SARAH WELCH.

[Of Adelaide, South Australia, has published a little paper booklet entitled The Dying Chorister and the Chorister's Funeral. Is a hospital nurse by profession.]

THE DIGGER'S GRAVE.

HE sought Australia's far-famed isle,

Hoping that Fortune on his lot would smile,

In search for gold; when one short year had flown,
He wrote the welcome tidings to his own
Betrothed; told how months of toiling vain,
Made ten-fold sweeter to him sudden gain;

With sanguine words, traced with love's eager hand,
He bade her join him in this bright south land.
Oft as he sat, his long day's labour o'er,

In his bush hut, he dreamed of home once more;
His thoughts to the old country home in Kent
Returned. 'Twas Christmas-day, and they two went
O'er frost and snow; the Christmas anthem rang
Through the old church, which echoed as they sang.

That day had Philip courage gained to tell
His tale of love to pretty Christabel;
And she, on her part, with ingenuous grace,
Endorsed the tell-tale of her blushing face.
Dream on, true lover, never, never thou
Shalt press the kiss of welcome on her brow.
E'en now a comrade, eager for thy gold,
Above thy fond true heart the knife doth hold-
One stroke, the weapon's plunged into his breast;
So sure the aim, that like a child at rest,
The murdered digger lies, a happy smile
Parts the full manly bearded lips the while.

Next day they found him. In his death-cold hand,
He held his last home letter, lately scanned

With love-lit eyes; and next his heart they found
A woman's kerchief, which, when they unwound,
Disclosed a lock of silken auburn hair

And portrait of a girl's face, fresh and fair,
Dyed with the life-blood of his faithful heart.
To more than one eye, tears unbidden start;
With reverent hands, and rough, unconscious grace,
They laid him in his lonely resting-place.

The bright-hued birds, true nature's requiem gave,
And wattle-bloom bestrews the digger's grave.

WILLIAM CHARLES WENTWORTH.

["The great Australian Statesman," founder of the Sydney University, born Norfolk Island, 1791. Son of D'Arcy Wentworth. Educated in England, first under Dr. Alexander Crombie at Greenwich, afterwards at the University of Cambridge, where he unsuccessfully competed against Mackworth Praed for the Chancellor's medal 1823.

The subject was "Australasia," and though Praed secured the prize, Wentworth's is much the more meritorious performance; ranking as a "prize poem " very high indeed.

Wentworth had but little time to cultivate the muses. He finally returned to England in 1862, and died in his 81st year, at Wimborne, Dorsetshire. His remains were taken to Sydney, where they were honoured with a public funeral.]

AUSTRALASIA.

CELESTIAL poesy! whose genial sway
Earth's furthest habitable shores obey;
Whose inspirations shed their sacred light,
Far as the regions of the arctic night,

And to the Laplander his Boreal gleam
Endear not less than Phoebus' brighter beam,—
Descend thou also on my native land,

And on some mountain-summit take thy stand;
Thence issuing soon a purer font be seen
Than charmed Castalia or famed Hippocrene;
And there a richer, nobler fame arise,
Than on Parnassus met the adoring eyes.
And tho', bright goddess, on those far blue hills,
That pour their thousand swift pellucid rills,
Where Warragumba's rage has rent in twain
Opposing mountains, thundering to the plain,
No child of song has yet invoked thy aid,
'Neath their primeval solitary shade,-
Still, gracious powers, some kindly soul inspire,
To wake to life my country's unknown lyre,
That from creation's date has slumbering lain,
Or only breathed some savage uncouth strain ;—
And grant that yet an Austral Milton's song
Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along ;—
An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page
To nature true may charm in every age ;—
And that an Austral Pindar daring soar,
Where not the Theban eagle reached before.

CHARLES WHITEHEAD.

[Born 1804, died 1862; poet, novelist, dramatist; a native of London; began as clerk in a commercial house; in 1831 published The Solitary, a poem, and seems shortly afterwards to have become an author by profession; in 1834 published anonymously the Autobiography of Jack Ketch-entirely fiction; asked by Chapman & Hall to associate himself with Seymour in producing the book afterwards famous as The Pickwick Papers; declined, declaring himself unequal to the task of

producing the copy with sufficient regularity, and recommended in his place the young author of Sketches by Boz; in 1842 Mr. Bentley published the novel Richard Savage, by which Whitehead will principally be remembered. Of this work Dickens often spoke "with great admiration," while Dante Rossetti writes of it as 66 very remarkable-a real character really worked out;" wrote also The Cavalier, a poetic drama, the Earl of Essex, an historical romance, Smiles and Tears, a collection of stories and essays, and a Life of Ralegh; also contributed largely to magazines and journals. His talents were great, and Richard Savage gave him a brilliant start; unhappily fell into habits of intemperance; to make a fresh start accepted a journalistic appointment in Melbourne in 1857, but his fatal propensity remained. He sank lower and lower, and in 1862 died in Melbourne of destitution. The Spanish Marriage, the fragment of a poetic drama from which our extract is taken, was published in a Melbourne magazine, and contains fine passages. A most interesting and highly reviewed study of the poet, Charles Whitehead, a Monograph with Extracts from his Works, has been published by Mr. H. T. Mackenzie Bell (T. Fisher, Unwin & Co.), which has gone into a second edition. Our biography is an abridgment of Mr. Mackenzie Bell's in Celebrities of the Century, p. 1045.

THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

SCENE I.

The exterior of a cathedral at the back of the stage. Enter from the door CHARLES and Posa, who descend the steps and advance hurriedly to the front of the stage.

Charles. These impious marriage rites!

nature,

How are thou now profaned!

Posa.

O, holy

But yet, my lord,

Permit the friend who ventured to dissuade you
From being present at this ceremony,

To urge the danger of a seeming scorn

Cast on the king by your abrupt departure,
Before the benediction had been given.

Charles. The benediction! frightful mockery!
Had I stayed longer, Henry, I had rushed
To the high altar, and in tones to thrill
The ashes of the dead beneath my feet,
Proclaimed the scene a most unrighteous lie.
Posa. Let me implore, be calm.

Charles.

Be calm and love?

You know she was affianced unto me;

She knows it too, letters have passed between us,
Our portraits been exchanged.-You know the King
Made overtures to Elizabeth, Queen of England,
Who said her hand was otherwise engaged

In grasping tight the sceptre. Thwarted there,
This father casts his eye tow'rds France, and sees

His son's betrothed-thence, and now, weds her. Shame
On royal contract oaths! I am a slave,

A thing for men to whet their wits upon,

To have suffered this.

Posa.

I grieve for all the wrongs,

Scorns, and indignities which

Charles.

Forget not that!—

Posa.

From my birth,

The King has heaped upon you.

But he is absolute, and waves his will

O'er every head at pleasure. Hear me now:

There is no being on the earth so helpless

As a king's son and heir; he's sought and flattered,
And loved for that which may be, not which is;
All in expectancy, and meanwhile nothing-
(Aside.) He does not listen.

Stay, they are about
To leave the church; the sacrifice is ended:
Stand close you shall see pomp and majesty,