When ye your gracious task have done,
Heap not the rock upon his dust!
The Angel of the Lord alone
Shall guard the ashes of the just!
But ye shall heed, with pious care,
The memory of that spot to keep;
And note the marks that guide me where
My venturous friend is laid in sleep.
For oh, bethink,—in other times,
And be those happier times at hand,
When science, like the smile of God,
Comes bright'ning o'er that weary land,
How will her pilgrims hail the power,
Beneath the drooping miall's gloom,
To sit at eve, and mourn an hour,
And pluck a leaf on Leichhardt's tomb.
These charming verses were dated the 2d of July 1845. It was not till
the close of the following March, that the cloud suspended over the destiny of the expedition was suddenly dispelled by the appearance of Leichhardt himself. As may be supposed, an enthusiastic welcome awaited the pilgrim, whose bones were long since supposed to be bleaching in the wilderness. Subscriptions were set on foot, and soon amounted to fifteen hundred pounds, which, with another thousand pounds voted by the Legislative Council, were divided amongst the seven persons composing the expedition. Dr Leichhardt, to whom the lion's share was with justice awarded, received it at a meeting held in the School of Arts at Sydney, of which an account is given in the Sydney Herald under the head of "The Leichhardt Testimonial," and where Dr Nicholson, speaker of the Legislative Council, addressed the intrepid traveller, in a strain of high and well-merited eulogium. "It would be difficult," he said, "to employ any terms that might be considered as exaggerated, in acknowledging the enthusiasm, the perseverance, and the talent, which prompted you to undertake, and enabled you successfully to prosecute, your late perilous journey through a portion of the hitherto untrodden wilds of Australia." A flattering letter from the Colonial Secretary at Sydney, announcing the government grant, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London, and another from that of Paris, have further rewarded Dr Leichhardt's meritorious labours. Unflinching in pursuit of science, he again set forth, in December 1845, on an overland journey to Swan River, expected to occupy two years and a half. This time he is better provided. His party consists of only eight persons, but he has mules for the stores, fourteen horses, forty oxen, and two hundred and seventy goats. And he further takes with him—light but pleasant baggage—the warm sympathy and hearty good wishes of all to whom his amiable character and previous labours are known, a class which the publication of the present Journal will doubtless tend largely to increase.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. By Dr Ludwig Leichhardt. London: Boone, 1847.
MAGUS MUIR.
The subject of the following ballad is the atrocious and dastardly assassination of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland.
More than one attempt was made upon the life of that eminent prelate. On the 11th of July, 1668, a shot was fired into his carriage in the High Street of Edinburgh, by one James Mitchell, a fanatical field preacher, and an associate of the infamous Major Weir. The primate escaped unharmed, but his colleague Honyman, Bishop of Orkney, received a severe wound, from the effects of which he died in the following year. The assassin Mitchell fled to Holland, but subsequently returned, and was arrested in the midst of his preparations for another diabolical attempt. This man, who afterwards suffered for his crimes, and who in consequence has obtained a place in the book of "Covenanting Martyrology," described his motive "as an impulse of the Holy Spirit, and justified it from Phinehas killing Cosbi and Zimri, and from that law in Deuteronomy commanding to kill false prophets!" This is no matter of surprise, when it is recollected that the "principles of assassination," as Mr C. K. Sharp observes, "were strongly recommended in Naphthali, Jus Populi Vindicatum, and afterwards in The Hind let Loose, which books were in almost as much esteem with the Presbyterians as their Bibles." Sir George Mackenzie states, "These irreligious and heterodox books, called Naphthali and Jus Populi, had made the killing of all dissenters from Presbytery seem not only lawful, but a duty among many of that profession: and in a postscript to Jus Populi, it was told that the sending of the Archbishop of St Andrews' head to the king would be the best present that could be made to Jesus Christ."[ [16]