Cirrus@Austlit

'On the 9th of August, 1829, the 'Cyprus' a vessel which was employed by the Government of Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, was seized by the convicts and carried into the South Seas.' (112)

Q. reflects on several political matters including a train trip to Ballarat with several 'Ministerial supporters'. He also notes the work of the Baptist minister, the Rev'd James Taylor, who has purchased a building to be used as a school room and library.

Q. notes his absence from writing his regular column in the previous two months (with some allusions to a term of imprisonment). He says he will keep 'the harrowing details' of his 'days of suffering for another opportunity'. (The Australian Dictionary of Biography states that Clarke was 'was seriously incapacitated by a fall from a horse' during the middle part of 1868, 'Clarke, Marcus Andrew Hislop').

Q. then turns his attention to political developments in Melbourne and to the manner of greeting friends and acquaintances in the street.

Q. reflects on the the political situation in the Victorian colony before turning his attention once more to the subject of penny readings. (See also, 'The Peripatetic Philosopher', 16 May 1868).) On this occasion Q. writes that the 'penny reading platform has become a stage for the display of vanity and ignorance, and the pitiful ambition to shine for an hour as a local "star"'.

Q. reflects on civility and on the celebrations for the Queen's Birthday holiday. He did not attend the latter as Cleland's had no suits left for hire when Q. went to obtain one. Instead, he bought 'a twopenny pie at Hosie's, and ate it calmly on a door-step, and then devoted a pint of twos silently to the health of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, whom God preserve.'

Among Q.'s topics are his reflections on Penny Readings (now 'shilling' readings) which have 'degenerated into simple "spouting places"' where 'every young man who can read a stanza of poetry without losing the sense of the argument, or misplacing his "h's," considers himself qualified for a penny reader, and doses his unfortunate hearers with selected scraps from English poets'.

Q. confesses that, in his railing against the supposed wrongdoing of R. H. Horne in relation to a re-working of Shakespeare's character 'Shylock', he has himself committed a wrong: 'I have leant upon the broken reed of the Sydney press and it has pierced my hand. I have done an injustice, and must repair it.' (For Q.'s original comments, see 'The Peripatetic Philosopher' Australasian, 11 April 1868: 465.)

Q. was misled by a Sydney newspaper report into believing that there had been a public performance of an adapted version of Shylock; in fact, Horne had created a 'dramatic speculation as to what might have passed through Shylock's mind on listening to certain parts of Portia's lines of defence, supposing the same trial ... had occurred in Venice in the present century'. Horne's speculation was performed by Walter Montgomery at a private entertainment.

Q. also comments on several political and social matters affecting Melbourne.

Q. writes that he has been 'much abused lately' following comments he made regarding 'the "Author of Orion" [R. H. Horne]'. (See also Q.'s article in the Australasian,11 April 1868, for his original comments, and a further response on 9 May 1868.) He then goes on to reflect on watching the theatre from 'the sixpenny gallery' and commends the experience to his readers (whom he suspects are mostly of the 'porcelain of humanity'). Q.'s final topic is news that a literary club is being mooted for the city of Melbourne; he hopes 'it will come to birth'.

Q. muses on the business of holiday-making (in the post-Easter period), and on the behaviour and character of 'colonial youth'.

Q. ruminates on the qualities and capacities required of a newspaperman serving on the Victorian press. He then turns his attention to Richard Hengist Horne's endeavours in preparing 'new and enlarged' editions of William Shakespeare's plays.

Q.'s reflections largely concern Victorian political and criminal matters.

Q. begins his column with the bold assertion: 'I am not a Fenian' before going on to 'say a few words regarding Fenians' in general (written in the light of Irishman Henry James O'Farrell's assassination attempt on H. R. H. Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh).

In the latter part of the column, Q. reflects on his 'recent accession to the ranks of authorship'. He is probably referring to the publication of his serialised novel Long Odds: A Novel, the first instalment of which appeared in the March 1868 issue of the Colonial Monthly.

Q. offers his views on a court case involving Isaac Coleman, proprietor of Melbourne's Tattersall's Hotel. He also takes a satirical swipe at employees of government ministers, ponders the divide between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and reacts to the news of the attempted assassination in Sydney of H. R. H. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh.

Q. reflects on a rift between George Seth Coppin and Walter Montgomery, and also comments on some recent political and social events.

Q. muses, among other matters, on the English custom of 'consolation dinners' for defeated candidates in elections and on the fate of a convict named Garratt who continues his criminal ways.

Q. ponders various aspects of the current election campaigns, and also notes that the Colonial Monthly: An Australian Magazine has changed hands and 'will be brought out next month in a enlarged form, under new editorship'. He then turns his attention to the theatres. Q. questions the proliferation of theatre offerings in Melbourne and repeats a story told by the French writer Pierre Véron about the enormous workload of theatre critics.

'Q' reflects on the state of Victorian politics, the prices charged by cab drivers, and the news that the Fenians who had been transported to Western Australian on the Hougoumont are to be released.

'Q' ruminates on the role of the philosopher before going on to comment on various political, legal and social issues affecting Melbourne and the Victorian colony.

'Q' deliberates on various political and social matters relating to the colony of Victoria and to Melbourne in particular.