Henry Caldwell, Mr. Alfred P. Wheeler,
[245] the Tide Surveyor of H. M. Customs, Quebec, built in 1880, a
comfortable and pleasing little cottage.
He has called it Montague Cottage
[246] in memory of Wolfe's brave assistant Quarter Master General Col.
Caldwell, of Sans Bruit, the Col. Rivers of "The Novel and the preferred
suitor of Emily Montague who addressed her romantic 'Sillery letters to
Col. Rivers from a house not far from the Hill of Sillery.
It is stated in all the old Quebec Guide Books that the house in which the
'divine Emily then dwelt stood on the foot of Sillery Hill, close to Mrs.
Graddon's property at Kilmarnock, her friend Bella Fermor probably lived
near her. Vol. I of the Work, page 61, states; "I am at present at an
extremely pretty farm on the banks of the River St. Lawrence, the house
stands as the foot of a steep mountain covered with a variety of trees
forming a verdant sloping wall, which rises in a kind of regular
confusion, shade above shade a woody theatre, and has in front this noble
river, on which ships continually passing present to the delighted eye the
most charming picture imaginable. I never saw a place so formed to inspire
that pleasing lassitude, that divine inclination to saunter, which may not
improperly be called the luxurious indolence of the country. I intend to
build a temple here to the charming goddess of laziness. A gentleman is
coming down the winding path on the side of the hill, whom by his air I
take to be your brother. Adieu. I must receive him, my father is in
Quebec. Yours,
ARABELLA FERMOR.
THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.
On the 22nd March 1769, a novelist of some standing Mrs. Frances
Brooks an officer's lady, [247] author of Lady Julia Mandeville
published in London a work in four volumes, which she dedicated to His
Excellency the Governor of Canada, Guy Carleton afterwards Lord
Dorchester, under the title of the History of Emily Montague being a
series of letters addressed from Sillery by Emily Montague the heroine
of the tale, to her lively and witty friend Bella Fermor - to some
military admirers in Quebec, Montreal, and New York - to some British
noblemen, friends of her father.
This novel, whether it was through the writer's entourage in
the world or her entree to fashionable circles, or whether on
account of its own intrinsic literary worth, had an immense success in
its day. The racy description it contains of Canadian scenery, and
colonial life, mixed with the fashionable gossip of our Belgravians of
1766, seven years after the conquest, caused several English families
to emigrate to Canada. Some settled in the neighborhood of Quebec, at
Sillery, it is said. Whether they found all things couleur-de-
rose, as the clever Mrs. Brooke had described them, - whether they
enjoyed as much Arcadian bliss as the Letters of Emily Montague
had promised - it would be very ungallant for us to gainsay, seeing
that Mrs. Brooke is not present to vindicate herself.
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