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. As to the literary merit of the novel, this much we will venture to assert, that setting aside the charm of association, we doubt that Emily Montague if republished at present, would make the fortune of her publisher. Novel writing, like other things, has considerably changed since 1766, and however much the florid Richardson style may have pleased the great grandfathers of the present generation, it would scarcely chime in with the taste of readers in our sensational times. In Mrs. Brooke's day Quebecers appear to have amused themselves pretty much as they do now, a century later. In the summer, riding, driving boating, pic-nics at Lake St. Charles, the Falls of Montmorenci, &c. In winter tandems, sleigh drives, toboganing at the ice cone, tomycod fishing on the St. Charles, Chateau balls; the formation of a pont or ice-bridge and its breaking up in the spring - two events of paramount importance.

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