AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE. 801 



flocks and herds to a reo^ion where they could increase and 

 multiply unchecked, where the numbei's to-day exceed sixty 

 millions of sheej), and more than ten milHons of cattle and 

 horses. 



Having- won his spurs, and fully approved his manhood in 

 solvino^ the riddle of the Desert Sphinx, Wentworth returned 

 to England in 18 10, and recommenced the Uterary course, 

 whicii he never wholly abandoned. He matriculated at 

 Cambridge, where he spent several years. In 1819 he 

 published " a Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of 

 the Colony of New South V^'ales." In 1824 a third edition 

 was requested. We may well believe in the utility of this 

 work in dis))elling' the ignorance which then prevailed in 

 England, and (may we add .'') still prevails to a certain extent 

 with respect to matters Australian. AVhile a student at 

 Candiridge he com])eted for the Chancellor's prize poem on 

 " Austraha." He was second among 25 competitors, but the 

 prize was awarded to Mackworth Praed, afterwards a member 

 of the House of Commons. Praed's poem is an elegant 

 specimen of versification, but patently inferior in poetic force 

 and nobility of treatment to that of the Australian, Avhose 

 descriptive jiassages were drawn from knowledge and 

 experience, and whose ardent patriotism inspired him with 

 the prevision of the Seer. The poem to which the Cam- 

 bridge authorities awarded the prize might have been written 

 by any student. It flows musically, like the brook murmuring 

 along the meadows of an idyllic old world landscape. The 

 other, faultless in cadence and rhythm, rolls majestically 

 onward, bearing argosies of thought and classic treasure on 

 its ocean billows, resonant with the rhythm of the southern 

 main, heaving and seething unceasingly through the towering- 

 headlands of the great haven of the south. Rarely have the 

 gods granted to the same man to be at once the daring- 

 explorer, and the poet-painter of the heroic past. Yet, this 

 is one of Wentworth's exceptional achievements, a])ostro- 

 phising the Southern Alpine Chain, the " Blue Mountains " of 

 the colonists : — 



" 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 waste the forked lightnings i)ly, 

 And the loud thunders spring with hoarse rebound 

 From peak to j^eak and fill the welkin round 

 With deafening voice till, with their boisterous play 

 Fatigued, in muttering peals they steal away ; 



