door ceased, and Mr. Curr appeared at one of the windows, and advised the people to disperse, as the state of the poll would be declared on Monday. After some time the rioters gradually dispersed of their own accord, in knots of from fifty to a hundred each. One party proceeded to Mr. Young's shop in Collins Street, the windows of which they smashed, and otherwise did considerable damage. Mr. Williamson's shop was also attacked, but not seriously damaged; and a stone of several pounds' weight and other missiles were thrown through the door of the Imperial Inn. The house and shop of Mr. Green, in Elizabeth-street, was also attacked; several shots were fired by the inmates, and two individuals were wounded. The military soon after arrived under the command of Captain Lewis, who, with the police magistrate, the mounted police, and the constabulary, succeeded in dispersing the rioters and restoring order. Mr. Green was taken to the watchhouse, and although several persons wished to bail him out, the police magistrate did not think it prudent to comply. The mayor's house was also attacked, but assistance being procured, no damage was done. Mr. Cantlin's house was also attacked, and the windows smashed. By eight o'clock in the evening, however, tranquillity was restored."

While on this topic, we cannot resist the inclination of selecting from the same channel a short correspondence which appears to us deserving of a more permanent record than the columns of a Colonial Journal, from which we have taken it,-the Maitland Mercury of the 15th of July, 1843. We give it as an instance of pure and noble independence, and without knowing, or indeed caring for, anything of the political sentiments of the gentlemen on whom it reflects so much honour. From what we can understand of the constitution of the Sydney Legislative Council, the government have the power of selecting twelve nominees as members holding seats, as formerly (and for aught we know still) our own government had certain nomination boroughs, which were notoriously filled up by their own members or supporters. It seems that a Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR being a candidate for the late Cumberland (New South Wales) election, was defeated by the popular candidate, upon which his Excellency, the Governor, addressed him the following

letter:

"Parramatta, July 5, 1843.

DEAR SIR,-The unexpected result of the Cumberland election induces me to ask you, as a member of the old Council, whether it would be agreeable to you to enter the new one as a nominee of the crown, one seat being still at my disposal.—Very faithfully yours, GEORGE GIPPS.

James Macarthur, Esq."

The following is Mr. Macarthur's reply, which evinces as beautiful an instance of self-denial and ele

vated principle, as would shed lustre on the name of a Fox, a Burke, or a Romilly :

"Parramatta, July 5, 1843. DEAR SIR,-I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's obliging communication of this date.

The result of the Cumberland election, however unexpected by your Excellency, in common as I believe with a large portion of the public, is one which, as a possible contingency, I have frequently contemplated.

With every desire to aid the government by a faithful discharge of any public duty intrusted to me, I can have no hesitation in declining the seat in the new Legislative Council which your Excellency has been pleased in so kind a manner to offer me, because I do not feel that, after having been rejected by a popular constituency, I could act as a nominee of the crown, either with advantage to the public or satisfaction to myself.-I have the honour to be, Sir, your Excellency's faithful and obedient servant, JAMES MACarthur.

His Excellency Sir George Gipps, &c. &c. &c."

But we are treading on forbidden ground, and shall therefore leave politics to those who are fond of fishing in troubled waters; there is another subject, fruitful in itself, and most important in its result, but which in these days of polemical heat and controversy, we must put our blinkers on before we attempt to pass it,-the Church. There is, we need scarcely say, a church establishment at Sydney with a bishop at the head of it. In a recent Sydney Journal we see an interesting account of the laying of the foundation stone of a new church.

Like one who has been toiling up a steep eminence, and when he has nearly gained the top, turns round, and looks behind him on the ground he has gone over, let us turn back after viewing the height to which, in the progress of refinement, Australia has already climbed, to what she was "sixty years since." In the language of one of the tenderest and most tasteful of our modern bards (T. K. Hervey), we are thus corroborated :

"Upon the close of the American war in 1786, Botany Bay was chosen as a proper place of transportation for criminals. Of those who took part in the debates upon that question, the more illiberal and narrow-minded, unaccustomed to extended and philosophical views of human nature, ridiculed the strong colours in which its advocates painted the future condition of a nation which was to be the offspring of crime, and were alike sceptical as to the possibility of reclaiming the natives from darkness-and the colony from guilt; and uniting them in social ties, and by social interests. The subject was one which afforded ample materials for ridicule to those who love better to rail than to reason; but nearly half a century has since elapsed :-the colony (which was shortly afterwards removed to Sydney Cove on the south side of Port Jackson) is in a condition to justify the expectations which were formed of it;-the moral and natural soils have been found alike fitted to repay the labours of European cultivation;—and the author exposes himself to slight danger of contempt, in drawing a picture so warm and enthusiastic as that in which he has ventured to prefigure the possible greatness of Australia.” *

Since the above was written, Australia has seen better, and even worse days than her sanguine supderiders could have had the hardihood to predict. Her porters could have imagined, or her most incredulous commercial prosperity rose to a dizzy height; a reaction followed, from which she is as yet but slowly recovering. Intemperate speculation, the usual result of successful and more prudent enterprise, led to severe reverses; but a nation (particularly a young colony) may be, like the human body, too well; there is something highly threatening in a very robust state of health; bleeding and a reduction of the system is the course usually prescribed under such circumstances, and through that course Australia has been saved from the usual consequences of a plethora.

We are glad to perceive that the hopes of the colonists are reviving, and by means too that will excite a smile. The great exports of New South

* Vide Preface to "Australia, and other Poems," by Thomas K. Hervey. London. 1824.

Wales are wool and sheep. Wool, however, has depreciated in price, but a new channel of wealth has appeared; the Sydney agriculturists may well say, revenons à nos moutons," for it is to the moutons they are indebted for it. We shall not, like the Maitland Editor," indulge in useful reflections, and delightful anticipations, which this new resource so plentifully suggests,' but content ourselves with stating, that instead of shearing the sheep, they now boil him down for tallow. The following little bit concludes with such a charming aphorism, that we cannot omit it.

"We would say to the settlers, then, use the golden opportunity of bettering your circumstances, which has so miraculously turned up-use it thankfully-use it promptly-but use it advisedly and with MODERATION. A sheep shorn may live to be shorn again; but a sheep boiled is gone for ever."

We shall have our own "delightful anticipations" on this new discovery, and hail its influence on those indispensable accessories of domestic life," long fours," and "short sixes."

Thus have we endeavoured to sketch the progress of our colonies; and we shall soon feel them, if we don't mend our own pace, treading on our heels. Like an overgrown boy who has been always treated by his mother as a baby, she suddenly discovers that Little Johnny is almost as big as herself, and, from the knocks and thumps he occasionally gives her, almost as strong. The old lady views the stripling by her side with some serious misgivings, and thinks it time "to do something for the youngster," or the youngster may feel disposed to do something for himself. The young gentleman really "begins to think himself quite a man," and looks with lofty contempt on the last pretty toy she made him a present of, although it was a set of bran-new soldiers with red coats, with an interesting assortment of whips and guns; he will be no longer pacified with such pretty playthings as used formerly to stop his mouth, and has recently evinced symptoms of "rebellion" and insubordination of a most decided character; besides an independence of acting and thinking quite distressing to the old lady's nerves. Does old mother England take the hint? Will she allow us to remind her that she has been already deprived of one of the most thriving of her brats, Miss Columbia, whom she snubbed as a child, till the young lady made a bolt of it one fine morning? and she may rely on it, some of the bold hussy's younger sisters will, if she does not manage them better, be following the bad example.

Gentle reader, hold with us but a little longer-we are not going to inflict on you a chapter of colonial policy, although we have reason to believe that such a topic would not, at the present time, be out of place. The English people are now beginning to think that their colonies are worth their regard: they don't at all relish the idea of the Russian bear putting his paw upon the East Indies; and they have not the slightest wish, at present, that the West or Canada should form part of the United States. We have no apprehension ourselves of either of those events, but rather hope that England will herself discover, that if she will preserve her empire, her colonies must not be disregarded. May her government of them be that mild parental control, which, instead of disuniting its offspring by unsympathising coolness and proud res

traint, draws it to its maternal breast by kindly nurture and cherishing fondness!

To conclude with the subject with which we commenced; the rise and progress of this colony under all the fearful disadvantages with which it has had to contend-of mismanagement from incompetent governors, a felon population, and being made the depôt of an overfed market-is as creditable to its own resources, as it is satisfactory to the mother country. We have seen, that little more than fifty years since, this beautiful and almost boundless territory, for its extent is not even yet fully discovered, now so replete as we have shown with the graces and elegancies of life, was an uncultivated desert, or, to adopt its own homebred phrase, "a bush." The solitary kangaroo, or the coarse savage a thousand times more brutish and untractable in his nature,-for here

"while along creation Music ran,

She placed no echo in the heart of man!" its only inhabitant; and the first traces of civilization spread by the very off-scourings of London vice and depravity. And now! may not an Englishman point to it with pride and exultation as a proof of what English energy has accomplished, and what English industry can do? Into its beautiful harbours ships are pouring from each country of the civilized globe, while from them as many more are departing, freighted with the rich products of her natural wealth and industry. Here is food too for the philosopher as well as the patriot! What, though upwards of fifteen thousand miles and mighty oceans intervene between Australia and her dependency, English feelings, English objects, and English pursuits there predominate, her influence creates-her power commands -the same tastes pervading, the same topics exciting, and the same mother-words lisped, as in her own infant cradles. From the same altars the same creed is acknowledged, and to the same throne of grace the Great Dispenser of all good is supplicated in the same prayers!

The great cities of the earth have passed away," and made no sign;" the scholar and the antiquary cannot even agree as to their site. The glory is departed from Athens, and Rome is her own melancholy monument. May not England anticipate the same doom? May not the capital of the world share the same fate as prouder capitals have before her? May not our prolific soil be exhausted, the seat of our manufactures be removed, the resources of our national wealth be dried up or exhausted?-YES, as far as this small plot of earth is concerned; but what is to prevent her empire over the seas being maintained in a wider field for action, where her energies will have a bolder and freer scope?

"What though the temple from its base decline?
Its hallowed things may deck another shrine.
What though thou perish on the northern wave?
Thy phoenix spirit shall escape that grave!
Thy fame shall mock the wasting flood of years-
Worlds are thy children, continents thy heirs!

I see them in the east, and in the west,
Where'er the ocean heaves her troubled breast;
Wide o'er the regions of the setting sun,
Where mighty streams through vast savannahs run;
'Mid woods coeval with the land they shade,
And bright wing'd birds in every sunny glade;
'Mid lakes, whose deeps the plummet's search defy,
And hills that hide their summits in the sky;

Where to the wandering eye, a world appears
Veil'd in the mystery of four thousand years-
I see thy children, children spread afar,
And gather up thy arts of peace and war." *

Yes! it needs no great stretch of the imagination to prefigure the seat of the English Empire removed to a country, already its own adopted child, almost boundless in extent, the parts already discovered being nearly as large as the whole continent of Europe, forming as it does a portion of the globe already too unwieldy to be placed within any of its former divisions, and demanding one for itself alone. With every capability and variety of soil and climate -in general nearer to her other dependencies, including Canada, both the Indies, the Oriental Archipelago, those numerous islands in the Polynesia, in the Pacific Ocean, Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, from which it is barely separated-and in all of which civilization is not only dawning, but its sun has almost risen, all revolving like satellites round the star of nations, Australia may be considered as that part of the British Empire which the prophetic eye regards as the future seat of English power. Great Britain may become classic ground; and centuries hence, pilgrims may wander over the deserted and moss-grown streets of London; yet what patriot would feel his amor patria wounded in the foreknowledge that the sun of English power may set in its present northern sphere, to rise again in the East, in another region, not less

*T. K. Hervey's Australia.

BEFORE the great Fire of London in 1666, and London reviving in unwonted splendour under the genius of Sir Christopher Wren, the highway to Westminster by Ludgate and Charing Cross wore a look in every way different from its present every-day appearance. There was scarce a shop-front of glass in the whole line, goods were exposed for sale either in small pent-houses abutting from the main building, or in booths such as we see still at country fairs. Temple Bar was a plain barrier or postern, very unlike the present archway of Wren's making; the pavement for the foot passengers seemed very undecided in its extent, and the carriage-way altogether unlike the Holyhead Road or the even surface of Fleet Street or the Strand as we now see them. The chief moving portion of the street (for it is to Fleet Street we refer) was made of waggons, somewhat unwieldy, but picturesque in make; a stray carriage or sedan; with a citizen on his quiet palfrey, and a gallant or two of the West End breed, mounted on mettled horses, and dressed to the last point of fashionable perfection. The foot passengers were gentlemen of the Inns of

Court, tradesmen, and men of 'Change. A house here and there was of brick-few were of stone-and the majority were of wood, with picturesque fronts and gables, and occasionally a rude carving on each side of the upper portions of the house, rough in execution and Gothic and grotesque in conception. To call attention to their ill-displayed assortment of wares, the tradesmen employed their apprentices, lads like Frank Tunstall and Jin Vin, to draw the eye of a likely passenger to their masters' wares by a clamorous roll-call of goods and chattels, with the everrecurring, "What d'ye lack?" like the "Buy, buy, buy," of the butchers in Newport Market. Some of the nobility had their houses in this street with their gardens extending to the river side, as the Temple Gardens extend to this day: the Inns of Court and Law were off the street, and Alsatia too was at hand. Dr. Donne was the vicar of St. Dunstan's; but the savages that struck the hours on the church clock, to the joy and wonderment of many, were not then in existence. Isaak Walton's house was near the Bar; while where Child's Place is now, stood the Devil Tavern, the favourite resort of Ben Jonson, and all who desired to be sealed of the tribe of Ben.

This tavern in its exterior gave, like the majority of the then London houses, no great promise of the comfort and good cheer within, though for the days when

The

Jonson reigned there, it was one of the better sort of street tenements. The doorway was neat even to a fault, and the small diamond-shaped panes in the windows clean even to a nicety. The porchway was filled with rosemary and flowers. The sign that hung outside gave rise to many a hearty laugh, for it was at once humorous and local in its allusions. Devil was seen, (and a good sized stage Devil in appearance he was,) having his nose, not tweaked, but pulled till, "Lord how he roared again," by the Saint to whom the parish church was dedicated. St. Dunstan was seen in a kind of saint-like exultation, and the whole sign was no common piece of pictorial workmanship. Above this humorous sign-board was the Sun, Phoebus-Apollo, and the name of the landlord, to wit, Simon Wadloe. Underneath was seen, in raised gold letters

Welcome all who lead or follow,

To the Oracle of Apollo.

A better landlord or a kinder-hearted man than Simon Wadloe never existed. His was a roguish eye, and a ready and a witty tongue. His look was

Rosy and reverend, though without a gown,

and Simon "brewed good drink for gentlemen:" he drank freely himself, was a judge of wines, and even of "viler liquors;" for, like Chaucer's cook

Well could he know a draught of London Ale. Aye, and a good glass of Bordeaux-wine withal; for Simon, from the Docks in Tower Street to the Royal Cellars at Whitehall, was famous for picking and choosing, and selling pure and honestly. There was no allaying Thames" in what Wadloe sold. He drove a good trade, and was known from Mile-end to Marylebone-from Whitechapel to Whitehall, known, too, and respected.

The flooring of Wadloe's doorway was of red brick, covered with clean rushes. His own sanctum or bar was richly ornamented with all the materials for drink and drinking: forbye a fine red-cheeked, ripe-lipped, well-shaped wife, and a comely daughter, some seventeen, the very image of them both. The variety of drinking-cups were in measure and fashion almost endless. Some of elm, some of box, some of maple, some of holly; with mazers and broad mouthed dishes from a pottle to a pint, and from a pint to a gill, noggins, whiskins, piggins, crinzes, ale-bowls, wassailbowls, parcel-gilt goblets, court-dishes, tankards and cans; with cups made of horns of beasts, of cocoanuts and gourds, ostrich-eggs and shells of fish, shining like mother-of-pearl. These were above, while below were seen small-jacks tipt with silver, the great blackjacks such as the Christ's Hospital boys still use, and the court-bombards, which, when the French first saw, "they reported at their return into their country, that the Englishmen drank their commoner kind of liquors out of their own boots."

The rooms in Wadloe's house were not distinguished as ours are now. Names supplied the place of numbers. There was the Half-Moon, the Portcullis, the Pomegranate, the Three Tuns, the Cross Keys, the Vine, the Queen's Head, the Crown, the Dolphin and the Bell, one and all so styled from the figures on the arras with which they were hung.

But the chief room was "The Apollo," a handsome,

large and lofty room, with a gallery for music at the upper end. In this room was held the Apollo Club -a collection of choice spirits brought together by the directing genius of Jonson. Over the door, in gold letters, and on a black ground, were the following

verses:

Welcome all who lead or follow,
To the Oracle of Apollo.-
Here he speaks out of his pottle,
Or the tripos, his tower-bottle:
All his answers are divine,
Truth itself doth flow in wine.
Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers,
Cries old Sim, the king of skinkers;
He the half of life abuses,

That sits watering with the Muses.
Those dull girls no good can mean us;
Wine it is the milk of Venus,

And the poet's horse accounted:
Ply it and you all are mounted.
'Tis the true Phoebian liquor,

Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker;
Pays all debts, cures all diseases,
And at once three senses pleases.
Welcome all who lead or follow,
To the Oracle of Apollo.

Above the door was the bust of Ben, the founder.

This room (for we defend the system of describing old upholstery) was fitted all round with a panelling of oak, carved from the plain skirting of the floor to the rich timbered ceiling above. Two rows of medallions in high relief ran all along the upper lines of the room -medallions such as Torrigiano would have carved and Walpole purchased-such as we see at the Sun Tavern at Kelvedon, in Essex, to this day. The fireplace carried its proud height to the very rafters of the ceiling. Its open and capacious mouth was filled with flowers, a branch of the glossy and poetic bay-tree surmounting all. Tables of elegant workmanship, and chairs as varied in shape as the drinking-cups to be seen below at the bar, stood on a Kidderminster carpet, then a dear article and of rarity. The rules of the room, cut in marble, and of Ben Jonson's ordaining, were let into a panel over the fire-place. They were in Latin, and twenty-four in number, all convivial and sententious.

It was a fine day in June, and some time in the reign of the martyr Charles, that as the cry descended to the bar of" Score a pint of bastard in the Dolphin,' and Wadloe's wife was busy chalking up the debt, a tall figure, somewhat up in years and apparently fatigued, was seen to enter within the bar of the Devil Tavern. His suit was of black, neither in the fashion nor out of it; his make large and corpulent, with an ungracious gait, but one that told of activity in former times. were large and lustrous, and his whole face great with thought, and, though scorbutic, highly interesting. There was a perpetual play of humour and merriment upon his lips, and he wore the air of no common, every-day character.

66

His eyes

The drawers bowed becomingly as he entered, and in taking his short cloak and sword from him, were interrupted by Wadloe, who assisted in such offices the more favoured of his guests. Well," said the stranger in black to the fair hostess at the bar, "the Duke looks well and hearty; nothing seems to go wrong with Simon, nor with you, Mistress Margaret, nor my pretty god-child there: I seldom come to see you now, I am not what I was, and it is a long

way from Westminster here; but I must move nearer you, for Simon's house is rife with old doings. One becomes younger in thought as he enters. But have the guests come yet? Is Dick here? or have you seen Sir John?" These questions and others answered, the stranger was conducted up the stairs of the tavern, that seemed familiar enough to his feet.

The stranger had not many minutes ascended the stairs, with all the satisfaction of one who looked upon the place as his own best home, before a very different kind of guest was seen to enter the Devil Tavern. Youth, handsomeness, gaiety, and intellect were on his countenance, his step was easy, clean, and graceful; his body, though slender, well-proportioned and upright; his hands, for one was uncovered, aristocratically small and white; his legs manly, and his feet in what the painters call in exact keeping with his figure. Nor had he allowed his person to want any of the recommendations which dress could lend it. The cultivated finish of the man was at once perceptible in the ease of his acknowledgments-the gaiety of the man of pleasure in the way he smiled upon and spoke to the daughter of the host and hostess. He had thought it a sin to have passed beauty by without a smile of intelligent admiration.

Our gay gallant had lingered in all likelihood at the bar of the tavern, had not the entry of two young gen

tlemen at that moment put a stop to the flowing facility of his speech, and that grace and manner of compliment and remark which he understood so well in all its moods and tones and bearings. "What, Sir John," said the more unreserved of the two, who knew his man, "still unchanged! still unchanged!"-"Ah! are you here?" he replied. "O yes, still unchanged. It were a crime to unnotice nature in her utmost loveliness. Mine is the homage which man pays, or ought to pay, to beauty, in whatever rank of life it is found-in the court or in the cottage-at a masque at Whitehall, or here at the bar of the Devil Tavern."-" I'gad, it is the old story, Suckling," said his friend, "here is the poet and the man of pleasure in one. Everything you enact or do is your own poetry put into action.'

"Ah!" said Suckling, laughingly, "your Lordship knows the vein-it was once your own. But let us up to the Apollo, and to the oracle there of our own erecting. I love the god that we have set there, and long to see our father after his late attack of the palsy, which never shook a nobler intellect than his."

"Never, never," said the two, as they accompanied the gay, the witty, and poetical Suckling to the room in the Apollo, where they found several guests assembled, that seemed, from their greetings, to know one another well.

Here, surrounded by several friends, stood their