ants have been brought up, and but for which they would never have been colonists in Van Diemen's Land.'

There are some residences of a better description, but they are by no means numerous. Norfolk Plains is a rich and populous settlement on the banks of the South Esk.

Let the settler beware how he places himself amongst these people, for they are in general as poor and as flagitious as idleness, encouraged by the almost spontaneous fertility of their lands, can make them. Woe to the fat wethers and even to the pregnant ewes of their more wealthy neighbours! None of these depredators will want meat while there is a flock of sheep within a convenient distance; and few of them will want rum while those who sell it encourage their depredations. I am acquainted with a gentleman in this neighbourhood, who, with three thousand acres in one spot of the finest land and richest pasturage in the island, dares not feed a single sheep of all his large flocks upon it.

Sheep-stealing in this island, but more particularly in this part of it, is organized into a most complete system, and various me thods are adopted in the commission of the robbery, and in the secretion of the flocks when stolen.

In somes cases the shepherd is a party concerned; and where his integrity has been corrupted, the matter becomes simple enough. In other cases, where the flock is large, consisting perhaps of a thousand or more, and extending over a considerable surface of ground, it is scarcely possible that the shepherd can have the whole in view at one time. It is well known that the strongest and best sheep will always head the flock; and the robbers, taking advantage of this, break into the midst of them, and cut off a number of their leaders, frequently from two to three hundred; but usually not less than from one hundred to one hundred and fifty. These they drive away, and if they are not missed for an hour or two, there is a great probability that they will evade pursuit; for the shepherd, at first only suspecting his loss, will count his sheep to ascertain it; and before this is done, and he knows which way to pursue, the robbers have gained a start of several miles. The sheep, once clear off their own beat, are driven about in various directions, to disguise and confuse their track; and when removed to a sufficient distance, from twenty to fifty miles, if wanted for immediate use, are killed, and perhaps salted, in some secret part of the bush; or left in the flock of an accomplice, usually a small proprietor, who has previously agreed for the purchase, and the price, generally in ardent spirits, is paid to the plunderers. If the sheep are to be kept alive, they are driven to a considerable distance, and in some unfrequented place, where secret stock yards are kept up, unknown to any but these depredators, they proceed to disfigure them. If pitch-marked, they are in the first place shorn; any remarkable spotted sheep being generally destroyed. If they are marked by any notch in the ear, the tip is cut off; or if the notch be cut too near the G 3

head,

head, the ear is taken off altogether. If, as is often the case, they are branded on the face, the brand is altered by the addition of some other strokes; thus, I is easily converted into D and several other letters; L, by prolonging the first stroke downwards, and adding another on the right hand, is converted into H; and the same with many others. If the letter be such that it admits of no alteration, it is covered entirely with another brand, which renders it a mere blotch, but probably puts it out of the power of any person to swear to the property.

After they have recovered from their sores, and their coats are a little grown, they make their appearance in the flock of some person known to be possessed of sheep, and in several cases have actually been sold again to their rightful but unsuspecting proprietor.'

There must, surely, be some very culpable negligence at home in not exacting a better administration of justice in our colonies abroad: vigilance is particularly necessary in the seat of convicted felons. Mr. Curr says, that one great cause of the frequency of sheep-stealing and other crimes is to be found in the nature of the court which should repress them. Van Diemen's Land possesses no permanent criminal court for the trial and punishment of these offenders. The judge resides in Sidney; and during the last three years, he only twice visited Van Diemen's Land. Accordingly, when a man has been robbed, he will rather put up with his loss than, by going to Port Jackson to prosecute, incur almost certain ruin in his absence. Is it possible that such facts as these are unknown in our colonial department; or, being known, that they are connived at?

The soil of Van Diemen's Land is in many parts poor, and its hills are an impediment to agriculture, which is not so profitable a concern as sheep-grazing. The climate is singularly salubrious and favorable to the rearing of sheep, which are subject to few diseases and extremely prolific. This tendency to increase, unaccompanied with, a corresponding demand, produced such a superabundance a few years ago, that a flock of sheep might readily have been purchased at six or eight shillings a head; while a scarcity of meat occurring at the same time in New South Wales, many persons availed themselves of the circumstance to destroy even the ewes when heavy with lamb; sheep being at this time spoken of as vermin which, if not kept down, would soon overrun the country! This mad act of improvidence was carried to such excess, and the slaughter was so general and indiscriminate during the whole of the year 1820, that a few persons, less insane than the rest, began to see the whole breed in danger

of

of extermination. A consequent rise in the price of mutton and beef brought people to their senses. In Mr. Godwin's "Emigrant's Guide," he talked about the fine quality of the wool grown in the colony: and affirmed that the importation of 1819 averaged 5s. 6d. a pound in the London market; while it appears from Mr. Curr that no wool had been exported from Van Diemen's Land before the year 1820; and that up to the very publication of Mr. Godwin's puff-book, the average of what had been exported had fallen considerably short of one shilling a pound in London. All classes of people now begin to consider their flocks as the staple commodity, and as the real source of wealth to the colony. Merino rams are imported from Sidney; those from Port Jackson are sold at about 15/. a head; but the best are imported from England and fetch 25l. The most important business of the shepherd is to prevent the plunder of his master's flock; and the danger of robbery ought never to be one moment absent from his thoughts, night or day. The shepherds are either freemen, prisoners possessing tickets of leave, or assigned servants. The wages of the two former are from 201. to 50l. a year; of the latter government fixes the stipend at 10.; but this is generally exceeded in favor of those who happen to be found trust-worthy.

With repect to horned cattle, they are reared rather for slaughter and for draft, than for the dairy. In short, they are almost wild; and often the possessor of a large herd of kine cannot, as before observed, command even a cup of milk. "Wolves,' says Mr. Curr, are not more savage, nor antelopes more swift than many of the cows which I have seen the farmers attempt to milk.' Milk is from one to two shillings a quart. Very little cheese is made, though it is sold at about half a crown a pound; while the price of butter varies from five shillings to seven and six-pence!

Mr. Curr has conferred a favor on those who are trembling on the verge of emigration to Van Diemen's Land. His representation will probably arrest many on the final step. Others, who are not to be deterred, will find much information that will be useful to them: they will find a general account of the colony and its inhabitants; and what prospects are fairly held out to emigrants. He has shewn them how best to turn whatever means they may possess to the best advantage; giving them, at the same time, such advice as will help to smooth down some of the difficulties which must be encountered at their first settlement; and all this desirable information and admonition is furnished in a small compass and at a moderate price.

ART. XII. The Foresters. By the Author of "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life;" and "The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay." Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, London. 8vo. pp. 414. 1825.

THIS

HIS is a very beautifully written volume; though rather too carefully labored into beauty: affecting too unvarying a tone of melancholy sweetness: and obtruding, a little too ostentatiously, its displays of sensibility and amiable feeling. The author is no doubt aware of the advantages to be derived from the adoption of this plan. The constant appeals to our religious and moral sympathies; the pictures of kind and gentle emotions with which we are so carefully surrounded on all sides; the soft drowsy tone of pastoral melancholy which is breathed over the whole, prepossess the mind in its favor, enlist all our best feelings on its side, and blind us in some measure to the weaknesses and defects with which these beauties are alloyed. How, indeed, is it possible to speak harshly of a composition "tout de lait et de miel," which brightens all the lights of Scottish life and softens its shadows; which invests with such a character of dignity and innocence; and which labors so assiduously to persuade us, that human nature is something more noble, more elevated, and more disinterested than we had ever been accustomed to believe

"That goodness is no name-and happiness no dream."

Amiable, however, as these feelings are, we are disposed to doubt whether the views of the author are either well founded in themselves or well adapted for the purposes of fiction. His object is to present the character of the Scottish peasantry in an imposing and elevated light, and to draw from the confined circle of rural life, and the limited range of feelings with which it is conversant, those materials of fiction which other writers have sought in the more bustling and crowded theatres of the world. We are far from thinking that "the simple annals of the poor" are destitute of interest; or that their feelings are, in themselves, less susceptible of dramatic effect than those of the more elevated classes of society: but uniformity of existence produces uniformity of feeling, and varied exhibitions of passion and character must be sought where variety of situation, and "moving accidents by flood and field," place the mind in new and uncommon relations, and evolve all those shades of emotion and peculiarities of character of which it is capable. In the even tenor of rural life, few feelings are developed; the circle of thought is narrowed; the picture of one day is that of all; and any

attempt

attempt to diversify its monotony by the introduction of events of a more striking cast startles us as a harsh and unnatural contrast to the habitual repose of the scene. Such we think, at least, is the impression left on the mind of the reader by the perusal of the Foresters.' The incidents are so much of a piece, the progress of the tale so solemn and languid, and the few events of a darker cast, by which its course is at times disturbed, so little in keeping with the general tone of the story, that we cannot doubt but the defect lies more in the exclusive nature of the plan on which it is constructed, than in defective imagination of the author; as well as in attempting to expand into a large and closely printed volume what was scarcely calculated to furnish materials for a few chapters.

por

From the adoption of this system a monotony and tediousness pervades the tale: and not only so; for the necessity of exalting the characters of its actors, and of refining their feelings and habits, has really deprived them of much of their verisimilitude, and given to the whole an unreal and theatrical semblance. Entertaining, as we do, the highest respect for the character of the Scottish peasantry, we feel that the traits drawn by the author of The Foresters' exhibit them too much in their holiday dress, that they soften and throw into the shade much of what is intimately interwoven with the character of peasantry all over the world, that the tone of thought and feeling which is here represented as habitual to them, is rather the occasional result of those momentary and violent emotions, under the influence of which, nature seems to suggest, even to the rudest, her own eloquent language, and, that the influence of religion, however deeply and constantly felt, is not thus ostentatiously and obtrusively brought forward. This last particular is certainly neither agreeable to nature nor to good taste. The whole portrait thus exhibited is at once gaudy and feeble; the coloring is luxuriant, but the likeness is faint; and the impression, to use a phrase of the author (millies repetita), "glides away like a dream." The spirit of the Lake School presides over these eternal sensibilities; and the airy genius of the Isle of Palms is transplanted to the sober realities of Lasswade and Hawthornden.

In one point however we think there is a decided improvement in this tale. The author has here avoided in a great measure that common-place engine of pathos, the frequent introduction of death. There is something in the dissolution of our nature which comes home so closely to the bosom of every individual, that in the hands of the most indifferent

artist,