Cirrus@Austlit

An essay on the separation of church from state. The writer ends the essay praising the Church Act 1836 instituted by the New South Wales governor Sir Richard Bourke. 'By this act, religion was separated from government, and all denominations of Christians were placed upon an equality ... Religion, we should look upon as an institution which was formed for our spiritual and eternal, political government as one formed for our temporal and transient, prosperity. ... No government can be considered perfect, unless the subjects be permitted to work out their salvation in the manner which their conscience directs them to adopt.' The essay ends with a prayer 'May the Almighty ... so decree that this country may never experience the horrors produced by religious tyranny and injustice.'

A second 'extract from a reporter's notebook'. The first piece was published in the January 1838 issue of the Australian Magazine.

A humourous piece written in the form of an introduction to the probably fictional 'Tom Flatt' who wrote '... that immortal work "Tom Flatt, or Scenes in the Bush," from Australian letters still preserved by the family.'

This piece is by the British writer John Sterling, a friend of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The piece seems not to appear in Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835-1836) although the title in the Australian Magazine was possibly inspired by that work. The piece is quoted in J. C. Hare, ‘Sketch of the author's life’, Essays and Tales by John Sterling, 2 vols. (1848) with minor textual variations to the version, dated 27 September 1827, that appears in the Australian Magazine of March 1838.

AustLit has not yet established the source of the Australian Magazine version. There is no evidence that Sterling visited Australia.

Possibly the first of a series of biographical comment on colonial New South Wales law personalities. This first one is about John Mackaness (1770?-1838), barrister and public servant. The cessation of the Australian Magazine with the March issue meant that no more biographies were published. Mackaness died on the 3 April 1838.

This piece begins 'Hard by the village of P—-, on the fertile banks of the meandering river N—-, in a country but recently known, there lived a worthy little man, who had industriously applied himself to his business.' In the course of the story the devil visits 'the worthy proprietor as a subject to be equalized with Job of old ... [and] extorted the rents accruing, which he constantly carried away in a canvass bag.' Eventually the 'devil became tired of persecuting the excellent little man ...[and] absented himself, carrying with him one thousand pounds which the proprietor had accumulated.' The worthy ... [proprietor] ...rejoiced even at this infernal robbery. The devil had gone! ... [The devil] had found that the second Job was one of God's own children, and that his persecutions were vain.'

The character of the devil is described as: 'He always held a large box in his hand, which he occasionally opened and applied to his nose, catching the grains that escaped on his huge protuberant lip, and then re-beat the pavement, shaking his grey tail. He wore a little fur, hellish-looking, dark brown cap, which he sometimes removed, and wiped his forehead with a fire-red kerchief.'

The story ends with the sentence: 'The above, forwarded to Tommy Toast, by Miss Stenbow, for the Australian Magazine [signed] Tommy Toast. Castlereagh 10th February, 1838.'

This story resulted in a libel action taken by Jacob Josephson, who thought himself described as the devil. The action came to trial in Sydney in March 1839.