obliged to take a few children gratis, in order to obtain the allowance. How far this educational system has been found to answer I cannot exactly say, but the future seems to be more clouded than ever in respect to Education in South Australia. The religious question has now broken out, and the interminable disputes respecting secular and religious Education will probably end in the children of many of the colonists obtaining no Education at all, as the Catholic population wish to have their share of the grant for themselves, and educate the Catholic children in their own style, and this is opposed by the Protestants.

In the so-called superior establishments there often exists the spirit of egotistical charlatanism, which, indeed, is the royal road to success in South Australia. Instead of a grammar school they have a collegiate school, where the pupils and teachers are academically costumed, which is ridiculously out of place in a small colony, where everything is reduced to the most dismal reality of common-placeism, and where the climate is decidedly opposed, in a sanitary sense, to the wearing of skull caps and black gowns. Of course, this has a powerful influence on the minds of ignorant parents of a mushroom class, who like to see their colonial produce attired in such refined costume, and show their superiority to the children of common people. A monthly programme of mental and moral progress is sent to the anxious parents, in many cases hardly competent to spell over and understand the eulogiums (whose progeny is probably destined to be consigned to the Bush, and whose general conduct is more redolent of the kennel than the college), giving the delightful and disinterested information that his conduct is highly moral; attendance ex

ceedingly regular; attention most devoted; Eng

lish grammar satisfactory; and Latin accidence more so; and if his progress continues so satisfactorily, in a few months he may have the felicity of attacking the elements of the Greek tongue.

The man who makes education a mere mercantile speculation, and who knows how to cajole illiterate and vain parents with monthly catalogues of virtuous attainments, and periodical exhibitions of their intellectual and theatrical developments, is almost sure to succeed; but the real educator, the man who for many years has conscientiously done his duty, being previously properly qualified for the exercise of it, will probably make a precarious livelihood in comparison, and that in a place, where from the nature of the climate and characteristics of the people, indefatigable teaching is one of the most laborious and depressing of occupations, and cannot be too liberally patronized and paid for.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LITERATURE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

"The chief glory of every people arises from its Authors."

Dr. Johnson.

Ir must not be supposed that the claims of literature are entirely neglected in a colony which aspires to so much advancement, and always ready, at any time, to show its neighbours what can be really achieved in " arms, in arts, in song." The nature of the productions which have appeared is chiefly poetical, which element may be supposed to flourish in an atmosphere so congenial to its development. I am surprised that no enterprising gentleman has attempted an epic poem on the foundation of the colony, and the landing of the first heroic band of adventurers who trod the barren wilderness, and planted Britannia's banner near the sad sea waves, and laid the germe of a mighty empire, and tried to invest their surplus cash to the best advantage. These ennobling subjects have not yet found a colonial Camoens, with soaring genius, to do them justice; but it is to be hoped that the day may not be far distant when a young giant will arise and produce a poem worthy of the subject, and receive the homage of a grateful nation. The prevalent style of existing compositions is decidedly Petrarchian, with touching odes to sylvan Mary Annes and Betsy Janes, who are pathetically called upon to smile and sooth the anguish of their dejected Buggins (who, not improbably, is a victim to laziness and incipient symptoms of delirium tremens,

caused by a hot sun and spirituous liquors.) The sacred feeling of friendship and its delicate appreciation on the death of a friend, with the exuberance of lofty feeling and soothing tenderness, can be illustrated by one stanza of an Elegy written by the poet Buggins on the demise of his friend, who was accidently killed:

Of Australia's worst vice, you had more than your share,
Or else you'd not galopped along with your mare;

And if you'd not gone, you'd still have been here, &c., &c. This elegant and sympathetic effusion, which must have been very delightful to the feelings of the surviving relatives, drew forth from a gentleman a critical and moral castigation of Buggins, ending with,-"No further seek his merits to disclose or draw his frailties from their dread abode." The South Australian Poet of the greatest pretensions, and, it is to be hoped, the future poet laureate to the Vice Regal Court, was criticised by the press in the following terms:-The poems are, in fact, of unequal, horrid rhythm, and wretched grammar, alternating with verses of much tenderness and power. The longest piece in the book, viz., that entitled "The Batchelor," though intended doubtless to be humourous, is absurdly ridiculous. Shortly afterwards a specimen of the author's more praiseworthy efforts is given, which is pronounced to be quite Byronic in poetic sentiment, and superior in tenderness of feeling :

"To love, then lose thee, to call thee mine

Then part for ever; to be alone

Upon this desert world; to live yet pine

With the soul's careless wounds-Oh! could I come

To kiss thy dust, to fix the written stone.

To strew thy lovely grave with sweetest flowers,
And with the sighing winds of eve make moan
To blend with dew-drops in night's silent hours

The tears of love; I would light the storm that lowers."

The other verses in the piece are, however, characterized as more or less defective in grammar, but containing much of the soul of poetry, and finally they quote another piece as worthy of honest approval, of which I give a verse :—

Between us now a torrent roars,

We cannot cross, nor be united,
And on its banks, the leafless trees
Of love do stand for ever blighted.
There is a chasm, dare we leap?
Oh! never, for 'twould ruin be,

A shock has rent our lives in two,
And fate divides us like a sea.

Another peculiar gentleman, who seemed to be labouring under an unfortunate hallucination respecting the nature of poetry, or perhaps like Moliere's friend, had been talking forty years in prose without knowing it, published a small tale called something like Cowpurry, or the Legend of the Wild Kangaroo, which was estimated by a reverend gentleman of critical acumen, at a public lecture, to be destitute alike of rhyme and reason, not containing one spark of poetic genius. Another production of the South Australian press, called "The Queen of the South," was pronounced so low and vile, that he could not but turn away in disgust from the reading of such a work. The Last Man of Thebarton, a Tale of the Gold Fields, must reflect some credit on whoever wrote it, for it must have required some imagination to write anything respecting such a dismal locality, not far from the city of Adelaide. This exhibits a strange concatenation of circumstances produced by the gold mania, bearing with fullest force upon the ladies of Thebarton, who, in their distress, resolved upon a plan which they thought would afford some relief. This plan they carried out at the expense of a man who