BARCROFT BOAKE
To Australians, lovers of letters, the brief and thwarted life of Barcroft Boake must remain always a theme of regret. By education he was poorly equipped for poetry. He found his talent late, and early made an end. His small performance was completed in a period of scarcely more than a year. Dying by his own hand at the age of twenty-six, he achieved little of all that his capacity promised. Yet, had fortune favoured, this ill-starred idealist might easily have won recognition as one of the foremost poets of Australia.
For those who have learned to know him well, admiration of the poet may merge in admiration of the man. With many defects, Boake had no vices. From a hundred little sources flows evidence of his courage, of his generosity, of his unselfish affection, of his simplicity and worth. That shy, moody, dispirited bushman had a heart of gold—his mother's.
Boake's mother was a native of Adelaide, where she was born on 5th January, 1845. Her maiden name was Florence Eva Clarke. She was the only child of her parents; and at the time of her marriage on 7th March, 1865, she had been living with her
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