That bower and its music I never forget,
But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year,
I think—Is the nightingale singing there yet?
Do the roses still bloom by the calm Bendemeer?

The ?sthetic pioneer who bestowed this romantic name upon the New England village between Tamworth and Uralla probably realised a hazy similarity. Yet roses must have been few and far between, eminently suitable as are soil and climate; and the nightingale awaits the millennium of acclimatisers. The sparrow—wastrel of Europe that he is—doth first appear. The clear stream of the Macdonald, winding through the green hill-encircled valley, renders the comparison faintly apposite. On the whole, the name of Bendemeer will sound as well to our federal successors as Curra-wohbo-lah or Murra-munga-myne; and if it sets young Australia to reading Lalla Rookh, it may act as a counterpoise to overmuch devotion to wool and horse-racing—may even tend to the cult which emollit mores.

These slight incongruities notwithstanding, I would counsel any Australian Beckford, in want of a site for the antipodean Fonthill, to realise the poet\'s dream in the vale of Bendemeer (Great Northern Railway line, New South Wales), and so immortalise himself in the minds of generations of grateful compatriots.

As I stand in front of the little hostelry in the sweet moonrise of this summer night and gaze around, my heart sympathises with the unknown sentimental sponsor. I feel constrained to admit that he had the true poetic insight, piercing the measureless spaces of the future—
Far as human eye can see.

399It is the last month of the year, in the hour for a \'midsummer night\'s dream\' (antipodean); the fervent noonday glare has given place to the fresh, delicious temperature which in this elevated region succeeds sunset; the heavens are cloudless. As the moon\'s orb is slowly lifted, the grand mountain-chain which lies beyond the head waters of the river shows clearly defined in majestic gloom and ebon shades.

On the hills which enclose this fair green valley, each tree-stem, bough, and frond is traced with pre-Raphaelite distinctness. Fronting the inn, on the river-terrace, hang the pendent branches of an aged willow-tree, the umbrageous spread of which has caused its utilisation as a shade for the horses of customers and wayfarers. A round dozen of these have just been released from durance, as their owners, warned of the closing hour, ride off into the night. The equestrian habit principally differentiates the tavern of the new country from that of the old. Otherwise, in the matter of civility, cleanliness, and quietude, this particular inn and some others I affect in my rambles closely resemble the snug roadside retreats of Old England.

As I pace slowly over the thick green sward which carpets the river-meadow, the thought pursues me of what changes the future Lord of Bendemeer would find requisite. Aided by the Genius of Capital, they could not be wholly impracticable. And what a delicious Palace of Summer Delights, a charmed refuge from the world\'s woe and the clamorous chatter of society, might he rear amidst these cloistered shades! Important alterations, not in accordance with latter-day legislation, would be first effected. The acquisition of the freehold for leagues around, the disestablishment of stores, telegraph-and post-offices—pernicious contrivances these last for bringing unrest into remotest solitudes; the closing of schools and churches; the abrogation of the utilities; the suppression of trade; the exile of industry; I include with regret the old-fashioned, reposeful hostelry. Happy thought! It would probably be spared until the army of workmen required for the erection of the palace had been disbanded; as also, for similar reasons, the police-barrack which dominates the district, whence issues the man-at-arms of the period, \'native and to the manner born,\' but soldierly and erect of bearing—a 400sleuth-hound in pursuit of horse-thieves and highwaymen, mounted and accoutred proper upon the good steed which he alone can rein.

The railway-line has been averted by good genii or through the laissez aller tone of thought which characterises the inhabitants of the vale. It clangs and thunders through a gorge on the head waters of the river, thus avoiding desecration by scrambling tourists and irreverent sons of commerce; but a huge, white, staring wooden bridge, the financial goal and triumph of the local tradesfolk, disfigures the rippling moonlit water. At a wave of the magic wand it disappears. A fairy-like structure arises in its place, delicate with marble tracery of pillars and arches, where the elves may flit love-whispering through the long sweet nights, may beckon to the Lorelei as she combs her tresses and warbles the fateful song on the rock which guards the midstream above the shimmering whirlpool.

The passes are guarded; the river-course on either side securely barricaded against the conditional purchaser and the drover—sole survivors they of the raider and moss-trooper, which a too considerate civilisation permits. Deer alone are permitted to crop the herbage of the park-like slopes; under the heavy shadows of the mountain, the leaping trout and lordly salmon, the ancient carp with silver-gleaming sides, would flash through stream and pool (this last no visionary image) as the shadows lengthened and the twilight stole tremulously forward. When the day was done, on such a full-orbed night as this, \'the harp, the lute, the viol\'s cry\' should awaken the echoes as a most fair company (for would not all gallant knights and gracieuses, dames and damsels—whether summoned from afar or dwelling near at hand—with attendant poets and troubadours, be free of right to the enchanted vale?) flee the hours with song and dance till bright Cynthia paled at the approaching dawn, or, wandering through cedarn alleys and rose-thickets, listen to the nightingale\'s song as it blended with the murmur of silver-plashing fountains. The gnomes that dwell in the mountain passes, where they pile undreamed-of heaps of ore, steal forth to watch the enchanted revels. The river elves and fays float through mazy measures in fairy rings, or recline, \'neath starry fragrant blossoms, on rose-leaf couches. Even 401the unseen genius of the Austral wild—no malign, amorphous terror, but a benignant sylvan deity—might peer through the forest leaves and smile wonderingly at the fantasies of the \'coming race.\'

Hark! Is that the grey owl? With strange, unmelodious cry he stirs the stillness. I turn to watch him, as he swims the night air with moveless wing—dropping, like the emissary of an evil witch, on the willow branch between me and the moon. Bird of ill omen, thou hast shattered my dream! The Palace has disappeared, the lutes are silent, the fair company dispersed; the nightingale, that sang of \'love, and love\'s sharp woe,\' is mute for another century. Only the faint plash of the river, rippling over its sand-bars; only the mountain shadows beneath the waning, gibbous moon; only the unbroken silence of the Austral woodland, brooding, majestic, as of one watching through the eternities for the birth of a nation. \'The light that never was on sea or land\' fades rapidly, and with the sigh that greets the evanishing of the undersoul\'s fair fantasies I seek my couch.

An early réveillé comes Duty, with reason-compelling Circumstance; a deputation demanding answers to questions, of which due notice has been given. \'Enterprises of great pith and moment are imminent.\' We must to horse and away, not betaking ourselves to pilgrim\'s staff, as is customary with us; time permits not. What bard—was it the sweet singer of a Brisbane Reverie, \'The Complaint of the Doves,\' the laureate of Royalty (black), the minstrel of the desert steed, that in a lighter hour proclaimed—
For I am bound to Stanthorpe town,
And time with me is tin?

We are not journeying quite so far as the stanniferous stronghold; yet is our errand not unconnected with the metal that the Silures and Ph?nicians delved for in Cornwall long before Julius C?sar, without reference to the susceptibilities of king, kaiser, or chancellor, established his protectorate of Britain.

The stern Roman, the world\'s master, has vanished from among the tribes of men. His descendant, an ignoble fainéant, a stolid peasant, or a hired model, sells the right to mould 402the heroic form which has survived the heroic soul. The wide-ranging, sea-roving Anglo-Saxon, descendant of the fiercer races, has succeeded to his heritage of universal empire.

But can it be that the mother of nations is sinking into senile decrepitude, with selfish querulousness evading responsibility, only to lapse into deserved decay of power, and well-merited insignificance in the council halls of the world?
Oh for one hour of Wallace wight,
Or wel............