KING OF AUSTRALIA.

Colonist, Issue 78, 6 July 1858, Page 4

KING OF AUSTRALIA.

(From the Melbourne Age, May 29.) There are fellows in the world who would roam from Dan to Beersheba and pronounce all barren, who would l3e parboiled in a Geyser without confessing to a change of temperature, who would sleep in the crater of Vesuvius without recognising brimstone or blue lights! He was a monster of this stamp —rhinoceros-coated, impervious, and unimpressionable—an intrinsically dull dog, .who complained of lack of excitement in Victoria! Ever since that auspicious day when the digger's pick supplanted the shepherd's crook, and when nuggets became our staple instead of bales of wool, howlong have we been at any time without a "lion," noble or ignoble, big or little "on the carpet" or in prospective ? While still primeval and chaotic we had Lola Montez, pirouetting in the cachuca and manipulating the horsewhip; likewise the " home " constitution and "responsible government," requiring, like other imported suits, considerable adaptation to make it an antipodal fit. Then as the public eye becomes more discerning and educated, there is Gabreli with Aladdin's lamp in one hand and the wand of For^unatus in the other! And now there are matters illustrious on the horizon—the Leviathan and Dickens, and to stay our appetites while waiting for the Goliah of ferry-boats and the author of "Little Dorrit," a real live prince is coming to pay us a visit!- His Royal Highness Prince Alfred is making " the grand tour," and means to stamp a letter "via Marseilles " at our Melbourne Post-office, and profit by the wisdom of our " Upper Thirty" on his way! Weary of boating on Cumberland lakes in the shadow of Rydal and Helvellyn, and of climbing " the castled crags " of Rhineland, he still, like Dr. Syntax in search of the picturesque, has curiosity to see what manner of men are his mother's lieges South Polewards. The Times Jias fired his fancy with its graphic pourtrayals ! He longs to behold the juveniles who have grown upon " mutton chops and brandy," and the fossicking and puddling Midas who enables Threadneedle-street to retire every evening to its Norwood opHampstead Villa with " consols "at a healthy figure. Tired of Windsor State, and Balmoral shooting and Osborne yatching, his boyish spirit pictures a canter after a kangaroo and adventures in the Australian bush among scenes and brigands as nerve-shaking and aquiline-nosed as in his father's glorious Salvator Rosas!

We believe that the Prince's approaching visit means youthful and most natural curiosity lo taste our " damper," and contemplate the Claude Duvals and Ferdinand Fathoms London money-lenders are warned against. There are people, however, who report that the real purpose is to pave the way-to an empire of the Antipodes, with Autocracy of the Antarctic Circle by way of supplement! What a poetic resuscitation of ornate medieevalism —dead and buried, alas—the very sentence conjures up! What a host of hopes, aspirations, entrancing associations it must awaken in the souls of all who love " number one " in official approval and political orthodoxy! Australia,, now immersed in the prose of the tallow-vat, and with all the poetry squeezed out of her by this confounded quartz-crushing, would, if starting on her own hook in such splendid style as this, infallibly have a nobility by letters patent, as well as bran new " beefeaters " and big " Horse Guards " black and blue, on-dro-medaries from the Red Sea! "The Marquis of Dandenong" would sound sweetly on the ear, and would look well in the report of a Mendicity Association, or in a lady's album. Lord Viscount Boroondara would tintinabulate melodiously at the inauguration of a Ragged School, or of a society for ameliorating distressed Melbourne needlewomen, or of that other one for affording out-dpor relief to the tenantry of Gipps Land, deprived of their natural food by the. failure of the Chinese Sugarcane ! Then Baron Bendigo, or the Earl of Eagle-hawk-gully, would be' imposing in front "of the Dromedaries Blue" in quelling a Ballaarat bread riot, or a Geelong emeute for revival of the ballot! If we could only get some real Prince to take us in hand here, we might have all these titles that would chime as martially in heroic metre as Plantagenet of Montmorency, and would have as distinguished an air in Bourke-street Morning Post, as Fitzbattleaxe or Dr. Moggins has1 in our contemporary of " Wellington-street, Strand!" Seriously, a rumor has come to our ears concurrent with the news of the approaching princely visit, that there are individuals about the court in the position of royal advisers who are strenuously commending the establishment, as soon as our little princes grow up, of the'chief dependencies of England as independent kingdoms! Thus Australia, it is whispered, as first on the list is cut out for Prince Alfred as the next to the heir of Britain; Canada and its approximate colonies c~me second on the roll, and further informant sayeth not. It is-added that Lord Palmerston's recent ally—he of the Tuilleries, with Leo-

pold of Belgium, Ulysses of royal councils, and divers other continental potentates, are favorable to the idoa. They see that unless this is done, each English dependency will eventually become republican; and as they find the example of the United States already act suggestively on their subjects, they-are solicitous that no more transmarine defriocracies shall be developed. After India, Australia will be one of the first of these dependencies to be thus taken in hanrl, and in order to create a party here and a disposition in the required direction, knighthoods are being conferred—some have been already bestowed with this object—the last being that of the Tasrnanian Sir Richard Dry.

Such is the story. We give it as we have received it, and our readers must form their own judgment as to its merits. The rather lavish .bestowal this time back of knighthoods on colonists, especially Australians, and the approaching visit bi the young prince to Sydney and Melbourne do look a little significant it must be confessed : but still it is hard to imagine that people in Europe can set us down as such tuft-hunters, and likely to be awestruck in the presence of real live lords and princes as to re-establish at this time of day, and at this end of the earth, the Old World institutions and ceremonials falling to pieces there! To foist on a democracy such a piece of medisevalism would be certainly rather too much of a good thing. We would tolerate neither its enormous cost, nor what would ba still worse, its dangerous hand on our institutions. s On the European continent royalty is despotism; in England it is a mere ceremonial and becoming so more and more each succeeding day. In neither shape could it be re-^' ceived by us. We would not tolerate ttie oppression of the oriey phase, nor the ex r pense and folly of the other. Our intention !in Australia is to go forward, not to go |back—to be part of a living healthy now world, not of a palsied old one. The past is dead or dying—it cannot be galvanised in this fashion, arid the originators1 of so unique a scheme must find some more feasible means of restoring strength to decay. Europe must not be resuscitated in this particular at the expense of Australia; and Albert, Leopold, and Downing-street may put their wise heads together, in all complacency and confidence, but we may just as vveil remind them that there are two parties to every bargain*,