1458 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



well and John Gourlay. While touching on colonial talent, it may be recorded that 

 besides giving the English dramatic stage Shiel Barry, one of its best character actors. 

 Australia, from amongst her own children, has contributed to the ranks of the actresses 

 of acknowledged merit Julia Matthews, Eleanor Carey, Kate Corcoran, Florence Colville, 

 Maggie Oliver, Hattie Shepherd and Essie Jenyns. The extent of the support extended 

 to the drama may be gauged by the fact that in all the chief cities there are 

 several flourishing theatres Sydney alone having eight while almost every important 

 country town boasts a temple of Thespis of some sort. Several of the buildings are 

 costly structures, and in point of size and architectural attractions compare favourably 

 with similar edifices in other parts of the world. Her Majesty's, in Sydney, and the 

 Princess, in Melbourne, hold the first places in these cities. The public taste may 

 be described as "omnivorous," every form of entertainment receiving liberal patronage. 

 Comedy in drama, and in opera, especially in the latter, is extremely popular, but 

 '' the legitimate" in the dramatic and lyric art does not pass without full recognition. 

 Shakespeare, when well acted and properly mounted, pays, the two latest revivals on an 

 elaborate scale of "Julius Caesar" and "Anthony and Cleopatra," in Sydney and in 

 Melbourne, being completely successful. Among colonial playwrights those best known 

 are Haddon Chambers, Marcus Clarke, Walter Cooper, H. T. Craven, George Moreton, 

 Garnet Walch and J. L. Farjeon. The drama in Melbourne owes much of its success 

 to the veteran Mr. George Coppin, who introduced Brooke in the fifties, and whose 

 enterprises have extended over several hundred thousand pounds. 



Wealth and leisure have come to Australia now, and the prospect both for litera- 

 ture and for art gives fair promise of being a bright one. Fortunately, for the interests 

 of the former at least, there have always been men of gentle tastes and a wide range 

 of sympathies who have extended a noble aid to its early efforts. Certain names of 

 prominent Australian citizens, to whom literature in the colonies is especially indebted, 

 easily suggest themselves here, and claim the tribute of that recognition they so worthily 

 earned. In Sydney, the late Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse was for many years known as 

 the Maecenas of Australian literature, a distinction nobly earned by his generous 

 sympathy with all intellectual effort under its then existing unfavourable conditions. The 

 late Right Honourable William Bede Daliey, P.C., was not only a literary worker him- 

 self, but a genuine and sincere colleague throughout his popular career of all who 

 laboured in literary fields. In Victoria, the late Sir Redmond Barry was one of 

 the foremost to advance the same interest by his sympathy and aid. To him was 

 largely due the foundation of the present Melbourne Public Library and National 

 Gallery, on the lawn of which institution a statue now stands to his memory. 



It is to men like Barry, Stenhouse and Daliey, men of culture and refinement, of 

 broad sympathies and artistic tastes, of accomplished scholarship and ripened experience, 

 that we chiefly owe such small progress as we have already made. They supplied, in 

 some measure, the counteractive of that public indifference which proceeded from the fact 

 of the popular mind having been exclusively occupied with what are known by way of 

 distinction as practical things. The evolution of social conditions is, however, bringing 

 to the surface a more desirable state of affairs. That tangible aid of an active interest 

 on the part of the public in what is being done, and in what is being aimed at, is 



