CHAPTER XXI 



SQUATTERO-MASTIX : JOHN DUNMORE LANG 



Of the five remarkable personalities that dominated 

 the pastoral phase in New South Wales the biographies 

 of four have yet to be produced. Mc Arthur, Went- 

 worth, Lang, and Gipps are still without biographers. 

 Mr. Rusden, it is true, has had access to the Camden 

 MSS., some of which have since been published in the 

 Historical Records of the Colony, and his narrative of 

 McArthur's public career, with some glimpses of his 

 private life, is full and sympathetic. Of Wentworth 

 it is known that a biography, authorised by his literary 

 executor, has been prepared, although it was left un- 

 finished at the death of the author, G. B. Barton ; but 

 the date of its publication, if ever it is published at all, 

 is uncertain. Of the strongest Australian Governor, 

 Sir George Gipps, the most that we can expect is a 

 historical account, such as has lately been published 

 of Governor Macquarie ; he was a fugitive on the 

 Australian stage, and can claim to be judged as a 

 statesman is judged. Robert Lawe was almost a3 

 ephemeral, but his private life and his public career 

 were equally bound up with the history of the Colony, 

 and the biography composed by Arthur Patchett Martin 

 worthily takes its place among biographies of Austrahan 

 statesmen. Of no Austrahan would the biography be 

 so interesting — not to say, spicy — as one of Dr. Lang. 

 The incidents and adventures of his private life, which 

 was hardly private, seeing that it was lived in the sight 

 of all, were so mingled with his strenuous and often 



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