Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/460

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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1871); "Translations of the Mostellaria and Captivi of Plautus," with introduction; "The Student's English Grammar" (Melbourne), in conjunction with Dr. Pearson; "The Student's Handbook to Classical Literature," and a "Translation of Juvenal," in conjunction with Dr. Leeper (Macmillan); the Clarendon Press edition of Juvenal, which is now being wholly rewritten (notes by Professor Strong, introduction by Dr. Pearson); translation and edition of Paul's great work, "Principles of Language" (Sonnenschein, second edition); "Historical Outlines of German Grammar," in conjunction with Dr. Meyer (Sonnenschein); "History of Language," by Strong, Logeman, and Wheeler (Longmans, 1890). Prof. Strong is now engaged on an edition of Friedländer's "Sittengeschichte." He has received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Glasgow University, and that of Officier d'Instruction Publique from the French Government. Since his return from Melbourne he has done much to make the resources and advantages of Australia known to Englishmen at home. With that object in view he has taken as the theme of several series of university extension lectures the British Empire, and particularly dwelt upon the importance of the Australian colonies to the empire. He helped to found the Self-Help Emigration Society in Liverpool, of which Lord Derby is president, and has given yearly in the large Rotunda Hall a public lecture to about two thousand working men upon the subject of emigration. He has thus been the means of sending out some good men with capital, and preventing many useless hands from leaving England.

Strzelecki, Sir Paul Edmund de, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S. (better known as Count de Strzelecki), the well-known scientist and explorer, was a native of Poland, and travelled abroad in order to escape the Russian yoke. On his way from China he called in at Sydney, where he was introduced to the then Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, who persuaded him to undertake the exploration of the interior of Australia. He devoted years of research and a large sum of money to the scientific examination of the geology, mineralogy, flora and fauna of the great Darling range. In the course of an expedition, undertaken in 1840, he explored Gippsland in Victoria, previously discovered by McMillan, and after great hardships penetrated through the bush to Melbourne. He gave its name to Gippsland. He discovered gold-bearing quartz in the year 1839 in the district of Wellington, 200 miles west of Sydney. The Count subsequently published "A Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land," but without mentioning his actual discovery of gold in the Bathurst district, which he had promised the Governor, Sir George Gipps, not to divulge for fear of rousing the cupidity of the prisoners and labourers. He returned to Europe in 1846, and on his arrival in England was welcomed by the Colonial Secretary. He was selected as one of the commissioners for the distribution of the Irish famine relief fund in 1847-8, and assisted in promoting the emigration of many impoverished families to Australia. In consideration of his Irish services he was created C.B. in 1849, and was made K.C.M.G. in 1869. In June 1853 he was elected F.R.S., and was given the D.C.L. of the university of Oxford. He died in Savile Row, London, on Oct. 6th 1877.

Stuart, Hon. Sir Alexander, M.L.A., sometime Premier of New South Wales, son of Alexander Stuart of Edinburgh, was born in that city in 1825, and educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and subsequently at the University there. He was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Leith, Glasgow and London, and afterwards went to India, whence he came to Sydney in 1851, and entered the service of the Bank of New South Wales as assistant secretary. In 1855 he resigned the latter post, and went into partnership with the late Captain Towns in the firm of Towns & Co. In 1876 he was elected to the Assembly for East Sydney, and was Colonial Treasurer in the Robertson Government from February of that year till March 1877, when the Ministry resigned. In Jan. 1883, on the defeat of the Parkes-Robertson coalition, he accepted the task of forming a cabinet, and was Premier and Colonial Secretary till Oct. 1885. It was during his absence through indisposition in the latter year that his locum tenens, Mr. Dalley, on his own responsibility, made the bold coup of offering to despatch the Soudan con-

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