AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



has done more to retard progress than to advance it, and by which outside critics 

 and observers of our progress may easily be misled into a hasty error of judgment. 

 Other writers, again, whose education and mental training have been obtained under 

 other than Australian skies, have settled in the colonies and produced literary work 

 of varied quality there. They have brought with them their old habits of thought, 

 influenced by natural and other associations of a kind entirely different from our own. 

 These literary producers have never done characteristically Australian work, for this one 

 all-sufficing reason : and to this cause, indeed, if to no other, may be attributed the ab- 

 sence, so far, of a distinctive school of Australian literature. The real literary workers 

 of Australia have been very few, and anything in the shape of an anthology must for 

 the present be misleading. Any attempt of the kind, therefore, whether proceeding from 

 want of judgment or a less excusable motive, is to be deprecated by those who desire 

 to see an Australian literature form itself under fair conditions. 



We have said already that the practical exigencies of life in Australia have to an 

 extent precluded any hope until very recently of anything like a distinct school of 

 literature. Another cause has been the absorption by the newspaper Press of most of 

 the literary capacity of the colonies. Those who desire to live by the pen in Australia 

 find that the flourishing metropolitan newspapers, which provide so generously for the 

 reading wants of the people, offer what is really the only market for their literary 

 wares ; and continuous newspaper work is proverbially fatal to characteristic literary effort. 

 The Press of Australia had its origin in the old Sydney Gazette, published in the early 

 stage of settlement. It was followed by the Australian, issued by Messrs. Wentworth 

 and Wardell in the time of Governor Darling ; and the Monitor, established by Mr. 

 Sydney Hall, a little later on. The action of these papers brought on a conflict with 

 authority, which led to several prosecutions for libel, and an attempt to place a pro- 

 hibitive tax on newspapers which was frustrated only by the public-spirited action of Sir 

 Francis Forbes, then the Chief Justice of the colony. Governor Bourke recognized the 

 freedom of the Press, and shortly afterwards the Sydney Herald now the Sydney 

 Morning Herald was established in 1831. Other papers continued to appear, and in 

 1843, the Sydney Gazette, the oldest paper in the colony, was published for the last time. 

 Among the more noticeable of the new journals was the Atlas, perhaps the most remark- 

 able newspaper Australia has yet produced. It was contributed to by the most capable men 

 of the day, among others being Robert Lowe, now Lord Sherbrooke ; Sir James Martin, 

 late Chief Justice of New South Wales ; and the owners of such well-known Australian 

 names as Forster, Deniehy and Butler. The Empire followed in 1850, edited by Mr. 

 Henry Parkes, and this journal, afterwards incorporated with the present Evening News, 

 engaged the services of the most prominent men of what was known as the Liberal 

 party of the day. The first issue of the Melbourne Argits under that name appeared 

 in 1846. The Melbourne Age dates from 1854 ; the South Australian Register from 

 1837 ; and the Brisbane Courier from 1846. Other metropolitan papers in the colonies 

 and New Zealand were founded from time to time. The efficiency of the newspaper Press 

 of Australasia, one of the acknowledged marvels of the colonies, is due, in the first 

 instance, to the enterprise of the proprietors of the great journals of Sydney and Mel- 

 bourne, and to the high ideal of journalistic achievement at which they aimed. Our 



