast in this desolate valley ; 
 But where are his brothers the friends of his choice ? 
 
 And why art thou absent, Ewalli ? 
 Now silence draws back to the forest again, 
 And the wind, like a wayfarer, sleeps on the plain, 
 But the cheeks qf a warrior bleach in the rain. 
 
 Oh ! where are thy mourners, Kooroora ? 
 
 Mr. Kendall, does not seem to have occupied himself much 
 with love affairs : yet there are two or three lyrics from his hand 
 which show his capacity to deal with the master passion of our 
 nature. Even they, however, are dark and gloomy, and speak of 
 disappointed hopes instead of lovers' joys. Here are some grace- 
 ful stanzas under the title of Clan : 
 
 Too cold, O my brother, too cold for my wife, 
 Is the Beauty you showed me this morning : 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 199 
 
 Nor yet have I found the sweet dream of my life, 
 
 And good-bye to the sneering and scorning. 
 Would you have me cast down in the dark of her frown, 
 
 Like others who bend at her shrine ; 
 And would barter their souls for a statue-like face 
 
 And a heart that can never be mine ? 
 
 That can never be theirs nor mine. 
 
 Go after her, look at her, kneel at her feet, 
 
 And mimic the lover romantic ; 
 I have hated deceit, and she misses the treat 
 
 Of driving me hopelessly frantic ! 
 Now watch her, as deep in her carriage she lies, 
 
 And love her, my friend, if you dare ! 
 She would wither your life with her beautiful eyes, 
 
 And strangle your soul with her hair ! 
 
 With a mesh of her splendid hair ! 
 
 The following, entitled The River and the Hill, has been quoted 
 in the Athenaum : 
 
 And they shook their sweetness out in their sleep, 
 
 On the brink of that beautiful stream, 
 But it wandered along with a wearisome song 
 Like a lover that walks in a dream : 
 So the roses blew 
 When the winds went through, 
 In the moonlight so white and so still ; 
 But the river it beat 
 All night at the feet 
 Of a cold and flinty hill 
 Of a hard and senseless hill ! 
 
 I said, "We have often showered our loves 
 
 Upon something as dry as the dust ; 
 And the faith that is crost, and the hearts that are lost 
 Oh ! how can we wittingly trust : 
 
 Like the stream which flows, 
 And wails as it goes, 
 
 Through the moonlight so white and so still, 
 To beat and to beat 
 All night at the feet 
 Of a cold and flinty hill 
 Of a hard and senseless hill ! 
 
200 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 " River, I stay where the sweet roses blow, 
 
 And drink of their pleasant perfumes ! 
 Oh ! why do you moan, in this wide world alone, 
 When so much affection here blooms ? 
 The winds wax faint, 
 And the Moon like a Saint 
 Glides over the waters so white and so still ; 
 But you hear me and beat 
 All night at the feet 
 Of that cold and flinty hill 
 Of that hard and senseless hill !" 
 
 4 
 
 The following is entitled Etheline : 
 
 The heart that once was rich with light, 
 
 And happy in your grace, 
 Now lieth cold beneath the scorn 
 
 That gathers on your face ; 
 And every joy it knew before, 
 
 And every templed dream, 
 Is paler than the dying flash 
 
 On yonder mountain stream. 
 The soul, regretting foundered bliss, 
 
 Amid the wreck of years, 
 Hath mourned it with intensity 
 
 Too deep for human tears. 
 
 The floweret fadeth underneath 
 
 The blast that rushes by 
 The forest leaves are white with death, 
 
 But Love will never die ! 
 We both have seen the starry moss, 
 
 That clings where Ruin reigns, 
 And one must know his lonely breast 
 
 Affection still retains ; 
 Though all the budding hopes of life 
 
 That clustered round and round, 
 Are lying now, like withered blooms, 
 
 Forsaken on the ground. 
 
 'Tis hard to think of what we were, 
 And what we might have been, 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 2OI 
 
 Had not an evil spirit crept 
 
 Across the tranquil scene : 
 Had fervent feelings in your soul 
 
 Not failed nor ceased to shine 
 As pure as those existing on, 
 
 And burning still in mine : 
 Had every treasure at your feet 
 
 That I was wont to pour, 
 Been never thrown like worthless weeds 
 
 Upon a barren shore. 
 
 The bitter edge of grief has passed, 
 
 I would not now upbraid ; 
 Or count to you the broken vows 
 
 So often idly made. 
 I would not cross your path to chase 
 
 The falsehood fi-om your brow, 
 I know, with all that borrowed light, 
 
 You are not happy now : 
 Since those that once have trampled down 
 
 Affection's early claim, 
 Have lost a peace they need not hope 
 
 To find on earth again. 
 
 In a different style we have the following stanzas, entitled 
 Campaspe : 
 
 Turn from the ways of this woman ! Campaspe we call her by name 
 She is fairer than flowers of the fire she is brighter than brightness of flame. 
 As a song that strikes swift to the heart with the beat of the blood of the South, 
 And a light and a leap and a smart, is the play of her perilous mouth. 
 Her eyes are as splendours that break in the rain at the set of the sun, 
 But turn from the steps of Campaspe a woman to look at and shun. 
 
 Dost thou know of the cunning of Beauty ? Take heed to thyself and beware 
 
 Of the trap in the droop of the raiment the snare in the folds of the hair ! 
 
 She is fulgent in flashes of pearl, the breeze with her breathing is sweet, 
 
 But fly from the face of the girl there is death in the fall of her feet ! 
 
 Is she maiden or marvel of marble ? O rather a tigress at wait 
 
 To pounce on thy soul for her pastime a leopard for love and for hate. 
 
 Woman of shadow and furnace ! She biteth her lips to restrain 
 Speech that springs out when she sleepeth by the stirs and the starts of her pain. 
 X 
 
2O2 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 As music half-shapen of sorrow,- with its wants and its infinite wail 
 Is the voice of Campaspe the beauty at bay with her passion dead-pale. 
 Go out from the courts of her loving, nor tempt the fierce dance of desire 
 Where thy life would be shrivelled like stubble in the stress and the fervour ot 
 fire. 
 
 I know of one, gentle as moonlight she is sad as the shine of the moon 
 But touching the ways of her eyes are : she comes to my soul like a tune, 
 Like a tune that is filled with faint voices of the loved and the lost and the 
 
 lone, 
 
 Doth this stranger abide with my silence : like a tune with a tremulous tone. 
 The leopard, we call her Campaspe ! I pluck at a rose and I stir 
 To think of the sweet-hearted maiden what name is too tender for her ! 
 
 Under the title of Fainting by the way, Mr. Kendall gives us a 
 * Psalm of Life ' that some readers may prefer to Longfellow's : 
 
 Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away, 
 Where the south wind seldom wanders, and the winters will not stay; 
 Lurid wastelands, pent in silence thick with hot and thirsty sighs, 
 Where the scanty thorn leaves twinkle with their haggard hopeless eyes ; 
 Furnaced wastelands, hunched with hillocks like to stony billows rolled 
 Where the naked flats lie swirling, like a sea of darkened gold ; 
 Burning wastelands, glancing upward with a weird and vacant stai'e, 
 Where the languid heavens quiver o'er red depths of stirless air ! 
 
 " O my brother, I am weary of this wildering waste of sand ; 
 In the noontide we can never travel to the promised land ! 
 Lo, the desert broadens round us, glaring wildly in my face, 
 With long leagues of sunflame on it O, the barren, barren place ! 
 See, behind us gleams a green plot : shall we thither turn and rest 
 Till a cool wind flutters over, till the day is down the west ? 
 I would follow but I cannot ! Brother, let me here remain, 
 For the heart is dead within me, and I may not rise again !" 
 
 " Wherefore stay to talk of fainting? rouse thee for awhile, my friend, 
 Evening hurries on our footsteps, and this journey soon will end. 
 Wherefore stay to talk of fainting when the sun, with sinking fire, 
 Smites the blocks of broken thunder blackening yonder craggy spire. 
 Even now the far-off landscape broods and fills with coming change, 
 And the wither'd moon grows brighter bending o'er that shadowed range ; 
 At the feet of grassy summits sleeps a water calm and clear, 
 There is surely rest beyond it ! comrade, wherefore falter here ? 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 203 
 
 " Yet a little longer struggle ; we have walked a wilder plain, 
 
 And have met more troubles, trust me, than we e'er shall meet again ! 
 
 Can you think of all the dangers you and I are living through, 
 
 With a soul so weak and fearful, with the doubts / never knew ? 
 
 Dost thou not remember that the thorns are clustered with the rose, 
 
 And that every Zinlike border may a pleasant land enclose ? 
 
 Oh ! across these sultry deserts, many a fruitful scene we'll find, 
 
 And the blooms we gather shall be worth the wounds they leave behind." 
 
 " Ah, my brother, it is useless ! see, o'erburdened with their load, 
 All the friends who went before us fall or falter by the road ; 
 We have come a weary distance seeking what we may not get, 
 And I think we are but children chasing rainbows through the wet ! 
 Tell me not of vernal valleys ! Is it well to hold a reed 
 Out for drowning men to clutch at in the moments of their need ? 
 Go thy journey on without me, it is better I should stay, 
 Since my life is like an evening fading, swooning fast away ! 
 
 " Where are all the springs you talked of? Have I not with pleading mouth 
 Looked to Heaven through a silence stifled in the crimson drouth ? 
 Have I not, with lips unsated, watched to see the fountains burst, 
 Where I searched the rocks for cisterns, and they only mocked my thirst ? 
 Oh ! I dreamt of countries fertile, bright with lakes and flashing rills 
 Leaping from their shady caverns, streaming round a thousand hills ! 
 Leave me, brother, all is fruitless, barren, measureless, and dry, 
 And my God will never help me, tho' I pray, and faint, and die. " 
 
 " Up ! I tell thee this is idle ! O thou man of little faith ! 
 Doubting on the verge of Aidenn, turning now to covet death ! 
 By the fervent hopes within me, by the strength which nerves my soul, 
 By the heart that yearns to help thee, we shall live and reach the goal ! 
 Rise and lean thy weight upon me. Life is fair, and God is just, 
 And He yet will show us fountains if we only look and trust ! 
 O ! I know it, and He leads us to the glens of stream and shade, 
 Where the low sweet waters gurgle round the banks which cannot fade." 
 
 Thus he spake, my friend and brother ! and he took me by the hand, 
 And I think we walked the desert till the night was on the land ; 
 Then we came to flowery hollows, where we heard a far-off stream 
 Singing in the moony twilight like the rivers of my dream. 
 And the balmy winds came tripping softly through the pleasant trees, 
 And I thought they bore a murmur like a voice from sleeping seas. 
 So we travelled, so we reached it, and I never more will part 
 With the peace, as calm as sunset, folded round my weary heart. 
 
204 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 Here is an old Australian legend, entitled Ghost Glen, pro- 
 nounced by the Athenaum to be a poem which, ' once read, must 
 linger on the memory in its weird horror' : 
 
 " Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now 
 For the paths are grown over ; untrodden by men now 
 Shut your ears, stranger ! " saith the grey mother, crooning 
 Her sorcery Runic, when sets the half-moon in ! 
 
 To-night the North-Easter goes travelling slowly, 
 But it never stoops down to that Hollow unholy 
 To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten, 
 But it cannot abide in that Forest sin-smitten ! 
 
 For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing, 
 
 And with never a body, two shadows stand sawing ! 
 
 The wraiths of two sawyers (step under and under), 
 
 Who did a foul murder, and were blackened with thunder ! 
 
 Whenever the storm-wind comes driven and driving, 
 Through the blood-spattei'ed timber you may see the saw striving 
 You may see the saw heaving, and falling, and heaving, 
 Whenever the sea-creek is chafing and grieving ! 
 
 And across a burnt body, as black as an adder, 
 Sits the sprite of a sheep-dog ? was ever sight sadder ! 
 For as the dry thunder splits louder and faster, 
 The spiite of a sheep-dog howls for his master ! 
 
 "Oh! count your beads deftly," saith the grey mother, crooning 
 
 Her sorcery Runic, when sets the half-moon in ! 
 
 And well may she mutter, for the dark hollow laughter 
 
 You will hear in the sawpits and the bloody logs after ! 
 
 Ay, count your beads deftly, and keep your ways wary, 
 For the sake of the Saviour and sweet Mother Mary ! 
 Pray for your peace in these perilous places, 
 And pray for the laying of horrible faces ! 
 
 One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid, 
 
 Aghast at the lightnings, sudden and vivid ! 
 
 One telleth with curses the gold that they drew there 
 
 (Ah ! cross your breast humbly) from him who they slew there ! 
 
HENRY KENDALL. 205 
 
 The stranger who came from the loved the romantic 
 Island that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic ; 
 Leaving behind him patient homes yearning 
 For the steps in the distance, never returning ; 
 
 Who was left in the Forest, shrunken, and starkly 
 Burnt by his slayers (so men have said darkly) ; 
 With the half-crazy sheep-dog, who cowered beside there, 
 And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there ! 
 
 Yea, cross your breast humbly, and hold your breath tightly, 
 
 Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly ; 
 
 From the set staring features (cold, and so young too !) * 
 
 And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung too. 
 
 I tell you, the Bushman is braver than most men, 
 Who even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen ! 
 Although in that Hollow, unholy and lonely, 
 He sees the dark sawpits and bloody logs only ! 
 
 There is a degree of originality and power about these produc 
 tions which is not often met with. No author can be pointed out 
 as the obvious model on which they were framed. The writer's 
 style, as regards both thought and expression, is peculiarly a style 
 of his own. If, for instance, we compare the various descriptive 
 poets in the language, we shall not find one whose mode of treat- 
 ment bears much resemblance to Mr. Kendall's. This may arise 
 from the difference between English and Australian scenery ; but 
 if we take in the American poets also, we shall yet fail to find one 
 who has painted scenery in similar colours. It is this originality 
 of style which no doubt gives rise to the charge of obscurity so 
 often brought against Mr. Kendall's poems. He uses language of 
 his own. To some extent, this amounts to mannerism : but, on 
 the whole, he deserves commendation for his taste and judgment 
 in selecting words. So far as thought is concerned, he does occa- 
 sionally become obscure that is he fails to bring out his meaning 
 distinctly, and leaves upon the reader's mind only some vague 
 impresssion of solemnity. This, however, does not occur so fre- 
 
206 HENRY KENDALL. 
 
 quently as to justify the charge. As Coleridge says, " A poem is 
 not necessarily obscure because it does not aim to be popular. It 
 is enough if a work be perspicuous to those for whom it is written, 
 and ' fit audience find, though few.' " There are not many readers 
 of a cultivated class who can experience much difficulty in com- 
 prehending Mr. Kendall's writings, if they choose. 
 
 Judging from what he has already written, his genius lies wholly 
 in a lyrical direction. He has manifested power in no other form 
 of poetry : but in so young a writer, it is impossible to decide the 
 limits of his power. The lyrics he has written are by far the finest 
 that have yet been written in Australia. They are distinguished by 
 perfect harmony of versification, as well as by force of conception ; 
 and altogether they form a nearer approach to what we conceive to 
 be genius, as opposed to talent, than any other poetry we have yet 
 produced. Should he live to realise the anticipations that have 
 been formed of him, his name will reflect a lasting honour on his 
 native country. 
 
HENRY HALLORAN. 207 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 
 
 ONE of the latest contributions from Mr. Deniehy's pen was the 
 following critique of his friend Mr. HALLORAN'S writings. It will 
 therefore be read with a double interest : 
 
 For upwards of twenty years the poems of Hemy Halloran, scattered through 
 newspapers and magazines, have been before the public. A scholar as well as 
 a poet, as Mr. Halloran is, they are remarkable for classic gi-ace. Not, reader, 
 as that phrase is too generally misunderstood, since the " Augustan Age" of 
 English literature colourless studies from Greek and Roman originals. They 
 are inspirations, almost always overflowing with tenderness, often of very great 
 beauty, but always confined within strict boundaries, such as the ancient poets 
 accepted. Everywhere exhibiting what modern writers, with the single excep- 
 tion of Matthew Arnold, seem bent on ignoring a sense of poetic form. A 
 poem published many years ago, " The Descent of Orpheus," is for classic 
 " feeling," (as sculptors and painters phrase it, and we know no better word 
 for the thing indicated) remarkable even in this age, when poets grow every 
 where, plentifully as " geebungs " and " five-corners " were wont in the woods 
 of our boyhood. 
 
 Mr. Halloran's domestic verses, as we believe it is the fashion to style a cer- 
 tain class of poetry since the "Delta" of "Blackwood" so named a collection of 
 his poems, have always been favourites of ours. For manly gentleness, for 
 tenderness, for grace, for an imagery with classic delicacy of its own, like the 
 bas-reliefs on an antique vase, they will always endear themselves to lovers of 
 the muse in her gentler moods. Some of his translations from the Greek of 
 Anacreon are perfectly charming ; and we only wish we had at hand some 
 copies of defunct colonial periodicals to present our readers with specimens. 
 
 How graceful, how thoroughly Greek in feeling, is the following, published 
 many years ago. The " stem of roses " would have pleased Anacreon himself; 
 not, mind you, a rose solely, but a luxurious spray overbending with its wealth 
 of rich blooms, mayhap wet with the dews of the reddening dawn. The 
 verses might have come from the " Anthology." 
 
 I wish thou wert a stem of roses, 
 
 And I a golden bee to sip 
 The honey-dew that now reposes 
 
 In balmy kisses on thy lip. 
 
208 HENRY HALLORAN. 
 
 I wish thine eyes were violets blue, 
 
 And I a wand' ring western breeze, 
 To press them with my wings of dew, 
 
 And melt them into ecstacies ! 
 
 I wish thou wert a golden curl, 
 
 And I the myrtle-wreath that bound it ; 
 
 I wish thou wert a peerless pearl, 
 And I the casket to surround it. 
 
 I wish thou wert a lucid star, 
 
 And I the atmosphere about thee ; 
 But if we must be as we are, 
 
 Dearest, I cannot live without thee. 
 
 Some of his love-verses have the tenderness of the elder ballads ; and lines 
 from them often float upon our memory : 
 
 Had not false Fortune barred the way, 
 Had we but met in happier day ! 
 Perhaps these hearts had then been gay, 
 
 My Early Love. 
 
 Thy damask rose is changed for white, 
 Thine eyes are filled with mournful light 
 And I have known the Spirit's blight, 
 
 My Early Love. 
 
 But it is Mr. Halloran's verses connected with home affections that in our 
 opinion give him the truest title to the rank of poet. Before giving the reader 
 a specimen of these, (and to use Sir Philip Sydney's image, he must not think a 
 bunch of grapes fully sets out the character of the whole vineyard, ) we must notice 
 Mr. Halloran's lines on the death of George James M 'Donald, as one of the 
 most beautiful elegies produced anywhere for many years. Mr. M 'Donald, 
 formerly a Commissioner of Crown Lands, a man of eccentric habits, was not 
 only a remarkable scholar and a musician of exquisite endowment, but a poet, 
 as evinced by his "Lake of Swans," and his verses "To a Lady on Playing 
 a Movement of Beethoven's." The following are stanzas on " The Death of a 
 Child :" 
 
 Little Eddy ! little Eddy ! through the watches of the night 
 Does my tortured heart turn to thee in its anguish and affright, 
 And I see thee starkly lying with the foam upon thy lips, 
 And thy beauty fading, fading, in Death's terrible eclipse. 
 
HENRY HALLORAN. 209 
 
 Little Eddy ! little Eddy ! yet upon thy brow there lies 
 
 Such a look of quiet transport as is worn beyond the skies : 
 
 Dids't thou in that fatal moment look the veil's dim mystery through 
 
 Winning to that angel forehead something of the blissful view ? 
 
 Something that torching bosoms should this consolation give, 
 Where the Shepherd leads his loved ones, does our little lamb still live. 
 In the sweet green pastures resting, where the living waters flow, 
 Does he live whom we so wildly, vainly, weep for here below ? 
 
 But that little chair is empty doth the cot the sleeper lack ? 
 On the wall a cap hangs idly will the wearer not come back ? 
 Will the jocund voice that greeted fondly every eve and morn 
 Never speak again to make our lonely bosoms less forlorn ? 
 
 When the spring-birds wake the morning with their sweet and tender cries, 
 Shall we hear that voice of music echoing from beyond the skies ? 
 When the buds and flowers sweeten all our sadden'd home around, 
 Sweeter thoughts of him shall gather, him, our darling lost and found. 
 
 O'er the rugged hill-side toiling, to the valley faint and dim, 
 Will our wearied steps still bear us, drawing nearer still to him, 
 Near to him, our ravished treasure, whom we vainly thought to hold, 
 Hoping, fearing fearing, hoping, e'en as misers with their gold. 
 
 Mr. Halloran does not often write humourously. In the fol- 
 lowing verses, which furnish a fair specimen of his style of 
 thought, he gives his ideas on the subject of the Poet's mission. 
 The Three Poets are Harpur, Kendall, and the writer ; referred 
 to as Pipe No. i, Pipe No. 2, and the Queen's Cigar: the title of 
 the piece being The Bards' Colloquy. 
 
 Three Poets meeting in the public way, 
 
 Not men of much repute for wit or learning, 
 
 But somewhat cleaner than the common clay, 
 And each his bread by honest labour earning, 
 
 Walked on together, as plain people may, 
 Until they came unto a sudden turning, 
 
 Which led them out from the wild city's shocks 
 
 Into the coolness of the trees and rocks. 
 Y 
 
210 HENRY HALLORAN. 
 
 Over the pleasant grass they slowly went, 
 And to the margin of a gleaming bay, 
 
 Where the slant sunshine of the Occident 
 Its crimson glories in a wild display 
 
 Thro' every loophole in profusion sent ; 
 While the sweet influence of declining day^ 
 
 In mystic softness o'er their spirits stole, 
 
 Awakening the great power within, the Soul. 
 
 Two of the men old Time already numbered 
 
 With those who stand among the " sere and yellow"- 
 
 Altho' they were not by their years encumbered 
 
 But active, prompt, and not much more than mellow ; 
 
 The third was younger far, and might have slumbered 
 Some years, at least, and still been a " young fellow." 
 
 They threw them down upon a grassy bar, 
 
 Two lit their pipes, the third a " Queerfs Cigar" 
 
 Awhile they talked of things of small concern, 
 Of one man's blunders of another's spleen, 
 
 And what strange things come up at every turn, 
 And how bold knaves can often find a screen, 
 
 What pitiful betrayers secrets learn, 
 
 And then disclose them with some purpose mean : 
 
 They talked too of the lecturers and critics, 
 
 Of punsters, parodists, and analytics. 
 
 "Well," said the Queen's Cigar, who was the oldest, 
 ' ' These coxcombs prate of what they little know, 
 
 Awarding praise with impudence the boldest 
 To vulgar thought and language bald and low ; 
 
 As if that Art, which might inflame the coldest, 
 Or win the saddest bosom from its woe, 
 
 Were to be measured like a silk or muslin 
 
 By every criticising puppy's puzzling." 
 
 Pipe No. I, blowing a fragrant cloud, 
 
 Which curled among the fragrant leaves awhile, 
 
 Yawn'd a long yawn, and said, " I mark the crowd 
 Of little gentlemen whose pride, or bile, 
 
 Induces them to prate it rather loud 
 
 Almost enough to make a blind horse smile. 
 
 Like cats they mar the sweetness of the wind, 
 
 Offend the sense, but do not reach the mind. " 
 
HENRY HALLORAN. 211 
 
 Pipe No. 2, A bard with thinner skin, 
 
 As being younger, did not quite agree 
 " I think," said he, " 'tis little less than sin 
 
 To scoff at what should never scoffed at be ; 
 Divinest Art we follow, and to win 
 
 The crown of poesy were joy to me ; 
 And if the thing I seek be worth the task 
 Why should they scoff at such pursuit, I ask ?" 
 
 "But have we," said the Queer? s, "before us set 
 
 Fairly and truly what the high pursuit 
 Should be, 'as on a mount of diamond set ?' 
 
 Or are we following still with weary foot 
 A shadow, wandering only to regret 
 
 That we at last can pluck but hitter fruit ? 
 What is it, my friends, that you and I pursue ? 
 I say, the Unseen the Beautiful the True. 
 
 " On me, if I may speak, the thought is driven, 
 In the deep night when those I love repose, 
 
 That this high art of ours to us is given, 
 Whether our life be one of joys or woes 
 
 That the material darkness may be riven 
 
 Which still around us seems to grow and close ; 
 
 That we should pierce the Veil with glad surprise, 
 
 And read God's glories with enraptured eyes. 
 
 " All is not as it seems, full well we know, 
 
 And what we know is narrowed to a mite, 
 The star that to our eyes a point may shew, 
 
 Approached becomes a glorious world of light, 
 With flaming mountains, torrents in wild flow, 
 
 And splendours nameless, and yet infinite ; 
 What if our eyes, God's infinite splendour reach, 
 And we to men the revelation preach, 
 
 " How may we lead them, toiling as they do, 
 
 Into an atmosphere of wondering bliss, 
 We, seers of the unseen ; preachers too 
 
 Of the beheld ; travellers through the abyss 
 Of infinite creation, Heaven to view, 
 
 If we through baseness should the way not miss, 
 May it not be, my friends ! and, if it be, 
 How great the mission, both of you and me ? 
 
212 HENRY HALLORAN. 
 
 " How dread, if we by lust of fame beguiled, 
 Turn from the path, infatuate or vain, 
 
 Or swoll'n with pride or by low vice defiled, 
 Think only of ourselves, and selfish gain ; 
 
 I'd rather walk through life, even as a child 
 
 Wandering beside the ' much-resounding main, ' 
 
 Seeking from wreathed shell for sounds from God, 
 
 Than 'midst Golconda's jewels darkly plod. 
 
 " It cannot be, nor will I e'er believe, 
 That, what so stirs me in my better mind, 
 
 Is given me to bewilder and deceive ; 
 
 And leave me drifting down the desolate wind, 
 
 Down to the shadows which Despair can weave 
 For those who still are obstinately blind : 
 
 I see now darkly, but I pray for light, 
 
 Under the Sun, as in the darkest night. 
 
 ' ' And Light will come, if not to me, alas ! 
 
 To others, when the grass for centuries 
 Has grown and withered on my grave ; and as 
 
 The brighter Heaven shall shine on other eyes 
 The great Millennium will upon them pass, 
 
 And they the Mystery of Mysteries 
 Will gaze upon, which now I strive to reach, 
 And would prefigure in my verse and speech. 
 
 ' ' Torrents of light from yonder setting sun, 
 For ever fall throughout infinitude 
 
 Ceaseless, unbounded ; from the Eternal One 
 Another light in greater plenitude 
 
 Floods all the spiritual world, but vapours dun, 
 Material darkness, blind ingratitude 
 
 Amerce us of that light oh, brothers true ! 
 
 May we, the seers, pierce the darkness through ! 
 
 " The flow, and light, and splendour of all verse, 
 Tho' instinct with the music of the spheres, 
 
 Is discord dire, or even it is worse, 
 
 Without the piirpose that itself inspheres 
 
 Within that luminous breathing and a curse 
 It may be to the sensual ear that hears ; 
 
 What were the Universe if God was not ? 
 
 Such were the Art divine its aim forgot. 
 
HENRY HALLORAN. 213 
 
 " I know the pleasaunce of the faery lay ;- 
 
 I know how Love its radiant eyes will turn 
 And, gazing on the Past and Fufure, say 
 
 All that the Present feels, in words that burn ; 
 I know the verse in which rapt Hope can pray, 
 
 And how mute sorrow silently will yearn : 
 Nor I the jocund Earth's bright scenes despise, 
 But these are not our one great aim and prize. 
 
 " Friends ! I believe ye have the power, to aid 
 
 In this high work, to open to the view 
 Of those who sojourn with us in the shade, 
 
 The glimpses of the great Unseen ; the True 
 Hid in the shifting False ; not as a trade, 
 
 Not with the vulgar hope that we should strew 
 Fame on our graves, or magnify our dust, 
 But to fulfil our Heaven-committed trust." 
 
 Pipe No. I, arousing with a start, 
 
 Said, " Transcendentalism to the core ! 
 This, as I think, my friend ! is not our part : 
 
 Did Homer write for this? Did Milton soar? 
 Did Shakspere bare for this the human heart, 
 
 And all his wisdom, all his sweetness pour? 
 They painted Man and Nature as they are, 
 Your aim and purpose stretch, I think, too far. 
 
 " Life as it is, and its sweet charities, 
 
 The beauty and the splendour of this earth, 
 Shapen in wisdom by the Great All- Wise ; 
 
 The pastoral life its innocent joy and mirth 
 The storm of battle blotting the pure skies 
 
 The suffering virtue or the crowned worth : 
 The voice of Freedom, all that lives and breathes 
 Are for the glorious verse the poet wreathes. 
 
 "The slanting woods, on which the setting sun 
 Pours down his splendours for a slope of miles 
 
 Into the hushed vale, where the rivulets run 
 Like tender tears amidst Joy's sober smiles, 
 
 The mighty Ocean, the Eternal One 
 
 Flashing and thundering amidst countless isles : 
 
 These are the themes the poet should employ 
 
 These are my glory, these my utmost joy." 
 
214 HENRY HALLORAN. 
 
 Pipe No. 2, upstarting to his feet, 
 
 Lifted his pale hands towards the rising moon, 
 
 Which shewed the glory of her orb complete, 
 And said, " My friends, I'm rather out of tune, 
 
 But thank you for your converse, wild and sweet. 
 I grieve that we must part this eve so soon, 
 
 But as we homeward go I will disclose 
 
 What is to me as perfume to the rose. 
 
 " Fame is the sweetness of the poet's thought, 
 Whate'er my theme, my hope my life is fame ; 
 
 The hope of fame within my heart is wrought, 
 And clings around it like that garb of flame 
 
 That Hercules once wore, could it be bought 
 By death, it should be mine. The poet's name 
 
 In after time be mine ! I've prayed for it, 
 With sinful heart, o'er all that I have writ ! 
 
 ' ' In mossy caverns, by untrodden ways, 
 
 Have I conceived it my Egeria, 
 The unseen Goddess of my happiest days ! 
 
 A Voice has whispered, can that voice e'er err? 
 But the vile scorn of men now almost slays 
 
 That hope within me, and I fear to stir 
 Lest the base ribald, in his spleen, should mar 
 The beauty of my thought the lustre of my star. 
 
 ' ' I care not for the theme the single aim, 
 
 Stirring this weak heart, is that mine should be, 
 
 Among my countrymen, a household name, 
 When I am buried in some sunny lea, 
 
 Where the bright flowers start up, like jets of flame ; 
 And maidens as they con my page should see 
 
 The eyes that beamed with the fond hope that they 
 
 Should name my name, when I have passed away." 
 
 And the young poet clasped his hands on high, 
 Breathing perchance a prayer. The soberer two 
 
 Gazed on in pity, and forbore reply : 
 
 That that wild hope would pass full well they knew, 
 
 And he with higher purpose learn to sigh ; 
 
 They bade each other "friends a kind adieu" 
 
 Then to their several homes they straightway sped, 
 
 And as they went, their separate fancies fed. 
 
SIR T. L. MITCHELL. 215 
 
 Mr. Halloran was born in Cape Town in 1811, and after 
 spending ten years in England, came out to this colony, where he 
 has since resided. He is now Under-Secretary in the Colonial 
 Secretary's office. 
 
 SIR THOMAS L. MITCHELL'S Journals abound with passages of 
 interest. The following extract refers to the melancholy fate of 
 Mr. Richard Cunningham, a botanist attached to his Expedition. 
 He had wandered from the main party, and lost his way in the 
 bush. The search for him is thus narrated : 
 
 APRIL 25. Early this morning I despatched Mr. Larmer and the Doctor 
 (who was one of the two who had found the track) with Muirhead and Whiting, 
 and taking four days' provisions and water, this party was directed to look well 
 round the scrub, and on discovering the track to follow it wherever it led, 
 until they found Mr. Cunningham or his remains ; for in such a country I 
 began to despair of finding him alive, after such long absence. This party did 
 not return until the evening of the 28th, when all they brought of Mr. Cunning- 
 ham was his saddle and bridle, whip, one glove, two straps, and a piece of 
 paper folded like a letter, inside of which were cut (as with a pen-knife) the 
 letters N. E. Mr. Larmer reported that, having easily found the track of the 
 horse again beyond the scrub, they had followed it until they came to where 
 the horse lay dead, having still the saddle on and the bridle in its mouth ; the 
 whip and straps had been previously found, and from these circumstances, the 
 tortuous track of the horse, and the absence of Mr. Cunningham's own footsteps 
 for some way back from where the horse was found, it was considered that he 
 had either left the horse in despair, or that it had got away from him. At all 
 events, it had evidently died for want of water : but the fate of its unfortunate 
 rider was still a mystery. 
 
 It appeared from Mr. Larmer's map of Mr. Cunningham's track that he had 
 deviated from our line after crossing Bullock Creek, and had proceeded about 
 fourteen miles to the north-west, where marks of his having tied up his horse 
 and lain down, induced the party to believe that he had there passed the first 
 dreary night of his wandering. 
 
 From that point he appeared to have intended to return, and by the zig-zag 
 course he took he had either been travelling in the dark, or looking for his own 
 
2l6 SIR T. L. MITCHELL. 
 
 track that he might retrace it. In this manner his steps actually approached 
 within a mile of our route, in such a manner that he appeared to have been 
 going south while we had been travelling north (on the i8th). Thus he had 
 continued to travel southward, or south-south-west, full 14 miles, crossing his 
 own track not far from where he first left our route. On his left he had the dry 
 channel (Bullock Creek), with the water-gum trees,* full in view, without ever 
 looking into it for water ; had he observed this, and followed it downwards, 
 he must have found the route ; and had he traced it upwards, he must have 
 come upon the water-holes, where I had an interview with the two natives, and 
 thus, perhaps, have fallen in with me. From the marks of his horse having 
 been tied to four different trees at the extreme southern point which he reached, 
 it appeared that he had halted there some time, or there passed the second 
 night : that point was not much more than half a mile from my track out on 
 the 2 1st, being to the westward of it. From this point he had returned, keep- 
 ing still more to the westward, so that he actually fell in with my track of the 
 1 9th, and appeared to have followed it backwards for upwards of a mile, when 
 he struck off at a right angle to the north-west. 
 
 It was impossible to account for this fatal deviation, even had night, as most 
 of the party supposed, overtaken him there. It seemed that he had found my 
 paper directing him to trace my steps backwards, and that he had been doing 
 this where the paper marked " N. E. " had been found, and which I therefore 
 considered a sort of reply to my paper. If we were right as to the nights, this 
 must have taken place on the very day on which I had passed that way, my eye 
 eagerly catching at every dark-coloured distant object in hopes of finding him ! 
 After the deviation to the north-west, it appears that Mr. Cunningham had 
 made some detours about a clear plain, at one side of which his horse had been 
 tied for a considerable time, and where it is probable he had passed his third 
 night, as there were marks where he had lain down in the long dry grass. 
 From this point only his horse's tracks had been traced, not his own steps, 
 which had hitherto accompanied them ; and from the twisting and twining of 
 the horse's tracks to where it lay dead, we supposed he had not been with the 
 horse after it left this place. The whip and straps seemed to have been trod off 
 by the horse, from the bridle-reins to which Mr. Cunningham was in the 
 habit of tying his whip, and to which also the straps had probably been 
 attached, to afford the animal more room to feed when fastened to trees. 
 
 To the place, therefore, where Mr. Cunningham's own steps had last been 
 seen, I hastened on the morning of the 2Qth April with the same men, Muirhead 
 and Whiting, who had so ably and humanely traced all the tracks of the horse 
 through a distance of 70 miles. 
 
 The spot seemed well chosen as a halting-place, being at a few trees which 
 advanced beyond the rest of the wood into a rather extensive plain ; a horse, 
 
 * These trees being remarkable for their white shining trunks, resembling those of beech 
 trees. 
 
SIR T. L. MITCHELL. 2?7 
 
 tied there, could have been seen from almost any part around, and it is not 
 improbable that Mr. Cunningham left him there tied, and that he had afterwards 
 got loose, and had finally perished for want of water. 
 
 We soon found the print of Mr. Cunningham's footsteps in two places ; in 
 one, coming towards the trees where the horse had been tied from a thick 
 scrub east of them ; in the other, leading from these trees in a straight direction 
 northward. Pursuing these steps leading northward, we found them continuous 
 in that direction, and, indeed, remarkably long and firm, the direction being 
 preserved even through thick brushes. 
 
 This was making direct for the Bogan ; and it was evident that, urged by 
 intense thirst, he had at length set off with desperate speed for the river, having 
 parted from his horse where the party had supposed. That he had killed and 
 eaten the dog in the scrub, from whence his steps had been seen to emerge, was 
 probable, as no trace of the animal could be seen beside his own footsteps from 
 thence, and as it was difficult, otherwise, to account for his vigorous step, after 
 an abstinence of three days and three nights. I regretted that I had not at the 
 time examined the scrub, but when we were at his last camp (the trees on the 
 plain) we were most interested in Mr. Cunningham's further course. 
 
 This we traced more than two miles, during which he had never stopped 
 even to look behind towards the spot where, had he left his hor^se, he might 
 still have seen him. Having at length lost the track on some very hard ground, 
 we exhausted the day in a vain search for it. On returning to the camp, I 
 found that Mr. Larmer, whom I had sent with two armed men down the 
 Bogan, had nearly been surrounded, at only three miles distance from our camp, 
 by a tribe of natives carrying spears. Amongst these were two who had been 
 with us on the previous day, and who called to the others to keep back. These 
 men told Mr. Larmer that they had seen Mr. Cunningham's track in several 
 parts of the bed of the Bogan ; that he had not been killed, but had gone to the 
 westward (pointing down the Bogan) with the "Myall (/'. e. wild) wild blackfel* 
 lows." Thus we had reason to hope that Mr. Cunningham had at least escaped 
 the fate of his unfortunate horse by reaching the Bogan. This was what we 
 wished; but no one could have supposed that he would have followed it down- 
 wards into the jaws of the wild natives rather than upwards. His movements 
 show that he believed that he had deviated to the eastward of our route rather 
 than to the westward ; and this accounts for his having gone down the Bogan. 
 
 Had he not pursued that fatal course, or had he killed the horse rather than 
 the dog, and remained stationary, his life had been saved. The result of our 
 twelve days' delay and search was only the discovery that had we pursued our 
 journey down the Bogan, Mr. Cunningham would have fallen in with our track 
 and rejoined us ; and that, while we halted for him, he had gone ahead of us, 
 and out of reach. 
 
 It was afterwards discovered that Cunningham had fallen in 
 z 
 
2l8 J. L. MICHAEL. 
 
 with some blacks, who treated him kindly. His sufferings how- 
 ever were so great that he lost his reason, and the blacks not 
 understanding his misfortune, became frightened and killed him. 
 
 MR. MICHAEL has written a vast quantity of verse. The follow- 
 ing passage from John Cumberland, in which he describes the 
 growth of a poetical mind, will give the reader a fair specimen of 
 his style : 
 
 " Write me a song," said Ada : " here we sit, 
 
 Featherless bipeds of all sorts and kinds, 
 Poets, philosophers, and men of wit, 
 
 Schoolmen who have, and fops who should have, minds : 
 (No offence, any one) I'm mistress here ; 
 
 I'll have my fancy for this time : I long 
 To play the critic. Won't I be severe ? 
 
 Which of you now can write me the best song ?" 
 The whimsey must be humour'd. Forth they brought 
 
 Pens, ink, and paper. Down we sat to spin, 
 Each one in rhyme, his little thread of thought ; 
 
 And some one ask'd " What is the prize to win ?" 
 A dozen answer'd him. " A kiss," said they ; 
 " All the world over, she who hires must pay." 
 " A kiss," thought I " a dainty prize for spinning. 
 I'll try my chance ; at least 'tis worth the winning." 
 Miss Ada laugh'd " Well, if I like the man" 
 
 She got no farther ; such a chorus rose 
 Of laughter and clapp'd hands ; and we began. 
 
 Lady Cassandra hemm'd and blew her nose, 
 Preparing a remonstrance ; but we shouted 
 And talk'd her down, and I think Ada pouted, 
 Not choosing to be cheated of her whim, 
 
 Nor much afraid of kisses. As for me, 
 A nervous tremor shook in every limb ; 
 
 I fear'd the ordeal : round me I could see 
 Men with great names : what could I hope to do ? 
 Yet something I must write, and quickly too : 
 I crush'd the tremors rising in my breast, 
 And sat to write my ballad with the rest. 
 
J. L. MICHAEL. '219 
 
 They brought a great old bowl of Indian China, 
 
 Dreadfully ugly ; worth a mighty sum ; 
 One of those things than which there's " nothing finer," 
 
 The critics say, past, present, or to come ; 
 Cover'd with nightmare-figures queer and squat ; 
 One of the ugliest things that could be got. 
 This was to hold our verses so that none 
 Might know the authors till the prize was won. 
 The wither'd rose-leaves that it held gave out 
 
 A subtle fragrance, over all the room : 
 Like some delicious essence, flung about 
 
 To stir the spirit with its still perfume : 
 So, as I felt the gentle odour float, 
 My soul took in its sweetness, and I wrote. 
 
 I drop my song into the roses ; 
 
 I write it, dear, that thou may'st see : 
 Their sweetness o'er my spirit closes 
 
 They have no sweetness like to thee. 
 
 These, when their beauty fades and dies, 
 
 Still fling their fragrance on the wind : 
 7 claim, when death shall close mine eyes, 
 
 The immortality of mind. 
 
 I see thee in the dead of night, 
 
 When sleep lies heavy on my brow, 
 And dreams come robed in rosy light ; 
 
 Thou comest to me, sweet one, thou ; 
 
 Not then as now, when hardly daring 
 
 To lift my glances to thy face ; 
 But, in thy tender beauty, sharing 
 
 The passion of my warm embrace. 
 
 I start and wake ; the vivid spark 
 
 Not yet extinguished in my breast ; 
 I stretch my arms into the dark 
 
 Why wilt thou come to break my rest ? 
 
 Oh ! let my dreams prophetic be ! 
 
 Let day the midnight's kindness keep ! 
 Let me for once in daylight see ; 
 
 The smile thou wearest to my sleep ! 
 
 Love to the loving ! life and light 
 
 Wile the long hours of night away. 
 Oh ! let my day-dreams be as bright 
 
 As those that change my night to day ! 
 
220 J. L. MICHAEL. 
 
 This precious ditty, none too good, I'm sure, 
 
 Lady Cassandra chose to call "divine ;" 
 (Most of the rest, 'tis true, were very poor) 
 
 But how they stared when I declar'd it mine ! 
 
 They never fancied I could write a line, 
 I was so silent, bashful, and demure. 
 However, good or bad, 'twas voted best, 
 (No compliment, I fancy, to the rest.) 
 So, blushing scarlet to the very eyes, 
 Shyly and awkwardly I took my prize. 
 Miss Ada gave it as a thing of course, 
 
 Unruffled. Not so I. I felt my blood 
 Rush through its channels with redoubled force, 
 
 And my heart beat and labour'd with its flood : 
 The lights grew misty in a strange eclipse : 
 
 'Twas the first kiss I breath'd on woman's lips, 
 So I stood lost and panting : and I heard 
 
 Nothing except the beating of my heart, 
 That shook and flutter'd like a wounded bird ; 
 
 Till I threw off my passion with a start 
 And wrapped my pride about me, and sat down, 
 Like a young king that newly wears his crown. 
 There came a change upon me from that hour : 
 Ada look'd on as one who knew her power ; 
 But now we had changed attitudes : for I 
 Sat, with the flush of passion in my eye 
 Dilating, glorious ; she beheld me burn, 
 And blush'd up to the temples in her turn, 
 And shunn'd my gaze, half timid, and there fell 
 Something between us : what, I could not tell ! 
 Attraction and repulsion : never more 
 Our eyes could meet, as they had met before, 
 Indifferent : we knew that something came 
 
 Over us both, that we should never be 
 Free from a presence that we could not name, 
 
 Free from a presence that we could not see, 
 Not the less real ; how the evening past 
 
 I know not. Quickly flew the hours away : 
 I linger'd, warm and happy, till the last ; 
 
 Flung by my silence ; chatter'd, and was gay ; 
 And when at last the time came to depart, 
 I said "good bye" with triumph in my heart 
 That rose into my face ; and Ada's cheek 
 Flush'd again crimson but she did not speak. 
 
G. R. MORTON. 221 
 
 The most humourous writer here is Mr. G. R. MORTON, a 
 grandson of the author of " Speed the Plough," " Cure for the 
 Heart-ache," and other popular plays. His uncle has written 
 some of the most successful farces of the present day. " Box and 
 Cox" and " Slasher and Crasher" are among his productions. Mr. 
 Morton's father is also a well-known writer. It is not easy to 
 select from Mr. Morton's contributions to the press any piece 
 that does justice to his ability. His best jokes are scattered about 
 in short paragraphs. The following burlesque sensational novel, 
 entitled Maurora, was contributed to Punch : 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It was on one fine morning in the month of December 1868, towards the end of 
 the reign of King Elizabeth, that a young child might have been seen, by any- 
 body looking that way, crossing the fertile slopes of the Bay of Biscay, which 
 separate the smiling landscapes of Salisbury Plain from the barren moors of 
 Kent. Apparently but two years old, there was yet an air of fixed determina- 
 tion in one of her verdant eyes, which contrasted strangely with the mild and 
 gentle aspect of the other. The wind blew, the frost frew, and the snow 
 snew, but this seemed only to add fresh fire to the little wanderer, who drew 
 her cut de sac closer around her, and continued on her way, whistling "Pop 
 goes the weasel," in the bright moonlight. On the top of her head was her 
 chevelure, on the top of her chevelure was her portefeuille^ and, waving proudly 
 above both was an old gingham umbrella, which had been in the house since the 
 Deluge, and with which she vainly attempted to ward off the summer's heat and 
 winter's snow which were simultaneously pouring on her with the utmost con- 
 fusion. Her beautiful hair, rivalling in colour the most brilliant carrot, fell in 
 straight festoons over her delicate shoulders, while her nez retrousse and curly 
 teeth would have afforded a sublime study to the most enthusiastic artist of a 
 comic periodical. 
 
 The clock struck seventeen. The child threw an indignant glance which 
 knocked an old horse off a tree where he was feeding his feathered progeny in 
 a mare's nest, and the next moment the beast lay writhing on the ground in the 
 last agonies of cacoethes scribendi. To spurn him with her little tiny foot, 
 raise him in her arms, and hurl him into the middle of the following week was 
 the work of a moment, and then resuming her overland route, her finely 
 chiselled features relapsed into a pleasant and gorilla-like smile with the sweet 
 consciousness of having done a good action. 
 
 The clock struck seventeen and a half. She started and instinctively 
 shuddered. 
 
 Footsteps were heard approaching on horseback. 
 
222 G. R. MORTON. 
 
 Ah! 
 
 Will 
 
 He 
 
 Ever 
 
 Go 
 
 Home? 
 
 A voice was heard singing the national air of "We won't go home till 
 morning !" 
 
 'Twas that of her first husband ! He was trying to light his cigar at the 
 pump. 
 
 He must have been eating salmon, which is known to be an intoxicating fish. 
 
 How to avoid him ? Ah ! there was but one way. She put her head in a 
 bag to conceal herself, and pulled a blunderbuss from her bosom. 
 
 The voice approached nearer and nearer. 
 
 He was not alone ! 
 
 Then there must be somebody with him ! 
 
 What must be done ? 
 
 They must. Both of them. The reflection made her sneeze. 
 
 They had seen the sneeze, and she would be discovered Never ! 
 
 Another moment would be their next. 
 
 She slowly raised the blunderbuss when oh horror ! 
 
 ( To be continued when the aiithor can make out the plot of the novel. ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. (CONTINUED). 
 
 she found she had no gunpowder in her deadly tube. 
 
 'Tis ever thus ! Life is a great mistake ! 
 
 We draw a veil over what followed ; but she had the papers ! Oh, how 
 she gloated over them ! 
 
 This was a redeeming trait in her character ; she believed in the papers, 
 objected to the penny tax upon them, and read them every morning on 
 credit. 
 
 How few, and yet how many are like her ! 
 
 But this woman, bold and reckless as she was, subscribed to Piinch 
 
 Yes, 'twas so 
 
 And the Herald 
 
 Ah ! that was wrong. But who is perfect ? 
 
 As we said before, she subscribed to Punch, and no yellow envelope stained 
 her connection with that downright upright journal. 
 
 But why pursue this theme ? 
 
 Aye, why ? 
 
 Echo answers Don't ! 
 
 And we won't ! 
 
 But what was to be done with the corpse ? 
 
 Yet why should she trouble herself about it ? 
 
G. R. MORTON. 223 
 
 He had brought it on himself. 
 
 And yet she had not the heart to leave it there. 
 
 Besides, the police And yet he was her husband. 
 
 She would burn the body : 
 
 She was a woman still ; but how ? 
 
 Aye, that's the rub. 
 
 The rub ? Yes, that's the idea ! 
 
 She remembered being told, at the last Court Ball, that two pieces of wood, 
 if rubbed together for a considerable time, would instantaneously ignite. 
 
 She rubbed, and in one hour three minutes and half a second arrived at a 
 spark. 
 
 She applied it to the inflammable tip of the corpse's nose. 
 
 A blare, a glare, a flare, and there all was over. She was safe. She dropped 
 a tear of gratitude, but, fearing it might betray her, picked it up again, and put 
 it into her chevaux de frize. 
 
 She left the spot, feeling sure no human eye had seen her. 
 
 Oh, hadn't they, though, rather ! 
 
 Upwards on the giddy cliff, seven hundred feet above her head, peering 
 through the murky moonlight, was the clear, grey eye of the body-snatcher. 
 
 He knew all about it. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 
 " Walk blindfold on, behind thee stalks the hangman ! " 
 
 All was still except the shrill whistle of the buffalo, and the lowing of the 
 distant owls in the ruined moat. 
 
 But the dead man lay there, 
 
 Like a warrior taking his rest, 
 
 To point a moral, and adorn a tail. 
 
 With a bow-wow, &c. 
 
 Seventy-seven years have elapsed Napoleon has triumphed at Agincourt 
 Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell the Menangle Bridge and the Stamp 
 Act have both been discovered by Captain Cook and Ireland is discontented, 
 but still we find no change in our heroine. 
 
 No, not even coppers. But why ? 
 
 Because she has never slept. 
 
 And why has she never slept ? 
 
 Because 
 
 She 
 
 Was 
 
 Too 
 
 Wide awake ! 
 
 Wherefore too wide awake ? 
 
 Because he was there the red man in the black hat. 
 
 Was it for this she murdered her father, poisoned her mother, drowned her 
 sister, strangled her brother, garotted three of her grandmothers, stabbed her 
 first husband, shot her second, and told the milkman to call again ? 
 
224 G - R - MORTON. 
 
 Oh, Conscience ! Conscience ! What was she to do ? 
 
 She remembered who was her hatter : his loss wouldn't be felt. 
 
 Sir Marmaduke de Pompadour might still be hers. 
 
 But, in despair at her rejection of his suit (purchased on credit at the huge 
 monster Cohen's) he had become reckless, and resolved to have his hair 
 brushed by machinery. 
 
 She must prevent that. 
 
 But how ? 
 
 " Aye, that's the rub !" (for the second time.) 
 
 " Shakspere," she murmured, "and Lucifer how art thou fallen! one 
 half-penny a box. 
 
 She seized a box of Congreves. Was she about to burn her fingers ? 
 
 Perhaps. 
 
 They were damp the Congreves, not the fingers. 
 
 A haughty smile played on her turnip-coloured turn-up nose. Congreves 
 pah ! Brimstone faugh ! yah ! gah ! agh ! 
 
 She waxed wroth, and pulled out a vesta from her locum tenens. 
 
 She thought of the time when she burnt him with the same humble 
 " flaming minister." 
 
 She breathed a sigh in memory of the happy days of youth, and then, with 
 a sneer of defiance, as she sat in her velvet vade mecum, she ignited the lucifer- 
 ous medium on her priedieu, and whispered through her teeth, in a loud voice, 
 husky with emotion and eau-de-cologne 
 
 " Go TO BLAZES !" 
 
 And so the ingenuous Sir Marmaduke did. 
 
 <&$" The translation of this tale is reserved by the author. 
 
 Mr. Morton was born in India in 1829, and came to this 
 colony in 1855. 
 
 GIBBS, SHALLARD AND Co., PRINTERS, PITT STREET, SYDNEY. 
 
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