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Literature and Art. 



By Frank Hutchinson. 



Literature. 



It is just a generation since Mr. G. B. Barton (liimself no unwortliy 

 worker in the local literary field), in a book published "by authority'' 

 on this subject, lamented the slow growth of letters in this community, 

 and the little promise of the creation here of what he called a ''national 

 literature." The complaint was doubtless a just one at the time, and 

 as natural — inevitable, indeed, under the conditions of so young a 

 country ; and the question to be considered here is how far may the 

 succeeding thirty years be said to have removed it. 



The chief names then on the roll of our literary worthies were, in 

 prose, Deniehy and Dalley; in poetry, though at somewhat wider 

 interval, Harpur and Kendall. They are the chief names still. No 

 writer amongst us in either field has ever matched in range or bril- 

 liancy the former two, nor in truth to nature and real poetic power the 

 latter. Of Daniel Henry Deniehy, once the eloquent, the witty, the 

 erudite, it has been said that " with few advantages in his favour he 

 contrived to make himself master of almost the whole field of Euro- 

 pean literature, to obtain a thorough insight into the various develop- 

 ments of art, and to qualify himself for the most marked displays of 

 talent, both as a politician and a man of letters." Yet the literaiy 

 fame of this "Admirable Crichton " is now almost purely traditional. 

 With the exception of a few essays and sketches, journalistic waifs 

 and strays, and a number of admirable private letters, he left little 

 behind him to justify the judgment of his contemporaries, and though 

 that little be enough, the end was swift and sad as that of the unhappiest 

 " child of genius" — and there have been many such endings — before 

 him. If his lifelong friend, and, one might almost say, fellow-meteor 

 in politics and letters, William Bede Dalley, was more fortunate both 

 in his private and public relations, he has perhaps been even less so 

 in regard to his literary fate. To the present writer, who had the 

 privilege of his close friendship for many happy years, he once con- 

 fided how for an assured literary fame he would Avillingly exchange 

 all his political or other distinctions. Alas ! for that pious wish. His 

 literary fame is already little more than the merest memory — ])robab]y 

 to many of the present generation not even that. The great charm of 

 his writings, as of his speeches, lay in their exquisite ease and grace 

 — their abounding wit and humour, the one as bright and sparkling as 

 the other was tender and true — unrivalled powers of ridicule and 

 sarcasm, tempered by the gentlest and most genial of natures. No 



