After Michael's death, in 1863, my father entered
the public service as a clerk in the Survey Office at
Sydney, and was subsequently similarly employed in
the Colonial Secretary's office. In 1868 he married
Charlotte, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Rutter, a
Government medical officer. To the great devotion of
his wife he pays a beautiful tribute in the dedicatory
poem of his second volume. Leaves from Australian
Forests, which was published by Messrs. Geo. Robert-
son & Co. at Melbourne in 1870, and comprised a
selection of verses that proved the author beyond all
doubt a possessor of poetical genius.
Wearying of officid routine, and fondly believing
that a competence was obtainable by literary work
in Melbourne, my father removed to that city in
1869. The venture was followed by some years of
disappointment and trial, for the time had not
arrived in Australia — ^if it has arrived since — ^when
devotion to a higher AustraUan literature could com-
mand an audience sufficient to ensure even a modest
remuneration., My father contributed to the press in
Melbourne and became acquainted with most of the
men of letters there, including " Orion " Home,



viii MEMOIR

Marcus Clarke, and Adam Lindsay Gordon. He
was always a good correspondent, and his letters to
and from other Australian writers, from the days
of Harpur to those of Brunton Stephens, would
furnish reading of much interest to many to-day.
After the death of his first-bom daughter Araluen
— so richly and tenderly enshrined in the poem of
that name — my father returned to Sydney in 1871.
