POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 



'445 



fairly upon that stage of social development when the leisured classes of the community 

 are called upon to assist by their co-operation and sympathy in the development of the 

 higher standards of taste, and in the encouragement of Australian literature and art. 



It is only within the past thirty years that even the feeblest efforts have l--n made 

 at the production of what may be termed a native literature. The profession of Ictt 

 more than any other, perhaps, lives on the sympathy and interest of the cultivated 

 classes in the population. Amongst a people whose culture was small, therefore, it can 



be readily understood that little or no effort 

 was put forth in this direction, while the one 

 or two dreamers, who really made any attempt 

 at fine literary work, have found the only issue 

 of their day-dreams in obscurity and wretched- 

 ness. This is the sad story told of most of 

 those whose names have come into prominence 

 in connection with the work of the pen in Aus- 

 tralia. Now and again men have come to the 

 colonies like the Howitts, Henry Kingsley, and 

 the author of "Orion" with the capacity, which 

 they have proved sooner or later, for different 

 kinds of literary work ; but no field for their 

 talents existed in these new countries, and 

 what they have done has gone to enrich the 

 stock of literary wealth elsewhere. Again, we 

 have had workers who have cast in their lot 

 with us, and sought to live by the product of 

 their pens in the midst of a community en- 

 grossed with the practical pursuits and business cares of life. These have remained 

 with us, but no demand offered for the better work of which they may be supposed 

 to have been capable. Such men as these have been only a degree better in their 

 circumstances than the occasional man of fine taste and exquisite capacity, who, bred in 

 the colonies under their then unfavourable conditions, yet showed in several instances 

 touching indications of the rarest promise, that were destined to wither under the cold 

 breath of popular neglect before they had time to develope into something tangible and 

 real. Among such was the ill-fated Daniel Henry Deniehy, whose literary remains 

 evidence the possession of a fine critical faculty and delicate scholarship, as well as the 

 most remarkable range of information that has fallen within the record of Australian 

 experience. No one who has, by accident or otherwise, been fortunate enough to have 

 the opportunity of reading the fugitive papers of this frost-bitten genius can repress the 

 tribute of a sigh to such wasted gifts and ill-acknowledged merit. 



As a writer of graceful and sympathetic verse, again, Henry Kendall stands in the 

 first rank of Australian litterateurs. He was quite a young man when, having sent 

 some of his verses to the London Athcmcnin for review, that magazine spoke in the 

 most favourable terms of his talent and of the promise it gave that the silent Continent 

 would one day have a literature of its own, which might express in some articulate 



MARCUS CLARKE. 



