Western areas--the Australia Felix of Mitchell--the Messrs. Henty's
position has passed more to the front, and their priority been
universally acknowledged.

I was not personally very intimate with any of the Henty family,
otherwise I might have had more to say in this sketch. But I have met
most of the brothers repeatedly, and frequently I met James, the
Melbourne merchant, who was the eldest, and also William, the lawyer and
ex-Premier of Tasmania, a most amiable and gentlemanly man, who latterly
resided at Home, where he died, and who often attended the lectures and
discussions at the Royal Colonial Institute of London. Both of these
brothers were rather grave and quiet, while Edward and Stephen were
energetic and lively even beyond most colonists. Francis, now the only
survivor of the large family, I met only once, about forty-three years
ago, in the Western District. He was then a handsome and rather slim
young man, not of the Henty mould, which was rather of the full John
Bull kind, as "Punch" gives him, minus the obesity. But if I may credit
the Melbourne "Illustrateds" in a recent likeness of the last of the
Victorian founders, he must have consented, in later life, to drop more
into the family mould. They were a family of eight sons and one
daughter. Seven of the sons emigrated with their father. They were all
men of mark, above average in mind and physique--men of a presence, who
would have been prominent in any society; altogether, in numbers, in
appearance, in circumstances, and in events, quite a remarkable family.

As I am not writing for history, so as to study completeness in my
account, but only of personal observations and recollections, I shall
not do more than give a very slight sketch of the emigratory particulars
of this family, and my excuse is that these data are so far personal as
having been told me direct by one or other of the family. The story is