3o8 iVZ'IF SOUTH WALES. 



there was not a free public library in the land. To-daj, besides tbe 

 main institution in Sydney^ rapidly becoming a noble one, tbere is 

 scarcely a countiy or suburban town of any consequence which does 

 not boast one, while the same writer's estimate of other libraries, the 

 circulation of foreign periodicals, and the importation of books is 

 exceeded very many times over. It is only of the locally-produced 

 book or periodical that there is still to be told the old story of no 

 advance or uniform failure. The colonial book still requires in author 

 or publisher, perhaps both, the recklessness of the spendthrift or the 

 courage of a forlorn hope, and it is the melancholy fact that of the 

 many magazines and reviews which Sydney has produced in her time, 

 there has survived not one. She has been rather a prolific mother in 

 that sense, but, like the members of a "rickety'^ family, her unfortunate 

 oifspring have all gone the same wa}-. 



Their graves are gi-cen ; 

 Tbey may be seen. 



Yet many of them seemed sturdy, promising youngsters enough; 

 the latest, T]ig Centennial, not the least so, which yet, after a brief but 

 brave struggle against invincible destiny, shared the family fate. It 

 hardly accounts for this strange fatality to say that there is not here, for 

 magazine purposes, sufficient local talent, though possibly it may help to 

 do so to add that there is not here sufficient appreciation of the talent, 

 simply because it is local. Be that as it may, it remains that the one 

 resource for the local literary man here is in daily or weekly journalism, 

 and it is fair to say that in most cases, or where there is real ability 

 or capacity for useful work, a very effective resource it is. But of 

 course there are forms of literary ability for which journalism, especi- 

 ally daily journalism, affords little or no scope. The daily paper, with 

 its heat and hurry, its little regard for manner and all for matter, may 

 indeed be rather the enemy of literature, especially in its higher forms, 

 but the weekly might do much for it, and some of our weekly journals 

 — notably the Bulletin, thereby covering a multitude of sins — have 

 already done yeoman's service for local literature by thus encouraging 

 and developing local talent. It was there that such rising writers as 

 Louis Becke and Ernest Favenc, who, we are glad to see, are fast 

 making their mark in a wider field, as well as our latest and best bards 

 of the bush, Messrs. Paterson and Lawson, graduated, and it was in the 

 columns of a Sydney Aveekly, if we remember rightly, that Australia's 

 best novelist, also a New South Welshman, the author of " Eobbery under 

 Arms,'' Rolf Boldrewood, made his first bid for the fame, if not fortune, 

 which has since come to him. Still it must be said that the literature 

 which has only, or mainly, to look to journalism as its support or 

 outlet, can have small chance of becoming in any true sense national. 

 We must wait, no doubt, for the day of larger things, for the larger 

 literature. Federation may bring us it, with all the other promised good; 

 time assuredly will, for we are of the best literary lineage the world 

 knows, or ever kncAv, and " blood will tell." With time, too, the local 

 literary field must inevitably widen, and it is not to be supposed that our 

 magnificent educational institutions, our University with its large staff 

 of learned professors (less often heard of now in this connection than 

 when their numbers were far fewer), our crowded and ever-crowding 



