AustLit

Epigraph: First, Second and Third Series (Vols 1, 2 and 3): No prophetic fires to me belong/ I play with syllables, and sport in song. - Cowper

Dedication Volume 3: The First Fancy Ball in Australia given to the citizens by the Right Worshipful J. R. Wilshire, Esquire, Mayor of the City of Sydney, at the Royal Victoria Theatre, 21st August, 1844. A poem in four cantos, inscribed to his worship, the parent of the ball, by one of the invited.

Epigraph Volume 3: All sorts of people there were seen together, All sorts of characters, all sorts of dresses; The fool with fox's tail and peacock's feather, Pilgrims, and penitents, and grave burgesses; The country people with their coats of leather, Vintners and victuallers with cans and messes; Grooms, archers, variets, falconers and yeomen, Damsels, and waiting-maids, and waiting-women. Frere.

Author's Prolegomena Volume 3:...The poem, as the title-page states, forms the Third Series of Gleanings from my Scrap-book. The two former consist of shorter pieces, collected, some years ago, not for their literary merits, but as an exercise in amateur typography. With a small Albion Press, and other necessary materials, I set to work, in my leisure hours, by the midnight-lamp, to study the mysteries of the art of printing; and this volume is a specimen of my handiwork, and a proof of my progress in the art. The Poem on the Fancy Ball was written currente calamo a few months after the event which it describes, with less labour than its printing has cost me; and was published in the Sydney Morning Herald, April 1845....It has often been asked, why Literature and the Fine Arts have been of so slow growth in Sydney. After a residence here of upwards of thirty-five years, I have come to the conclusion that this arises, not from want of men of ability amongst us, but from want of encouragement and support.' (pp.iv-v).

Author's Appendix Volume 3: The following extract from the account of the Fancy Ball which I sent to the Herald, on the day after it took place, contains some particulars which could not be introduced into the Poem. Sydney Morning Herald, Friday, 23rd August 1844.

The Appendix also includes a List of Names and Characters. Rae himself was costumed as 'Highland Costume - George Douglas of Loch Leven' (p.94)

Percival Serle's A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse : Australia and New Zealand (1925) comments: 'a clever and interesting piece of work'.