should have been magazined into a work which may unwittingly be passed over as one of pure imaginativeness, and its very worth be lost in its very charm; as, under a somewhat graver title, and with a methodized arrangement, the same matter would have formed a perfect hand-book of Australia. Written, as this work undoubtedly is, by one of the colonial magistrates, possessing at once the most ample opportunities of observation, and the best powers for profiting by them, the intended settler could consult no more competent authority as a reference and guide. Here will he find the most capable and faithful of advice presented under the most attractive of forms. By writing under the character of a settler, and assuming that semblance at the first outset, we are enabled to trace his progressive way, from the first footstep on the soil to the full zenith of his patriarchal prosperity. And how full of novel interest is the recital! We follow all the settler's anxieties, his labours, his reverses—we follow the bullock-drawn train that brings his wife and his little ones into the wilderness-we watch the pitching of the temporary tent, and listen to the first stroke of the axe waking the echoes which have slept from the creation in the solitary wilderness, which is to form the staple of the first habitation there-we watch, with eager interest, the gradual uprearing of that forest home, until the smoke curls up to heaven, an incense of happiness from its sacred hearth-we are spectators of the merry feastings from the daintiest of kangaroo venison, the most delicious of kangaroo-tail soup, the most epicurean of steamers, and the most delicate of cockatoo pies, to say nothing of every day mutton chops eaten by the dozen, tea boiled in a tripod and sweetened with the brownest of sugar, and plenitudes of rice and dampers. We see all this, but we are also witnesses of sadder things. The bushrangers are abroad; the dark denizens of the woods are on the scent; the kangaroo dogs whine and wail with strange but instinctive dread of their savage foes; violence stalks abroad; rapine and murder are there; and the home that had cost so vast a price of labour in its erection now blazes like a beacon fire in the wilderness. All this is as touching in expression as it is forcible in power. The successive minutia of the detail carries the reader on, step by step, until the interest is overpowering. We are startled out of the simplicity of the narration by portions of intense power. It has scarcely been our lot to meet with passages of such singular and absorbing emotion as we find in the settler's wanderings in the bush. Anxious to get to his devastated home, to his suffering family-trying a nearer cut -fancying himself a little mistaken-all to be soon repaired; then half suspecting error-now fully aware of it-hope now dawning - fear now depressing-native spirit now rallying, now drooping, doubting, despairing now making desperate exertions-day succeeding day, and each but entangling him the more hopelessly in the fast forest maze -the fruitless body-wearying-the vague and purposeless wanderings ever more and more bewildering and confounding the confusion of the faculties-the whirl of the brain; and, as if all this were not enough, a warfare of accumulated horrors with a tribe of the native Indians, in which mental agony and corporeal horror are wrought to a pitch too exciting to be dwelt upon. It is not mere form of language, but it is power of conception which is here embodied; and it is power which we could not match, in its own way, in any existing author. But among the characters there is one of the happiest creations of originality, the old man Crabb. So true, so grateful; for ever changing, yet always consistent; detesting every thing, yet loving all; abominating the country, yet never finding resolution enough to leave it; always taking his passage in the next ship, yet building a house and dwelling in it to his dying day. But we cannot, in a few brief lines, do justice to this most felicitous of cross-grained conceptions; it requires the whole work to unravel his simplicity. And though we have his company almost in every scene, yet have we never enough of a companion who so highly amuses us. Every stroke in Crabb's picture tells; and then his phraseology is as characteristic as it is racy and amusing. Our readers will find this work more than bear out our commendation. While it is a novelty in literature, it is also a masterpiece in talent. Instance our extract. "My presence of mind almost forsook me at this crisis. Escape seemed impossible; and I felt that I was doomed to the most horrible of deathsthat of being burnt alive! "The light of the flames increased, and the smoke inside the hut became almost insufferable! Feeling that if I remained where I was, death was certain, I determined to make a desperate effort to escape. There was a little wind, which blew the smoke in the direction of the back of the hut; the natives, as I knew by their cries, were assembled in the frout. "I determined to attempt my escape by the back window, hoping that the smoke in that direction would serve to conceal my exit at the moment of getting out of the window, when my position would be defenceless. I hastily tore down my barricade of logs, and jumped through the opening into the smoke. I was almost suffocated, but, with my gun in my hand, I dashed through it. For the moment I was not perceived; but the natives soon got sight of me, and a volley of spears around me, one of which struck me in the back, but dropped out again, proclaimed that they were in chase. I kept on running as long as I could towards a tree that was in the middle of the little plain over which I was passing, intending to make that my fighting place, by setting my back to it, and so to protect myself in the rear. "The spears flew around me and near me, but I reached the tree, and instantly turning round, I fired among the advancing natives. This checked them, for they were now becoming afraid of my formidable weapon, and seeing that I stood resolute and prepared for them, they retreated to some distance; but they continued to throw some spears, most of which fell short, and kept up a shouting and yelling in a frightful manner, capering and dancing about in a sort of frenzy,-ferocious to get at me, but kept at bay by my terrible gun. "My blood was now up! I was excited to a pitch of joyful exultation by my escape from the burning hut, and I felt that courage of excitement which almost prompted me to rush on my enemies, and to bring the matter to an issue by a bodily conflict with my broadsword. But prudence prevailed; and I placed my hope and my dependence on my trusty gun, which had already done me such good service. "Taking advantage of the temporary inaction of the natives, I felt for my powder-horn, to reload the barrel which I had discharged. To my unspeakable horror and disappointment, it was missing! I searched every pocket in vain! I had laid it on the table in the hut, and there I had left it! To recover it was impossible, as the hut was all in flames, and while I gazed on the burning mass, a dull report and a burst of sparks from the building made known to me that the powder had become ignited, and was lost to me for ever! "In my agony of mind at this discovery, my hair seemed to bristle up; and the sweat ran down my forehead and obscured my sight! I now felt that nothing but a miracle could save me; but the love of life increasing in proportion to the danger of losing it, I once more summoned up my failing energies for a last effort. I had three barrels loaded; one in my fowling-piece and two in my pistols; I had also my broadsword, but that would not avail me against their spears. "If I could hold out till night, I thought I might be able then to elude my savage enemies, as the natives have a fear of moving about at night, believing that in the darkness an evil spirit roams about, seeking to do them mischief, and who then has power over them. Casting my eyes upwards to the branches of the trees under which I was standing, I observed that it was easy to clinib, and there appeared to me indications of a hollow in the trunk between the principal branches, which migh serve me for a place of shelter till the night should enable me, under the cover of its darkness, to escape from my pursuers. "I formed my plan on the instant, and without losing a moment I slung my gun behind me, and, catching hold of a branch within reach, I clambered up. The natives, who were watching my motions, renewed their shouts and yells at this manœuvre, and rushed towards the tree in a body. "I scrambled as fast as I could to the fork of the tree, and found to my infinite relief that my anticipation was right; there was a hollow large enough to admit my whole body, and effectually to shield me from the spears of the savages. As my foot reached the bottom, it encountered some soft body, which I quickly learnt was an opossum, the owner of the habitation, which asserted its rights by a sharp attack on the calf of my leg with teeth and claws: I was not in a humour to argue the matter with my new assailant, so with my thick bush shoes I trampled the creature down into a jelly, though it left its remembrances on my torn flesh, which smarted not a little. When I recovered my breath, I listened to ascertain the motions of my enemies outside. "They had ceased their yells, and there was a dead silence, so that I could hear my own quick breathing within the trunk of the tree. 'What are they about?' thought I. While I mentally ejaculated this thought, I felt an agitation of the tree, from which I guessed that some venturous savage was climbing up to attack me in my retreat. I cautiously raised myself up to look around me, but the appearance of my hat above the hole was the signal for half-a-dozen spears, three of which passed through it, one of them grazing the scalp of my head. That plan will not do,' thought I; I must keep close.' "As I crouched myself down, I thought I heard a breathing above me. I looked up, and beheld the hideous visage of one of the savages glaring on me with his white eyeballs, which exhibited a ferocious sort of exultation. He had his waddie in his hand, which he slowly raised, to give me a pat on the head, thinking that he had me quite safe, like an opossum in its hole. You're mistaken, my beauty,' thought I; I'm not done for yet.' Drawing out one of my pistols from my pocket, which was rather a matter of difficulty in my confined position, I fired. The ball crashed through his face and skull, and I heard his dead body fall heavily to the ground. "A yell of fear and rage arose from his black companions. I took advantage of the opportunity, and raised myself up so as to look about me, but their threatening spears soon drove me back to my retreat. There was now another pause and a dead silence; and I flattered myself with the hope that the savages, having been so frequently baffled, and having suffered so much in their attacks, would now retire. But the death and the wounds of their comrades, it appears, only whetted their rage, and stimulated them to fresh endeavours; and the cunning devices of that devilish savage Musqueeto were turned in a new and more fatal direc tion. "As I lay in my retreat, I heard a sound as if heavy materials were being dragged towards the tree. I ventured to peep out, and beheld the savages busy in piling dead wood round the trunk, with the intention, as I immediately surmised, of setting fire to it, and of burning me in my hole. My conjectures were presently verified. I saw emerging from the wood one of their females, bearing the lighted fire-sticks which the natives always carry with them in their journeys. I looked on these preparations as a neglected but not indifferent spectator, the natives disregarding my appearance above the opening, and waiting with a sort of savage patience for the sure destruction which they were preparing for me. "The native women approached with the fire, and the natives, forming a circle round the tree, performed a dance of death as a prelude to my sacrifice. I was tempted to fire on them; but I did not like to part with my last two shots, except in an extremity even greater than this. "In the meantime the natives continued their dance, seeming to enjoy the interval between me and death, like the epicure who delays his attack on the delicious feast before him, that he may the longer enjoy the exciting pleasure of anticipation. Presently, however, their death-song broke out into loud cries of fury; they applied the fire to the faggots, and as the blaze increased, they danced and yelled round the tree in a complete delirium of rage and exultation. "The fire burned up!-the smoke ascended! I already felt the horrid sensation of being stifled by the thick atmosphere of smoke before the flames encompassed me. In this extremity, I determined, at least, to inflict some vengeance on my savage persecutors. "I scrambled up from my hiding-place, and crawled as far as I could on one of the branches which was most free from the suffocating smoke and heat, and fired the remaining barrel of my fowling-piece at the yelling wretches, which I then hurled at their heads. I did the same with my remaining pistol, when, to my amazement, I heard the reports of other guns; but whether they were the echoes of my own, or that my failing senses deceived me, I know not, for the smoke and flames now mastered me. Stifled and scorched, I remember only falling from the branch of the tree, which was not high, to the ground, when my senses left me. "I was roused from my trance of death by copious deluges of water, and I heard a voice which was familiar to me exclaiming, "Well, if this is not enough to disgust a man with this horrid country, I don't know what he would have more! For years and years I have been preaching to him that nothing good could come of this wretched den of bush-rangers and natives, and now, you see, the evil is come at last!" "I opened my eyes at these words. It was the voice of Crabb, whom heaven had directed with a party of friends to this spot to deliver me! Overcome with the intensity of my emotions, racked with pain, and sick from the very fulness of joy at my escape from death, I uttered a piercing cry of mingled pain and delight, and fainted!" Sacred Poems, from Subjects in the Old Testament. By JOHN EDMUND READE, author of "Italy," &c. It is always with mingled feelings of respect and admiration that we open Mr. Reade's volumes, and always with an increase of these feelings that we close them. His mind is eminently of the calibre best fitted to take in great objects, and the loftiness of his theme is well responded to by the chaste dignity of his style. He never trifles with prettinesses, never substitutes sound for sense, never pauses on his way to listen to the jingle of a rhyme, never loiters on idle ground, sunning himself in sunbeams, and disporting among the flowers of a fruitless fancy, never stays to gather up the tinsel of meretricious ornament, never loiters on in smiling idleness-with him all is sterling his dignity is above passion; his power equal to all that he undertakes; and he who can grapple with great things may well disdain to elaborate trifles. It may be that he labours less for the present than the future, at least, though attested by a present reputation, it is one which we augur will augment and not decline. He does not write to meet a fashion, he writes to fit his subject, and this is always chosen from among the lofty things of mind or of revelation. The majesty of his verse would be outraged, were it made to wait in vassalage on an inferior theme. The machinery of the poet's own mind will not work for the production of trivialities. It is a great power, and must be worthily employed. And what can more eminently exemplify all this than the opening poem of this collection-The Creation?-what sublimity, what wonder, lie in such a contemplation! Poetry can aspire to no higher office than the celebration of these mysteries, and the genius of our author luxuriates among them. He approaches his subject as one reverential, though empowered: not deprecatory and fearfully, but with the consciousness of strength, as if he knew that the prophet's mantle rested on his shoulders. There is all the dignity of mental rank both in the choice and in the attitude of approach. We have been much struck with this opening poem; we will not say that it is like Milton, because there is no shade, either intentional or unintentional, of imitativeness in any of Mr. Reade's works; but we will say, that Milton's fame might have rested on such a production. The conception is as vast as the execution is powerful. There is perfect majesty in this portraying of the "Creation." I. "Infinite Life filled all space which was, Being Circling around the One ineffable, Who in life's centre doth for ever dwell. Worlds, mote-like, floated through the void; Wheeling in ordered course, or onward fleeing, In everlasting motion : Sand-grains, or formed, or forming, or destroyed; Leaves, clustering, massed, or scattered from the tree, II. "One atom from among the infinite, Rolled on a leaf among the wilderness : |