Cirrus@Austlit

Sketches Marcus Clarke's life, beginning with his birth in Kensington, London, in 1846, outlining his personal and professional life, and lamenting his untimely death.

'The foregoing biographical sketch of my friend having been written immediately subsequent to his death, and when the sorrow occasioned by it overshadowed all feeling in respect to him that dealt with the brighter and lighter sides of his nature, I have deemed it would not come amiss to his many admirers to learn more of the man and author than could be gleaned from a brief outline of his birth, life and death But in attempting this, I feel I have set myself to do no easy task, for of a verity a more contradictory and many-sided brain could scarcely be found. Only to those few who knew him intimately was it vouchsafed to fully recognise the vividness of his imagination, the lightness of his fancy, the bitterness of his satire, the depth of his pathos. To the outside world, or even to his many acquaintances, he was an enigma they vainly tried to solve, for one of the predominating features of his character was a marked reticence, allied with a desire to mystify by innuendos and exaggerations, those whom he casually met, or who sought his company out of curiosity...' (From introduction)

'The notion of giving to the great reading public a series of sketches of the lives and exploits of the early voyages to Australia, is so excellent a one that I wish the execution of it had been entrusted to an abler pen than mine...' (1)

'The Seventeenth century may be called the century of Companies. The English, the French, the Spaniards, and the Dutch seem almost simultaneously to have recognised the great principle of Co-operation in the furtherance of commercial enterprise....' (6)

'At daylight on the 13th May, 1787, His Majesty's ship 'Sirius' made signal to sail to a little fleet that had been lying off the Mother Bank since the 16th of March. This little fleet was destined to carry Governor Phillip to take formal position of Botany Bay, a place recommended to the Government as suitable for a convict station.' (12)

'In the various histories of Australia reference is made to the story of 'The Scotch Martys,' Messrs. Muir, Palmer, Margarot and Skirving..."

'Most people have heard of George Barrington, the pickpocket. His name has become notorious - I had almost written famous - for gentlemanly larceny...)24

'The social condition of Sydney in 1807 was somewhat curious. The place being under military discipline, and controlled by military officers, the army was at a premium...' (31)

'On Saturday, the 23rd September, 1820, the free residents of Hobart Town, on opening the moist folio of the Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter found a startling proclamation. The Hobart Town Gazette, let us note, was the paper authorised by the Government and assisted by those agreeable evidences of patronage, Government advertisements. It was published 'by authority,' and printed by Mr Andrew Bent - the father of the Tasmanian press, who was at that time the leading printer in Hobart Town. Mr Bent, however, fell out with Governor Arthur, and venturing to attack the Government, was summarily deprived of his office, and eventually ruined.' (52)

'In Ross's Van Diemen's Land Annual for 1835, appears the first part of a 'Shred of Autobiography, containing various anecdotes, personal and historical, connected with these colonies'. This autobiography is anonymous, and was written by a manumitted convict...' (71)

'In the year 1820, a writer in the Quarterly, speaking of a book given him to review, says : 'It is the greatest literary curiosity that has come before us - the first child of the press of a State only fifteen years old. It would, of course, be reprinted here, but our copy, pene-nos, is a genuine Caxton. This little book would assuredly be the Reynarde Foxe of Australian bibliomaniacs.' (102)

'Five years after the seizure of the 'Cyprus' it was resolved that Macquarie Harbour should be abandoned.' (118)

'Every country can claim for itself a Robinson Crusoe of home manufacture. He of Australia is William Buckley.' (131)

'Among the many bubbles of speculation that, reflecting in their shining sides prismatic worlds of fortune, have been destined to burst in the most commonplace of soapsuds, it would be unfair to class the speculation-born colony of South Australia...' (141)

'At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 7th April, 1850, the convict ship "Neptune" cast anchor in the Derwent. The fortunes and freight of the "Neptune" were uncommon. She had come from Bermuda to the Cape with convicts, but the inhabitants of Cape Town refused to allow the prisoners to land, refused even to supply food for them, and the :Neptune," after some red-tappery, was compelled to set sail for Van Diemen's Land...(172)