812 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION 1. 



4.— THE PIONEERS OF AUSTRALIAN 

 LITERATURE. 



By ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, M.A. 



We who live in a prosperous and wholly civiHsed Australasia 

 should not be too ready to forget that there had to be in 

 every department of our national activity pioneers in a raw 

 and only half civilised community, — pioneers who had to meet 

 difficulties and hardships to which we are strangers. In 

 literature, for instance, there is something pathetic in the 

 recollection of those who spent their time and talents in writing, 

 and their money in publishing, at a time when there was no 

 public in Australia which could, on the one hand, appreciate 

 the labor, or, on the other hand, reimburse the expense. 



A pioneer poet who, like Charles Harpur, laboured in the 

 production of choice and elevated verse, lofty in sentiment, 

 chaste in diction, and appealing to a class of refined and 

 imaginative readers such as are few in number in any part of 

 the earth, but wholly wanting in a new country, should appeal 

 strongly to the sympathies of those who belong to a some- 

 what more favoured generation. Is there not something- 

 touching in the thought of this fine old character, living a 

 lonely life in the production of poetry which he well knew 

 could bring him neither money nor fame in the community 

 to which he belonged .^ He crippled his humble resources in 

 the printing of verses which nobody bought, and nobody 

 read ; and when he died there were only a few people who 

 knew that such a man had been among them, labouring to give 

 them of the best that was in him. 



The men who laid the foundations of an Australian 

 literature, without hope of reward and with little expectation 

 of reputation, are deserving of being remembered ; and in 

 this paper I propose to mention the most notable. Such a 

 course is customary in the history of all literatures. There 

 are always names that are held in honorable memory, not by 

 reason of works of intrinsic literary merit, or not wholly for 

 such reasons, but because they are the names of pioneers who 

 made the way smoother for greater workers who came after. 

 Such are, in English literature, Skelton, and Surrey, and 

 Wyatt, and Tusser, and scores of others ; such are, in French 

 literature, Deschamps, and Chartier, and Villon ; such are 

 in German literature, Opitz, and Spee, and Gunther. 



In Australian literature I shall name a few early writers 

 whose works I should not specially recommend to anyone as 



