be in fiction the rural life of the country, to recognise
the beginning of an aristocracy of landholders, and to commemorate the
pervading spirit of cheerful confidence to which so much of the rapid
early development of Australia was due.

It may well be regretted that one who had so keen an eye for all that
was best in the social life of the country, at one of its most
interesting periods, should not have written a volume or two of
reminiscences, but no colonial reader would wish _Geoffry Hamlyn_ or
_The Hillyars and the Burtons_ to have been made the vehicle of more
descriptive matter than they contain. Kingsley was more sparing in the
use of local colour and incident than Boldrewood and some of the younger
writers are, though in his first novel a few passages occur which may be
considered unnecessary, including the story told by the hut-keeper to
Hamlyn in the presence of the disguised bushrangers, the whisking of
Captain Blockstrop and his friends on and off the stage, and the story
of the lost child. The latter, however, like Dr. Mulhaus' geological
lecture, has the merit of being one of the best pieces of prose the
author ever wrote, and gives Sam Buckley and Cecil Mayford an
opportunity for a dramatic settlement of the order of their suit for the
hand of Alice Brentwood. In the main narrative the periods of 'dull
prosperity' are expressly avoided. After that first beautiful picture of
the pioneer settlement, 'the scene so venerable, so ancient, so seldom
seen in the old world--the patriarchs moving into the desert with all
their wealth to find a new pasture land'--the action of the story is
rapidly advanced to the later days of their success. The estate which
has been the home of Major Buckley's forefathers for generations no
longer providing a competence, he has resolutely left it for the land
where he is to find 'a new heaven and a new earth.' Unlike so many of
the pioneers, he has bade a final good-bye to England, but that it is
_not_ 'for ever' one can safely predict from the outset. He sees the old
country in long years after, when, with some of the wealth garnered on
the rolling prairies of Northern Australia, his son has proudly bought
back the family domain of Clere in all the completeness of its original
acres. Within a few brief chapters the colonists are discovered in the
security of assured wealth. Sitting under their station verandahs, they
can contemplate almost with calmness the death of their cattl