AUSTRALIAN HISTORY.*

THE present time, when the Australian Colonies are evidently about to take a new departure, by becoming a confederation, and, through confederation, effectually claiming the hegemony of the Archipelago, of which their continent is the natural centre of gravity, is very opportune for the publication of the two historical works we have bracketed together. Their very faults, from the literary point of view, render them the more valuable in this political connection. They differ, indeed, in character and in area. Mr. 'linden's three volumes necessarily include the story told in one by Mr. Bonwick, who, moreover, does not claim for his work the description of a history of Port Philip, much less of Victoria, but prefers to style it " the narrative of attempted settlements, and ultimately of the permanent occupation of the territory." But they agree in being exhaustive, discursive, and detailed, in belonging to the thesaurus, rather than to the historical, type of literature. To read the three volumes, with their 2,000 pages, in which the veteran Mr. Rusden, equalling his own "longest on record work," his History of New Zealand, tells the story of Australia from 1616, when Dirk Hartog, voyaging from Holland to India, landed on Australian soil at Sharks' Bay, down to the confederation and annexation schemes of our own time, is one of those labours which only loVe, or a crisis demanding special .knowledge, could induce one to undertake. The task recalls the subtle distinction of a forgotten humonrist ; it is calculated to make one not grey, but bald. It is a feat, like the ascent of Ben Nevis, to be performed only in the interests of

science. Even when a man accomplishes it in this spirit, he must make frequent stoppages for rest and refreshment; and he must make up his mind that it will ultimately entail upon him the loss, if not of health, certainly of hair. But the present moment is the very one for such works as those of Mr. Rusden, and (in a less degree) of Mr. Bonwick, to appear. Another stage in the evolution of the Australian Colonies is about to be reached, and data on which to base a prediction as to its character cannot be too numerous. Such data we have in Mr. Rusden's prodigious, but honest, careful, exhaustive, and indeed encyclopaedic work, which is all the more, rather than all the less readable, that he has served it up with the gravy of his own personal loves and hates. Of Mr. Bonwiok's volume on Port Philip we must content ourselves with saying that it contains a number of curious details, and gives an excellent sketch of John Batman, one of the most interesting of Australian pioneers, whose courage and character were such that a desperate bushranger surrendered to him simply because, as he said, he was a " brave man."

A perusal of Mr. Rusden's pages is calculated, we fear, to make the reader incline to adopt Mr. Arnold's, rather than the late Mr. Roebuck's, view of "the best breed in the whole world." He will be far oftener ashamed than proud of his countrymen. Mr. Rusden tells once more the story of the Botany-Bay convict settlements, and a more horrible tale of degradation and depravity the history of the Anglo-Saxon race does not include. Sydney Smith, whose essays on Australia are perhaps the best, because the most earnest, he ever wrote, drew, in 1823, the picture of " a wicked little tailor" writing to England from Botany Bay that " he was as comfortable as a finger in a thimble, that though a fraction of humanity, he had several wives, and was filled every day with ram and kangaroo." But this " sartorial Borgia" must be considered a saint and a gentleman compared with some, perhaps the majority, of the men who must be reckoned the founders of modern Australia. Then the story of the dealings of the settlers with the Aborigines is one that it is impossible to read without indignation. The Qneenslanders were, perhaps to some extent are, the worst offenders in this respect on the Australian continent. Fancy an Englishman writing in 1880 to an English newspaper, " We must go the whole length, and say that the sooner we clear away the weak, useless race, the better. And being a useless race, what does it matter what they suffer, any more than the distinguished philanthropist who writes in his behalf cares for the wounded, half-dead pigeon he butchers at his pigeon matches P" Mr. Rusden tells once more the history of the gold discoveries, but somehow it has a sordid rather than a romantic look. Finally, we confess that the narrative • History of Azutralia. By G. W. Ruaden. S vols. London : Chapman and HAIL 1883.

Port Philip Settlement. By James Bonwiok, F.R.G.S. London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Itivingten. 3883.

of the later struggles of colonial legislatures, which Mr. Emden gives with fullness, is dreary reading. Australian politicians seem, even when they were in the right—as in the dispute with the Home Authorities on transportation, they certainly were—to have been as much given to petty personalities as the proverbial vestryman. Mr. Emden himself writes like a combatant. He defends Wentworth—in some respects, the strongest man Australia has yet produced—sneers at Lord Sherbrooke, as " the versatile Mr. Lowe ;" says violent things

against Sir Charles Gavan Daffy ; and speaks of his bete noire, Dr. Lang, a -Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, in language which almost rivals that of Warren Hastings's military friend, who spoke of "that reptile Mr. Burke." Can Lord Sherbrooke now believe that, by way of satirising a Judge who was " selling off "'on the occasion of his retirement from the colony with which he had been connected, he put these

words into his mouth ?—

" Here goes the portrait of Sir Richard Burke, For whom I long did all the dirty work ; His way of ruling was a perfect see-saw, The voice of Jacob, and the hands of Esau ;"

or that, no further back than 1845, he wrote thus of the then Governor of New South Wales, and of the persons who, were likely to attend his ley& on the Queen's birthday ?-

"Thank him for what his harpies have not reft ; Thank him for what prerogative has left ; Thank him for revenue he dares not take ; Thank him—for laws he yet has spared to break ; Thank him—for lands which, innocent of rent, Yield not his vampires twenty-five per cent. ; Thanks for the Gordian knot his hand untied, The 'solemn compact' solemnly denied."

The annals of Australia are full of the hard and necessary

pioneer work of civilisation ; but its true heroes up to the present time are its explorers of the type of Leichhardt and Burke. It is safe, however, to predict a great future for Australia, and even the appearance of great men, when, as Mr. Rusden quaintly puts it, " a fair proportion of her people shall have been released from journal claims which enthral or impede the mind."

As we have already hinted, the early portion of Mr. Rusden's work, his account of the first settlements and of the first struggles is Australia, is the most interesting. After the continent begins, so to speak, to split into different colonies, its history becomes to a large extent sectional. Even the appearance of such problems as those of the treatment of the Aborigines, of the stoppage of transportation, of the settlement of the land, of the.gold discoveries, and of Chinese cheap labour, which may seem common to all, or to many of the colonies, fails to give the air of homogeneity to the lates portions of their history. This is the fault of Mr. Rusden's subject, however, rather than of Mr. Rusden himself. His book, indeed, resembles Australia in

bein g large and loose-jointed, rather than compact. An increasing

purpose runs through it, no doubt, but time only can tell what it is. In this respect, the present work may appear to compare

favourably with Mr. Rusden's former book, his History of New Zealand, the central fact in which is the record of the straggle between white settlers and the natives. But then the interests of New Zealand are, or at all events were then, simple ; those of Australia are becoming more and more complex. Mr. Rusden,

however, gives ample tables of contents and an excellent index, and so his work is of very great value, as the chief historical reference work on Australia. But it has other merits, as we have already mentioned.