this necessarily brief review of the work of the royal society could not well be left out of an address like this; and i can now pass on to some reflections that occur to me on the general subject.
in the literature of biography, so susceptible of a treatment full of human interests and sympathies—as chatty boswell's "life of johnson," and lockhart's "life of scott," notably illustrate—we have little to show, except it be the enterprise of publishers and the zeal of too enthusiastic friends. nor is it necessary to dwell on the literature of the law, which is becoming in a measure43 more of a technical and less of a learned profession in the larger sense, unless, indeed, our university schools of political science eventually elevate it to a wider range of thought. several excellent books of a purely technical character have been compiled from year to year, but no kent, or story, or cooley has yet appeared to instruct us by a luminous exposition of principle, or breadth of knowledge. those who know anything of dr. edward blake's great intellectual power, of his wealth of legal learning, of his insight into the operations of political constitutions, cannot deny that he at least could produce a work which might equal in many respects those of the great americans here named; but it looks very much at present as if he, and others i could mention, will give up their best years to the absorbing and uncertain struggles of politics, rather than to the literature of that profession to which they might, under different conditions, raise imperishable memorials. from the pulpit many of us hear from time to time eloquent and well reasoned efforts which tell us how much even the class, necessarily most conservative in its traditions, and confined in its teachings, has been forced by modern tendencies to enlarge its human sympathies and widen its intellectual horizon; but the published sermons are relatively few in number; and while, now and then, at intervals, after a public celebration, an important anniversary or ceremonial, or as a sequence of a controversy on the merits or demerits of creed or dogma, we see a pile of pamphlets on the counter of a bookstore, we do not hear of any printed book of sermons that appears to have entered of recent years into the domain of human thought and discussion in the great world beyond our territorial limits.
i shall not attempt to dwell at any length on the intellectual standard of our legislative bodies, but shall confine myself to a few general observations that naturally suggest themselves to an observer of our political conditions. now, as in all times of our history, political life claims many strong, keen and cultured intellects, although it is doubtful whether the tendency of our democratic institutions is to encourage the most highly educated organizations to venture, or remain, should once they venture, in the agitated and unsafe sea of political passion and controversy.44 the first parliament of the dominion, and the first legislatures of the provinces, which met after the federal union of 1867, when the system of dual representation was permissible—a system whose advantages are more obvious now—brought into public life the most brilliant and astute intellects of canada, and it will probably be a long time before we shall again see assemblages so distinguished for oratory, humour and intellectual power. a federal system was, doubtless, the only one feasible under the racial and natural conditions that met the quebec conference of 1864; but, while admitting its political necessity, we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that the great drain its numerous legislative bodies and governments make upon the mental resources of a limited population—a drain increased by the abolition of dual representation—is calculated to weaken our intellectual strength in our legislative halls, when a legislative union would in the nature of things concentrate that strength in one powerful current of activity and thought. a population of five millions of people has to provide not only between six and seven hundred representatives, who must devote a large amount of time to the public service for inadequate compensation, but also lieutenant-governors, judges and high officials, holding positions requiring intellectual qualifications as well as business capacity if they are properly filled. apart from these considerations, it must be remembered that the opportunities of acquiring wealth and success in business or professional vocations have naturally increased with the material development of the dominion, and that men of brains have consequently even less inducement than formerly to enter on the uncertain and too often ungrateful pursuit of politics. we have also the danger before us that it will be with us, as it is in the united states and even in england under the new conditions that are rapidly developing there; the professional politician, who is too often the creation of factions and cliques, and the lower influences of political intrigue and party management, will be found, as time passes, more common in our legislative halls, to the detriment of those higher ideals that should be the animating principles of public life in this young country, whose future happiness and45 greatness depend so much on the present methods of party government. be all this as it may be, one may still fairly claim for our legislative bodies that their intellectual standard can compare favourably with that of the congress at washington or the state legislatures of massachusetts and new england generally. after all, it is not for brilliant intellectual pyrotechnics we should now so much look to the legislative bodies of canada, but rather for honesty of purpose, keen comprehension of the public interests, and a business capacity which can grasp the actual material wants and necessities of a country which has to face the competition, and even opposition, of a great people full of industrial as well as intellectual energy.
nowhere in this review have i claimed for this country any very striking results in the course of the half century since which we have shown so much political and material activity. i cannot boast that we have produced a great poem or a great history which has attracted the attention of the world beyond us, and assuredly we find no noteworthy attempt in the direction of a novel of our modern life; but what i do claim is, looking at the results generally, the work we have done has been sometimes above the average in those fields of literature—and here i include, necessarily, science—in which canadians have worked. they have shown in many productions a conscientious spirit of research, patient industry, and not a little literary skill in the management of their material. i think, on the whole, there have been enough good poems, histories and essays written and published in canada for the last four or five decades to prove that there has been a steady intellectual growth on the part of our people, and that it has kept pace at all events with the mental growth in the pulpit, or in the legislative halls, where, of late years, a keen practical debating style has taken the place of the more rhetorical and studied oratory of old times. i believe the intellectual faculties of canadians only require larger opportunities for their exercise to bring forth a rich fruition. i believe the progress in the years to come will be far greater than that we have yet shown, and that necessarily so, with the wider distribution of wealth, the dissemination of a higher culture, and a46 greater confidence in our own mental strength, and in the resources that this country offers to pen and pencil. the time will come when that great river, associated with memories of cartier, champlain, la salle, frontenac, wolfe and montcalm,—that river already immortalized in history by the pen of parkman—will be as noted in song and story as the rhine, and will have its irving to make it as famous as the lovely hudson.
of course there are many obstacles in the way of successful literary pursuits in canada. our population is still small, and separated into two distinct nationalities, who for the most part necessarily read books printed in their own tongue. a book published in canada then has a relatively limited clientèle in the country itself, and cannot meet much encouragement from publishers in england or in the united states who have advantages for placing their own publications which no canadian can have under existing conditions. consequently an author of ambition and merit should perforce look for publishers outside his own country if he is to expect anything like just appreciation, or to have a fair chance of reaching that literary world which alone gives fame in the true sense. it must be admitted too that so much inferior work has at times found its way from canada to other countries that publishers are apt to look askance at a book when it is offered to them from the colonies. still, while this may at times operate against making what is a fairly good bargain with the publisher—and many authors, of course, believe with reason that a publisher, as a rule, never makes a good bargain with an author, and certainly not with a new one—a good book will sooner or later assert itself whenever canadians write such a book. let canadians then persevere conscientiously and confidently in their efforts to break through the indifference which at present tends to cramp their efforts and dampen their energy. it is a fashion with some colonial writers to believe that there is a settled determination on the part of english critics to ignore their best work, when, perhaps, in the majority of cases it is the lack of good work that is at fault. such a conclusion sometimes finds an argument in the fact that, when so able a canadian as edward blake enters the legislative halls of england, some ill-natured47 critic, who represents a spirit of insular english snobbery, has only a sneer for "this canadian lawyer" who had better "stay at home," and not presume to think that he, a mere colonist, could have anything to say in matters affecting the good government of the british empire. but the time has long since passed for sneers at colonial self-government or colonial intellect, and we are more likely hereafter to have a canadian house of commons held up as a model of decorum for so-called english gentlemen. such able and impartial critical journals as the athen?um are more ready to welcome than ignore a good book in these days of second-rate literature in england itself. if we produce such a good book as mrs. campbell praed's "australian life," or tasma's "uncle piper of piper's hill," we may be sure the english papers will do us justice. let me frankly insist that we have far too much hasty and slovenly literary work done in canada. the literary canon which every ambitious writer should have ever in his mind has been stated by no less an authority than sainte-beuve: "devoted to my profession as a critic, i have tried to be more and more a good and if possible an able workman." a good style means artistic workmanship. it is too soon for us in this country to look for a matthew arnold or a sainte-beuve—such great critics are generally the results, and not the forerunners, of a great literature; but at least if we could have in the present state of our intellectual development, a criticism in the press which would be truthful and just, the essential characteristics of the two authors i have named, the effect would be probably in the direction of encouraging promising writers, and weeding out some literary dabblers. "what i have wished," said the french critic, "is to say not a word more than i thought, to stop even a little short of what i believed in certain cases, in order that my words might acquire more weight as historical testimony." truth tempered by consideration for literary genius is the essence of sound criticism.
we all know that the literary temperament is naturally sensitive to anything like indifference and is too apt, perhaps, to exaggerate the importance of its calling in the prosaic world in which it is exercised. the pecuniary rewards are so few, relatively,48 in this country, that the man of imaginative mind—the purely literary worker—naturally thinks that he can, at least, ask for generous appreciation. no doubt he thinks, to quote a passage from a clever australian novel—"the australian girl"—"genius has never been truly acclimatized by the world. the philistines always long to put out the eyes of poets and make them grind corn in gaza." but it is well always to remember that a great deal of rough work has to be done in a country like canada before its augustan age can come. no doubt literary stimulus must be more or less wanting in a colony where there is latent at times in some quarters a want of self-confidence in ourselves and in our institutions, arising from that sense of dependency and habit of imitation and borrowing from others that is a necessity of a colonial condition. the tendency of the absence of sufficient self-assertion is to cramp intellectual exertion, and make us believe that success in literature can only be achieved in the old countries of europe. that spirit of all-surrounding materialism to which lowell has referred must also always exercise a certain sinister influence in this way—an influence largely exerted in ontario—but despite all this we see that even among our neighbours it has not prevented the growth of a literary class famous for its intellectual successes in varied fields of literature. it is for canadian writers to have always before them a high ideal, and remember that literature does best its duty—to quote the eloquent words of ruskin—"in raising our fancy to the height of what may be noble, honest and felicitous in actual life; in giving us, though we may be ourselves poor and unknown, the companionship of the wisest spirits of every age and country, and in aiding the communication of clear thoughts and faithful purposes among distant nations, which will at last breathe calm upon the sea of lawless passion and change into such halcyon days the winter of the world, that the birds of the air may have their nests in peace and the son of man where to lay his head."
