Education, Literature, and Art 229 



names as well known in the bush as those of the 

 standard English poets. Their influence in the 

 main is invigorating, as any influence must be 

 that tends to make the Australian more keenly 

 alive to the interests and beauty of the land he 

 lives in. This school of Australian literature 

 succeeds an earlier group of writers whose names 

 are more familiar to British readers. Chief among 

 them were Adam I/indsay Gordon, Henry Ken- 

 dall, Marcus Clarke, ''Orion" Home, and J. 

 Brunton Stephens, all of whom are now dead. 



The Australian theatre is almost an exact 

 counterpart of the theatre in Great Britain. The 

 buildings are designed on the same lines, with 

 but little regard for the coolness and ventilation 

 necessary in such a climate, and one may see, as 

 in the English provinces, the latest London suc- 

 cess, enacted by a company of London players. 

 Save for a few melodramas, and dramatic ver- 

 sions of well-known Australian novels, such as 

 Robbery Under Arms, or His Natural Life, the 

 Australian drama does not yet exist. There are 

 music-halls, but, robbed of their attractions in the 

 shape of permission to smoke and consume alco- 

 holic liquor on the premises, they do not enter 

 into so keen a rivalry with the legitimate theatre 

 as in other countries. The taste for light opera 

 and musical comedy, so marked a development 

 in the theatrical preference of Great Britain and 

 America during recent years, is even more 

 noticeable in Australia, where grand opera is also 



