inscription which Brahe had carved on the tree, or to leave any outward sign of their visit to the depôt. Thus, it happened that when Brahe, who had encountered the relieving party under Wright, revisited the depôt not many days after Burke and his companions had quitted it, they found nothing to indicate that the travellers had been there. Thence presuming that everything remained exactly as he had left it, Brahe did not open the "cache," and consequently did not discover the letter which Burke had written.

Meantime, misfortune was closely following upon the steps of the three poor wayfarers. Abroad in the wilderness, at an inclement season of the year, with little clothing, and no supply of food, they wandered on in the direction of Mount Hopeless, till their limbs could carry them no further. Failing in every endeavour to reach the settled districts of the country, the hapless wanderers resolved, as a last resource, to seek succour from the aborigines, whom they at first viewed with suspicion. With this view it was arranged, as Wills had now become utterly helpless, that he should be left at a particular spot, and that Burke and King should go forward to seek the natives. The end was now rapidly approaching, and cannot be better described than in the simple but deeply touching words of King's narrative: "Having collected," says King, "and pounded sufficient seed (nardoo) to last Mr. Wills eight days, and two days for ourselves, we placed firewood and water within his reach, and started. Before leaving him, however. Mr. Burke asked him whether he still wished it, as under no other cir

cumstances would he leave him; and Mr. Wills again said that he looked upon it as our only chance. He then gave Mr. Burke a letter and his watch for his father, and we buried the remainder of the field books near the gunyah. Mr. Wills said that, in the case of my surviving Mr. Burke, he hoped I would carry out his last wishes in giving the watch and letter to his father. In travelling the first day Mr. Burke seemed very weak, and complained of great pains in his legs and back. . . . When we halted (on the second day), Mr. Burke seemed to be getting worse, although he ate his supper. He said he felt convinced he could not last many hours, and gave me his watch, which he said belonged to the Committee (of the Royal Society of Victoria), and a pocketbook, to give to Sir William Stawell, in which be wrote some notes. He then said to me, I hope that you will remain with me here till I am quite dead; it is a comfort to know that some one is by; but when I am dying, it is my wish that you should place the pistol in my right hand, and that you will leave me unburied as I lie!' That night he spoke very little, and the following morning I found him speechless, or nearly so, and about eight o'clock he expired." King then goes on to say, that after remaining two days to recover his strength, "I then returned to Mr. Wills. I took back three crows; but I found him lying dead in his gunyah, and the natives had been there and taken away some of his clothes. I buried the corpse with sand, and remained there some days; but finding that my stock of nardoo was running short, and being unable to gather it, I tracked the

natives who had been to the camp by their footprints, and went some distance down the creek, shooting crows and hawks on the road." It is not in the power of language to increase the force of this simple description. What a picture does it present! What patience under trial, what fortitude under suffering, what manly resignation and true nobility of soul in the last supreme hour! Not a murmur escapes the lips of either sufferer; each knows that the end is coming; and without one complaining thought or word, prepares to meet it as may become a man. Here, truly, is majesty in death. The period at which these gallant men died appears to have been the last week of June, 1861.

King succeeded in reaching the natives, and making friends with them. He remained amongst them until the month of September, when he was rescued by a relieving party which had been sent out from Melbourne, under the direction of Mr. Alfred William Howitt, son of William and Mary Howitt, the popular authors. Mr. Howitt visited the spots at which the two brave but hapless explorers had died, and gave to their remains a simple but Christian burial, engraving the initials of the name, and the date of the death of each, on a tree, which stood by the side of either grave. This perhaps was the most appropriate form of sepulture that could be accorded to men who had perished under such circumstances. It is well that they should lie where they had fallenthat their remains should continue, as it were, to sanctify the spot which had been the scene of their sufferings. But the public opinion of Melbourne, which was kindled

to the highest degree of admiration for the great work which Burke and Wills had accomplished, and of sympathy for the melancholy fate which attended them, would not allow the heroic remains to rest here. Towards the close of the year, the bodies were exhumed and brought down to Melbourne, where, for many days, they lay in state in the hall of the Royal Society; and were then interred with all the pomp of a public funeral (at which the Governor, the Ministers, many members of the Legislature, and most of the leading c tizens) in the Cemetery of the city.

Thus fell two as gallant spirits as ever sacrificed life for the extension of science, and the cause of mankind! Both were in their prime; both resigned comfort and competency to embark in an enterprise by which they hoped to render their names glorious; both died without a murmur, evincing their loyalty and devotion to their country to the last. The annals of British geographical discovery record the names of many great and illustrious men who have perished in the prosecution of their gallant labours; but upon the scroll of fame on which such names are written, none will be inscribed with a brighter blazon than the names of BURKE and WILLS.

Robert O'Hara Burke, born in 1821, was the second son of James Hardiman Burke, of St. Clerans, county Galway. He commenced his career as a Cadet of the Woolwich Academy, but left at at early age, to enter a regiment of Hungarian Hussars in the Aurtsian service. When this was disbanded, in 1848, he obtained an appointment in the Irish Constabulary, which, in 1853, he exchanged for

the police force of Melbourne. On the news of the Crimean war, he hastened home on leave of absence, in the hope of getting a commission; but finding himself too late to share the glories of the campaign, he returned, and resumed his duties in the colony. When the exploring expedition was resolved on, his love of adventure and thirst for distinction led him to apply for the command, and his appointment was accepted.

William John Wills was born in 1834, at Totnes, Devonshire, where his father practised medicine. Being destined for the same profession, he entered at St. Bartholomew's, and distinguished himself, especially as student in chemistry. In 1852, the news of the gold discoveries induced him to try his fortunes in Australia, and he settled at Ballarat, where he was subsequently joined by his

family, and continued to support his father for several years. His taste, however, had always been for astronomy and meteorology, and he passed all his leisure hours at the office of Mr. Taylor, the head of the Crown Lands Survey in the Ballarat district, where he gave such proofs of ability as to be put in charge of a field party. Here he soon attracted the attention of the Surveyor-General, and on the establishment of a Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory in Melbourne, he was attached specially to the staff, on which he was serving when he was selected for the post of Observer and Surveyor to the Exploring Expedition.

It may be added that Gray was originally a seafaring man, whom Burke enlisted on the Darling; and King, the only survivor, a soldier who had served in India.

VOL. CIV.

I I

THE great poet who has penetrated so deeply into the mysteries of human life places in the mouth of Mark Antony, mourning over the corpse of Cæsar, the bitter reproach to the living that

"The evil that men do, lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."

The converse proposition, thatat least, in regard to men of pri

vate station-the virtuous acts which have constituted the beauty of their life are often unheeded until death has removed them from the scene they had made lovely, is expressed by the dramatist in language of poetic force :

for 1861. The eventful year that has since elapsed has revealed to the nation how many and how great were the qualities of the deceased gentleman, and by its absence how beneficial an influence had been withdrawn from the inner life of the nation.

At the first dawn of the modern history of Germany, the House of Saxony was amongst the most illustrious of its ruling families. One of these princes, who lived in the tenth century-Henry the Fowler-was elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and, being a very able man, did much to consolidate the settlement of the Germanic races in Central Europe. In 1423, the Duchy of Saxony, the dukes of which had now attained the dignity of Electors, was ruled over by a wise and energetic prince-Frederick the Quarrelsome; who, on the extinction of the House of Wettin, received from the hands of the Emperor Sigismund the investiture of the Duchy of Meissen-an accession of territory which placed Saxony high among the German States, This importance was, however, early lost by diffusion. The law of primogeniture was unknown; and on the death of Frederick the Gentle, son of Frederick the Quarrelsome, his dominions were divided between his sons Ernest

and Albert; and the possessions of these were, in the course of succession, further broken up into numerous petty duchies, in each of which a Saxon prince exercised sovereign power. The House of Saxony was thenceforth divided into two branches, the Ernestine and the Albertine, which were in continual rivalry, and did each other as much mischief as possible. These comminuted fragments of . empire have been, to some extent, aggregated by inheritance and marriage so that, at present, five reigning families compose the House of Saxony; that of SaxeAltenberg, which is the caput nominis, and, though representing the eldest or Ernestine line, has the smallest territory; Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach; SaxeMeiningen-Hildburghausen; SaxeCoburg-Gotha; and the royal line of Saxony, which represents the Albertine line. The strength thus lost by division was, to a great degree, compensated by the influence acquired by alliances with the other reigning families of Germany; and the Electors of Saxony, possessing a seventh part in the choice of the Kaiser, and ruling states central to all the other German sovereignties, and of magnitude when compared with the petty dukedoms around them, played a conspicuous part in the history of modern Europe. Their share, indeed, was not merely noticeable, but creditable; for the race has been prolific of men above the average of princes. The great convulsion of the sixteenth century brought the Electors of Saxony into the foremost rank of historical personages. In the division of the states of Frederick the Gentle the Electorate of Saxony had fallen to Ernest, the eldest son. The

princes of his line embraced the cause of the Reformation with zeal, and upheld it with constancy. Striving against the whole power of the Pope and the Emperor, they fought and bled, and suffered captivity and confiscation, without shrinking from the cause. The Electors, Frederick the Wise, John the Constant, and John Frederick the Magnanimous, were the faithful protectors of Luther, and the champions of the Protestant faith. While the princes of the Ernestine line were thus contending for the Reformation, those of the Albertine branch were among the most formidable adherents of the Emperor. George, Duke of Saxony, was a man of commanding talents. He chiefly sustained the cause of the Roman Church in Germany, and defeated and took prisoner his relative the Elector, John Frederick the Magnanimous, at the battle of Mühlburg, in 1547. The Emperor kept his rebellious vassal a close prisoner, and deprived him of his dominions. which he conferred upon the Duke George, in whose line, after some mutations, it still remains. George was succeeded by his brother Henry, who was a Lutheran; and he by his celebrated son Maurice, who, abandoning the cause of the Emperor, became the successful assertor of religious freedom. Thus, to the Ernestine branch of the House of Saxony the reformed faith owes its early preservation and the Confession of Augsburg, the Principia of the reformed branch of the Church of Christ; and to the Albertine line the treaty of Passau and the peace of Augsburg, by which the Protestants obtained the free exercise of their religion and equal rights with the Roman Catholics. The