Apart from his undoubted right to rank as one of the founders of Australian literature, Mr. Loyau has been contemporary with the best men in the field of letters that these colonies have produced. He was the friend of Charles Harpur (the father of Australian poetry), Henry Kendall, Rev. Dr. Lang, Rev. W. B. Clarke, R. Hengist Home, Frank Fowler, R P. Whitworth, K D. Stenhouse, F. S. Wilson, Daniel Henry Denihey, Garnet Walch, and others, some of whom have joined the great majority, but whose names will live in the annals of Australia as pillars of its infant literature. Loyau in one of his many letters to myself complains that he found the literary life arduous and ill paid. For some years, though editing a first-class country newspaper, and contributing regularly to several magazines, he could only eke out a bare existence, and the higher form of poetry was a drug in the market. Thatcher, the comedian rhymster, made more money out of his local songs in one town in Victoria than Henry Kendall with his grand and soaring genius. Time, however, is on the wing. Time will revenge the dead poet, the sweetest of all Australian singers. The story of ten years ago is the story of a bygone age. The recognition of true worth must surely come; and
"What though thy muse, whose fount is in thy heart,
Doth sadly flow beneath a darksome shade!
Yet flowerets richly bloom in that deep glade,
Illumed by rays that from thy genius dart.
The vulgar come not to that lonely dell
Whose waters sweetly chime or louder swell.
Which are a mirror set in emerald case,
Reflecting fairy forms, and Virtue's face."
In this brief note friendship cannot show his honest face, else could I recount that which were worthy of its name. The poor help the poor, not perhaps so much in a pecuniary way as in broad sympathy and love. None so poor as the scribes of this new land; but they are, as a rule, a com-
