language; they are often driven, by the same impulse, to create new harmonies as to originate new thoughts. If, occasionally, the musical improvisation ends in little better than a wild fantasia, or a grotesque extravaganza, more frequently some simple chord is struck that not only touches the heart, but vibrates on the ear of an entire generation.

Mr. Kennedy's translations from Espronceda are by no means the worst in his book. But the commonplace metres he has selected, even if more felicitously executed, would present no accurate idea of the varied harmony of the original, and we therefore postpone putting our eulogy to the proof by examples, until "other men and other times" may do justice to the literary character of Espronceda.

The author, to whom time and our translator have awarded the privilege of Ulysses, that of being "devoured the last," is José Zorilla, born 1817, and still living. This distinguished poet was pre-eminently that phenomenon described by Pope as being so perplexing to parents, namely:

"A youth foredoomed his father's soul to cross,

Who pens a stanza when he should engross."

In fact the laudable efforts of the elder Zorilla (a successful lawyer, full of years, business, and fees), to confine the steps of his erratic son to the lucra tive labyrinth of law, and the persevering efforts of the youth to escape from the tortuous, though golden windings, of the temple of Themis, are sufficient materials in themselves for an excellent comedy. The incipient comedy, however, promised to end rather prematurely in a tragedy, for the angry parent thinking it was vain to expect any good of a young man to whom detainers and consultation fees did not constitute the summum bonum of human felicity and exertion, determined if he would not hold detainers that detainers should hold him. He accordingly directed the rebellious law student to be removed to one of his distant estates, to be there dressed as a farm labourer, and to be employed in pruning his vines and other agricultural pursuits. This was rather too much for our young poet. He determined to escape the threatened degradation,

and accordingly, without consulting the owner, borrowed a horse from a friend-" convey, the wise it call"and indeed it was the only act of conveyance ever executed by our unwilling lawyer. He thus managed to reach a distant town, turned his friend's horse into more friendly piasters, and thus provided, made his way to Madrid. He remained concealed from his friends for about twelve months, writing anonymously for the newspapers and periodicals of the capital, until an accidental circumstance drew the public attention upon him, and he awoke one morning, like Byron, and found himself famous. He has been a very prolific author, even the indirect announcement in the dedication of his eighth volume to his wife, that with that his poetical labours would close, has, we are happy to say, not been at all acted on. From this dedication we are proud to perceive that the wife of the poet is an Irishwoman. It runs thus:

"Dedicated to the Senôra Matilda O'Reilly de Zorilla. I began the publication of my poems with our acquaintance, and I conclude them with thy name. Madrid, 10th October, 1840."

This may console us for our recent loss of an empress.

As has been intimated, the most popular of Zorilla's poems are ballads or romances, founded on the legends of his country, particularly those of a Moorish character and complexion, showing in these a strongly poetic, if not patriotic, sympathy with the ancient enemies and rulers of the "old Christians" of Spain. We would give some stanzas from a ballad of this class, but for the perverse inversions of our translator's verse, which prevent us from selecting a few specimens, tolerably free from the ludicrous objects which we have already pointed out.

We have now come to the termi nation of our somewhat painful though amusing task. We regret that our opinion is not more favourable to a work, the announcement of which we read with much pleasurable anticipa tion. Should our readers come to a different conclusion as to the merits of the translations from the specimens we have given, we shall rejoice for our author's sake if not for theirs. We need scarcely say that our verdict, whether right or wrong, is given ho

nestly and to the best of our judgment; and that we know nothing of the author but what can be gleaned from the titlepage and dedication of his book. That he is a person of taste, the selection of the subject indicates; that he is possessed of scholastic attainments, the abundant quotations in Greek put, of course, beyond all doubt; that he is gentlemanly in his tone and moderate in his opinions is undoubtedly true,

and that he has every requisite for a good translator, but the capacity for writing intelligible English in tolerable verse may safely be admitted. Should he be dissatisfied with this partial praise we shall not be obstinate; we shall change our finding altogether and acknowledge in one word, that our author has executed his task admirably, and finished his work in the most complete

manner.

"Now be a good boy, and take the physic, my dear, and then you shall have the sugar afterwards." Does the reader ever recollect having this promise held out to him? We venture, with all respect, to offer it him once more, and if he will read the first part of this article which, though useful, we fear may be rather distasteful, we can promise him some tit-bits from a livelier and more graphic pen than our own towards the close of it. Had we been in search of a good contrast to Dr. Lang, indeed, we do not know that we could have found a more complete one than chance has offered us in Mrs. Meredith. The first is verbose, serious, ponderous, and bitter; the latter, nervous, gay, lively, and good tempered. They are alike in sincerity, and in a certain warmth of feeling, and decisiveness of expression; but this in the lady only results in a positiveness that circumstances or farther knowledge might change or convert, while, in the divine, it takes the shape of a dogged obstinacy that sometimes borders on malignity.

The first work of Dr. Lang's is founded on his previously published history; but it has been almost entirely re-written, and is brought down to the present time. He commences it with a blunder, as he says that Australia was discovered simultaneously by the Spaniards and the Dutch, in 1606. Now, the Spaniard, Don Pedro Fernando de

Quiros, discovered and named a land which he called Australia del Espiritu Santo, since identified with the larger island of the New Hebrides, and which could not possibly have been part of the Louisiade, as Dr. Lang supposes. Australia del Espiritu Santo is 1,000 geographical miles from our Australia, and 600 from the Louisiade. Neither is there any evidence that Quiros's lieutenant, Luiz Vaez de Torres, when he passed through Torres' Straits saw, or, at all events, took notice of the mainland of Cape York. He describes all the land as islands, and may have passed through Bligh's Entrance, and by the Mulgrave Islands. The honour then of the first discovery of Australia is clearly due to the Dutch commander, who, in the yacht Duyfen, ran along the coast of New Guinea, and down the eastern side of the Gulf of Cenpentaria, missing the opening of Torres' Straits, which he probably avoided in consequence of the shoaling of the water in that direction. Dr. Lang afterwards truly says, that

"The northern and western coasts of Australia, from the peninsula of Cape York to the south-western extremity of the land, together with a portion of the southern coast and the neighbouring island of Van Diemen's Land were discovered during the next forty years by a succession of Dutch navigators."

Tasman was the most distinguished of these Dutch navigators, and he im

mortalised not only himself, but Van Diemen, the then Governor of the Netherlands' East Indies; and his daughter, Maria Van Diemen, with whom he was in love. One of the discoveries which he dedicated to her, was Maria Island, on the east coast of Van Diemen's Land, as it has hitherto been called, but which is now more justly, as well as euphoniously, named Tasmania.

Every one knows that our own great navigator Cook, in 1770, discovered and surveyed the whole eastern coast of Australia, from Cape Howe to Cape York, visited Botany Bay, gave names to all the more prominent objects along the coast, struck on a coral reef, and repaired his ship in Endeavour River, re-discovered Torres Straits (Torres's discovery not being known), and gave the name of New South Wales to the whole of the eastern side of the great island which was then known as New

Holland.

It having been afterwards decided, on the suggestion of Viscount Sydney, then Secretary for the Colonies, to form a convict settlement on this coast, a fleet under the command of Captain John Hunter, with Captain Arthur Phillip, as governor and commander-inchief, arrived in January, 1788, in Botany Bay, with 600 male and 250 female convicts, and their guard. Sir Joseph Banks, and the botanists who accompanied Cook, were so enraptured at the many new and beautiful shrubs and plants they discovered, that they not only called the place Botany Bay, but gave the most glowing accounts of its richness and fertility. The Bay is, in fact, a very shoal harbour, with but little shelter, surrounded by a dreary waste of sand and swamp, which, however covered with shrubs and bushes, is utterly unfertile, and remains to this day uninhabited, and very nearly in the condition in which Cook found it.

Captain Phillip after reaching Botany Bay was obliged to go in search of a better position, and cruising along the coast to the northward, luckily resolved to examine Port Jackson. The coast hereabouts is composed of vertical cliffs of pale-coloured horizontal sandstone, rather broken and indented. One of these indentations looking rather larger than ordinary was set down as a boat harbour by Captain Cook, and called Port Jackson, from the name of the man at the mast-head

who reported it. The indentation was in fact broken through by a passage, both to the north and to the south, giving an entrance behind the headlands, but another cliff beyond these openings appears from the sea to be continuous with the outer cliff, and thus prevents the entrances from being observed from a distance.

On the 26th of January the whole fleet removed into what is now known as Port Jackson, which is entered by the southern one of these two openings, and is one of the finest, safest, and most capacious harbours in the world, with a vast number of coves, and bays, and long indented arms running in various directions. To one of these coves, about seven miles up the port, where a stream of fresh water ran through a thick wood, the name of Sydney Cove was given. Here the expedition landed, and the wood was

soon felled to make room for the tents.

To those who have seen the present city of Sydney, this account of the founding of the colony must always, in spite of themselves, wear an air of antiquity and of dim romance as if it were a story a thousand years old. Yet it was but ten years ago that there died in the colony a lady who was present on this occasion, and who slept in a hammock slung between two trees, somewhere between Sydney Cove and George-street. She was the daughter, if we recollect rightly, of Captain Hunter. It is even now only sixtyfive years ago. We can hardly reconcile ourselves to the fact while we write it. We must not, however, linger any longer on the remote archæology of Australia, but, under the guidance of Dr. Lang, will just throw together the outline of its history from that time down to the present day.

The first five years of the colony were marked by great hardship. From the wreck of store-ships and other accidents the whole of the inhabitants, from the governor downwards, were obliged to be put on very short allowance of provisions. It was due solely to the energy and force of character of Governor Phillip, joined with his great humanity and good sense, that the colony was not abandoned. In the end of June, 1790, what is called the second fleet arrived. In December, 1792, Governor Phillip left the colony in consequence of declining health. He subsequently became vice

admiral, had a pension of £500 per annum, and died in 1814. In June, 1793, the total population was 3,959, including 889 persons on the distant settlement of Norfolk Island.

After Captain Phillip left there was an interval of three years, during which the government of the colony was administered by the commanding officers of the New South Wales Corps, afterwards the 102nd Regiment.

Captain Hunter, R.N., then came out as Governor, in September, 1795, and remained till September, 1800. During his governorship agriculture was much improved, and some progress was made towards producing a sufficient supply of food for the use of the colony. Still about this time a cow cost £80, a horse £90, and a Cape sheep £7 10s. Mutton was 2s. and green tea 16s. a pound. A common cup and saucer were known to have fetched 22s. In Governor Hunter's time Mr. George Bass, surgeon of H.M.S. Reliance, and a kindred spirit, Matthew Flinders, then a midshipman in the navy, set out to explore the coast to the southward, in a small boat only eight feet long, called the Tom Thumb. They discovered Tom Thumb's Lagoon in the fertile district of Illawarra, fifty miles south of Sydney. In December, 1797, Bass, in a whale-boat, with six men and six weeks' provisions, which he managed to make last for eleven weeks, discovered Shoal Haven and Twofold Bay, and passed through Bass's Straits, discovering Western Port, thus proving the insularity of Van Diemen's Land, and examining about 500 miles of coast, making altogether a voyage of about 1,000 miles. Flinders and he subsequently went round Van Diemen's Land in a small vessel, discovering Port Dalrymple, into which flows the Tamar, the second river of the island.*

The third governor of New South Wales was Captain Philip Gidley King, R.N., who assumed the government on

the departure of Captain Hunter in 1800. He has the character of being a rather rough-spoken but good natured man, who probably would not have done for first or second governor, but who was quite competent to carry out what they had begun. In 1803 the first newspaper was established, called the Sydney Gazette. In 1804 settlements were formed at Hobarton, on the south side of Van Diemen's Land, on the river Derwent, and at Launceston, on the north side, on the river Tamar.

In December, 1801, Flinders came out from England in H.M.S. Investigator, and traced the whole of the south coast, from Cape Leeuwin to Encounter Bay, so named from his there meeting the French expedition, under Captain Baudin, who had come from the eastward. They both discovered and examined Port Philip, but had been anticipated a few weeks by Lieutenant Murray, R.N. Flinders afterwards surveyed the whole eastern coast and the Gulf of Cenpentaria, when his ship being found to be rotten, he was compelled to return to Sydney. He and his crew then embarked for home in the Porpoise and Cato, which were both wrecked on the Cato coral reef. They managed to build a small vessel from the wreck, in which Flinders went to Sydney and brought assistance to his companions. After that he sailed for England in the cutter Cumberland, twenty-nine tons burthen, but being obliged to put into the Mauritius, he was there detained a prisoner for six years and a-half by the governor, Du Caen, notwithstanding he had a passport from the French government, as was usual in time of war with discovery ships. This conduct was in striking contrast with that which Captain Baudin had just previously met with in Sydney, where he was treated with the utmost hospitality.

Flinders was accompanied by Robert Brown, as naturalist,† now so well

known, as the most eminent of European botanists, whose reputation first arose from his dissertation on the plants of Australia, collected and observed during this voyage.

In 1806, great floods on the Hawkesbury River, the borders of which were then the granary of the colony, produced the greatest distress, and for a time almost paralysed its energies.

The fourth Governor of New South Wales was Captain William Bligh, R.N. His name is better known as connected with the mutiny of the Bounty. He seems to have been one of those men, whose irascibility of temper made him intolerable to all those who came in immediate contact with his authority. His officers and crew mutinied against him, and turned him out of the Bounty. The officers of the New South Wales Corps, and some of the principal people of the colony, mutinied against him, and turned him out of his government.

The New South Wales Corps was, doubtless, anything but a "crack" regiment. The officers of it had, from the first, become spirit-dealers, purchasing rum at cost price from the "King's Stores," and disposing of it at a very large profit, through the medium of the sergeants and other persons. At this early period of the colony, indeed, it appears that all the officers, military and civil, from the Governor downwards, monopolised the supply of all spirits arriving in the colony, whether public or private, and disposed of them for their own advantage, either for money, goods, or services performed.

Governor Bligh had orders from home to put a stop to this pernicious system, and proceeded to execute them probably in as exasperating a manner as he possibly could. Ill-blood was thus generated between the Governor and those to whom he should have looked for support. A trifling circumstance gave rise to an open quarrel between them, and, finally, Major Johnstone, at the head of the regiment, arrested the Governor, imprisoned him, and assumed the government. This was in the end of the year 1807. In December, 1809, Colonel Macquarrie came out as Governor, with orders to

re-instate* Bligh for twenty-four hours, as an amende honorable, and to send Major Johnstone home under arrest, when he was shortly after cashiered. The New South Wales Corps also was replaced by the 73rd Regiment.

"Colonel, afterwards General Lachlan Macquarrie was Governor of New South Wales for twelve years. He was an able and energetic man, although rather crotchetty occasionally. Under his rule the colony, having got over its first difficulties, started into active and vigorous existence. He caused roads to be made to the west and south-west, especially one across the Blue Mountains, concentrating, for a time, the whole convict labour upon these needful works. He made altogether 276 miles of road, with wooden bridges across the many gullies and watercourses. He also had numerous public buildings erected, from barracks down to police-stations. In New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, together, 250 public buildings were completed in his time. It appears, from one of his despatches, that the settlers could at that time employ only one-eighth of the convicts that were then poured into the colony, the other seven-eighths being thus necessarily maintained and employed by Government.

Governor Macquarrie tried with more or less success to bring forward the Emancipists, as convicts were called, who had served their time and become free. From him originated the "môt" so well remembered in New South Wales, that "the colonists consisted of those who had been transported, and those who ought to have been so."

Credit is especially due to him for the way in which he urged on inland discovery. When he took the government, the colony consisted only of the country within forty or fifty miles of Sydney. At that distance from the coast it was bounded by the Blue Mountains, a range whose highest peaks do not much exceed 3,000 feet, but which rises gently from the plains through the space of twenty or twenty-five miles, the whole surface of that slope being traversed by innumerable gullies and ravines, with perfectly vertical cliffs, winding and branching one out of another, so as to form an inextricable maze. The brooks