only, of all its former male inhabitants, was left behind. Him they secured while asleep with a bullock chain. His beseechings, bewailings, and lamentations avail him not. He is the last man of Thebartan. Poor Fellow! if any one had seen the arid and wretched hole where emigration had consigned him, they would sympathize with his feelings at not being allowed to escape from it, even with the additional charm of compulsory female society.

But as genius is generally slow in its development in a new colony, a small party of literati determined to obtain a patriotic song deserving of Australia, and as none had appeared on the gratis principle, they offered a prize of ten guineas for the best original song of Australia. This magnificent offer emanated from the soaring spirits of an ambitious village about twenty-six miles from Adelaide, called Gawler Town (immortalized as being the hottest furnace going in the colony, having had Fahrenheit's Thermometer elevated to 123° in the shade, and to the region of spirits boiling in the sun,) but which it is delightful to contemplate has not cooled their literary ardour. It is curious to observe that these patriots did not offer a prize for a song in praise of South Australia, but enlarged their theme to include all Australia, which was undoubtedly the safest and most ingenious mode, for many who would write a little poetic nonsense about Australia, would decline the task even at the chance of gaining £10 10s. of warbling over the delights of South Australia; an effusion containing anything short of hyperbolical compliments would be sure to be rejected. It is a curious statistical fact to know how many poets can arise and turn inspired patriots for the golden bait of ten guineas out of a small popolution of 117,000. No less than

ninety-three competitors sent in their productions, no doubt many poor fellows being induced thereto with the pleasing hope of perhaps gaining sufficient capital to leave the land of summer skies at the shortest notice. The Judges, after long deliberation, and no doubt wearied with the whole affair, as being so much out of their line of business, gave the prize to a lady resident at the cemetery near Adelaide, whose song appears in the Australian Lyrics, at the end of this volume. No sooner was their decision made known, than the greater number of the disappointed poets and their friends deluged the unfortunate editors of both the Adelaide papers with their indignant remonstrances. One felt bound to denounce it-another thought in an insult to the community-another brute intimated that the lady better attend to her domestic concerns as write poetry, and insinuated that the buttons of her husband's shirt would probably be found in bad condition. The critics became so indignant and contemptuous, that the editor of one of the papers was obliged to ask them why they did not plume their own wings, and try their own powers on such lofty themes? Was it because their patriotism, their fire, their genius, their soul of poetry, could not be enkindled for £10 10s.? We acknowledge its deficiency in spirit; but if we are asked whether none of the other songs contained more fire and energy than the poem to which the prize was awarded, we reply, certainly, some of them did. But fire is not everything. Some of the songs contained wretchedly bad rhyme; others horrible grammar, faults which ensured their rejection, even though they contained really good lines or verses. Others were not South Australian in their references, being in fact songs in praise of England, or in praise of

the southern hemisphere. Some were purely war songs; others were very good compositions, but more fitted to be sung as hymns in church than as songs at a concert soiree. One or two contained very fine lines indeed, but their writers were not their authors, and so these again were rejected. Some of the songs were awfully long; others bombastical; others weak and prosaic, to such a degree as to make the prize song the model of manly vigor. My readers will perceive that it is not so easy to obtain a good patriotic song made to measure for ten guineas, as the comparison of the respective merits of the four different effusions of the South Australian Lyrics will place the matter beyond doubt, between the productions of untrammelled genius and the placid and pointless production inspired by the poetical incentive of ten guineas. I understand that the literary spirits of Gawler, in no wise daunted by the quality of the patriotic produce, and the fearful amount of poetical competition in the colony, have actually offered a prize of two hundred guineas for the best written history of the colony.

If the historians of South Australia are as plentiful as the poets, the examiners will have a ponderous performance to examine the mass of history relative to an important colony of twenty-four years' existence, which could easily be comprized in a few pages of an ordinary volume, to the great benefit of those who wish to know a few facts of our village and its resources, without wading through a hundred pages of historical matter, which, from its very subject, must be of a very trivial description.

In connection with literature, I may mention one curious circumstance which occurred when I was in Adelaide, when the Volunteer movement reached

Australia it became the fashion for one or two enterprising people to publish a little music adapted to the cause, such as the Adelaide Drum Polka, dedicated to Capt. Turncoat; and the Bugle Rifle Galop, dedicated to Capt. Crawler (by special request); and a waltz appeared in the colony, as original, which had a fair sale, and was criticized by the press as a fair development of colonial talent, when a short time afterwards, the alarming discovery was made by a musical detective, that the waltz in question was copied note for note from one of Strauss' the colonial composer, not taking the trouble even to alter the key or change a note of the music.

CHAPTER XIX.

LAWS AND LAWYERS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Dick.-The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Cade.-Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment! that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man! Some say the bee stings: but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.

Second Part King Henry VI. Hamlet.-There's another, why may not that be the skull of a lawyer ? Where be his quiddits now, his quillits, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt ? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double one's too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box. Hamlet.

IN a newly-founded colony it is amusing, but not surprising, to see with what velocity a few representatives of the interesting tribe called lawyers make their appearance thirsting after spoil and exulting in a new field of enterprise. In addition to the regular importation of English practitioners we have also colonial-fledged lawyers, and some specimens of this alarming race combine all the trickery of the colony with the least possible amount of the true spirit of English law. Our village is therefore inundated with two species-English and colonial -who nearly all combine to bleed their fellow colonists with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause. The law of England is adopted in the