I Need Hardly Name More.
The List Could, I Am Well Aware, Be Extended Indefinitely, And As Each
Of You
Doubtless has your favourite novelist, I need not waste your
time by the simple enumeration of men and women who
Have from time to
time, beguiled away the hours with their stories of the heart, or of
purpose, or of endeavour. We get blase now and then perhaps
through the reading of so many moderns, but the cure for that lies
within easy range. We can take a peep at those old fellows in old-
fashioned bindings, who used to delight our grandfathers in the "brave
days of old," when Richardson told the story of "Pamela," and
"Clarissa Harlowe," when Fielding wrote "Tom Jones," and Smollett
narrated the history of "Humphrey Clinker," and the career of
"Tristram Shandy" found a truthful historian in that mad parson
Lawrence Sterne. We might even read those ancient authors, ancient in
style at least, for a change, and still be reading English literature
in its truest and widest sense. But it is less with the fiction-
writers that we have to deal, than with the thinkers who have given to
belles-lettres in this age, its robustness and vigour. In
political economy, in scientific thought, in history, in moral
philosophy and in polite learning, and in criticism, I think our day
has produced the greatest teachers, as well as the largest number of
them since the English tongue had a literature of its own. (Applause.)
This is true at least in prose writing. I know that in poetry we are
surpassed in grandeur and majesty by the bards of other periods of our
mental activity, I know that we have not produced a Milton yet, nor a
Dryden, nor a Pope - I leave Shakespeare and Chaucer out of the
question, nor a Spenser. We have very many more than our share of
really tuneful singers and fine poets like Tennyson and Longfellow,
Morris and Swinburne, the Arnolds and Lowell - all of them sweet and in
every way charming, none of them grand and magnificent like the sons
of song of the great days of poesy. We have singers and singers, minor
poets and minor poets, all engaged in weaving for our delight very
many pretty fancies; graceful story-tellers in verse, if you will, but
our chief strength lies in prose, sober, scholarly and healthful
prose. Our fame will rest on that branch of the service. (Applause.)
Turning to Canada, I might say that our mental outfit is by no means
beggarly. In fiction we have produced, and I confine myself
particularly to those who have written in English, Judge Haliburton,
James DeMille, Wm. Kirby, John Lesperance. (Applause.) In poetry,
Heavysege, John Reade, Roberts, Charles Sangster, Wm. Murdoch,
Chandler, Howe; in history, Beamish Murdoch, Todd, Morgan, Hannay, Mr.
LeMoine - (Applause) - whom I see present here to night; Dr. Miles, Mr.
Harper, the efficient Rector of our High School, and others of more or
less repute.
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