J 22 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



clearness and precision of thouglit, that faculty of sifting the 

 bran from the flour, without which a reader may degenerate 

 into a mere skimmer of books, and may wholly forget our 

 philosopher's counsel, " to weigh and consider." We shall 

 not only endeavour to keep abreast of the world's literary 

 work in older lands, but shall study with peculiar interest 

 the beginnings of Australian literature ; we shall endeavour 

 to rescue from oblivion noteworthy work done in the past ; 

 and though we will not undertake the invidious office of 

 sitting in judgment on the present, it is possible that, by 

 kindly criticism and helpful counsel, we may be of some 

 service to those beginners who would fain be of the brother- 

 hood of the pen. There are more of these aspirants than is 

 commonly supposed ; they have written to individuals 

 amongst us now and then. There is something pathetic in 

 their hard surroundincjs, in the ig-norance which comes of 

 dearth of opportunities, in the depression which lack of 

 appreciation engenders. Something pathetic, too, in the 

 groundless complacence which is born of uncritical praise, or 

 of that good-natured commendation, which is but cruel 

 kindness. Remembering how fallible mortal judgments are, 

 and how little promise early attempts have sometimes given 

 of the great achievements which have built an everlasting 

 name, one shrinks from the single-handed responsibility of, 

 on the one hand, damping the nascent enthusiasm of the 

 muse; or on the other, of encouraging a youth "to pen a 

 stanza, when he should engross." Not as a tribunal but as a 

 board of advice, the Royal Society may, as the years go by, 

 render some little service to the literary fledglings of young 

 Australia. It may happen that, as with the Melbourne 

 Shakspeare Society, so with ourselves, some of our con- 

 tributions will expand into lectures, and we may thus 

 become the means of spreading over wider areas a knowledge 

 of, and interest in, high-class literature. Doubtless, as we 

 go on, other methods of work and other opportunities of 

 usefulness will open out before us, but I have said enough 

 to show that we have a goodly held to reap, a harvest the 

 ingathering of which will enrich not ourselves alone. 



We do not, as I have already said, propose to limit 

 oui'selves to the study of the literature of our own day, or of 

 the English-speaking race. The centuries behind us like a 

 fruitful land repose, and not in Britain only rise the shrines 

 of the Muses. In proceeding, therefore, to a brief survey of 

 the present aspect of English literature, I would not be 



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