# The Chronicles of Early Melbourne/Volume 2/Epilogue

EPILOGUE.
T h e promise m a d e in the Preface to these C H R O N I C L E S has been redeemed to the best of m y ability. I have done m y best; more no one could do. But whether I have done it well or otherwise, it is for others, not for m e , to form an opinion. T o write the history of Melbourne when it was a straggling, shabby, infant township,—now the metropolis of the Southern Hemisphere—was an enjoyable treat, for chance fixed m y residence continuously within its precincts, and so enabled m e to aid in m a n y of. the movements undertaken for its social and political advancement; and to watch the flow and ebb of the intermittent tides of prosperity or adversity by which it was flooded. There is hardly an old landmark I did not see removed, few events of importance in the olden time I did not witness, and which with the Melbourne of yore were so identified, that when I n o w ramble through its almost unrecognizable streets, I seem as if wandering amongst an unknown generation, a strange people, every crowd a sea of unfamiliar faces! I a m like a haunted m a n , for visions of realities long shrouded in oblivion confront m e at every step— " Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro " —
And gaze wistfully at me as I pass. Every score yards I traverse memory recalls some important, amusing, or m a y be, melancholy reminiscence connected with the locus of some public celebration, remarkable meeting, election row, or party riot, where a newspaper editor was knocked down, a conflagration flared up, or other notable incident happened. T o one merit, at least, I m a y fairly lay claim i.e., the execution of a work which no one else could have undertaken with any well-grounded hope of success in the acquisition and arrangement of facts. Though m a n y could easily be found of infinitely superior ability, no other individual possessed the long local experience without which the project would have been simply impracticable. Should any person imagine that a gallop through the old Melbourne newspapers, or cramming from the books written on Port Phillip, would suffice, he is egregiously mistaken; for I unhesitatingly declare in defiance of all contradiction, that a large number of the most interesting and raciest of the items recorded never appeared previously in print; but were gleaned from old letters and diaries; and the personal and epistolary enquiries addressed to the few surviving old colonists w h o m I considered competent to throw any light upon some mystified question, a dimly observed, almost obliterated speck in the ?iebulaz through which I was obliged to grope. Originally, I had intended to publish T H E C H R O N I C L E S in book form ; but reflection led m e to deem it more advisable to issue it in sections through the Press to the public, inviting the freest criticism, and the correction of possible, though inadvertent, inaccuracies ; and promising, in the not improbable event of its re-issue in a collected shape, to benefit by the same, so far as I could after careful investigation. M y purpose in adopting this course was to render m y effort worthy of the cause in which it was accomplished, and to m a k e it a reliable record of bygone times. I must also observe that as I never credited myself with any special attributes as a writer, and though having had m u c h to do with the early journalism of the city, I was never so egotistic as to put forth any pretensions to be considered a litterateur in even the most restricted sense, and I claim nothing on the score of literary merit for what I have done. T H E C H R O N I C L E S O F E A R L Y M E L B O U R N E comprise little more than the collection of events and dates detailed in an order wherein each chapter constitutes a branch in itself, starting from a beginning, and running either to its termination, ​or up to the period where there is a general leaving off. They were written currente calamo, with no attempted ornamentation, or fine writing, word-painting, or florid flourishing, accomplishments in which the author is well aware of his "know-nothingness." My Sketches aim at being merely a faithful portraiture of the times they affect to depict.
I am now not unlike a pilgrim after a toilsome, though not disagreeable, journey. Having reached the summit of the ascent upon which, as at a shrine, I hang my memorial tablet. I may rest at length, for my mission is over, my work is done, and my Chronicles are completed. On the 1st June, 1880, I set to work, and in the period of three years, without trenching upon my ordinary avocation, the materials were procured and the structure, such as it is, finished.
Though no Spiritist, I had been abiding in a spiritual world, and, impelled by imagination, retraced a region dead and gone, held communion with friends and foes alike, re-visited cherished spots long effaced, re-acted many a queer old " scene," in fact re-lived some of the pleasantest, most exciting, and eventful years of my colonial career. But all the illusions disappeared, the phantasmagoria by which I was entranced dissolved, the spell was broken, when my vow to write a book on Old Melbourne was fulfilled. My visit to Spirit Land was a trip from which I derived a pleasurable, though melancholy enjoyment never to be my lot again; and now that I have resumed my ordinary position upon the prosaic terra firma of everyday life, it only remains for me to conclude by affixing that which is the assured doom of everybody and everything in this mundane state of existence—aye, even the great globe itself—the inevitable word
FINIS.