Thomas Chandler Haliburton,* a John Foster Kirk,t a John Richardson, a "Cousin May Carleton," a Pierre Chauveau, a Charles Sangster, a François Garneau,** à Rosanna Leprohon,ft an Octave Cremazie. and a Louisa Murray.§§ We have poets in Howe, Fiset, Ascher, Frechette, Vadeboncœur, Lemay, Gray, Reeves, Vining, Katzmann, and Jennings; novelists in Bourassa, DeBoucherville, and Lajoie; historians in Christie, Ferland, Murdoch and Bibaud, and a long list of miscellaneous writers, such as Royal, Sewell, Taché Casgrain, Scadding, DeGaspé, Lemoine, Hodgins, Marshall, Dessaulles, Harrison, DeBellefeuille, Perley, Griffin, Hart, Raymond, Soulard, and many others. These, with Neilson, Howe, Morin, Young, Parent, McDougall, Cauchon, Pope and McCully, as journalists, present a galaxy of native talent sufficient to speak for itself. Before I close, I may remark, that we have been fortunate in the general class of public men (natives and others) who have, from time to time, guided the destinies of our great country. Many of them have evinced the possession of a very considerable share of those large intellectual qualities of reason and capacity which go to make up the statesinan and the diplomatist par excellence. Indeed, there are several of them who, if their lot had been cast in the English arena, would do credit to the House of Commons. In public spirit and enterprise, and in being equal to grapple with great difficulties in times of great emergency, there are one or two of our statesmen who could stand in the same place with the leading men in the adjoining Republic or in Europe. If We have had in many of our politicians a race of "giants." we recall the names of the Sewells, De Lotbinières, Stuarts, Papineaus, Neilsons, Robinsons, Youngs, De Bartzchs, Uniaches, Sullivans, *The late member for Launceton, in the House of Commons. Born in Nova Scotia, 1803. Author of the unrivalled productions of "Sam Slick," satirizing the character and manner of the Yankee people, which are declared, for genuine wit and humor, to stand unequalled. The author of "The History of Charles the Bold of Burgundy," which deservedly drew forth the unqualified praise of the British American press, when it appeared some years since. Born at Fredericton, N. B., 1824, and has since taken up his residence in the United States, where he contributes to the periodical press. The late Major Richardson, a native of Upper Canada. Author of "Wa cousta," "Ecarté," "The Canadian Brothers," &c. § Mrs. Fleming, a native of New Brunswick, the well-known writer for American serials. The author of " Charles Guerin, &c. T Our popular Canadian poet, whose fame is not confined to his native Province, but extends to Europe itself. ** Author of the best History of Canada extant. tt Author of many deservedly popular works. A French Canadian poet of rare powers. SS Author of the Citied Curate, and other novels. A contributor to Once a Week. Valliers, Baldwins, Doyles, Lafontaines, Archibalds, Hincks, Morins and Johnsons of the past, what a grand and powerful class of men do we not bring before us? These are the names which have contributed to our country's greatness and splendor-these are the men who have helped to build up what in future years will be a great northern monarchical nation, vieing in power and repute with the vast and voracious Republic across our borders. These are the men whose rendering of the word duty was far different from that which poor Arthur Clough gave— Duty-'tis to take on trust, What things are good, and right and just: 'Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise And be drawn in a bath-chair to the grave." And now, in conclusion, may I express the hope that you are satisfied that British America has produced many great names which will live, and that the place in history which they have won for themselves is no unworthy or inconsiderable one. If we, our sons or successors, can one day cast a retrospective glance over a long life, and feel that we have done as well-that we have discharged our obligations to our Sovereign and Government as faithfully, that we have served the interests our country as zealously, and that we leave behind us a name as good and great, a reputation as unsullied and clear, surely ours will be a feeling of heartfelt satisfaction-surely we shall deserve well of posterity! ART. III. SKETCHES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. NO. 1. BRUNSWICK-HOUSE HOTEL, LONDON, April 25th, 1866. DEAR REVIEW,-Looking speculatively from a third story window, and feasting his eyes on the lively prospect of red tiles, which spread out like an ocean before him, your European correspondent respectfully solicits audience. The ocean of tiles, it may be remarked, has a very near horizon, for fog and gas light by day are the general rules in London, while sunshine, and the possibility of discerning the end of your nose, are the lucky exceptions. Το you I devote the first moments of resuscitation, from the pains and penalties of a voyage over the sea. When hereafter any ambitious raconteur shall abuse your ear, by eulogies of ocean trips, I solemnly authorize you to whistle them down-as the wickedest fables. It is so fashionable to retail this sort of fiction, that I have positively seen several pale martyrs who come over with me, and who I religiously protest, were in a state of collapse during the en tire passage, tumble into spasms of enthusiasm over the beauties of the sea. With a mind and body yet aching from a vivid sense of those beauties, I beg to assure you that few things are more prosaic, than out of sight of land. Monotony sheds off the tame and negative characteristics in which we are wont to see it ashore, and develops a new and ghastly type. It shoots up into such grim, and positive inertia, and overshadows one with such a sense of profound torpor, that ten days take on an india rubber quality, and stretch to the semblance of an age. The ship seems to realize these dreary facts, and endeavors to cheer up the passengers, by vocalizing to the waves. A circumstance rather to be deplored, for this effort at song expresses itself in such dismal creaks, and despairing yawns, that you would think the vessel and sea were both made of rusty iron, and that all the steam-power in the world was specially leased out to rub them together. If you will please leave the deck now, and come below, you will see how much the prospect brightens at a sight of the state-rooms. I call them state-rooms, but really this is one of those playful absurdities of speech which you cannot properly understand, until you have inspected the bunks of a ship. Imagine a villainous little dungeon, six feet square, looking solemn, and evidently trying to keep down an expression of triumph, at having two captives for a fixed martyrdom. By an ingenious process, ventilation of the cell is achieved through the keyhole, and the pores of the wood. This admirable scheme of atmospheric filtration enables the air to purify itself of oxygen, and all other elements, which make it hostile to disease. The ill-health of the passenger being thus assured, the ship maker next buds his talents to the expulsion of sleep, another dangerous foe to disease. I really feel that I cannot do those beds justice. They carry the idea of cramping to such extravagant lengths, that nothing short of actual intimacy can disclose their merits. You rise in the morning with your head aching at so many points, that you are bewildered by a general impression you have twenty heads, while your muscular, system has complicated into such a labyrinth of semi-dislocations that you begin to contemplate crutches, and cork legs, as foregone conclusions. Had it not been for some amusing ingredients in our social makeup, and the single sunset accorded us, I don't see how I could have survived the trip. I am willing to concede that sunsets, when they do happen visibly at sea, are very handsomely contrived. Our sunset I recall even now with a flutter of enjoyment. It was on the second day's voyage. Land had drifted out of view, blue waters were all about us, and the clouds and waves were kissing at every point of the compass. The wind had smoothed down its plumage, and was just saucy enough to fret the water into wrinkles, and lend a wavy movement to the ship. Over this peaceful picture, done in veritable water colors, the great sun projecting millions of spears of golden light, swooped down to the horizon, and there dipping his lower rim into the molten bath, seemed to pause for a moment, and then sank, as a monarch should sink, in majesty and flaming purple. I thought of a certain anonymous pair of blue eyes, as I watched the gleaming trail flung back by the parting sun-like kisses from a loved one's hand-and wondered if psychology was all illusion, and whether no thought in one heart could stir the fibres of another heart, far away. From all of which your readers are permitted to infer, that the writer has left a sweet-heart at home. The tartar-emetic rolling of the vessel on the third day, developed a circumstance which a nine days' experience confirmed, and which I now have the honor to state as an impregnable postulate. The world on board of a ship is divided into two classes, those who are sick, and those who are not sick. Those who are not, seem to fancy they are under some mysterious obligation to their country, to laugh at those who are; and it is gratifying to observe how cordially they respond to this exaction of patriotism. On our two Sundays out, we were regaled by discourses from a talking Quakeress, famous for some years in Philadelphia, as a selfelected spouter. The saltiest feature in her sermons, was that touching slavery. I am grieved to tell you, my reconstructed criminal, that in the estimation of this inspired female, all the other sins in the world, concentrated in a cauldron and boiled to the consistency proper for eating, would make a highly inocuous and wholesome broth, compared with the sin of slaveholding. This gentle-minded creature has just shuffled off an ancient maidenhood, and is now on a bridal tour with her elected liege. The groom was about sixty-five, and the bride shockingly in the neighborhood of sixty years. Hymen fallen into sere and yellow, and the honey-moon shrunk to its wintery est quarter. It is said to be purely an affair of the heart, founded no doubt upon a mutual ossification of that seditious organ. Suspicions were thrown on the affectional part of this story, by some unbelieving Thomas, who had no soul above finance. He said that the groom was notoriously distressed by the annually recurring circumstance of ten thousand dollars, and that a daily contemplation of his distress, won the heart of the oratorical spinster. This however is, doubtless, the tissue of some meanly compounded brain, and should be scouted by all true believers in the beautiful. For myself, I indignantly repudiate the whole theory as rank treason to the romantic, as barren of all savor of the aesthetic, as an insulting stigma on the artlessness, the reverent girlhood, and the venerable freshness of sixty years. Among other notables was Mr. -, poet and artist. How rarely does the actual, incarnate the ideal. Mr. who has really enriched our language with some beautiful poetry, I had fancied to be quite an imposing, and significant looking personage. Well, he is a short, jaunty style of man, with fat hands, a projecting brow, and a retreating chin. He has a light moustache, and twinkling eyes, and rejoices on the whole in that general type of countenance, under which we codify chief commissaries and embryo aldermen. He ventilated a large seal ring, which he nursed with some show of affection. He evidently fancied his ring, for he stroked it tenderly, and showed much amiability towards a crowd, by keeping it affably conspicuous. As Should you see your friend Mr. , you can say to him that his charming acquaintance, who was sent abroad to avoid his fascinations, was aboard. He will perhaps be glad to know, that she usually wore a very cross and thwarted expression. She generally sat out on the deck, doubled up into a small irregular knot, nestling her pretty face under the brown ambush of a great sun bonnet. a rule, she ignored fellow passengers, and studied French savagely. A ten days' trip on ship board, is calculated to advance the highest abstract conception you may have formed of scandal, twenty-five degrees at the least calculation. One would think that the perilous isolation of a long sea voyage, and the sense of mutual dependence which must arise from this total abstraction from the balance of the world, would stimulate into life all that was charitable within us. So far, however, from pricking up the tender instincts, it brings out in tremendous development, all the Paul Pry, that colonizes the natural animals. Since leaving New York, I have heard more tart and vivacious scandal, about people whom I have known generally for some years, than I supposed the whole catalogue of my acquaintance could furnish food for. I know how wrong it is to listen to such spiteful vagaries of the tongue, and how virtuously we should frown them down, but in the mean time, if you will put on your amnesty cap, I will confess to having relished them in a most heathenish manner. On the morning of the eleventh day out we landed at Cowes, and proceeded in a small open steamer to Southampton, a distance of twelve miles. We were entirely unsheltered, and the British clouds took a mean advantage of us, to dispatch a heavy fall of rain; one of those rains peculiar to the English coast, a rain instinct with chills, and inflammatory rheumatism. I felt myself amply repaid for the ducking, by the beautiful prospects which greeted us along the route from Southampton here. The country distributes itself into the loveliest panorama. Seen from the railway, it shifts by electrical transitions into a thousand types of landscape. Careering into ambitious heights, and rugged picturesques, breaking into rolling scenes and buena-vistas, dropping deftly into cunning domestic edens, and smiling garden plots, and the whole nestling in the rare elysium of. an afternoon sun. I made a solemn vow, on touching land, that if it pleased the pigs to return me safe to Memphis, nothing could persuade me to cross the ocean again. Now I am disturbed by a consciousness, that the little run from Southampton here, has made a large instalment towards paying for the crucifixions of the sea. I had expected before the close of this letter, to broach the great theme of London curiosities, but my traveling griefs have absorbed everything else, and I reserve London as a virgin placer for the development of future letters. CARTE BLANCHE. |