Cirrus

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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

A classic earlier 19th century representation of Australia as a land 'full of all contrarieties'.

Notes

This poem, attributed to X. Y. Z. in other sources, is ascribed to P. Duncan of New College, Oxford [United Kingdom] by Charles Macfaull editor of the Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, when published in the Perth Gazette, 14 November, 1840.

P. Duncan may be the 'P. Duncan, once Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum' who wrote a poem 'Arum Maculatum', referred to in R. T. Gunther's, Oxford Gardens, Based upon Daubeny's Popular Guide to the Physick Garden of Oxford (1912).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: New South Wales
Alternative title: The Land of Contrarieties

Appears in:

y The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal vol. 8 no. 406 14 November 1840 Z1590805 1840 newspaper issue 1840
(
1840
)
pg. 3
Note: Editor's note: Ascribed to Mr. P. Duncan of New College, Oxford.
Appears in:

y The Australian Town and Country Journal vol. 23 no. 590 30 April 1881 Z649548 1881 newspaper issue 1881
(
1881
)
pg. 833
Note: With title: 'The Land of Contrarieties'. This version was sent in by a contributor, who stated: 'In my copy, however, which is anonymous, and is to be found in Payne's Select Poetry, I do not find the lines 'Where every servant gets his place/By character of foul disgrace.'
Appears in:

y The Poet's Discovery : Nineteenth Century Australia in Verse Richard Douglas Jordan (editor), Peter Pierce (editor), Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1990 Z299524 1990 anthology poetry biography Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1990
(
1990
)
pg. 70
Note: With title: 'The Land of Contradictions'

Alternative title: New South Wales

Appears in:

y Bentley's Miscellany vol. 19 1846 Z658180 1846 periodical issue 1846
(
1846
)
pg. 519
Note: With title: 'New South Wales'.
Appears in:

y The Moreton Bay Courier 27 May 1848 Z1627643 1848 newspaper issue 1848
(
1848
)
pg. 4
Note: With title: 'New South Wales'. This was the same version that appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in 1846.
Appears in:

y The Courier 18 October 1855 Z1631076 1855 newspaper issue 1855
(
1855
)
pg. 3
Note: With title: 'New South Wales'. This was the same version that appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in 1846, however it omits the 4 lines: 'There every servant gets his place,/By character of foul disgrace./There, vice is virtue,-virtue, vice,/And all that's vile is voted nice,'.