Toronto of Old (part 1)

I.

Palace Street to the Market Place.

In Rome, at the present day, the parts that are the most attractive to the tourist of archæological tastes, are those that are the most desolate; quarters that, apart from their associations, are the most uninviting. It is the same with many another venerable town of the world beyond the Atlantic, of far less note than the old Imperial capital, with Avignon, for example; with Nismes and Vienne in France; with Paris itself, also, to some extent; with Chester, and York, and St. Albans, the Verulam of the Roman period, in England.

It is the same with our American towns, wherever any relics of their brief past are extant. Detroit, we remember, had once a quaint, dilapidated, primæval quarter. It is the same with our own Toronto. He that would examine the vestiges of the original settlement, out of which the actual town has grown, must betake himself, in the first instance, to localities now deserted by fashion, and be content to contemplate objects that, to the indifferent eye, will seem commonplace and insignificant.

To invest such places and things with any degree of interest will appear difficult. An attempt in that direction may even be pronounced visionary. Nevertheless, it is a duty which we owe to our forefathers to take what note we can of the labours of their hands; to forbid, so far as we may, the utter oblivion of their early efforts, and deeds, and sayings, the outcome of their ideas, of their humours and anxieties; to forbid, even, so far as we may, the utter oblivion of the form and fashion of their persons.

The excavations which the first inhabitants made in the construction of their dwellings and in engineering operations, civil and military, were neither deep nor extensive; the materials which they employed were, for the most part, soft and perishable. In a few years all the original edifices of York, the infant Toronto, together with all the primitive delvings and cuttings, will, of necessity, have vanished. Natural decay will have destroyed some. Winds, fires, and floods will have removed others. The rest will have been deliberately taken out of the way, or obliterated in the accomplishment of modern improvements, the rude and fragile giving way before the commodious and enduring.

At St. Petersburg, we believe, the original log-hut of Peter the Great is preserved to the present day, in a casing of stone, with a kind of religious reverence. And in Rome of old, through the influence of a similar sacred regard for the past, the lowly cottage of Romulus was long protected in a similar manner. There are probably no material relics of our founders and forefathers which we should care to invest with a like forced and artificial permanence. But memorials of those relics, and records of the associations that may here and there be found to cluster round them,—these we may think it worth our while to collect and cherish.

Overlooking the harbour of the modern Toronto, far down in the east, there stands at the present day, a large structure of grey cut-stone. Its radiating wings, the turret placed at a central point aloft, evidently for the ready oversight of the subjacent premises; the unornamented blank walls, pierced high up in each storey with a row of circular-heading openings, suggestive of shadowy corridors and cells within, all help to give to this pile an unmistakable prison-aspect.

It was very nearly on the site of this rather hard-featured building that the first Houses of Parliament of Upper Canada were placed—humble but commodious structures of wood, built before the close of the eighteenth century, and destroyed by the incendiary hand of the invader in 1813. "They consisted," as a contemporary document sets forth, "of two elegant Halls, with convenient offices, for the accommodation of the Legislature and the Courts of Justice."—"The Library, and all the papers and records belonging to these institutions were consumed, and, at the same time," the document adds, "the Church was robbed, and the Town Library totally pillaged."—The injuries thus inflicted were a few months afterwards avenged by the destruction of the Public Buildings at Washington, by a British force. "We consider," said an Address of the Legislative Council of Lower Canada to Sir George Prevost, "the destruction of the Public Buildings at Washington as a just retribution for the outrages committed by an American force at the seat of Government of Upper Canada."

On the same site succeeded the more conspicuous and more capacious, but still plain and simply cubical brick block erected for legislative purposes in 1818, and accidentally burned in 1824. The conflagration on this occasion entailed a loss which, the Canadian Review of the period, published at Montreal, observes, "in the present state of the finances and debt of the Province, cannot be considered a trifling affair." That loss, we are informed by the same authority, amounted to the sum of two thousand pounds.

Hereabout the Westminster of the new capital was expected to be. It is not improbable that the position at the head, rather than the entrance, of the harbour was preferred, as being at once commanding and secure.

The appearance of the spot in its primæval condition, was doubtless more prepossessing than we can now conceive it ever to have been. Fine groves of forest trees may have given it a sheltered look, and, at the same time, have screened off from view the adjoining swamps.

The language of the early Provincial Gazetteer, published by authority, is as follows: "The Don empties itself into the harbour, a little above the Town, running through a marsh, which when drained, will afford most beautiful and fruitful meadows." In the early manuscript Plans, the same sanguine opinion is recorded, in regard to the morasses in this locality. On one, of 1810, now before us, we have the inscription: "Natural Meadow which may be mown." On another, the legend runs: "Large Marsh, and will in time make good Meadows." On a third it is: "Large Marsh and Good Grass."

At all events, hereabout it was that York, capital of Upper Canada, began to rise. To the west and north of the site of the Houses of Parliament, the officials of the Government, with merchants and tradesmen in the usual variety, began to select lots and put up convenient dwellings; whilst close by, at Berkeley Street or Parliament Street as the southern portion of the modern Berkeley Street was then named, the chief thoroughfare of the town had its commencing-point. Growing slowly westward from here, King Street developed in its course, in the customary American way, its hotel, its tavern, its boarding-house, its waggon-factory, its tinsmith shop, its bakery, its general store, its lawyer's office, its printing office, its places of worship.

Eastward of Berkeley Street, King Street became the Kingston road, trending slightly to the north, and then proceeding in a straight line to a bridge over the Don. This divergency in the highway caused a number of the lots on its northern side to be awkwardly bounded on their southern ends by lines that formed with their sides, alternately obtuse and acute angles, productive of corresponding inconveniencies in the shapes of the buildings afterwards erected thereon; and in the position of some of them. At one particular point the houses looked as if they had been separated from each other and partially twisted round, by the jolt of an earthquake.

At the Bridge, the lower Kingston road, if produced westward in a right line, would have been Queen Street, or Lot Street, had it been deemed expedient to clear a passage in that direction through the forest. But some way westward from the Bridge, in this line, a ravine was encountered lengthwise, which was held to present great engineering difficulties. A road cut diagonally from the Bridge to the opening of King Street, at once avoided this natural impediment, and also led to a point where an easy connection was made with the track for wheels, which ran along the shore of the harbour to the Garrison. But for the ravine alluded to, which now appears to the south of Moss Park, Lot Street, or, which is the same thing, Queen Street, would at an early period, have begun to dispute with King Street, its claim to be the chief thoroughfare of York.

But to come back to our original unpromising stand-point.

Objectionable as the first site of the Legislative Buildings at York may appear to ourselves, and alienated as it now is to lower uses, we cannot but gaze upon it with a certain degree of emotion, when we remember that here it was the first skirmishes took place in the great war of principles which afterwards with such determination and effect was fought out in Canada. Here it was that first loomed up before the minds of our early law-makers the ecclesiastical question, the educational question, the constitutional question. Here it was that first was heard the open discussion, childlike, indeed, and vague, but pregnant with very weighty consequences, of topics, social and national, which, at the time, even in the parent state itself, were mastered but by few.

Here it was, during a period of twenty-seven years (1797-1824), at each opening and closing of the annual session, amidst the firing of cannon and the commotion of a crowd, the cavalcade drew up that is wont, from the banks of the Thames to the remotest colony of England, to mark the solemn progress of the sovereign or the sovereign's representative, to and from the other Estates in Parliament assembled. Here, amidst such fitting surroundings of state, as the circumstances of the times and the place admitted, came and went personages of eminence, whose names are now familiar in Canadian story: never, indeed, the founder and organiser of Upper Canada, Governor Simcoe himself, in this formal and ceremonious manner; although often must he have visited the spot otherwise, in his personal examinations of every portion of his young capital and its environs. But here, immediately after him, however, came and went repeatedly, in due succession, President Russell, Governor Hunter, Governor Gore, General Brock, General Sheaffe, Sir Gordon Drummond, Sir Peregrine Maitland.

And, while contemplating the scene of our earliest political conflicts, the scene of our earliest known state pageants in these parts, with their modest means and appliances, our minds intuitively recur to a period farther removed still, when under even yet more primitive conditions the Parliament of Upper Canada assembled at Newark, just across the Lake. We picture to ourselves the group of seven crown-appointed Councillors and five representatives of the Commons, assembled there, with the first Speaker, McDonell, of Glengary; all plain, unassuming, prosaic men, listening, at their first session, to the opening speech of their frank and honoured Governor. We see them adjourning to the open air from their straightened chamber at Navy Hall, and conducting the business of the young Province under the shade of a spreading tree, introducing the English Code and Trial by Jury, decreeing Roads, and prohibiting the spread of Slavery; while a boulder of the drift, lifting itself up through the natural turf, serves as a desk for the recording clerk. Below them, in the magnificent estuary of the river Niagara, the waters of all the Upper Lakes are swirling by, not yet recovered from the agonies of the long gorge above, and the leap at Table Rock.—Even here, at the opening and close of this primæval Legislature, some of the decent ceremonial was observed with which, as we have just said, the sadly inferior site at the embouchure of the Don became afterwards familiar. We learn this from the narrative of the French Duke de Liancourt, who affords us a glimpse of the scene at Newark on the occasion of a Parliament there in 1795. "The whole retinue of the Governor," he says, "consisted in a guard of fifty men of the garrison of the fort. Draped in silk, he entered the Hall with his hat on his head, attended by his adjutant and two secretaries. The two members of the Legislative Council gave, by their speaker, notice of it to the Assembly. Five members of the latter having appeared at the bar, the Governor delivered a speech, modelled after that of the King, on the political affairs of Europe, on the treaty concluded with the United States (Jay's treaty of 1794), which he mentioned in expressions very favourable to the Union; and on the peculiar concerns of Canada." (Travels, i. 258.)

By the Quebec Act, passed in 1791, it was enacted that the Legislative Council for Upper Canada should consist of not fewer than seven members, and the Assembly of not less than sixteen members, who were to be called together at least once in every year. To account for the smallness of the attendance on the occasion just described, the Duke explains that the Governor had deferred the session "on account of the expected arrival of a Chief Justice, who was to come from England: and from a hope that he should be able to acquaint the members with the particulars of the Treaty with the United States. But the harvest had now begun, which, in a higher degree than elsewhere, engages in Canada the public attention, far beyond what state affairs can do. Two members of the Legislative Council were present, instead of seven; no Chief Justice appeared, who was to act as Speaker; instead of sixteen members of the Assembly, five only attended; and this was the whole number that could be collected at this time. The law required a greater number of members for each house, to discuss and determine upon any business; but within two days a year would have expired since the last session. The Governor, therefore, thought it right to open the session, reserving, however, to either house the right of proroguing the sitting, from one day to another, in expectation that the ships from Detroit and Kingston would either bring the members who were yet wanting, or certain intelligence of their not being able to attend."

But again to return to the Houses of Parliament at York.—Extending from the grounds which surrounded the buildings, in the east, all the way to the fort at the entrance of the harbour, in the west, there was a succession of fine forest trees, especially oak; underneath and by the side of which the upper surface of the precipitous but nowhere very elevated cliff was carpeted with thick green-sward, such as is still to be seen between the old and new garrisons, or at Mississaga Point at Niagara. A fragment, happily preserved, of the ancient bank, is to be seen in the ornamental piece of ground known as the Fair-green; a strip of land first protected by a fence, and planted with shrubbery at the instance of Mr. George Monro, when Mayor, who also, in front of his property some distance further on, long guarded from harm a solitary survivor of the grove that once fringed the harbour.

On our first visit to Southampton, many years ago, we remember observing a resemblance between the walk to the river Itchen, shaded by trees and commanding a wide water-view on the south, and the margin of the harbour of York.

In the interval between the points where now Princes Street and Caroline Street descend to the water's edge, was a favourite landing-place for the small craft of the bay—a wide and clean gravelly beach, with a convenient ascent to the cliff above. Here, on fine mornings, at the proper season, skiffs and canoes, log and birch-bark were to be seen putting in, weighed heavily down with fish, speared or otherwise taken during the preceding night, in the lake, bay, or neighbouring river. Occasionally a huge sturgeon would be landed, one struggle of which might suffice to upset a small boat. Here were to be purchased in quantities, salmon, pickerel, masquelonge, whitefish and herrings; with the smaller fry of perch, bass and sunfish. Here, too, would be displayed unsightly catfish, suckers, lampreys, and other eels; and sometimes lizards, young alligators for size. Specimens, also, of the curious steel-clad, inflexible, vicious-looking pipe-fish were not uncommon. About the submerged timbers of the wharves this creature was often to be seen—at one moment stationary and still, like the dragon-fly or humming-bird poised on the wing, then, like those nervous denizens of the air, giving a sudden dart off to the right or left, without curving its body.

Across the bay, from this landing-place, a little to the eastward, was the narrowest part of the peninsula, a neck of sand, destitute of trees, known as the portage or carrying-place, where, from time immemorial, canoes and small boats were wont to be transferred to and from the lake.

Along the bank, above the landing-place, Indian encampments were occasionally set up. Here, in comfortless wigwams, we have seen Dr. Lee, a medical man attached to the Indian department, administering from an ordinary tin cup, nauseous but salutary draughts to sick and convalescent squaws. It was the duty of Dr. Lee to visit Indian settlements and prescribe for the sick. In the discharge of his duty he performed long journeys, on horseback, to Penetanguishene and other distant posts, carrying with him his drugs and apparatus in saddle-bags. When advanced in years, and somewhat disabled in regard to activity of movement, Dr. Lee was attached to the Parliamentary staff as Usher of the Black Rod.—The locality at which we are glancing suggests the name of another never-to-be-forgotten medical man, whose home and property were close at hand. This is the eminent surgeon and physician, Christopher Widmer.

It is to be regretted that Dr. Widmer left behind him no written memorials of his long and varied experience. Before his settlement in York, he had been a staff cavalry surgeon, on active service during the campaigns in the Peninsula. A personal narrative of his public life would have been full of interest. But his ambition was content with the homage of his contemporaries, rich and poor, rendered with sincerity to his pre-eminent abilities and inextinguishable zeal as a surgeon and physician. Long after his retirement from general practice, he was every day to be seen passing to and from the old Hospital on King Street, conveyed in his well-known cabriolet, and guiding with his own hand the reins conducted in through the front window of the vehicle. He had now attained a great age; but his slender form continued erect; the hat was worn jauntily, as in other days, and the dress was ever scrupulously exact; the expression of the face in repose was somewhat abstracted and sad, but a quick smile appeared at the recognition of friends. The ordinary engravings of Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, recall in some degree the countenance of Dr. Widmer. Within the General Hospital, a portrait of him is appropriately preserved. One of the earliest, and at the same time one of the most graceful lady-equestrians ever seen in York was this gentleman's accomplished wife. At a later period a sister of Mr. Justice Willis was also conspicuous as a skilful and fearless horse-woman. The description in the Percy Anecdotes of the Princess Amelia, youngest daughter of George II., is curiously applicable to the last-named lady, who united to the amiable peculiarities indicated, talents and virtues of the highest order. "She," the brothers Sholto and Reuben say, "was of a masculine turn of mind, and evinced this strikingly enough in her dress and manners: she generally wore a riding-habit in the German fashion with a round hat; and delighted very much in attending her stables, particularly when any of the horses were out of order." At a phenomenon such as this, suddenly appearing in their midst, the staid and simple-minded society of York stood for a while aghast.

In the Loyalist of Nov. 15, 1828, we have the announcement of a Medical partnership entered into between Dr. Widmer and Dr. Diehl. It reads thus: "Doctor Widmer, finding his professional engagements much extended of late, and occasionally too arduous for one person, has been induced to enter into partnership with Doctor Diehl, a respectable practitioner, late of Montreal. It is expected that their united exertions will prevent in future any disappointment to Dr. Widmer's friends, both in Town and Country. Dr. Diehl's residence is at present at Mr. Hayes' Boarding-house. York, Oct. 28, 1828." Dr. Diehl died at Toronto, March 5, 1868.

At the south-west corner of Princes Street, near where we are now supposing ourselves to be, was a building popularly known as Russell Abbey. It was the house of the Hon. Peter Russell, and, after his decease, of his maiden sister, Miss Elizabeth Russell, a lady of great refinement, who survived her brother many years. The edifice, like most of the early homes of York, was of one storey only; but it exhibited in its design a degree of elegance and some peculiarities. To a central building were attached wings with gables to the south: the windows had each an architectural decoration or pediment over it. It was this feature, we believe, that was supposed to give to the place something of a monastic air; to entitle it even to the name of "Abbey." In front, a dwarf stone wall with a light wooden paling surrounded a lawn, on which grew tall acacias or locusts. Mr. Russell was a remote scion of the Bedford Russells. He apparently desired to lay the foundation of a solid landed estate in Upper Canada. His position as Administrator, on the departure of the first Governor of the Province, gave him facilities for the selection and acquisition of wild lands. The duality necessarily assumed in the wording of the Patents by which the Administrator made grants to himself, seems to have been regarded by some as having a touch of the comic in it. Hence among the early people of these parts the name of Peter Russell was occasionally to be heard quoted good-humouredly, not malignantly, as an example of "the man who would do well unto himself." On the death of Mr. Russell, his property passed into the hands of his sister, who bequeathed the whole to Dr. William Warren Baldwin, into whose possession also came the valuable family plate, elaborately embossed with the armorial bearings of the Russells. Russell Hill, long the residence of Admiral Augustus Baldwin, had its name from Mr. Russell, and in one of the elder branches of the Baldwin family, Russell is continued as a baptismal name. In the same family is also preserved an interesting portrait of Mr. Peter Russell himself, from which we can see that he was a gentleman of portly presence, of strongly marked features, of the Thomas Jefferson type. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak frequently of Mr. Russell.

Russell Abbey became afterwards the residence of Bishop Macdonell, a universally-respected Scottish Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, whose episcopal title was at first derived from Rhesina in partibus, but afterwards from our Canadian Kingston, where his home usually was. His civil duties, as a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, required his presence in York during the Parliamentary sessions. We have in our possession a fine mezzotint of Sir M. A. Shee's portrait of Bishop Macdonell. It used to be supposed by some that the occupancy of Russell Abbey by the Bishop caused the portion of Front Street which lies eastward of the Market-place, to be denominated Palace Street. But the name appears in plans of York of a date many years anterior to that occupancy.

In connection with this mention of Bishop Macdonell, it may be of some interest to add that, in 1826, Thomas Weld, of Lulworth Castle, Dorsetshire, was consecrated as his coadjutor, in England, under the title of Bishop of Amylæ. But it does not appear that he ever came out to Canada. (This was afterwards the well-known English Cardinal.) He had been a layman, and married, up to the year 1825; when, on the death of his wife, he took orders; and in one year he was, as just stated, made a Bishop.

Russell Abbey may indeed have been styled the "Palace"; but it was probably from being the residence of one who for three years administered the Government; or the name "Palace Street" itself may have suggested the appellation. "Palace Street" was no doubt intended to indicate the fact that it led directly to the Government reservation at the end of the Town on which the Parliament houses were erected, and where it was supposed the "Palais du Gouvernement," the official residence of the representative of the Sovereign in the Province would eventually be. On an Official Plan of this region, of the year 1810, the Parliament Buildings themselves are styled "Government House."

At the laying out of York, however, we find, from the plans, that the name given in the first instance to the Front street of the town was, not Palace Street, but King Street. Modern King Street was then Duke Street, and modern Duke Street, Duchess Street. These street names were intended as loyal compliments to members of the reigning family; to George the Third; to his son the popular Duke of York, from whom, as we shall learn hereafter, the town itself was named; to the Duchess of York, the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. In the cross streets the same chivalrous devotion to the Hanoverian dynasty was exhibited. George street, the boundary westward of the first nucleus of York, bore the name of the heir-apparent, George, Prince of Wales. The next street eastward was honoured with the name of his next brother, Frederick, the Duke of York himself. And the succeeding street eastward, Caroline Street, had imposed upon it that of the Princess of Wales, afterwards so unhappily famous as George the Fourth's Queen Caroline. Whilst in Princes Street (for such is the correct orthography, as the old plans show, and not Princess Street, as is generally seen now,) the rest of the male members of the royal family were collectively commemorated, namely, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Sussex, and the Duke of Cambridge.

When the Canadian town of York was first projected, the marriage of the Duke of York with the daughter of the King of Prussia, Frederica Charlotta Ulrica, had only recently been celebrated at Berlin. It was considered at the time an event of importance, and the ceremonies on the occasion are given with some minuteness in the Annual Register for 1791. We are there informed that "the supper was served at six tables; that the first was placed under a canopy of crimson velvet, and the victuals (as the record terms them) served on gold dishes and plates; that Lieutenant-General Bornstedt and Count Bruhl had the honour to carve, without being seated, that the other five tables, at which sat the generals, ministers, ambassadors, all the officers of the Court, and the high nobility, were served in other apartments; that supper being over, the assembly repaired to the White Hall, where the trumpet, timbrel, and other music, were playing; that the flambeau dance was then began, at which the ministers of state carried the torches; that the new couple were attended to their apartment by the reigning Queen and the Queen dowager; that the Duke of York wore on this day the English uniform, and the Princess Frederica a suit of drap d'argent, ornamented with diamonds." In Ashburton's "New and Complete History of England, from the first settlement of Brutus, upwards of one thousand years before Julius Cæsar, to the year 1793," now lying before us, two full-length portraits of the Duke and Duchess are given.—New York and Albany, in the adjoining State, had their names from titles of a Duke of York in 1664, afterwards James II. His brother, Charles II., made him a present, by Letters Patent, of all the territory, from the western side of the Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware Bay; that is, of the present States of Connecticut, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey.

On the green sward of the bank between Princes street and George Street, the annual military "Trainings" on the Fourth of June, "the old King's birthday," were wont to take place. At a later period the day of meeting was the 23rd of April, St. George's day, the fête of George IV. Military displays on a grand scale in and about Toronto have not been uncommon in modern times, exciting the enthusiasm of the multitude that usually assembles on such occasions. But in no way inferior in point of interest to the unsophisticated youthful eye, half a century ago, unaccustomed to anything more elaborate, were those motley musterings of the militia companies. The costume of the men may have been various, the fire-arms only partially distributed, and those that were to be had not of the brightest hue, nor of the most scientific make; the lines may not always have been perfectly straight, nor their constituents well matched in height; the obedience to the word of command may not have been rendered with the mechanical precision which we admire at reviews now, nor with that total suppression of dialogue in undertone in the ranks, nor with that absence of remark interchanged between the men and their officers that are customary now. Nevertheless, as a military spectacle, these gatherings and manoeuvres on the grassy bank here, were effective; they were always anticipated with pleasure and contemplated with satisfaction. The officers on these occasions,—some of them mounted—were arrayed in uniforms of antique cut; in red coats with wide black breast lappets and broad tail flaps; high collars, tight sleeves and large cuffs; on the head a black hat, the ordinary high-crowned civilian hat, with a cylindrical feather some eighteen inches high inserted at the top, not in front, but on the left side (whalebone surrounded with feathers from the barnyard, scarlet at the base, white above). Animation was added to the scene by a drum and a few fifes executing with liveliness "The York Quickstep," "The Reconciliation," and "The British Grenadiers." And then, in addition to the local cavalry corps, there were the clattering scabbards, the blue jackets, and bear-skin helmets of Captain Button's dragoons from Markham and Whitchurch.

Numerously, in the rank and file at these musterings—as well as among the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned—were to be seen men who had quite recently jeopardized their lives in the defence of the country. At the period we are speaking of, only some six or seven years had elapsed since an invasion of Canada from the south. "The late war," for a long while, very naturally, formed a fixed point in local chronology, from which times and seasons were calculated; a fixed point, however, which, to the indifferent new-comer, and even to the indigenous, who, when "the late war" was in progress, were not in bodily existence, seemed already to belong to a remote past. An impression of the miseries of war, derived from the talk of those who had actually felt them, was very strongly stamped in the minds of the rising generation; an impression accompanied also at the same time with the uncomfortable persuasion derived from the same source, that another conflict was inevitable in due time. The musterings on "Training-day" were thus invested with interest and importance in the minds of those who were summoned to appear on these occasions, as also in the minds of the boyish looker-on, who was aware that ere long he would himself be required by law to turn out and take his part in the annual militia evolutions, and perhaps afterwards, possibly at no distant hour, to handle the musket or wield the sword in earnest.

A little further on, in a house at the north-west corner of Frederick Street, a building afterwards utterly destroyed by fire, was born, in 1804, the Hon. Robert Baldwin, son of Dr. William Warren Baldwin, already referred to, and Attorney-General in 1842 for Upper Canada. In the same building, at a later period, (and previously in an humble edifice, at the north-west corner of King Street and Caroline Street, now likewise wholly destroyed,) the foundation was laid, by well-directed and far-sighted ventures in commerce, of the great wealth (locally proverbial) of the Cawthra family, the Astors of Upper Canada, of whom more hereafter. It was also in the same house, prior to its occupation by Mr. Cawthra, senior, that the printing operations of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie were carried on at the time of the destruction of his press by a party of young men, who considered it proper to take some spirited notice of the criticisms on the public acts of their fathers, uncles and superiors generally, that appeared every week in the columns of the Colonial Advocate; a violent act memorable in the annals of Western Canada, not simply as having been the means of establishing the fortunes of an indefatigable and powerful journalist, but more notably as presenting an unconscious illustration of a general law, observable in the early development of communities, whereby an element destined to elevate and regenerate is, on its first introduction, resisted, and sought to be crushed physically, not morally; somewhat as the white man's watch was dashed to pieces by the Indian, as though it had been a sentient thing, conspiring in some mysterious way with other things, to promote the ascendancy of the stranger.

The youthful perpetrators of the violence referred to were not long in learning practically the futility of such exploits. Good old Mr. James Baby, on handing to his son Raymond the amount which that youth was required to pay as his share of the heavy damages awarded, as a matter of course, by the jury on the occasion, is said to have added:—"There! go and make one great fool of yourself again!"—a sarcastic piece of advice that might have been offered to each of the parties concerned.

A few steps northward, on the east side of Frederick Street, was the first Post Office, on the premises of Mr. Allan, who was postmaster; and southward, where this street touches the water, was the Merchants' Wharf, also the property of Mr. Allan; and the Custom House, where Mr. Allan was the Collector. We gather also from Calendars of the day that Mr. Allan was likewise Inspector of Flour, Pot and Pearl Ash; and Inspector of Shop, Still and Tavern Duties. In an early, limited condition of society, a man of more than the ordinary aptitude for affairs is required to act in many capacities.

The Merchants' Wharf was the earliest landing-place for the larger craft of the lake. At a later period other wharves or long wooden jetties, extending out into deep water, one of them named the Farmers' Wharf, were built westward. In the shoal water between the several wharves, for a long period, there was annually a dense crop of rushes or flags. The town or county authorities incurred considerable expense, year after year, in endeavouring to eradicate them—but, like the heads of the hydra, they were always re-appearing. In July, 1821, a "Mr. Coles' account for his assistants' labour in destroying rushes in front of the Market Square," was laid before the County magistrates, and audited, amounting to £13 6s. 3d. In August of the same year, the minutes of the County Court record that "Capt. Macaulay, Royal Engineers, offered to cut down the rushes in front of the town between the Merchants' Wharf and Cooper's Wharf, for a sum not to exceed ninety dollars, which would merely be the expense of the men and materials in executing the undertaking: his own time he would give to the public on this occasion, as encouragement to others to endeavour to destroy the rushes when they become a nuisance;" it was accordingly ordered "that ninety dollars be paid to Capt. Macaulay or his order, for the purpose of cutting down the rushes, according to his verbal undertaking to cut down the same, to be paid out of the Police or District funds in the hands of the Treasurer of the District."

We have understood that Capt. Macaulay's measures for the extinction of the rank vegetation in the shallow waters of the harbour, proved to be very efficient. The instrument used was a kind of screw grapnel, which, let down from the side of a large scow, laid hold of the rushes at their root and forcibly wrenched them out of the bed of mud below. The entire plant was thus lifted up, and drawn by a windlass into the scow. When a full load of the aquatic weed was collected, it was taken out into the open water of the Lake, and there disposed of.

Passing on our way, we soon came to the Market Square. This was a large open space, with wooden shambles in the middle of it, thirty-six feet long and twenty-four wide, running north and south.

By a Proclamation in the Gazette of Nov. 3, 1803, Governor Hunter appointed a weekly market day for the Town of York, and also a place where the market should be held.

"Peter Hunter, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor, &c. Whereas great prejudice hath arisen to the inhabitants of the Town and Township of York, and of other adjoining Townships, from no place or day having been set apart or appointed for exposing publicly for sale, cattle, sheep, poultry, and other provisions, goods, and merchandize, brought by merchants, farmers, and others, for the necessary supply of the said Town of York; and, whereas, great benefit and advantage might be derived to the said inhabitants and others, by establishing a weekly market within that Town, at a place and on a day certain for the purpose aforesaid;

"Know all men, That I, Peter Hunter, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor of the said Province, taking the premises into consideration, and willing to promote the interest, and advantage, and accommodation of the inhabitants of the Town and Township aforesaid, and of others, His Majesty's subjects, within the said Province, by and with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, have ordained, erected, established and appointed, and do hereby ordain, erect, establish and appoint, a Public Open Market, to be held on Saturday in each and every week during the year, within the said Town of York:—(The first market to be held therein on Saturday, the 5th day of November next after the date of these presents), on a certain piece or plot of land within that Town, consisting of five acres and a half, commencing at the south-east angle of the said plot, at the corner of Market Street and New Street, then north sixteen degrees, west five chains seventeen links, more or less, to King Street; then along King Street south seventy-four degrees west nine chains fifty-one links, more or less, to Church Street; then south sixteen degrees east six chains thirty-four links, more or less, to Market Street; then along Market Street north seventy-four degrees east two chains; then north sixty-four degrees, east along Market Street seven chains sixty links, more or less, to the place of beginning, for the purpose of exposing for sale cattle, sheep, poultry, and other provisions, goods and merchandize, as aforesaid. Given under my hand and seal at arms, at York, this twenty-sixth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three, and in the forty-fourth year of His Majesty's reign. P. Hunter, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor. By His Excellency's command, Wm. Jarvis, Secretary."

In 1824, the Market Square was, by the direction of the County magistrates, closed in on the east, west, and south sides, "with a picketting and oak ribbon, the pickets at ten feet distance from each other, with three openings or foot-paths on each side."

The digging of a public well here, in the direction of King Street, was an event of considerable interest in the town. Groups of school-boys every day scanned narrowly the progress of the undertaking; a cap of one or the other of them, mischievously precipitated to the depths where the labourers' mattocks were to be heard pecking at the shale below, may have impressed the execution of this public work all the more indelibly on the recollection of some of them. By referring to a volume of the Upper Canada Gazette, we find that this was in 1823. An unofficial advertisement in that periodical, dated June the 9th, 1823, calls for proposals to be sent in to the office of the Clerk of the Peace, "for the sinking a well, stoning and sinking a pump therein, in the most approved manner, at the Market Square of the said town (of York), for the convenience of the Public." It is added that persons desirous of contracting for the same, must give in their proposals on or before Tuesday, the first day of July next ensuing; and the signature, "by the order of the Court," is that of "S. Heward, Clerk of the Peace, H. D." (Home District).

The tender of John Hutchison and George Hetherington was accepted. They offered to do the work "for the sum of £25 currency on coming to the rock, with the addition of seven shillings and sixpence per foot for boring into the rock until a sufficient supply of water can be got, should it be required." The work was done and the account paid July 30th, 1823. The charge for boring eight feet two inches through the rock was £3 1s. 3d. The whole well and pump thus cost the County the modest sum of only £28 1s. 3d. The charge for flagging round the pump, for "logs, stone and workmanship," was £5 2s. 4½d., paid to Mr. Hugh Carfrae, pathmaster.

Near the public pump, auctions in the open air occasionally took place. A humourous chapman in that line, Mr. Patrick Handy, used often here to be seen and heard, disposing of his miscellaneous wares. With Mr. Handy was associated for a time, in this business, Mr. Patrick McGann. And here we once witnessed the horrid exhibition of a public whipping, in the case of two culprits whose offence is forgotten. A discharged regimental drummer, a native African, administered the lash. The sheriff stood by, keeping count of the stripes. The senior of the two unfortunates bore his punishment with stoicism, encouraging the negro to strike with more force. The other, a young man, endeavoured for a little while to imitate his companion in this respect; but soon was obliged to evince by fearful cries the torture endured. Similar scenes were elsewhere to be witnessed in Canada. In the Montreal Herald of September 16th, 1815, we have the following item of city news, given without comment: "Yesterday, between the hours of 9 and 10, pursuant to their sentences, André Latulippe, Henry Leopard, and John Quin, received 39 lashes each, in the New Market Place." The practice of whipping and even branding of culprits in public had begun at York in 1798. In the Gazette and Oracle of Dec. 1st, 1798, printed at York, we have the note: "Last Monday William Hawkins was publicly whipped, and Joseph McCarthy burned in the hand, at the Market Place, pursuant to their sentence." The crimes are not named.

In the Market Square at York, the pillory and the stocks were also from time to time set up. The latter were seen in use for the last time in 1834. In 1804, a certain Elizabeth Ellis was, for "being a nuisance," sentenced by Chief Justice Allcock to be imprisoned for six months, and "to stand in the pillory twice during the said imprisonment, on two different market days, opposite the Market House in the town of York, for the space of two hours each time." In the same year, the same sentence was passed on one Campbell, for using "seditious words."

In 1831 the wooden shambles were removed, and replaced in 1833 by a collegiate-looking building of red brick, quadrangular in its arrangement, with arched gateway entrances on King Street and Front Street. This edifice filled the whole square, with the exception of roadways on the east and west sides. The public well was now concealed from view. It doubtless exists still, to be discovered and gloated over by the antiquarian of another century.

Round the four sides of the new brick Market ran a wooden gallery, which served to shade the Butchers' stalls below. It was here that a fearful casualty occurred in 1834. A concourse of people were being addressed after the adjournment of a meeting on an electional question, when a portion of the overcrowded gallery fell, and several persons were caught on the sharp iron hooks of the stalls underneath, and so received fatal injuries. The killed and wounded on this memorable occasion were:—Son of Col. Fitz Gibbon, killed; Mr. Hutton, killed; Col. Fitz Gibbon, injured severely; Mr. Mountjoy, thigh broken; Mr. Cochrane, injured severely; Mr. Charles Daly, thigh broken; Mr. George Gurnett, wound in the head; Mr. Keating, injured internally; Mr. Fenton, injured; Master Gooderham, thigh broken; Dr. Lithgow, contused severely; Mr. Morrison, contused severely; Mr. Alderman Denison, cut on the head; Mr. Thornhill, thigh broken; Mr. Street, arm broken; Mr. Deese, thigh broken; another Mr. Deese, leg and arm broken; Mr. Sheppard, injured internally; Mr. Clieve, Mr. Mingle, Mr. Preston, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Leslie (of the Garrison), Master Billings, Mr. Duggan, Mr. Thomas Ridout, Mr. Brock, Mr. Turner, Mr. Hood (since dead), severely injured, &c.

The damage done to the northern end of the quadrangle during the great fire of 1849 led to the demolition of the whole building, and the erection of the St. Lawrence Hall and Market. Over windows on the second storey at the south east corner of the red brick structure now removed, there appeared, for several years, two signs, united at the angle of the building, each indicating by its inscription the place of "The Huron and Ontario Railway" office.

This was while the Northern Railway of Canada was yet existing simply as a project.

In connection with our notice of the Market, we give some collection which may serve to illustrate—

Early Prices at York.

During the war it was found expedient by the civil authorities to interfere, in some degree, with the law of supply and demand. The Magistrates, in Quarter Sessions assembled, agreed, in 1814, upon the following prices, as in their opinion fair and equitable to be paid by the military authorities for provisions:—Flour, per barrel, £3 10s. Wheat, per bushel, 10s. Pease, per bushel, 7s. 6d. Barley and Rye, the same. Oats, per bushel, 5s. Hay, per ton, £5. Straw, £3. Beef, on foot, per cwt. £2 5s.; slaughtered, per lb., 7½d. Pork, salted, per barrel, £7 10s.; per carcass, 7½d. Mutton, per lb., 9d. Veal, 8d. Butter, 1s. 3d. Bread, per loaf of 4 lbs., 1s. 6d. In April, 1822, peace then reigning, York prices were:—Beef, per lb., 2d. a 4d. Mutton, 4d. a 5d. Veal, 4d. a 5d. Pork, 2d. a 2½d. Fowls, per pair, 1s. 3d. Turkeys, each, 3s. 9d. Geese, 2s. 6d. Ducks, per pair, 1s. 10d. Cheese, per lb., 5d. Butter, 7½d. Eggs, per doz., 5d. Wheat, per bushel, 2s. 6d. Barley, 48 lbs., 2s. Oats, 1s. Pease, 1s. 1½d. Potatoes, per bushel, 1s. 3d. Turnips, 1s. Cabbages, per head, 2d. Flour, per cwt., 6s. 3d. Flour, per barrel, 12s. 6d. Tallow, per lb., 5d. Lard, per lb., 5d. Hay, per ton, £2 10s. Pork, per barrel, £2 10s. Wood, per cord, 10s.

As allied to the subject of early prices at York, we add some excerpts from the day-book of Mr. Abner Miles, conductor of the chief hotel of the place, in 1798. It would appear that the resident gentry and others occasionally gave and partook of little dinners at Mr. Miles', for which the charges are roughly minuted on some long, narrow pages of folded foolscap now lying before us. It will be seen from the record that the local "table-traits," as Dr. Doran would speak, were, as nearly as practicable those of the rest of the Empire at the period. At the new capital, however, in 1798, hosts and guests must have laboured under serious difficulties.

In July, 1798, the following items appear against the names, conjointly of Messrs. Baby, Hamilton, and Commodore Grant:—Twenty-two dinners at Eight shillings, £8 16s. Sixteen to Coffee, £1 12s. Eight Suppers, 16s. Twenty-three quarts and one pint of wine, £10 11s. 6d. Eight bottles of porter, £2 8s. Two bottles of syrup-punch, £1 4s. One bottle of brandy and one bottle of rum, 18s. Altogether amounting to £26 5s. 6d. (The currency throughout Mr. Miles' books is that of New York, in which the shilling was seven pence half-penny. The total just given denoted between £16 and £17 of modern Canadian money. It is observable that in the entries of which we give specimens, whiskey, the deadly bane of later years, in not named.) On the 17th June, Thomas Ridout, Jonathan Scott, Col. Fortune, Surveyor Jones, Samuel Heron, Mr. Jarvis [the Secretary], Adjutant McGill, and Mr. Crawford are each charged 16s. as his quota of a "St. John's dinner." On the 4th of June, an entry against "the Chief Justice" [Elmsley], runs thus: Eighteen dinners at Eight shillings, £7 4s. Three bottles Madeira, £1 7s. One bottle brandy, 10s. Five bottles of port wine, four bottles of porter and one pint of rum are charged, but the value is not given. The defect is supplied in a later entry against the Chief Justice, of seven dinners (42s.); where two pints of port wine are charged 9s.; one pint of brandy, 5s.; two bottles port wine, 18s.; one bottle white wine, 9s.; one bottle of porter, 6s. On this occasion "four took coffee," at a cost of 8s. Elsewhere, three dinners are charged to the Chief Justice, when three bottles of wine were required; one pint of brandy, and two bottles of porter, all at the rates already quoted. A "mess dinner" is mentioned, for which the Chief Justice, Mr. Hallowell, and Mr. Cartwright pay 6s. each. One bottle of port, one of Madeira, and one of brandy were ordered, and the "three took coffee," as before at 2s. a head. Again, at a "mess dinner," of four, the names not given, two bottles of port and one bottle of porter were taken. A "club" appears to have met here. In July, 1798, a charge against the names of "Esq. Weekes," "Esq. Rogers," and Col. Fortune, respectively, is "liquor in club the 11th at dinner, 1s. 6d." On July 6th "Judge Powell" is charged for supper, 2s.; for one quart of wine, 9s. On the same day "Judge Powell's servant" had a "gill brandy, 1s. 3d. and one glass do., 8d." A few days afterwards, a reverend wayfarer calls at the inn; baits his beast, and modestly refreshes himself. The entry runs:—"Priest from River La Tranche, 3 quarts corn and half-pint of wine. Breakfast, 2s 6d." On another day, Capt. Herrick has a "gill gin sling, 1s. 3d.; also immediately afterwards a "half-pint of gin sling, 3s." At the same time Capt. Demont has "gill rum sling, 1s. 3d.," and "gill rum, 1s." Capt. Fortune has "half-pint wine, 2s.," and "Esq. Weekes," "gill brandy, 1s. 3d." Col. Fortune has "gill sour punch, 2s." This sour punch is approved of by "Dunlap"—who at one place four times in immediate succession, and frequently elsewhere, is charged with "glass sour punch, 2s." Jacob Cozens takes "one bottle Madeira wine, 10s.;" Samuel Cozens, "one bottle Madeira wine, 10s., and bread and cheese, 1s.;" and Shivers Cozens, "bottle of wine, 10s., and bread and cheese, 1s. Conets Cozens has "dinner, 2s., a gill of brandy, 1s., and half a bushel of seed corn, 7s." On the 5th of July, Josiah Phelps has placed opposite his name, "one glass punch, 3s.; three bowls sour punch, 9s.; gill rum, 1s.; two gin slings, 2s. 6d.; bowl punch, 3s.; gill rum, 1s.; two gills syrup punch, 4s.; supper, 2s." About the same time Corporal Wilson had "two mugs beer, 4s." On the 6th of July Commodore Grant had "half-pint rum, for medson, 2s.; and immediately after another half-pint rum, for do., 2s." One "Billy Whitney" figures often; his purchases one day were: "gill rum sling, 1s. 6d.; do., 1s. 6d.; half-pound butter, 1s. 3d." Capt. Hall takes "one gill punch, 2s.; glass rum, 6d., and half-gallon punch, 7s." He at the same time has two dollars in cash advanced to him by the obliging landlord, 16s.

Mr. Abner Miles supplied customers with general provisions as well as liquors. On one occasion he sells, "White, Attorney-General," three pounds of butter for 7s. 6d., and six eggs for 1s. 6d. He also sells "President Russell" forty-nine pounds and three-fourths, of beef at 1s. per pound; Mr. Attorney-General White took twenty-three pounds and a half at the same price. That sold to "Robert Gray, Esq.," is described as "a choice piece," and is charged two pence extra per pound. The piece, however, weighed only seven pounds, and the cost was just eight shillings and two pence. Other things are supplied by Mr. Miles. Gideon Badger buys of him "one yard red spotted cassimere, 20s.; one and a-half dozen buttons, 3s; and a pair shears, 3s." At the same time Mr. Badger is credited with "one dollar, 8s." Joseph Kendrick gets "sole leather for pair of shoes for self, by old Mr. Ketchum, 6s." Mr. Miles moreover furnishes Mr. Allan with "237 feet of inch-and-half plank at 12s., 33s.; two rod of garden fence at 10s., 20s." We suppose the moneys received were recorded elsewhere generally; but on the pages before us we have such entries as the following: "Messrs. Hamilton, Baby and Grant settled up to 4th of July, after breakfast." "Dr. Gamble, at Garrison," obtained ten bushels of oats and is to pay therefor £4. A mem. is entered of "Angus McDonell, dr., Dinner sent to his tent." and "Capt. Demont, cr. By note of hand for £26 5s. Halifax currency, £42 York." On the same day the Captain indulges in "a five dollar cap, 40s.," and "one gill rum, 1s." That some of Mr. Miles' customers required to be reminded of their indebtedness to him, we learn from an advertisement in the Gazette and Oracle of August 31, 1799. It says: "The Subscriber informs all those indebted to him by note or book, to make payment by the 20th September next, or he will be under the disagreeable necessity of putting them into the hands of an attorney. Abner Miles, York, August 28th, 1799." Mr. Miles' house was a rendezvous for various purposes. In a Gazette and Oracle of Dec 8, 1798, we read—"The gentlemen of the Town and Garrison are requested to meet at one o'clock, on Monday next, the 10th instant, at Miles' Hotel, in order to arrange the place of the York Assemblies for the season. York, Dec 8, 1798." In another number of the same paper an auction is advertised to take place at Miles' Tavern.

In the Gazette and Oracle of July 13th, 1799, we read the following advertisement: "O. Pierce and Co. have for sale: Best spirits by the puncheon, barrel, or ten gallons, 20s. per gal. Do. by the single gallon, 22s. Rum by the puncheon, barrel, or ten gallons, 18s. per gal. Brandy by the barrel, 20s. per gal. Port wine by the barrel, 18s. per gal. Do. by single gallon, 20s. per gal. Gin, by the barrel, 18s. per gal. Teas—Hyson, 19s. per lb.; Souchong, 14s. do.; Bohea, 8s. do. Sugar, best loaf, 3s. 9d. per lb. Lump, 3s. 6d. Raisins, 3s. Figs, 3s. Salt six dollars per barrel or 12s. per bushel. Also, a few dry goods, shoes, leather, hats, tobacco, snuff, &c., &c. York, July 6, 1799." These prices appear to be in Halifax currency.

II.

Front Street, from the Market Place to Brock Street.

The corner we approach after passing the Market Square, was occupied by an inn with a sign-board sustained on a high post inserted at the outer edge of the foot-path, in country roadside fashion. This was Hamilton's, or the White Swan. It was here, we believe, or in an adjoining house, that a travelling citizen of the United States, in possession of a collection of stuffed birds and similar objects, endeavoured at an early period to establish a kind of Natural History Museum. To the collection here was once rashly added figures, in wax, of General Jackson and some other United States notabilities, all in grand costume. Several of these were one night abstracted from the Museum by some over-patriotic youths, and suspended by the neck from the limbs of one of the large trees that over-looked the harbour.

Just beyond was the Steamboat Hotel, long known as Ulick Howard's, remarkable for the spirited delineation of a steam-packet of vast dimensions, extending the whole length of the building, just over the upper verandah of the hotel. In 1828, Mr. Howard is offering to let his hotel, in the following terms:—"Steamboat Hotel, York, U. C.—The proprietor of this elegant establishment, now unrivalled in this part of the country, being desirous of retiring from Public Business, on account of ill-health in his family, will let the same for a term of years to be agreed on, either with or without the furniture. The Establishment is now too well-known to require comment. N. B. Security will be required for the payment of the Rent, and the fulfilment of the contract in every respect. Apply to the subscriber on the premises. U. Howard, York, Oct 8th, 1828."

A little further on was the Ontario House, a hotel built in a style common then at the Falls of Niagara and in the United States. A row of lofty pillars, well-grown pines in fact, stripped and smoothly planed, reached from the ground to the eaves, and supported two tiers of galleries, which, running behind the columns, did not interrupt their vertical lines.

Close by the Ontario House, Market Street from the west entered Front Street at an acute angle. In the gore between the two streets, a building sprang up, which, in conforming to its site, assumed the shape of a coffin. The foot of this ominous structure was the office where travellers booked themselves for various parts in the stages that from time to time started from York. It took four days to reach Niagara in 1816. We are informed by a contemporary advertisement now before us, that "on the 20th of September next [1816], a stage will commence running between York and Niagara: it will leave York every Monday, and arrive at Niagara on Thursday; and leave Queenston every Friday. The baggage is to be considered at the risk of the owner, and the fare to be paid in advance." In 1824, the mails were conveyed the same distance, via Ancaster, in three days. In a post-office advertisement for tenders, signed "William Allan, P. M.," we have the statement: "The mails are made up here [York] on the afternoon of Monday and Thursday, and must be delivered at Niagara on the Wednesday and Saturday following; and within the same period in returning." In 1835, Mr. William Weller was the proprietor of a line of stages between Toronto and Hamilton, known as the "Telegraph Line." In an advertisement before us, he engages to take passengers "through by daylight, on the Lake Road, during the winter season."

Communication with England was at this period a tedious process. So late as 1836, Mrs. Jameson thus writes in her Journal at Toronto (i. 182): "It is now seven weeks since the date of the last letters from my dear far-distant home. The Archdeacon," she adds, "told me, by way of comfort, that when he came to settle in this country, there was only one mail-post from England in the course of a whole year, and it was called, as if in mockery, the Express." To this "Express" we have a reference in a post-office advertisement to be seen in a Quebec Gazette of 1792: "A mail for the Upper Countries, comprehending Niagara and Detroit, will be closed," it says, "at this office, on Monday, the 30th inst., at 4 o'clock in the evening, to be forwarded from Montreal by the annual winter Express, on Thursday, the 3rd of Feb. next." From the same paper we learn that on the 10th of November, the latest date from Philadelphia and New York was Oct. 8th: also, that a weekly conveyance had lately been established between Montreal and Burlington, Vermont. In the Gazette of Jan. 13, 1808, we have the following: "For the information of the Public.—York, 12th Jan., 1808.—The first mail from Lower Canada is arrived, and letters are ready to be delivered by W. Allan, Acting-Deputy-Postmaster."

Compare all this with advertisements in Toronto daily papers now, from agencies in the town, of "Through Lines" weekly, to California, Vancouver's, China and Japan, connecting with Lines to Australia and New Zealand.

On the beach below the Steamboat Hotel was, at a late period, a market for the sale of fish. It was from this spot that Bartlett, in his "Canadian Scenery," made one of the sketches intended to convey to the English eye an impression of the town. In the foreground are groups of conventional, and altogether too picturesque, fishwives and squaws: in the distance is the junction of Hospital Street and Front Street, with the tapering building between. On the right are the galleries of what had been the Steamboat Hotel; it here bears another name.

Bartlett's second sketch is from the end of a long wharf or jetty to the west. The large building in front, with a covered passage through it for vehicles, is the warehouse or freight depot of Mr. William Cooper, long the owner of this favourite landing place. Westwards, the pillared front of the Ontario house is to be seen. Both of these views already look quaint, and possess a value as preserving a shadow of much that no longer exists.

Where Mr. Cooper's Wharf joined the shore there was a ship-building yard. We have a recollection of a launch that strangely took place here on a Sunday. An attempt to get the ship into the water on the preceding day had failed. Delay would have occasioned an awkward settling of the ponderous mass. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the early shipping of the harbour.

The lot extending northward from the Ontario House corner to King street was the property of Attorney-General Macdonell, who, while in attendance on General Brock as Provincial aide-de-camp, was slain in the engagement on Queenston Heights. His death created the vacancy to which, at an unusually early age, succeeded Mr. John Beverley Robinson, afterwards the distinguished Chief Justice of Upper Canada. Mr. Macdonell's remains are deposited with those of his military chief under the column on Queenston Heights. He bequeathed the property to which our attention has been directed, to a youthful nephew, Mr. James Macdonell, on certain conditions, one of which was that he should be educated in the tenets of the Anglican Church, notwithstanding the Roman Catholic persuasion of the rest of the family.

The track for wheels that here descended to the water's edge from the north, Church Street subsequently, was long considered a road remote from the business part of the town, like the road leading southward from Charing-cross, as shewn in Ralph Aggas' early map of London. A row of frame buildings on its eastern side, in the direction of King Street, perched high on cedar posts over excavations generally filled with water, remained in an unfinished state until the whole began to be out of the perpendicular and to become gray with the action of the weather. It was evidently a premature undertaking; the folly of an over-sanguine speculator. Yonge street beyond, where it approached the shore of the harbour, was unfrequented. In spring and autumn it was a notorious slough. In 1830, a small sum would have purchased any of the building lots on either side of Yonge Street, between Front Street and Market Street.

Between Church Street and Yonge Street, now, we pass a short street uniting Front Street with Wellington Street. Like Salisbury, Cecil, Craven and other short but famous streets off the Strand, it retains the name of the distinguished person whose property it traversed in the first instance. It is called Scott Street, from Chief Justice Thomas Scott, whose residence and grounds were here.

Mr. Scott was one of the venerable group of early personages of whom we shall have occasion to speak. He was a man of fine culture, and is spoken of affectionately by those who knew him. His stature was below the average. A heavy, overhanging forehead intensified the thoughtful expression of his countenance, which belonged to the class suggested by the current portraits of the United States jurist, Kent. We sometimes, to this day, fall in with books from his library, bearing his familiar autograph.

Mr. Scott was the first chairman and president of the "Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada," organized at York in 1812. His name consequently appears often in the Report of that Association, printed by William Gray in Montreal in 1817. The objects of the Society were "to afford relief and aid to disabled militiamen and their families: to reward merit, excite emulation, and commemorate glorious exploits, by bestowing medals and other honorary marks of public approbation and distinction for extraordinary instances of personal courage and fidelity in defence of the Province." The preface to the Report mentions that "the sister-colony of Nova Scotia, excited by the barbarous conflagration of the town of Newark and the devastation on that frontier, had, by a legislative act, contributed largely to the relief of this Province."

In an appeal to the British public, signed by Chief Justice Scott, it is stated that "the subscription of the town of York amounted in a few days to eight hundred and seventy-five pounds five shillings, Provincial currency, dollars at five shillings each, to be paid annually during the war; and that at Kingston to upwards of four hundred pounds."

Medals were struck in London by order of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada; but they were never distributed. The difficulty of deciding who were to receive them was found to be too great. They were defaced and broken up in York, with such rigour that not a solitary specimen is known to exist. Rumours of one lurking somewhere, continue to this day, to tantalize local numismatists. What became of the bullion of which they were composed used to be one of the favourite vexed questions among the old people of York. Its value doubtless was added to the surplus that remained of the funds of the Society, which, after the year 1817, were devoted to benevolent objects. To the building fund of the York General Hospital, we believe, a considerable donation was made. The medal, we are told, was two and one-half inches in diameter. On the obverse, within a wreath of laurel, were the words "FOR MERIT." On this side was also the legend: "PRESENTED BY A GRATEFUL COUNTRY." On the reverse was the following elaborate device: A strait between two lakes: on the North side a beaver (emblem of peaceful industry), the ancient cognizance of Canada: in the background an English Lion slumbering. On the South side of the Strait, the American eagle planing in the air, as if checked from seizing the Beaver by the presence of the Lion. Legend on this side: "UPPER CANADA PRESERVED."

Scott Street conducts to the site, on the north side of Hospital Street, westward of the home of Mr. James Baby, and, eastward, to that of Mr. Peter Macdougall, two notable citizens of York.

A notice of Mr. Baby occurs in Sibbald's Canadian Magazine for March, 1833. The following is an extract: "James Baby was born at Detroit in 1762. His family was one of the most ancient in the colony; and it was noble. His father had removed from Lower Canada to the neighbourhood of Detroit before the conquest of Quebec, where, in addition to the cultivation of lands, he was connected with the fur-trade, at that time, and for many years after, the great staple of the country. James was educated at the Roman Catholic Seminary of Quebec, and returned to the paternal roof soon after the peace of 1783. The family had ever been distinguished (and indeed all the higher French families) for their adherence to the British crown; and to this, more than to any other cause, are we to attribute the conduct of the Province of Quebec during the American War. Being a great favourite with his father, James was permitted to make an excursion to Europe, before engaging steadily in business; and after spending some time, especially in England, rejoined his family. * * * There was a primitive simplicity in Mr. Baby's character, which, added to his polished manners and benignity of disposition, threw a moral beauty around him which is very seldom beheld."

In the history of the Indian chief Pontiac, who, in 1763, aimed at extirpating the English, the name of Mr. Baby's father repeatedly occurs. The Canadian habitans of the neighbourhood of Detroit, being of French origin, were unmolested by the Indians; but a rumour had reached the great Ottawa chief, while the memorable siege of Detroit was in progress, that the Canadians had accepted a bribe from the English to induce them to attack the Indians. "Pontiac," we read in Parkman's History, p. 227, "had been an old friend of Baby; and one evening, at an early period of the siege, he entered his house, and, seating himself by the fire, looked for some time steadily at the embers. At length, raising his head, he said he had heard that the English had offered the Canadian a bushel of silver for the scalp of his friend. Baby declared that the story was false, and protested that he never would betray him. Pontiac for a moment keenly studied his features. 'My brother has spoken the truth,' he said, 'and I will show that I believe him.' He remained in the house through the evening, and, at its close, wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down upon a bench, where he slept in full confidence till morning." Note that the name Baby is to be pronounced Baw-bee.

Mr. Macdougall was a gentleman of Scottish descent, but, like his compatriots in the neighbourhood of Murray Bay, so thoroughly Lower-Canadianized as to be imperfectly acquainted with the English language to the last. He was a successful merchant of the town of York, and filled a place in the old local conversational talk, in which he was sometimes spoken of as "Wholesale, Retail, Pete McDoug,"—an expression adopted by himself on some occasion. He is said once to have been much perplexed by the item "ditto" occurring in a bill of lading furnished of goods under way; he could not remember having given orders for any such article. He was a shrewd business man. An impression prevailed in certain quarters that his profits were now and then extravagant. While he was living at Niagara, some burglars from Youngstown broke into his warehouse; and after helping themselves to whatever they pleased, they left a written memorandum accounting for their not having taken with them certain other articles: it was "because they were marked too high."

That he was accustomed to affix a somewhat arbitrary value to his merchandise, seems to be shown by another story that was told of him. He was said, one day, when trade in general was very dull, to have boasted that he had that very morning made £400 by a single operation. On being questioned, it appeared that it had been simply a sudden enlargement of the figure marked on all his stock to the extent of £400.

One other story of him is this: On hearing a brother dealer lament that by a certain speculation he should, after all, make only 5 per cent., he expressed his surprise, adding that he himself would be satisfied with 3, or even 2, (taking the figures 2, 3, &c., to mean 2 hundred, 3 hundred, &c.)—We shall hear of Mr. Macdougall again in connection with the marine of the harbour.

Of Yonge Street itself, at which we now arrive, we propose to speak at large hereafter. Just westward from Yonge Street was the abode, surrounded by pleasant grounds and trees, of Mr. Macaulay, at a later period Sir James Macaulay, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a man beloved and honoured for his sterling excellence in every relation. A full-length portrait of him is preserved in Osgoode Hall. His peculiar profile, not discernable in that painting, is recalled by the engraving of Capt. Starky, which some readers will remember in Hone's Every-Day Book.

Advancing a little further, we came in front of one of the earliest examples, in these parts, of an English-looking rustic cottage, with verandah and sloping lawn. This was occupied for a time by Major Hillier, of the 74th regiment, aide-de-camp and military secretary to Sir Peregrine Maitland. The well-developed native thorn-tree, to the north of the site of this cottage, on the property of Mr. Andrew Mercer, is a relic of the woods that once ornamented this locality.

Next came the residence of Mr. Justice Boulton, a spacious family domicile of wood, painted white, situated in an extensive area, and placed far back from the road. The Judge was an English gentleman of spare Wellington physique; like many of his descendants, a lover of horses and a spirited rider; a man of wit, too, and humour, fond of listening to and narrating anecdotes of the ben trovato class. The successor to this family home was Holland House, a structure of a baronial cast, round which one might expect to find the remains of a moat; a reproduction, in some points, as in name, of the building in the suburbs of London, in which was born the Judge's immediate heir, Mr. H. J. Boulton, successively Solicitor-General for Upper Canada, and Chief Justice of Newfoundland.

When Holland House passed out of the hands of its original possessor, it became the property of Mr. Alexander Manning, an Alderman of Toronto.

It was at Holland House that the Earl and Countess of Dufferin kept high festival during a brief sojourn in the capital of Ontario, in 1872. Suggested by public addresses received in infinite variety, within Holland House was written or thought out that remarkable cycle of rescripts and replies which rendered the vice-regal visit to Toronto so memorable,—a cycle of rescripts and replies exceedingly wide in its scope, but in which each requisite topic was touched with consummate skill, and in such a way as to show in each direction genuine human sympathy and heartiness of feeling, and a sincere desire to cheer and strengthen the endeavour after the Good, the Beautiful and the True, in every quarter.

Whilst making his visit to Quebec, before coming to Toronto, Lord Dufferin, acting doubtless on a chivalrous and poetical impulse, took up his abode in the Citadel, notwithstanding the absence of worthy arrangements for his accommodation there.

Will not this bold and original step on the part of Lord Dufferin lead hereafter to the conversion of the Fortress that crowns Cape Diamond into a Rheinstein for the St. Lawrence—into an appropriately designed castellated habitation, to be reserved as an occasional retreat, nobly-seated and grandly historic, for the Viceroys of Canada?

We now passed the grounds and house of Chief-Justice Powell. In this place we shall only record our recollection of the profound sensation created far and wide by the loss of the Chief-Justice's daughter in the packet ship Albion, wrecked off the Head of Kinsale, on the 22nd of April, 1822. A voyage to the mother country at that period was still a serious undertaking. We copy a contemporaneous extract from the Cork Southern Reporter:—"The Albion, whose loss at Garrettstown Bay we first mentioned in our paper of Tuesday, was one of the finest class of ships between Liverpool and New York, and was 500 tons burden. We have since learned some further particulars, by which it appears that her loss was attended with circumstances of a peculiarly afflicting nature. She had lived out the tremendous gale of the entire day on Sunday, and Captain Williams consoled the passengers, at eight o'clock in the evening, with the hope of being able to reach Liverpool on the day but one after, which cheering expectation induced almost all of the passengers, particularly the females, to retire to rest. In some short time, however, a violent squall came on, which in a moment carried away the masts, and, there being no possibility of disengaging them from the rigging, encumbered the hull so that she became unmanageable, and drifted at the mercy of the waves, till the light-house of the Old Head was discovered, the wreck still nearing in; when the Captain told the sad news to the passengers, that there was no longer any hope; and, soon after she struck. From thenceforward all was distress and confusion. The vessel soon went to pieces, and, of the crew and passengers, only six of the former and nine of the latter were saved." The names of the passengers are added, as follows: "Mr. Benyon, a London gentleman; Mr. N. Ross, of Troy, near New York; Mr. Conyers, and his brother-in-law, Major Gough, 68th regiment; Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, Americans; Madame Gardinier and son, a boy about eight years of age; Col. Prevost; Mr. Dwight, of Boston; Mrs. Mary Pye, of New York; Miss Powell, daughter of the Honourable William Dummer Powell, Chief-Justice of Upper Canada; Rev. Mr. Hill, Jamaica, coming home by the way of the United States; Professor Fisher, of New Haven, Connecticut; Mr. Gurnee, New York; Mr. Proctor, New York; Mr. Dupont, and five other Frenchmen; Mrs. Mary Brewster; Mr. Hirst, Mr. Morrison, and Stephen Chase."

The Weekly Register of York, of June 13, 1822, the number that contains the announcement of the wreck of the Albion packet, has also the following paragraph: "Our Attorney-General arrived in London about the 22nd of March, and up to the 11th of April had daily interviews of great length with ministers. It gives us real pleasure to announce,"—so continues the editorial of the Weekly Register—"that his mission is likely to be attended with the most complete success, and that our relations with the Lower Provinces will be put on a firm and advantageous footing. We have no doubt that Mr. Robinson will deserve the general thanks of the country." A family party from York had embarked in the packet of the preceding month, and were, as this paragraph intimates, safe in London on the 22nd of March. The disastrous fate of the lady above named was thus rendered the more distressing to friends and relatives, as she was present in New York when that packet sailed, but for some obscure reason, she did not desire to embark therein along with her more fortunate fellow townsfolk.

After the house and grounds of Chief-Justice Powell came the property of Dr. Strachan, of whom much hereafter. In view of the probable future requirements of his position in a growing town and growing country, Dr. Strachan built, in 1818, a residence here of capacious dimensions and good design, with extensive and very complete appurtenances. A brother of the Doctor's, Mr. James Strachan, an intelligent bookseller of Aberdeen, visited York in 1819, soon after the first occupation of the new house by its owners. The two brothers, John and James, had not seen each other since 1799, when John, a young man just twenty-one, was setting out for Canada, to undertake a tutorship in a family at Kingston; setting out with scant money outfit, but provided with what was of more value, a sound constitution, a clear head, and a good strong understanding trained in Scottish schools and colleges, and by familiar intercourse with shrewd Scottish folk.

As James entered the gates leading into the new mansion, and cast a comprehensive glance at the fine façade of the building before him and over its pleasant and handsome surroundings, he suddenly paused; and indulging in a stroke of sly humour, addressed his brother with the words, spoken in grave confidential undertone,—"I hope it's a' come by honestly, John!"

On his return to Scotland, Mr. James Strachan published "A Visit to the Province of Upper Canada in 1819," an interesting book, now scarce and desired by Canadian collectors. The bulk of the information contained in this volume was confessedly derived from Dr. Strachan.

The bricks used in the construction of the house here in 1818 were manufactured on the spot. One or two earlier brick buildings at York were composed of materials brought from Kingston or Montreal; recalling the parallel fact that the first bricks used for building in New York were imported from Holland; just as in the present day, (though now, of course, for a different reason,) houses are occasionally constructed at Quebec with white brick manufactured in England.

We next arrived at a large open space, much broken up by a rivulet—"Russell's Creek,"—that meandered most recklessly through it. This piece of ground was long known as Simcoe Place, and was set apart in the later plan for the extension of York westward, as a Public Square. Overlooking this area from the north-west, at the present day, is one of the elms of the original forest—an unnoticeable sapling at the period referred to, but now a tree of stately dimensions and of very graceful form, resembling that of the Greek letter Psi. It will be a matter of regret when the necessities of the case shall render the removal of this relic indispensable.

At the corner to the south of this conspicuous tree, was an inn long known as the Greenland Fishery. Its sign bore on one side, quite passably done, an Arctic or Greenland scene; and on the other, vessels and boats engaged in the capture of the whale. A travelling sailor, familiar with whalers, and additionally a man of some artistic taste and skill, paid his reckoning in labour, by executing for the landlord, Mr. Wright, these spirited paintings, which proved an attraction to the house.

John Street, which passes north, by the Greenland Fishery, bears one of the Christian names of the first Governor of Upper Canada. Graves Street, on the east side of the adjoining Square, bore his second Christian name; but Graves Street has, in recent times, been transformed into Simcoe Street.

When the Houses of Parliament, now to be seen stretching across Simcoe Place, were first built, a part of the design was a central pediment supported by four stone columns. This would have relieved and given dignity to the long front. The stone platform before the principal entrance was constructed with a flight of steps leading thereto; but the rather graceful portico which it was intended to sustain, was never added. The monoliths for the pillars were duly cut out at a quarry near Hamilton. They long remained lying there, in an unfinished state. In the lithographic view of the Parliament Buildings, published by J. Young, their architect, in 1836, the pediment of the original design is given as though it existed.

Along the edge of the water, below the properties, spaces and objects which we have been engaged in noticing, once ran a shingly beach of a width sufficient to admit of the passage of vehicles. A succession of dry seasons must then have kept the waters low. In 1815, however, the waters of the Lake appear to have been unusually high. An almanac of that year, published by John Cameron, at York, offers, seriously as it would seem, the subjoined explanation of the phenomenon: "The comet which passed to the northward three years since," the writer suggests, "has sensibly affected our seasons: they have become colder; the snows fall deeper; and from lesser exhalation, and other causes, the Lakes rise much higher than usual."

The Commissariat store-houses were situated here, just beyond the broken ground of Simcoe Place; long white structures of wood, with the shutters of the windows always closed; built on a level with the bay, yet having an entrance in the rear by a narrow gangway from the cliff above, on which, close by, was the guard-house, a small building, painted of a dun colour, with a roof of one slope, inclining to the south, and an arched stoup or verandah open to the north. Here a sentry was ever to be seen, pacing up and down. A light bridge over a deep water-course led up to the guard-house.

Over other depressions or ravines, close by here, were long to be seen some platforms or floored areas of stout plank. These were said to be spaces occupied by different portions of the renowned canvas-house of the first Governor, a structure manufactured in London and imported. The convenience of its plan, and the hospitality for which it afforded room, were favourite topics among the early people of the country. We have it in Bouchette's British North America a reference to this famous canvas house. "In the spring (i. e. of 1793)," that writer says, "the Lieutenant-Governor moved to the site of the new capital (York), attended by the regiment of the Queen's Rangers, and commenced at once the realization of his favourite project. His Excellency inhabited, during the summer, and through the winter, a canvas-house, which he imported expressly for the occasion; but, frail as was its substance, it was rendered exceedingly comfortable, and soon became as distinguished for the social and urbane hospitality of its venerable and gracious host, as for the peculiarity of its structure," vol. i. 80. After this allusion to the home Canadian life of the first Governor, the following remarks of de Liancourt, on the same subject, will not appear out of place:—"In his private life," the Duke says, "Gov. Simcoe is simple, plain and obliging. He inhabits [the reference now is to Newark or Niagara] a small, miserable wooden house, which formerly was occupied by the Commissaries, who resided here on account of the navigation of the Lake. His guard consist of four soldiers, who every morning come from the fort [across the river], and return thither in the evening. He lives in a noble and hospitable manner, without pride; his mind is enlightened, his character mild and obliging; he discourses with much good sense on all subjects; but his favourite topics are his projects, and war, which seem to be the objects of his leading passions. He is acquainted with the military history of all countries: no hillock catches his eye without exciting in his mind the idea of a fort which might be constructed on the spot; and with the construction of this fort he associates the plan of operations for a campaign, especially of that which is to lead him to Philadelphia. [Gen. Simcoe appears to have been strongly of the opinion that the United States were not going to be a permanency.] On hearing his professions of an earnest desire of peace, you cannot but suppose, either that his reason must hold an absolute sway over his passion, or that he deceives himself." Travels, i. 241.

Other traits, which doubtless at this time gave a charm to the home-life of the accomplished Governor, may be gathered from a passage in the correspondence, at a later period, of Polwhele, the historian of Cornwall, who says, in a letter addressed to the General himself, dated Manaccan, Nov. 5th, 1803:—"I have been sorely disappointed, once or twice, in missing you, whilst you were inspecting Cornwall. It was not long after your visit at my friend Mr. Hoblyn's, but I slept also at Nanswhydden. Had I met you there, the Noctes Atticæ, the Coenæ Deorum, would have been renewed, if peradventure the chess-board intervened not; for rooks and pawns, I think, would have frightened away the Muses, familiar as rooks and pawns might have been to the suitors of Penelope." Polwhele, 544.

The canvas-house above spoken of, had been the property of Capt. Cook the circumnavigator. On its being offered for sale in London, Gov. Simcoe, seeing its possible usefulness to himself as a moveable government-house purchased it.

Some way to the east of the Commissariat store-houses was the site of the Naval Building Yard, where an unfinished ship-of-war and the materials collected for the construction of others, were destroyed, when the United States forces took possession of York in 1813.

It appears that Col. Joseph Bouchette had just been pointing out to the Government the exposed condition of the public property here. In a note at p. 89 of his British North America that officer remarks: "The defenceless situation of York, the mode of its capture, and the destruction of the large ship then on the stocks, were but too prophetically demonstrated in my report to headquarters in Lower Canada, on my return from a responsible mission to the capital of the Upper Province, in the early part of April. Indeed the communication of the result of my reconnoitering operations, and the intelligence of the successful invasion of York, and the firing of the new ship by the enemy, were received almost simultaneously."

The Governor-in-Chief, Sir George Prevost, was blamed for having permitted a frigate to be laid down in an unprotected position. There was a "striking impropriety," as the Third Letter of Veritas, a celebrated correspondent of the Montreal Herald in 1815, points out, "in building at York, without providing the means of security there, as the works of defence, projected by General Brock, (when he contemplated, before the war, the removal of the naval depot from Kingston to York, by reason of the proximity of the former to the States in water by the ice), were discontinued by orders from below, [from Sir George Prevost, that is], and never resumed. The position intended to have been fortified by General Brock, near York, was," Veritas continues, "capable of being made very strong, had his plan been executed; but as it was not, nor any other plan of defence adopted, a ship-yard without protection became an allurement to the enemy, as was felt to the cost of the inhabitants of York."

In the year 1832, the interior of the Commissariat-store, decorated with flags, was the scene of the first charitable bazaar held in these parts. It was for the relief of distress occasioned by a recent visitation of cholera. The enterprise appears to have been remarkably successful. We have a notice of it in Sibbald's Canadian Magazine of January, 1833, in the following terms: "All the fashionable and well-disposed attended; the band of the gallant 79th played, at each table stood a lady; and in a very short time all the articles were sold to gentlemen,—who will keep 'as the apple of their eye' the things made and presented by such hands." The sum collected on the occasion, it is added, was three hundred and eleven pounds.

Where Windsor Street now appears—with its grand iron gates at either end, inviting or forbidding the entrance of the stranger to the prim, quaint, self-contained little village of villas inside—formerly stood the abode of Mr. John Beikie, whose tall, upright, staidly-moving form, generally enveloped in a long snuff-coloured overcoat, was one of the dramatis personæ of York. He had been, at an early period, sheriff of the Home District; at a later time his signature was familiar to every eye, attached in the Gazette to notices put forth by the Executive Council of the day, of which rather aristocratic body he was the Clerk.

Passing westward, we had on the right the spacious home of Mr. Crookshank, a benevolent and excellent man, sometime Receiver-General of the Province, of whom we shall again have occasion to speak; and on the left, on a promontory suddenly jutting out into the harbour, "Captain Bonnycastle's cottage," with garden and picturesque grove attached; all Ordnance property in reality, and once occupied by Col. Coffin. The whole has now been literally eaten away by the ruthless tooth of the steam excavator. On the beach to the west of this promontory was a much frequented bathing-place. Captain Bonnycastle, just named, was afterwards Sir Richard, and the author of "Canada as it was, is, and may be," and "Canada and the Canadians in 1846."

The name "Peter," attached to the street which flanks on the west the ancient homestead and extensive outbuildings of Mr. Crookshank, is a memento of the president or administrator, Peter Russell. It led directly up to Petersfield, Mr. Russell's park lot on Queen Street.

We come here to the western boundary of the so-called New Town—the limit of the first important extension of York westward. The limit, eastward, of the New Town, was a thoroughfare known in the former day as Toronto Street, which was one street east of Yonge Street, represented now by Victoria Street. At the period when the plan was designed for this grand western and north-western suburb of York, Yonge Street was not opened southward farther than Lot [Queen] Street. The roadway there suddenly veered to the eastward, and then, after a short interval, passed down Toronto Street, a roadway a little to the west of the existing Victoria Street.

The tradition in Boston used to be, that some of the streets there followed the line of accidental cow-paths formed in the olden time in the uncleared bush; and no doubt other old American towns, like ancient European towns generally, exhibit, in the direction of their thoroughfares, occasionally, traces of casual circumstances in the history of the first settlers on their respective sites. The practice at later periods has been to make all ways run as nearly as possible in right lines. In one or two "jogs" or irregularities, observable in the streets of the Toronto of to-day, we have memorials of early waggon tracks which ran where they most conveniently could. The slight meandering of Front Street in its course from the garrison to the site of the first Parliament Buildings, and of Britain Street, (an obscure passage between George Street and Caroline Street), may be thus explained; as also the fact that the southern end of the present Victoria Street does not connect immediately with the present Toronto Street. This last-mentioned irregularity is a relic of the time when the great road from the north, namely, Yonge Street, on reaching Queen Street, slanted off to the eastward across vacant lots and open ground, making by the nearest and most convenient route for the market and the heart of the town.

After the laying-out in lots of the region comprehended in the first great expansion of York, of which we have spoken, inquiries were instituted by the authorities as to the improvements made by the holders of each. In the chart accompanying the report of Mr. Stegman, the surveyor appointed to make the examination, the lots are coloured according to the condition of each, and appended are the following curious particulars, which smack somewhat of the ever-memorable town-plot of Eden, to which Martin Chuzzlewit was induced to repair, and which offered a lively picture of an infant metropolis in the rough. (We must represent to ourselves a chequered diagram; some of the squares white or blank; some tinted blue; some shaded black; the whole entitled "Sketch of the Part of the Town of York west of Toronto Street.")—"Explanation: The blank lots are cleared, agreeable to the notice issued from His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, bearing date September the fourth, 1800. The lots shaded blue are chiefly cut, but the brush not burnt; and those marked with the letter A, the brush only cut. The lots shaded black, no work done. The survey made by order of the Surveyor-General's office, bearing date April the 23rd, 1801." A more precise examination appears to have been demanded. The explanations appended to the second plan, which has squares shaded brown, in addition to those coloured blue and black, are: "1st. The blank lots are cleared. 2nd. The lots shaded black, no work done. 3rd. The lots shaded brown, the brush cut and burnt. 4th. The lots shaded blue, the brush cut and not burnt. N.B. The lots 1 and 2 on the north side of Newgate Street [the site subsequently of the dwelling-house of Jesse Ketchum, of whom hereafter], are mostly clear of the large timber, and some brush cut also, but not burnt; therefore omitted in the first report. This second examination done by order of the Honourable John Elmsley, Esq."

The second extension of York westward included the Government Common. The staking out of streets here was a comparatively late event. Brock Street, to which we have now approached, had its name, of course, from the General officer slain at Queenston, and its extra width from the example set in the Avenue to the north, into which it merges after crossing Queen Street.

A little to the west of Brock Street was the old military burying-ground, a clearing in the thick brushwood of the locality: of an oblong shape, its four picketed sides directed exactly towards the four cardinal points. The setting off of the neighbouring streets and lots at a different angle, caused the boundary lines of this plot to run askew to every other straight line in the vicinity. Over how many a now forgotten and even obliterated grave have the customary farewell volleys here been fired!—those final honours to the soldier, always so touching; intended doubtless, in the old barbaric way, to be an incentive to endurance in the sound and well; and consolatory in anticipation to the sick and dying.

In the mould of this old cemetery, what a mingling from distant quarters! Hearts finally at rest here, fluttered in their last beats, far away, at times, to old familiar scenes "beloved in vain" long ago; to villages, hedgerows, lanes, fields, in green England and Ireland, in rugged Scotland and Wales. Many a widow, standing at an open grave here, holding the hand of orphan boy or girl, has "wept her soldier dead," not slain in the battle-field, indeed, but fallen, nevertheless, in the discharge of duty, before one or other of the subtle assailants that, even in times of peace, not unfrequently bring the career of the military man to a premature close. Among the remains deposited in this ancient burial-plot are those of a child of the first Governor of Upper Canada, a fact commemorated on the exterior of the mortuary chapel over his own grave in Devonshire, by a tablet on which are the words: "Katharine, born in Upper Canada, 16th Jan., 1793; died and was buried at York Town, in that Province, in 1794."

Close to the military burial-ground was once enacted a scene which might have occurred at the obsequies of a Tartar chief in the days of old. Capt. Battersby, sent out to take command of a Provincial corps, was the owner of several fine horses, to which he was greatly attached. On his being ordered home, after the war of 1812, friends and others began to make offers for the purchase of the animals; but no; he would enter into no treaty with any one on that score. What his decision was became apparent the day before his departure from York. He then had his poor dumb favourites led out by some soldiers to the vicinity of the burying-ground; and there he caused each of them to be deliberately shot dead. He did not care to entrust to the tender mercies of strangers, in the future, those faithful creatures that had served him so well, and had borne him whithersoever he listed, so willingly and bravely. The carcasses were interred on the spot where the shooting had taken place.

Returning now again to Brock Street, and placing ourselves at the middle point of its great width—immediately before us to the north, on the ridge which bounds the view in the distance, we discern a white object. This is Spadina House, from which the avenue into which Brock Street passes, takes its name. The word Spadina itself is an Indian term tastefully modified, descriptive of a sudden rise of land like that on which the house in the distance stands. Spadina was the residence of Dr. W. W. Baldwin, to whom reference has already been made. A liberal in his political views, he nevertheless was strongly influenced by the feudal feeling which was a second nature with most persons in the British Islands some years ago. His purpose was to establish in Canada a family, whose head was to be maintained in opulence by the proceeds of an entailed estate. There was to be forever a Baldwin of Spadina.

It is singular that the first inheritor of the newly-established patrimony should have been the statesman whose lot it was to carry through the Legislature of Canada the abolition of the rights of primogeniture. The son grasped more readily than the father what the genius of the North American continent will endure, and what it will not.

Spadina Avenue was laid out by Dr. Baldwin on a scale that would have satisfied the designers of St. Petersburg or Washington. Its width is one hundred and twenty feet. Its length from the water's edge to the base of Spadina Hill would be nearly three miles. Garnished on both sides by a double row of full grown chestnut trees, it would vie in magnificence, when seen from an eminence, with the Long Walk at Windsor.

Eastward of Spadina House, on the same elevation of land, was Davenport, the picturesque and chateau-like home of Col. Wells, formerly of the 43rd regiment, built at an early period. Col. Wells was a fine example of the English officer, whom we so often see retiring from the camp gracefully and happily into domestic life. A faithful portrait of him exists, in which he wears the gold medal of Badajoz. His sons, natural artists, and arbiters of taste, inherited, along with their æsthetic gifts, also lithe and handsome persons. One of them, now, like his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, was highly distinguished in the Crimea; and on revisiting Toronto after the peace with Russia, was publicly presented with a sword of honour. The view of the Lake and intervening forest, as seen from Davenport and Spadina, before the cultivation of the alluvial plain below, was always fine. (On his retirement from the army, the second Col. Wells took up his abode at Davenport.)

III.

From Brock Street to the Old French Fort.

Returning again to the front. The portion of the Common that lies immediately west of the foot of Brock Street was enclosed for the first time and ornamentally planted by Mr. Jameson. Before his removal to Canada, Mr. Jameson had filled a judicial position in the West Indies. In Canada, he was successively Attorney-General and Vice-Chancellor, the Chancellorship itself being vested in the Crown. The conversational powers of Mr. Jameson were admirable: and no slight interest attached to the pleasant talk of one who, in his younger days, had been the familiar associate of Southey, Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In a volume of poems by Hartley Coleridge, son of the philosopher, published in 1833, the three sonnets addressed "To a Friend," were addressed to Mr. Jameson, as we are informed in a note. We give the first of these little poems at length:

"When we were idlers with the loitering rills, The need of human love we little noted: Our love was nature; and the peace that floated On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills: One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted, That, wisely doating, asked not why it doated, And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills. But now I find how dear thou wert to me; That man is more than half of nature's treasure, Of that fair Beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweet music which no ear can measure; And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure, The hills sleep on in their eternity."

The note appended, which appears only in the first edition, is as follows: "This sonnet, and the two following, my earliest attempts at that form of versification, were addressed to R. S. Jameson, Esq., on occasion of meeting him in London, after a separation of some years. He was the favourite companion of my boyhood, the active friend and sincere counsellor of my youth. 'Though seas between us broad ha' roll'd' since we 'travelled side by side' last, I trust the sight of this little volume will give rise to recollections that will make him ten years younger. He is now Judge Advocate at Dominica, and husband of Mrs. Jameson, authoress of the 'Diary of an Ennuyée,' 'Loves of the Poets,' and other agreeable productions."

Mr. Jameson was a man of high culture and fine literary tastes. He was, moreover, an amateur artist of no ordinary skill, as extant drawings of his in water-colours attest. His countenance, especially in his old age, was of the Jeremy Bentham stamp.

It was from the house on the west of Brock Street that Mrs. Jameson dated the letters which constitute her well-known "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles." That volume thus closes: "At three o'clock in the morning, just as the moon was setting on Lake Ontario, I arrived at the door of my own house in Toronto, having been absent on this wild expedition [to the Sault] just two months." York had then been two years Toronto. (For having ventured to pass down the rapids at the Sault, she had been formally named by the Otchipways of the locality, Was-sa-je-wun-e-qua, "Woman of the Bright Stream.")

The Preface to the American edition of Mrs. Jameson's "Characteristics of Women" was also written here. In that Introduction we can detect a touch due to the "wild expedition" just spoken of. "They say," she observes, "that as a savage proves his heroism by displaying in grim array the torn scalps of his enemies, so a woman thinks she proves her virtue by exhibiting the mangled reputations of her friends:" a censure, she adds, which is just, but the propensity, she explains, is wrongly attributed to ill-nature and jealousy. "Ignorance," she proceeds, "is the main cause; ignorance of ourselves and others; and when I have heard any female acquaintance commenting with a spiteful or a sprightly levity on the delinquencies and mistakes of their sex, I have only said to myself, 'They know not what they do.'" "Here, then," the Preface referred to concludes, "I present to women a little elementary manual or introduction to that knowledge of woman, in which they may learn to understand better their own nature; to judge more justly, more gently, more truly of each other;

'And in the silent hour of inward thought To still suspect, yet still revere themselves In lowliness of heart.'"

Mrs. Jameson was unattractive in person at first sight, although, as could scarcely fail to be the case in one so highly endowed, her features, separately considered, were fine and boldly marked. Intellectually, she was an enchantress. Besides an originality and independence of judgment on most subjects, and a facility in generalizing and reducing thought to the form of a neat aphorism, she had a strong and capacious memory, richly furnished with choice things. Her conversation was consequently of the most fascinating kind.

She sang, too, in sweet taste, with a quiet softness, without display. She sketched from nature with great elegance, and designed cleverly. The seven or eight illustrations which appear in the American edition of the "Characteristics," dated at Toronto, are etched by herself, and bear her autograph, "Anna." The same is to be observed of the illustrations in the English edition of her "Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies;" and in her larger volumes on various Art-subjects. She had super-eminently beautiful hands, which she always scrupulously guarded from contract with the outer air.

Mrs. Jameson was a connoisseur in "hands," as we gather from her Commonplace Book, just mentioned. She there says: "There are hands of various character; the hand to catch, and the hand to hold; the hand to clasp, and the hand to grasp; the hand that has worked, or could work, and the hand that has never done anything but hold itself out to be kissed, like that of Joanna of Arragon, in Raphael's picture." Her own appeared to belong to the last-named class.

Though the merest trifles, we may record here one or two further personal recollections of Mrs. Jameson; of her appreciation, for example, of a very obvious quotation from Horace, to be appended to a little sketch of her own, representing a child asleep, but in danger from a serpent near; and of her glad acceptance of an out-of-the-way scrap from the "Vanity of Arts and Sciences" of Cornelius Agrippa, which proved the antiquity of charivaries. "Do you not know that the intervention of a lady's hand is requisite to the finish of a young man's education?" was a suggestive question drawn forth by some youthful maladroitness. Another characteristic dictum, "Society is one vast masquerade of manners," is remembered, as having been probably at the time a new idea to ourselves in particular. The irrational conventionalities of society she persistently sought to counteract, by her words on suitable occasions, and by her example, especially in point of dress, which did not conform to the customs in vogue.

Among the local characters relished by Mrs. Jameson in Canada was Mr. Justice Hagerman, who added some of the bluntness of Samuel Johnson to the physique of Charles James Fox. She set a high value on his talents, although we have heard her, at once playfully and graphically, speak of him as "that great mastiff, Hagerman." From Mrs. Jameson we learned that "Gaytay" was a sufficient approximation in English to the pronunciation of "Goethe." She had been intimately acquainted with the poet at Weimar.

In the Kensington Museum there is a bust, exceedingly fine, of Mrs. Jameson, by the celebrated sculptor Gibson, executed by him, as the inscription speaks, "in her honour." The head and countenance are of course somewhat idealized; but the likeness is well retained. In the small Boston edition of the "Legends of the Madonna" there is an interesting portrait of Mrs. Jameson, giving her appearance when far advanced in years.

Westward from the house and grounds whose associations have detained us so long, the space that was known as the Government Common is now traversed from south to north by two streets. Their names possess some interest, the first of them being that of the Duke of Portland, Viceroy of Ireland, Colonial Secretary, and three times Prime Minister in the reign of George the Third; the other that of Earl Bathurst, Secretary for the Colonies in George the Fourth's time.

Eastward of Bathurst Street, in the direction of the military burying-ground, there was long marked out by a furrow in the sward the ground-plan of a church. In 1830, the military chaplain, Mr. Hudson, addressed to the commander of the forces a complaint "of the very great inconvenience to which the troops are exposed in having to march so far to the place of worship, particularly when the weather and roads are so unfavourable during a greater part of the year in this country, the distance from the Barracks to the Church being two miles:" adding, "In June last, the roads were in such a state as to prevent the Troops from attending Church for four successive Sundays." He then suggested "the propriety of erecting a chapel on the Government reserve for the accommodation of the Troops." The Horse Guards refused to undertake the erection of a chapel here, but made a donation of one thousand pounds towards the re-edification of St. James' Church, "on condition that accommodation should be permanently provided for His Majesty's Troops." The outline in the turf was a relic of Mr. Hudson's suggestion.

The line that defined the limit of the Government Common to the north and east, (and west, of course, likewise), prior to its division into building lots, was a portion of the circumference of a great circle, "of a radius of a 1,000 yards, more or less," whose centre was the Fort. On the old plans of York, acres of this great circle are traced, with two interior concentric arcs, of radii respectively of eight and five hundred yards.

We now soon arrive at the ravine of the "Garrison Creek." In the rivulet below, for some distance up the valley, before the clearing away of the woods, salmon used to be taken at certain seasons of the year. Crossing the stream, and ascending to the arched gateway of the fort, (we are speaking of it as it used to be), we pass between the strong iron-studded portals, which are thrown back: we pass a sentry just within the gate, and the guard-house on the left. At present we do not tarry within the enclosure of the Fort. We simply glance at the loopholed block-house on the one side, and the quarters of the men, the officers, and the commandant on the other; and we hurry across the gravelled area, recalling rapidly a series of spirit-stirring ordinal numbers—40th, 41st, 68th, 79th, 42nd, 15th, 32nd, 1st—each suggestive of a gallant assemblage at some time here; of a vigorous, finely disciplined, ready-aye-ready group, that, like the successive generations on the stage of human life, came and went just once, as it were—as the years rolled on, and the eye saw them again no more.

We pass on through the western gate to the large open green space which lies on the farther side. This is the Garrison Reserve. It bears the same relation to the modern Toronto and the ancient York as the Plains of Abraham do to Quebec. It was here that the struggle took place, in the olden time, that led to the capture of the town. In both cases the leader of the aggressive expedition "fell victorious." But the analogy holds no further; as, in the case of the inferior conquest, the successful power did not retain permanent possession.

The Wolfe's Cove—the landing-place of the invader—on the occasion referred to, was just within the curve of the Humber Bay, far to the west, where Queen Street now skirts the beach for a short distance and then emerges on it. The intention had been to land more to the eastward, but the vessels containing the hostile force were driven westward by the winds.

The debarkation was opposed by a handful of Indians, under Major Givins. The Glengary Fencibles had been despatched to aid in this service, but, attempting to approach the spot by a back road, they lost their way. A tradition exists that the name of the Grenadier's Pond, a lagoon a little to the west, one of the ancient outlets of the waters of the Humber, is connected with the disastrous bewilderment of a party of the regular troops at this critical period. It is at the same time asserted that the name "Grenadier's Pond" was familiar previously. At length companies of the Eighth Regiment, of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and of Incorporated Militia, made their appearance on the ground, and disputed the progress inland of the enemy. After suffering severely, they retired towards the Fort. This was the existing Fort. The result is now matter of history, and need not be detailed. As portions of the cliff have fallen away from time to time along the shore here, numerous skeletons have been exposed to view, relics of friend and foe slain on the adjacent common, where, also, military ornaments and fragments of fire-arms, used frequently to be dug up. Some of the bones referred to, however, may have been remains of early French and Indian traders.

The Loyalist newspaper of May 9, 1829, published at York, speaks of the re-interment on that day of the remains of an officer killed at the battle of York. The article runs as follows:—"The late Capt. McNeil.—It will be recollected by many of the inhabitants of York that this officer fell while gallantly fighting at the head of his Company of Grenadiers of the 8th Regiment, in defence of the place, on the morning of the 27th of April, 1813. His remains which so eminently deserved rites of honourable sepulture, were from unavoidable circumstances consigned to earth by the hands of the enemy whom he was opposing, near the spot where he fell, without any of those marks of distinction which are paid to departed valour.

"The waters of the Lake," the Loyalist then proceeds to say, "having lately made great inroads upon the bank, and the grave being in danger of being washed away, it may be satisfactory to his friends to learn, that on these circumstances being made known to Major Winniett, commanding the 68th Regiment at this Post, he promptly authorized the necessary measures to be taken for removing the remains of Capt. McNeil, and placing them in the Garrison Burial Ground, which was done this day. A firing-party and the band attended on the occasion, and the remains were followed to the place of interment by the officers of the Garrison, and a procession of the inhabitants of the town and vicinity."

The site of the original French stockade, established here in the middle of the last century, was nearly at the middle point between the landing-place of the United States force in 1813, and the existing Fort. West of the white cut-stone Barracks, several earthworks and grass-grown excavations still mark the spot. These ruins, which we often visited when they were much more extensive and conspicuous than they are now, were popularly designated "The Old French Fort."

It is interesting to observe the probable process by which the appellation "Toronto" came to be attached to the Trading-post here. Its real name, as imposed by the French authorities, was Fort Rouillé, from a French colonial minister of that name, in 1749-54. This we learn from a despatch of M. de Longeuil, Governor-in-Chief of Canada in 1752. And "Toronto," at that period, according to contemporaneous maps, denoted Lake Simcoe and the surrounding region. Thus in Carver's Travels through North America in 1766-8, in p. 172, we read, "On the north-west part of this lake [Ontario], and to the south of Lake Huron, is a tribe of Indians called the Mississagués, whose town is denominated Toronto, from the lake [i. e. Lake Simcoe] on which it lies, but they are not very numerous." This agrees with Lahontan's statements and map, in 1687.

What Carver says of the fewness of the native inhabitants is applicable only to the state of things in his day. The fatal irruption of the Iroquois from the south had then taken place, and the whole of the Lake Simcoe or Toronto region had been made a desert. Before that irruption, the peninsula included between Notawasaga Bay, Matchedash, or Sturgeon Bay, the River Severn, Lake Couchichin and Lake Simcoe was a locality largely frequented by native tribes. It was especially the head-quarters of the Wyandots or Hurons. Villages, burial-grounds, and cultivated lands abounded in it. Unusual numbers of the red men were congregated there.

It was in short the place of meeting, the place of concourse, the populous region, indicated by the Huron term Toronto.

In the form Toronton, the word Toronto is given by Gabriel Sagard in his "Dictionnaire de la Langue Huronne," published at Paris in 1636.

With Sagard it is a kind of exclamation, signifying "Il y en a beaucoup," and it is used in relation to men. He cites as an example—"He has killed a number of S. (the initial of some hostile tribe)." "Toronton S. ahouyo."

In the Vocabulary of Huron words at the end of Lahontan's second volume, the term likewise appears, but with a prefix,—A-toronton,—and is translated "Beaucoup." Sagard gives it with the prefix O, in the phrase "O-toronton dacheniquoy," "J'en mange beaucoup."

We are not indeed to suppose that the Hurons employed the term Toronto as a proper name. We know that the aborigines used for the most part no proper names of places, in our sense of the word, their local appellations being simply brief descriptions or allusion to incidents. But we are to suppose that the early white men took notice of the vocable Toronto, frequently and emphatically uttered by their red companions, when pointing towards the Lake Simcoe region, or when pressing on in canoe or on foot, to reach it.

Accordingly, at length, the vocable Toronto is caught up by the white voyageurs, and adopted as a local proper name in the European sense: just as had been the case already with the word Canada. ("Kanata" was a word continually heard on the lips of the red men in the Lower St. Lawrence, as they pointed to the shore; they simply meant to indicate—"Yonder are our wigwams;" but the French mariners and others took the expression to be a geographical name for the new region which they were penetrating. And such it has become.)

We can now also see how it came to pass that the term Toronto was attached to a particular spot on the shore of Lake Ontario. The mouth of the Humber, or rather a point on the eastern side of the indentation known as Humber Bay, was the landing place of hunting parties, trading parties, war-parties, on their way to the populous region in the vicinity of Lake Simcoe. Here they disembarked for the tramp to Toronto. This was a Toronto landing-place for wayfarers bound to the district in the interior where there were crowds. And gradually the starting-place took the name of the goal. The style and title of the terminus ad quem were usurped by the terminus à quo.

Thus likewise it happened that the stockaded trading-post established near the landing on the indentation of Humber Bay came to be popularly known as Fort Toronto, although its actual, official name was Fort Rouillé.

In regard to the signification which by some writers has been assigned to the word Toronto, of "trees rising out of the water"—we think the interpretation has arisen from a misunderstanding of language used by Indian canoe-men.

Indian canoe-men in coasting along the shore of Lake Ontario from the east or west, would, we may conceive, naturally point to "the trees rising out of the water," the pines and black poplars looming up from the Toronto island or peninsula, as a familiar land-mark by which they knew the spot where they were to disembark for the "populous region to the north." The white men mixing together in their heads the description of the landmark and the district where, as they were, emphatically told, there were crowds, made out of the expressions "trees rising out of the water," and "Toronto," convertible terms, which they were not.

As to the idea to which Capt. Bonnycastle gave currency, by recording it in one of his books on Canada, that Toronto, or Tarento, was possibly the name of an Italian engineer concerned in the construction of the fort,—it is sufficient to reply that we know what the official name of the Fort was: it was Fort Rouillé. Sorel, and Chambly, and it may be, other places in Canada, derived their names from officers in the French service. But nothing to be found in the early annals of the country gives any countenance to Capt. Bonnycastle's derivation. It was probably a mere after-dinner conversational conjecture, and it ought never to have been gravely propounded.

We meet with Toronto under several different forms, in the French and English documents; but the variety has evidently arisen from the attempts of men of different degrees of literary capacity and qualification, to represent, each as he best could, a native vocable which had not been long reduced to writing. The same variety, and from the same cause, occurs in a multitude of other aboriginal terms.

The person who first chanced to write down Toronto as Tarento was probably influenced by some previous mental familiarity with the name of an old Italian town; just as he who first startled Europeans by the announcement that one of the Iroquois nations was composed of Senecas, was doubtless helped to the familiar-looking term which he adopted, by a thought of the Roman stoic. (Pownall says Seneca is properly Sen-aga, "the farther people," that is in relation to the New England Indians; while Mohawk is Mo-aga, "the hither people." Neither of the terms was the name borne by the tribe. According to the French rendering, the Mo-agas were Agniés; the Sen-agas Tsonnontouans.)

The chivalrous and daring La Salle must have rested for a moment at the Toronto Landing. In his second expedition to the West, in 1680, he made his way from Fort Frontenac to Michilimackinac by the portage from the mouth of what is now the Humber to Lake Huron, accompanied by a party of twenty-four men.

In the preceding year he had penetrated to the Mississippi by the Lake Erie route. But then also some of his company unexpectedly found themselves in close proximity to Toronto. The Franciscan Friar, Hennepin, sent forward by La Salle from Fort Frontenac with seventeen men, was compelled by stress of weather, while coasting along the north side of Lake Ontario, to take shelter in the Humber river. It was then the 26th of Nov. (1678); and here he was delayed until the 5th of December. Hennepin speaks of the place of his detention as Taiaiagon: a word erroneously taken to be a local proper name. It means as we are assured by one formerly familiar with the native Indians, simply a Portage or Landing-place. So that there were numerous Taiaiagons. One is noted in particular, situated, the Gazetteer of 1799 says, "half way between York and the head of the Bay of Quinté:" probably where Port Hope now stands. It is marked in the old French maps in that position. (On one of them a track is drawn from it to "Lac Taronthé;" that is to the chain of Lakes leading north-westerly to Lake Toronto, i. e. Lake Simcoe.) The Taiaiagon of Hennepin is stated by him to be "at the farther end of Lake Ontario," and "about seventy leagues from Fort Frontenac:" too far, of course. Again: the distance from Taiaiagon to the mouth of the Niagara river, is made by him to be fifteen or sixteen leagues; also too far, if Toronto is the site of his Taiaiagon.

IV.

From the Garrison Back to the Place of Beginning.

We now enter again the modern Fort; passing back through the western gate. On our right we have the site of the magazine which so fatally exploded in 1813; we learn from Gen. Sheaffe's despatch to Sir George Prevost, that it was "in the western battery."

In close proximity to the magazine was the Government House of the day, an extensive rambling cluster of one-storey buildings; all "riddled" or shattered to pieces by the concussion, when the explosion took place. The ruin that thus befel the Governor's residence led, on the restoration of peace, to the purchase of Chief Justice Elmsley's house on King street, and its conversion into "Government House."

From the main battery, which (including a small semi-circular bastion for the venerable flag-staff of the Fort) extends along the brow of the palisaded bank, south of the parade, the royal salutes, resounding down and across the lake, used to be fired on the arrival and departure of the Lieutenant-Governor, and at the opening and closing of the Legislature.

From the south-eastern bastion, overlooking the ravine below, a twelve-pounder was discharged every day at noon. "The twelve-o'clock gun," when discontinued, was long missed with regret.

At the time of the invasion of Canada in 1812, the garrison of York was manned by the 3rd regiment of York militia. We have before us a relic of the period, in the form of the contemporary regimental order-book of the Fort. An entry of the 29th of July, 1812, showing the approach of serious work, has an especial local interest. "In consequence of an order from Major-General Brock, commanding the forces, for a detachment of volunteers, under the command of Major Allan, to hold themselves in readiness to proceed in batteaux from the Head of the Lake to-morrow at 2 o'clock, the following officers, non-commissioned officers and privates will hold themselves in readiness to proceed at 2 o'clock, for the purpose of being fitted with caps, blankets and haversacks, as well as to draw provisions. On their arrival at the Head of the Lake, regimental coats and canteens will be ready to be issued to them." The names are then given. "Capt. Heward, Lieut. Richardson, Lieut. Jarvis, Lieut. Robinson. Sergeants Knott, Humberstone, Bond, Bridgeford."

In view of the test to which the citizen-soldiers were about to be subjected, the General, like a good officer, sought by judicious praise, to inspire them with self-confidence. "Major-General Brock," the order-book proceeds, "has desired me (Captain Stephen Heward) to acquaint the detachment under my command, of his high approbation of their orderly conduct and good discipline while under arms: that their exercise and marching far exceeded any that he had seen in the Province. And in particular he directed me to acquaint the officers how much he is pleased with their appearance in uniform and their perfect knowledge of their duty."

On the 13th of August, we learn from other sources, Brock was on the Western Frontier with 700 soldiers, including the volunteers from York, and 600 Indians; and on the 16th the old flag was waving from the fortress of Detroit; but, on the 13th October, the brave General, though again a victor in the engagement, was himself a lifeless corpse on the slopes above Queenston; and, in April of the following year, York, as we have already seen, was in the hands of the enemy. Such are the ups and downs of war. It is mentioned that "Push on the York Volunteers!" was the order issuing from the lips of the General, at the moment of the fatal shot. From the order-book referred to, we learn that "Toronto" was the parole or countersign of the garrison on the 23rd July, 1812.

The knoll on the east side of the Garrison Creek was covered with a number of buildings for the accommodation of troops, in addition to the barracks within the fort. Here also stood a block-house. Eastward were the surgeon's quarters, overhanging the bay; and further eastward still, were the commandant's quarters, a structure popularly known, by some freak of military language, as Lambeth Palace. Here for a time resided Major-General Æneas Shaw, afterwards the owner and occupant of Oak Hill.

On the beach below the knoll, there continued to be, for a number of years, a row of cannon dismounted, duly spiked and otherwise disabled, memorials of the capture in 1813, when these guns were rendered useless by the regular troops before their retreat to Kingston. The pebbles on the shore about here were also plentifully mixed with loose canister shot, washed up by the waves, after their submersion in the bay on the same occasion.

From the little eminence just referred to, along the edge of the cliff, ran a gravel walk, which led first to the Guard House over the Commissariat Stores, in a direct line, with the exception of a slight divergence occasioned by "Capt. Bonnycastle's cottage;" and then eastward into the town. Where ravines occurred, cut in the drift by water-courses into the bay, the gulf was spanned by a bridge of hewn logs. This walk, kept in order for many years by the military authorities, was the representative of the path first worn bare by the soft tread of the Indian. From its agreeableness, overlooking as it did, through its whole length the Harbour and Lake, this walk gave birth to the idea, which became a fixed one in the minds of the early people of the place, that there was to be in perpetuity, in front of the whole town, a pleasant promenade, on which the burghers and their families should take the air and disport themselves generally.

The Royal Patent by which this sentimental walk is provided for and decreed, issued on the 14th day of July, in the year 1818, designates it by the interesting old name of Mall, and nominates "John Beverley Robinson, William Allan, George Crookshank, Duncan Cameron and Grant Powell, all of the town of York, Esqs., their heirs and assigns forever, as trustees to hold the same for the use and benefit of the inhabitants." Stretching from Peter Street in the west to the Reserve for Government Buildings in the east, of a breadth varying between four and five chains, following the line of Front Street on the one side, and the several turnings and windings of the bank on the other, the area of land contained in this Mall was "thirty acres, more or less, with allowance for the several cross streets leading from the said town to the water." The paucity of open squares in the early plans of York may be partly accounted for by this provision made for a spacious Public Walk.

While the archæologist must regret the many old landmarks which were ruthlessly shorn away in the construction of the modern Esplanade, he must, nevertheless, contemplate with never-ceasing admiration that great and laudable work. It has done for Toronto what the Thames embankment has effected for London. Besides vast sanitary advantages accruing, it has created space for the erection of a new front to the town. It has made room for a broad promenade some two or three miles in length, not, indeed, of the far niente type, but with double and treble railway tracks abreast of itself, all open to the deep water of the harbour on one side, and flanked almost throughout the whole length on the other, by a series of warehouses, mills, factories and depôts, destined to increase every year in importance. The sights and sounds every day, along this combination of roadways and its surroundings, are unlike anything dreamt of by the framers of the old Patent of 1818. But it cannot be said that the idea contained in that document has been wholly departed from: nay, it must be confessed that it has been grandly realized in a manner and on a scale adapted to the requirements of these latter days.

For some time, Front Street, above the Esplanade, continued to be a raised terrace, from which pleasant views and fresh lake air could be obtained; and attempts were made, at several points along its southern verge, to establish a double row of shade trees, which should recall in future ages the primitive oaks and elms which overlooked the margin of the harbour. But soon the erection of tall buildings on the newly-made land below, began to shut out the view and the breezes, and to discourage attempts at ornamentation by the planting of trees.

It is to regretted, however, that the title of Mall has not yet been applied to some public walk in the town. Old-world sounds like these—reeve, warden, provost, recorder, House of Commons, railway, (not road), dugway, mall—like the chimes in some of our towers, and the sung-service in some of our churches—help, in cases where the imagination is active, to reconcile the exile from the British Islands to his adopted home, and even to attach him to it. Incorporated into our common local speech, and so perpetuated, they may also be hereafter subsidiary mementoes of our descent as a people, when all connection, save that of history, with the ancient home of our forefathers, will have ceased.

In 1804, there were "Lieutenants of Counties" in Upper Canada. The following gentlemen were, in 1804, "Lieutenants of Counties" for the Counties attached to their respective names. We take the list from the Upper Canada Almanac for 1804, published at York by John Bennett. The office and title of County-Lieutenant do not appear to have been kept up: "John Macdonell, Esq., Glengary; William Fortune, Esq., Prescott; Archibald Macdonell, Esq., Stormont; Hon. Richard Duncan, Esq., Dundas; Peter Drummond, Esq., Grenville; James Breakenridge, Esq., Leeds; Hon. Richard Cartwright, Esq., Frontenac; Hazelton Spencer, Esq., Lenox; William Johnson, Esq., Addington; John Ferguson, Esq., Hastings; Archibald Macdonell, Esq., of Marysburg, Prince Edward; Alexander Chisholm, Esq., Northumberland; Robert Baldwin, Esq., Durham; Hon. David William Smith, Esq., York; Hon. Robert Hamilton, Esq., Lincoln; Samuel Ryerse, Esq., Norfolk; William Claus, Esq., Oxford; (Middlesex is vacant); Hon. Alexander Grant, Esq., Essex; Hon. James Baby, Esq., Kent."

Another old English term in use in the Crown Lands Office of Ontario, if not generally, is "Domesday Book." The record of grants of land from the beginning of the organization of Upper Canada is entitled "Domesday Book." It consists now of many folio volumes.

The gravelled path from the Fort to the Commissariat Stores, as described above, in conjunction with a parallel track for wheels along the cliff all the way to the site of the Parliament Buildings, suggested in 1822 the restoration of a carriage-drive to the Island, which had some years previously existed. This involved the erection or rather re-erection of bridges over the lesser and greater Don, to enable the inhabitants of York to reach the long lines of lake beach, extending eastward to Scarborough Heights and westward to Gibraltar Point.

All the old accounts of York in the topographical dictionaries of "sixty years since," spoke of the salubriousness of the peninsula which formed the harbour. Even the aborigines, it was stated, had recourse to that spot for sanative purposes. All this was derived from the article in D. W. Smith's Gazetteer, which sets forth that "the long beach or peninsula, which affords a most delightful ride, is considered so healthy by the Indians, that they resort to it whenever indisposed."

So early as 1806 a bridge or float had been built over the mouth of the Don. In the Gazette of June 18, in that year, we have the notice: "It is requested that no person will draw sand or pass with loaded waggons or carts over the new Bridge or Float at the opening of the Don River, as this source of communication was intended to accommodate the inhabitants of the town in a walk or ride to the Island. York, 13th June, 1806."

In a MS. map of this portion of the vicinity of York, dated 1811, the road over the float is marked "Road from York to the Lighthouse." In this map, the lesser Don does not appear. A pond or inlet represents it, stretching in from the bay to the river. A bridge spans the inlet. There is a bridge also over the ravine, through which flows the rivulet by the Parliament Buildings.

Health, however, was not the sole object of all these arrangements. A race-course had been laid out on the sandy neck of land connecting the central portion of the peninsula with the main shore. Here races were periodically held; and we have been assured, by an eye-witness, that twelve fine horses at a time had been seen by him engaged in the contest of speed. The hippodrome in question was not a ring, but a long straight level stadium, extending from the southern end of the second bridge to the outer margin of the lake.

When invasion was threatened in 1812, all the bridges in the direction of the Island were taken down. An earthwork was thrown up across the narrow ridge separating the last long reach of the Don from the Bay; and in addition, a trench was cut across the same ridge. This cut, at first insignificant, became ultimately by a natural process the lesser Don, a deep and wide outlet, a convenient short-cut for skiffs and canoes from the Bay to the Don proper, and from the Don proper to the Bay.

On the return of peace, the absence of bridges, and the existence, in addition, of a second formidable water-filled moat, speedily began to be matters of serious regret to the inhabitants of York, who found themselves uncomfortably cut off from easy access to the peninsula. From the Gazette of April 15, 1822, we learn that "a public subscription among the inhabitants had been entered into, to defray the expense of erecting two bridges on the River Don, leading from this town towards the south, to the Peninsula." And subjoined are the leading names of the place, guaranteeing various sums, in all amounting to £108 5s. The timber was presented by Peter Robinson, Esq., M.P.P. The estimated expense of the undertaking was £325. The following names appear for various sums—fifty, twenty, ten, five and two dollars—Major Hillier, Rev. Dr. Strachan, Hon. J. H. Dunn, Hon. James Baby, Mr. Justice Boulton, John Small, Henry Boulton, Col. Coffin, Thomas Ridout, sen., W. Allen, Grant Powell, Samuel Ridout, J. S. Baldwin, S. Heward, James E. Small, Chas. Small, S. Washburn, J. B. Macaulay, G. Crookshank, A. Mercer, George Boulton, Thomas Taylor, Joseph Spragge, George Hamilton, R. E. Prentice, A. Warffe, W. B. Jarvis, B. Turquand, John Denison, sen., George Denison, John and George Monro, Henry Drean, Peter McDougall, Geo. Duggan, James Nation, Thomas Bright, W. B. Robinson, J. W. Gamble, William Proudfoot, Jesse Ketchum, D. Brooke, jun., R. C. Henderson, David Stegman, L. Fairbairn, Geo. Playter, Joseph Rogers, John French, W. Roe, Thomas Sullivan, John Hay, J. Biglow, John Elliot.

On the strength of the sums thus promised, an engineer, Mr. E. Angell, began the erection of the bridge over the Greater Don. The Gazette before us reports that it was being constructed "with hewn timbers, on the most approved European principle." (There is point in the italicised word: it hints the impolicy of employing United States engineers for such works). The paper adds that "the one bridge over the Great Don, consisting of five arches, is in a forward state; and the other, of one arch, over the Little Don, will be completed in or before the month of July next, when this line of road will be opened." It is subjoined that "subscriptions will continue to be received by A. Mercer, Esq., J. Dennis, York, and also by the Committee, Thomas Bright, William Smith and E. Angell."

By the Weekly Register of June 19, in the following year, it appears that the engineer, in commencing the bridge before the amount of its cost was guaranteed, had calculated without his host; and, as is usually the case with those who draw in advance on the proceeds of a supposed public enthusiam, had been brought into difficulties. We accordingly find that "on Friday evening last, pursuant to public notice given in the Upper Canada Gazette, a meeting of the subscribers, and other inhabitants of the town of York, was held at the house of Mr. Phair, in the Market-place, for the purpose of taking into consideration the circumstances in which the engineer had been placed by constructing a bridge, the charge of which was to be defrayed by voluntary subscription, over the mouth of the river Don."

Resolutions were passed on the occasion, approving of Mr. Angell's proceedings, and calling for additional donations. A new committee was now appointed, consisting of H. J. Boulton, Esq., Dr. Widmer, S. Heward, Esq., Charles Small, Esq., and Allan McNab, Esq.—The editor of the Weekly Register (Fothergill) thus notices the meeting: "It is satisfactory to find that there is at length some probability of the bridge over the Don in this vicinity being completed. We are, ourselves," the writer of the article proceeds to say, "the more anxious on this account, from the hope there is reason to entertain that these and other improvements in the neighbourhood will eventually lead to a draining of the great marsh at the east end of this town; for until that is done, it is utterly impossible that the place can be healthy at all seasons of the year. The public are not sufficiently impressed with the alarming insalubrity of such situations. We beg to refer our readers," the editor of the Register then observes, "to a very interesting letter from Dr. Priestly to Sir John Pringle in the Philosophical Transactions for 1777; and another from Dr. Price to Dr. Horsley in the same work in 1774; both on this subject, which throw considerable light upon it." And it is added, "We have it in contemplation to republish these letters in this work, as being highly interesting to many persons, and applicable to various situations in this country, but particularly to the neighbourhood of York."

The desired additional subscriptions do not appear to have come in. The works at the mouth of the Don proper were brought to a stand-still. The bridge over the Lesser Don was not commenced. Thus matters remained for the long interval of ten years. Every inhabitant of York, able to indulge in the luxury of a carriage, or a saddle horse, or given to extensive pedestrian excursions, continued to regret the inaccessibleness of the peninsula. Especially among the families of the military, accustomed to the surroundings of sea-coast towns at home, did the desire exist, to be able, at will, to take a drive, or a canter, or a vigorous constitutional, on the sands of the peninsula, where, on the one hand, the bold escarpments in the distance to the eastward, on the other, the ocean-like horizon, and immediately in front the long rollers of surf tumbling in, all helped to stir recollections of (we will suppose) Dawlish or Torquay.

In 1834, through the intervention of Sir John Colborne, and by means of a subsidy from the military chest, the works on both outlets of the Don were re-commenced. In 1835 the bridges were completed. On the 22nd of August in that year they were handed over by the military authorities to the town, now no longer York, but Toronto.

Some old world formalities were observed on the occasion. The civic authorities approached the new structure in procession; a barricade at the first bridge arrested their progress. A guard stationed there also forbade further advance. The officer in command, Capt. Bonnycastle, appears, and the Mayor and Corporation are informed that the two bridges before them are, by the command of the Lieutenant-Governor, presented to them as a free gift, for the benefit of the inhabitants, that they may in all time to come be enabled to enjoy the salubrious air of the peninsula; the only stipulation being that the bridges should be free of toll forever to the troops, stores, and ordnance of the sovereign.

The mayor, who, as eye-witnesses report, was arrayed in an official robe of purple velvet lined with scarlet, read the following reply: "Sir—On the part of His Majesty's faithful and loyal city of Toronto, I receive at your hands the investiture of these bridges, erected by command of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and now delivered to the Corporation for the benefit and accommodation of the citizens. In the name of the Common Council and the citizens of Toronto, I beg you to convey to His Excellency the grateful feelings with which this new instance of the bounty of our most gracious sovereign is received; and I take this occasion on behalf of the city to renew our assurances of loyalty and attachment to His Majesty's person and government, and to pray, through His Excellency, a continuance of royal favour towards this city. I have, on the part of the corporation and citizens, to request you to assure His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor that His Excellency's desire and generous exertions for the health and welfare of the inhabitants of this city are duly and gratefully appreciated; and I beg you to convey to His Excellency the best wishes of myself and my fellow-citizens for the health and happiness of His Excellency and family. Permit me, Sir, for myself and brethren, to thank you for the very handsome and complimentary manner in which you have carried His Excellency's commands into execution."

"Immediately," the narrative of the ceremonial continues, "the band, who were stationed on the bridge, struck up the heart-stirring air, 'God save the King,' during the performance of which the gentlemen of the Corporation, followed by a large number of the inhabitants, passed uncovered over the bridge. Three cheers were then given respectively for the King, for His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, for the Mayor and Council of the City of Toronto, and for Capt. Bonnycastle. The gentlemanly and dignified manner in which both the addresses were read did credit to the gentlemen on whom these duties devolved; and the good order and good humour that prevailed among the spectators present were exceedingly gratifying."

We take this account from the Toronto Patriot of August 28th, 1835, wherein it is copied from the Christian Guardian. Mr. R. B. Sullivan, the official representative of the city on the occasion just described, was the second mayor of Toronto. He was afterwards one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas.

The bridges thus ceremoniously presented and received had a short-lived existence. They were a few years afterwards, seriously damaged during the breaking up of the ice, and then carried away bodily in one of the spring freshets to which the Don is subject.

The peninsula in front of York was once plentifully stocked with goats, the offspring of a small colony established by order of Governor Hunter, at Gibraltar Point, for the sake, for one thing, of the supposed salutary nature of the whey of goat's milk. These animals were dispersed during the war of 1812-13. Governor Hunter may have taken the idea of peopling the island at York with goats from what was to be seen, at an early day, on Goat Island, adjoining the Falls of Niagara. A multitude of goats ran at large there, the descendants of a few reared originally by one Stedman, an English soldier, who, on escaping a massacre of his comrades in the neighbourhood of what is now Lewiston, at the hands of the Iroquois, soon after the conquest of the country, fled thither, and led, to the end of his days, a Robinson-Crusoe-kind of life.

V.

King Street, from John Street to Yonge Street.

After our long stroll westward, we had purposed returning to the place of beginning by the route which constitutes the principal thoroughfare of the modern Toronto; but the associations connected with the primitive pathway on the cliff overlooking the harbour, led us insensibly back along the track by which we came.

In order that we may execute our original design, we now transport ourselves at once to the point where we had intended to begin our descent of King Street. That point was the site of a building now wholly taken out of the way—the old General Hospital. Farther west on this line of road there was no object possessing any archæological interest.

The old Hospital was a spacious, unadorned, matter-of-fact, two-storey structure, of red brick, one hundred and seven feet long, and sixty-six feet wide. It had, by the direction of Dr. Grant Powell, as we have heard, the peculiarity of standing with its sides precisely east and west, north and south. At a subsequent period, it consequently had the appearance of having being jerked round bodily, the streets in the neighbourhood not being laid out with the same precise regard to the cardinal points. The building exhibited recessed galleries on the north and south sides, and a flattish hipped roof. The interior was conveniently designed.

In the fever wards here, during the terrible season of 1847, frightful scenes of suffering and death were witnessed among the newly-arrived emigrants; here it was that, in ministering to them in their distress, so many were struck down, some all but fatally, others wholly so; amongst the latter several leading medical men, and the Roman Catholic Bishop, Power.

When the Houses of Parliament, at the east end of the town, were destroyed by fire in 1824, the Legislature assembled for several sessions in the General Hospital.

The neighbourhood hereabout had an open, unoccupied look in 1822. In a Weekly Register of the 25th of April of that year, we have an account of the presentation of a set of colours to a militia battalion, mustered for the purpose on the road near the Hospital. "Tuesday, the 23rd instant," the Register reports, "being the anniversary of St. George, on which it has been appointed to celebrate His Majesty's birthday, George IV., [instead of the 4th of June, the fête of the late King,] the East and West Regiments, with Capt. Button's Troop of Cavalry, which are attached to the North York Regiment, on the right, were formed in line at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, on the road in front of the Government House, and a Guard of Honour, consisting of 100 rank and file from each regiment, with officers and sergeants in proportion, under the command of Lieut.-Col. FitzGibbon, were formed at a short distance in front of the centre, as the representatives of the militia of the Province, in order to receive the rich and beautiful Colours which His Majesty has been graciously pleased to command should be prepared for the late incorporated Battalion, as an honourable testimony of the high sense which His Majesty has been pleased to entertain of the zeal and gallantry of the militia of Upper Canada."

The Register then proceeds: "At 12 o'clock, a Royal Salute was fired from the Garrison, and the Lieutenant-Governor with his staff having arrived on the ground, proceeded to review the widely-extended line; after which, taking his station in front of the whole, the band struck up the nation anthem of 'God save the King.' His Excellency then dismounted, and accompanied by his staff, on foot, approached the Guard of Honour, so near as to be distinctly heard by the men; when, uncovering himself, and taking one of the Colours in his hand, in the most dignified and graceful manner, he presented them to the proper officer, with the following address:—"Soldiers! I have great satisfaction in presenting you, as the representatives of the late incorporated Battalion, with these Colours—a distinguished mark of His Majesty's approbation. They will be to you a proud memorial of the past, and a rallying-point around which you will gather with alacrity and confidence, should your active services be required hereafter by your King and Country.'—His Excellency having remounted, the Guard of Honour marched with band playing and Colours flying, from right to left, in front of the whole line, and then proceeded to lodge their Colours at the Government House."

"The day was raw and cold," it is added, "and the ground being very wet and uneven, the men could neither form nor march with that precision they would otherwise have exhibited. We were very much pleased, however, with the soldier-like appearance of the Guard of Honour, and we were particularly struck by the new uniform of the officers of the West York, as being particularly well-adapted for the kind of warfare incident to a thickly-wooded country. Even at a short distance it would be difficult to distinguish the gray coat or jacket from the bole of a tree. There was a very full attendance on the field; and it was peculiarly gratifying to observe so much satisfaction on all sides. The Colours, which are very elegant, are inscribed with the word Niagara, to commemorate the services rendered by the Incorporated Battalion on that frontier; and we doubt not that the proud distinction which attends these banners will always serve to excite the most animating recollections, whenever it shall be necessary for them to wave over the heads of our Canadian Heroes, actually formed in battle-array against the invaders of our Country. At 2 o'clock His Excellency held a Levee, and in the evening a splendid Ball at the Government House concluded the ceremonies and rejoicings of the day." The Lieut. Governor on this occasion was Sir Peregrine Maitland, of whom fully hereafter.

The building on King Street known as "Government House" was originally the private residence of Chief Justice Elmsley. For many years after its purchase by the Government it was still styled "Elmsley House." As at Quebec, the correspondence of the Governor-in-Chief was dated from the "Château St. Louis," or the "Castle of St. Louis," so here, that of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Western Province was long dated from "Elmsley House." Mr. Elmsley was a brother of the celebrated classical critic and editor, Peter Elmsley, of Oxford. We shall have occasion frequently to speak of him.

On the left, opposite Government House, was a very broken piece of ground, denominated "Russell Square;" afterwards, through the instrumentality of Sir John Colborne, converted into a site for an educational Institution. Sir John Colborne, on his arrival in Upper Canada, was fresh from the Governorship of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. During his administration there he had revived a decayed Public School, at present known as Elizabeth College. Being of opinion that the new country to which he had been transferred was not ripe for a University on the scale contemplated in a royal Charter which had been procured, he addressed himself to the establishment of an institution which should meet the immediate educational wants of the community.

Inasmuch as in the School which resulted—or "Minor College" as it was long popularly called—we have a transcript, more or less close, of the institution which Sir John Colborne had been so recently engaged in reviving, we add two or three particulars in regard to the latter, which may have, with some, a certain degree of interest, by virtue of the accidental but evident relation existing between the two institutions. From a paper in Brayley's Graphic and Historical Illustrator (1834), we gather that Elizabeth College, Guernsey, was originally called the "School of Queen Elizabeth," as having been founded under Letters Patent from that sovereign in 1563, to be a "Grammar-school in which the youth of the Island (juventus) may be better instructed in good learning and virtue." The temple or church of the suppressed Order of Gray Friars (Friars minors or Cordeliers), with its immediate precincts, was assigned for its "use," together with "eighty quarters of wheat rent," accruing from lands in different parts of the Island, which had been given to the friars for dispensations, masses, obits, &c. By the statutes of 1563 the school was divided into six classes; and books and exercises were appointed respectively for each, the scholars to be admitted being required "to read perfectly, and to recite an approved catechism of the Christian religion by heart."

In all the six classes the Latin and Greek languages were the primary objects of instruction; but the Statutes permitted the master, at his discretion, "to add something of his own;" and even "to concede something for writing, singing, arithmetic, and a little play." For more than two centuries the school proved of little public utility. In 1799 there was one pupil on the establishment. In 1816 there were no scholars. From that date to 1824 the number fluctuated from 15 to 29. In 1823, Sir John Colborne appointed a committee to investigate all the circumstances connected with the school, and to ascertain the best mode of assuring its future permanent efficiency and prosperity, without perverting the intention of the foundress. The end of all this was a new building (figured in Brayley) at a cost of £14,754 2s. 3d.; the foundation-stone being laid by Sir John in 1826. On August the 20th, 1829, the revived institution was publicly opened, with one hundred and twenty pupils. "On that day," we are told, "the Bailiff and Jurats of the Island, with General Ross, the Lieutenant-Governor [Sir John Colborne was now in Canada], his staff, and the public authorities, headed by a procession consisting of the Principal, Vice-Principal, and other masters and tutors of the school (together with the scholars), repaired to St. Peter's Church, where prayers were read by the Dean, Dr. Durand, and Te Deum and other anthems were sung. They then returned to the College, where, in the spacious Examination Hall, a crowded assembly were addressed respectively by the Bailiff and President-director [Daniel de Lisle Brock, Esq.], Colonel de Havilland, the Vice-President, and the Rev. G. Proctor, B.D., the new Principal, on the antiquity, objects, apparent prospects, and future efficiency of the institution."

Under the new system the work of education was carried on by a Principal, Vice-Principal, a First and Second Classical Master, a Mathematical Master, a Master and Assistant of the Lower School, a Commercial Master, two French Masters and an Assistant, a Master of Drawing and Surveying, besides extra Masters for the German, Italian, and Spanish languages, and for Music, Dancing, and Fencing. The course of instruction for the day scholars, and those on the foundation, included Divinity, History, Geography, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, English, Mathematics, Arithmetic, and Writing, at a charge in the Upper School of £3 per quarter; and in the Lower or Preparatory School, of £1 per quarter; for Drawing and Surveying, 15s. per quarter. The terms for private scholars (including all College dues and subscriptions for exhibitions and prizes of medals, &c.) varied from £60 annually with the Principal, to £46 annually with the First Classical Teacher.

The exhibitions in the revived institution were, first, one of £30 per annum for four years, founded by the Governor of Guernsey in 1826, to the best Classical scholar, a native of the Bailiwick, or son of a native; secondly, four for four years, of, at least, £20 per annum, founded by subscription in 1826, to the best scholars, severally, in Divinity, Classics, Mathematics, and Modern Languages; thirdly, one for four years, of £20 per annum, founded in 1827 by Admiral Sir James Saumarez, to the best Theological and Classical scholar; fourthly, one of £20 per annum, for four years, from 1830, to the best Classical scholar, given by Sir John Colborne in 1828. There were also two, from the Lower to the Upper School, of £6 per annum, for one year or more, founded by the Directors in 1829.

The foregoing details will, as we have said, be of some interest, especially to Canadians who have received from the institution founded by Sir John Colborne in Russell Square an important part of their early training. "Whatever makes the past, the distant and the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." So moralized Dr. Johnson amidst the ruins of Iona. On this principle, the points of agreement and difference between the educational type and antitype is this instance, will be acknowledged to be curious.

Another link of association between Guernsey and Upper Canada exists in the now familiar name "Sarnia," which is the old classical name of Guernsey, given by Sir John Colborne to a township on the St. Clair river, in memory of his former government.

Those who desire to trace the career of Upper Canada College ab ovo, will be thankful for the following advertisements. The first is from the Loyalist of May 2, 1829. "Minor College. Sealed tenders for erecting a School House and four dwelling-houses will be received on the first Monday of June next. Plans, elevations and specifications may be seen after the 12th instant, on application to the Hon. Geo. Markland, from whom further information will be received. Editors throughout the Province are requested to insert this notice until the first Monday in June, and forward their accounts for the same to the office of the Loyalist, York. York, 1st May, 1829."

The second advertisement is from the Upper Canada Gazette of Dec. 17, 1829. "Upper Canada College, established at York. Visitor, the Lieutenant-Governor for the time being. This College will open after the approaching Christmas Vacation, on Monday the 8th of January, 1830, under the conduct of the Masters appointed at Oxford by the Vice Chancellor and other electors, in July last. Principal, the Rev, J. H. Harris, D.D., late Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Classical Department: Vice Principal, The Rev. T. Phillips, D.D., of Queen's College, Cambridge. First Classical Master: The Rev. Charles Mathews, M.A., of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Second Classical Master: The Rev. W. Boulton, B.A., of Queen's College, Oxford. Mathematical Department: The Rev. Charles Dade, M.A., Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge, and late Mathematical Master at Elizabeth College. French, Mr. J. P. De la Haye. English, Writing and Arithmetic, Mr. G. A. Barber and Mr. J. Padfield. Drawing Master, Mr. Drury. (Then follow terms, &c.) Signed: G. H. Markland, Secretary to the Board of Education. York, Upper Canada, Dec. 2, 1829."

After Russell Square on the left, came an undulating green field; near the middle of it was a barn of rural aspect, cased-in with upright, unplaned boards. The field was at one time a kind of Campus Martius for a troop of amateur cavalry, who were instructed in their evolutions and in the use of the broadsword, by a veteran, Capt. Midford, the Goodwin of the day, at York.

Nothing of note presented itself until after we arrived at the roadway which is now known as Bay Street, with the exception, perhaps, of two small rectangular edifices of red brick with bright tin roofs, dropped, as it were, one at the south-west, the other at the north-west, angle of the intersection of King and York Streets. The former was the office of the Manager of the Clergy Reserve Lands; the latter, that of the Provincial Secretary and Registrar. They are noticeable simply as being specimens, in solid material, of a kind of minute cottage that for a certain period was in fashion in York and its neighbourhood; little square boxes, one storey in height, and without basement; looking as if, by the aid of a ring at the apex of the four sided roof, they might, with no great difficulty, be lifted up, like the hutch provided for Gulliver by his nurse Glumdalclitch, and carried bodily away.

As we pass eastward of Bay Street, the memory comes back of Franco Rossi, the earliest scientific confectioner of York, who had on the south side, near here, a depot, ever fragrant and ambrosial. In his specialities he was a superior workman. From him were procured the fashionable bridecakes of the day; as also the noyeau, parfait-amour, and other liqueurs, set out for visitors on New Year's Day. Rossi was the first to import hither good objects of art: fine copies of the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere, the Perseus of Canova, with other classical groups and figures sculptured in Florentine alabaster, were disseminated by him in the community.

Rossi is the Italian referred to by the author of "Cyril Thornton" in his "Men and Manners in America," where speaking of York, visited by him in 1832, he says: "In passing through the streets I was rather surprised to observe an affiche intimating that ice-creams were to be had within. The weather being hot, I entered, and found the master of the establishment to be an Italian. I never ate better ice at Grange's"—some fashionable resort in London, we suppose. The outward signs of civilization at York must have been meagre when a chance visitor recorded his surprise at finding ice-creams procurable in such a place.

Great enthusiasm, we remember, was created, far and near, by certain panes of plate glass with brass divisions between them, which, at a period a little later than Cyril Thornton's (Captain Hamilton's) visit, suddenly ornamented the windows of Mr. Beckett's Chemical Laboratory, close by Rossi's. Even Mrs. Jameson, in her book of "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles," referring to the shop fronts of King Street, pronounces, in a naive English watering-place kind of tone, "that of the apothecary" to be "worthy of Regent Street in its appearance."

A little farther on, still on the southern side, was the first place of public worship of the Wesleyan Methodists. It was a long, low, wooden building, running north and south, and placed a little way back from the street. Its dimensions in the first instance, as we have been informed by Mr. Petch, who was engaged in its erection, were 40 by 40 feet. It was then enlarged to 40 by 60 feet. In the gable end towards the street were two doors, one for each sex. Within, the custom obtained of dividing the men from the women; the former sitting on the right hand of one entering the building; the latter on the left.

This separation of the sexes in places of public worship was an oriental custom, still retained among Jews. It also existed, down to a recent date, in some English Churches. Among articles of inquiry sent down from a Diocesan to churchwardens, we have seen the query: "Do men and women sit together indifferently and promiscuously? or, as the fashion was of old, do men sit together on one side of the church, and women upon the other?" In English Churches the usage was the opposite of that indicated above: the north side, that is, the left on entering, was the place of the women; and the south, that of the men.

In 1688, we have Sir George Wheler, in his "Account of the Churches of the Primitive Christians," speaking of this custom, which he says prevails also "in the Greek Church to this day:" he adds that it "seems not only very decent, but nowadays, since wickedness so much abounds, highly necessary; for the general mixture," he continues, "of men and women in the Latin Church is notoriously scandalous; and little less," he says, "is their sitting together in the same pews in our London churches."

The Wesleyan chapel in King Street ceased to be used in 1833. It was converted afterwards for a time into a "Theatre Royal."

Jordan Street preserves one of the names of Mr. Jordan Post, owner of the whole frontage extending from Bay Street to Yonge Street. The name of his wife is preserved in "Melinda Street," which traverses his lot, or rather block, from east to west, south of King Street. Two of his daughters bore respectively the unusual names of Sophronia and Desdemona. Mr. Post was a tall New-Englander of grave address. He was, moreover, a clockmaker by trade, and always wore spectacles. From the formal cut of his apparel and hair, he was, quite erroneously, sometimes supposed to be of the Mennonist or Quaker persuasion.

So early as 1802, Mr. Post is advertising in the York paper. In the Oracle of Sept. 18, 1802, he announces a temporary absence from the town. "Jordan Post, watchmaker, requests all those who left watches with him to be repaired, to call at Mr. Beman's and receive them by paying for the repairs. He intends returning to York in a few months. Sept. 11, 1802." In the close of the same year, he puts forth the general notice: "Jordan Post, Clock and Watchmaker, informs the public that he now carries on the above business in all its branches, at the upper end of Duke Street. He has a complete assortment of watch furniture. Clocks and watches repaired on the shortest notice, and most reasonable terms, together with every article in the gold and silver line. N. B.—He will purchase old brass. Dec 11, 1802."

Besides the block described above, Mr. Post had acquired other valuable properties in York, as will appear by an advertisement in the Weekly Register of Jan. 19, 1826, from which also it will be seen that he at one time contemplated a gift to the town of one hundred feet frontage and two hundred feet of depth, for the purpose of a second Public Market. "Town Lots for Sale. To be sold by Auction on the Premises, on Wednesday the first day of February next, Four Town Lots on King Street, west of George Street. Also, to be leased at the same time to the highest bidder, for twenty-one years, subject to such conditions as will then be produced. Six Lots on the west side of Yonge Street, and Twenty on Market Street. The Subscriber has reserved a Lot of Ground of One Hundred Feet front, by Two Hundred Feet in the rear, on George Street, for a Market Place, to be given for that purpose. He will likewise lease Ten Lots in front of said intended Market. A plan of the Lots may be seen and further particulars known, by application to the Subscriber. Jordan Post. York, Jan. 4, 1826."

VI.

King Street, from Yonge Street to Church Street.

Where Yonge Street crosses King Street, forming at the present day an unusually noble carrefour, as the French would say, or rectangular intersection of thoroughfares as we are obliged to word it, there was, for a considerable time, but one solitary house—at the north-east angle; a longish, one-storey, respectable wooden structure, painted white, with paling in front, and large willow trees: it was the home of Mr. Dermis, formerly superintendent of the Dock-yard at Kingston. He was one of the United Empire Loyalist refugees, and received a grant of land on the Humber, near the site of the modern village of Weston. His son, Mr. Joseph Dennis, owned and commanded a vessel on Lake Ontario in 1812. When the war with the United States broke out, he and his ship were attached to the Provincial Marine. His vessel was captured, and himself made a prisoner of war, in which condition he remained for fifteen months. He afterwards commanded the Princess Charlotte, an early steamboat on Lake Ontario.

To the eastward of Mr. Dennis' house, on the same side, at an early period, was an obscure frame building of the most ordinary kind, whose existence is recorded simply for having been temporarily the District Grammar School, before the erection of the spacious building on the Grammar School lot.

On the opposite side, still passing on towards the east, was the Jail. This was a squat unpainted wooden building, with hipped roof, concealed from persons passing in the street by a tall cedar stockade, such as those which we see surrounding a Hudson's Bay post or a military wood-yard. At the outer entrance hung a billet of wood suspended by a chain, communicating with a bell within; and occasionally Mr. Parker, the custodian of the place, was summoned, through its instrumentality, by persons not there on legitimate business. We have a recollection of a clever youth, an immediate descendant of the great commentator on British Law, and afterwards himself distinguished at the Upper Canadian bar, who was severely handled by Mr. Parker's son, on being caught in the act of pulling at this billet, with the secret intention of running away after the exploit.

The English Criminal Code, as it was at the beginning of the century, having been introduced with all its enormities, public hangings were frequent at an early period in the new Province. A shocking scene is described as taking place at an execution in front of the old Jail at York. The condemned refuses to mount the scaffold. On this, the moral-suasion efforts of the sheriff amount to the ridiculous, were not the occasion so seriously tragic. In aid of the sheriff, the officiating chaplain steps more than once up the plank set from the cart to the scaffold, to show the facility of the act, and to induce the man to mount in like manner; the condemned demurs, and openly remarks on the obvious difference in the two cases. At last the noose is adjusted to the neck of the wretched culprit, where he stands. The cart is withdrawn, and a deliberate strangling ensues.

In a certain existing account of steps taken in 1811 to remedy the dilapidated and comfortless condition of the Jail, we get a glimpse of York, commercially and otherwise, at that date. In April, 1811, the sheriff, Beikie, reports to the magistrates at Quarter Sessions "that the sills of the east cells of the Jail of the Home District are completely rotten; that the ceilings in the debtors' rooms are insufficient; and that he cannot think himself safe, should necessity oblige him to confine any persons in said cells or debtors' rooms."

An order is given in May to make the necessary repairs; but certain spike-nails are wanted of a kind not to be had at the local dealers in hardware. The chairman is consequently directed to "apply to His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, that he will be pleased to direct that the spike-nails be furnished from the King's stores, as there are not any of the description required to be purchased at York." A memorandum follows to the effect that on the communication of this necessity to His Excellency, "the Lieutenant-Governor ordered that the Clerk of the Peace do apply for the spike-nails officially in the name of the Court: which he did," the memorandum adds, "on the 8th of May, 1811, and received an answer on the day following, that an order had been issued that day for 1500 spike-nails, for the repair of the Home District Jail: the nails," it is subjoined, "were received by carpenter Leach in the month of July following."

Again: in December, 1811, Mr. Sheriff Beikie sets forth to the magistrates in Session, that "the prisoners in the cells of the Jail of the Home District suffer much from cold and damp, there being no method of communicating heat from the chimneys, nor any bedsteads to raise the straw from the floors, which lie nearly, if not altogether, on the ground." He accordingly suggests that "a small stove in the lobby of each range of cells, together with some rugs or blankets, will add much to the comfort of the unhappy persons confined." The magistrates authorize the supply of the required necessaries, and the order is marked "instant." (The month, we are to notice, was December.)

At a late period, there were placed about the town a set of posts having relation to the Jail. They were distinguished from the ordinary rough posts, customary then at regular intervals along the sidewalks, by being of turned wood, with spherical tops, the lower part painted a pale blue: the upper, white. These were the "limits"—the certi denique fines—beyond which, détenus for debt were not allowed to extend their walks.

Leaving the picketted enclosure of the Prison, we soon arrived at an open piece of ground on the opposite (north) side of the street,—afterwards known as the "Court House Square." One of the many rivulets or water-courses that traversed the site of York passed through it, flowing in a deep serpentine ravine, a spot to be remembered by the youth of the day as affording, in the winter, facilities for skating and sliding, and audacious exploits on "leather ice." In this open space, a Jail and Court House of a pretentious character, but of poor architectural style, were erected in 1824. The two buildings, which were of two storeys, and exactly alike, were placed side by side, a few yards back from the road. Their gables were to the south, in which direction were also the chief entrances. The material was red brick. Pilasters of cut stone ran up the principal fronts, and up the exposed or outer sides of each edifice. At these sides, as also on the inner and unornamented sides, were lesser gables, but marked by the portion of the wall that rose in front of them, not to a point, but finishing square in two diminishing stages, and sustaining chimneys.

It was intended originally that lanterns should have surmounted and given additional elevation to both buildings, but these were discarded, together with tin as the material of the roofing, with a view to cutting down the cost, and thereby enabling the builder to make the pilasters of cut stone instead of "Roman cement." John Hayden was the contractor. The cost, as reduced, was to be £3,800 for the two edifices.

We extract from the Canadian Review for July, 1824, published by H. H. Cunningham, Montreal, an account of the commencement of the new buildings: "On Saturday, the 24th instant, [April, 1824,] his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, attended by his staff, was met by the Honourable the Members of the Executive Council, the Judges of the Court of King's Bench, and the Gentlemen of the Bar, with the Magistrates and principal inhabitants of York, in procession, for the purpose of laying the foundation-stone of the new Jail and Court House about to be erected in this Town.—A sovereign and half-sovereign of gold, and several coins of silver and copper, of the present reign, together with some newspapers and other memorials of the present day, were deposited in a cavity of the stone, over which a plate of copper, bearing an appropriate inscription, was placed; and after his Excellency had given the first blow, with a hammer handed to him for the purpose, the ceremony concluded with several hearty cheers from all who were present.—If the question were of any real importance," the writer adds, "we might have the curiosity to inquire why the deposit was made in the south-east, rather than in the north-east corner of the building?"—a query that indicates, as we suppose, a deviation from orthodox masonic usage.

In one of the lithographic views published in 1836 by Mr. J. Young, the Jail and Court House, now spoken of, are shewn. Among the objects inserted to give life to the scene, the artist has placed in the foreground a country waggon with oxen yoked to it, in primitive fashion.—Near the front entrance of the Jail, stood, to the terror of evil-doers, down to modern times, a ponderous specimen of the "parish stocks" of the old country, in good condition.

After 1825, the open area in front of the Jail and Court House became the "Public Place" of the town. Crowds filled it at elections and other occasions of excitement. We have here witnessed several scenes characteristic of the times in which they occurred. We here once saw a public orator run away with, in the midst of his harangue. This was Mr. Jesse Ketchum, who was making use of a farmer's waggon as his rostrum or platform, when the vehicle was suddenly laid hold of, and wheeled rapidly down King Street, the speaker maintaining his equilibrium in the meanwhile with difficulty. Mr. Ketchum was one of the most benevolent and beneficent of men. We shall have occasion to refer to him hereafter.

It was on the same occasion, we believe, that we saw Mr. W. L. McKenzie assailed by the missiles which mobs usually adopt. From this spot we had previously seen the same personage, after one of his re-elections, borne aloft in triumph, on a kind of pyramidal car, and wearing round his neck and across his breast a massive gold chain and medal (both made of molten sovereigns), the gift of his admirers and constituents: in the procession, at the same time, was a printing-press, working as it was conveyed along in a low sleigh, and throwing off handbills, which were tossed, right and left, to the accompanying crowd in the street.

The existing generation of Canadians, with the lights which they now possess, see pretty clearly, that the agitator just named, and his party, were not, in the abstract, by any means so bad as they seemed: that, in fact, the ideas which they sought to propagate are the only ones practicable in the successful government of modern men.

Is there a reader nowadays that sees anything very startling in the enunciation of the following principles?—"The control of the whole revenue to be in the people's representatives; the Legislative Council to be elective; the representation in the House of Assembly to be as equally proportioned to the population as possible; the Executive Government to incur a real responsibility; the law of primogeniture to be abolished; impartiality in the selection of juries to be secured; the Judiciary to be independent; the military to be in strict subordination to the civil authorities; equal rights to the several members of the community; every vestige of Church-and-State union to be done away; the lands and all the revenues of the country to be under the control of the country; and education to be widely, carefully and impartially diffused; to these may be added the choice of our own Governor."

These were the political principles sought to be established in the Governments of Canada by the party referred to, as set forth in the terms just given (almost verbatim) in Patrick Swift's Almanac, a well known popular, annual brochure of Mr. McKenzie's. It seems singular now, in the retrospect, that doctrines such as these should have created a ferment.

But there is this to be said: it does not appear that there were, at the time, in the ranks of the party in power, any persons of very superior intellectual gifts or of a wide range of culture or historical knowledge: so that it was not likely that, on that side, there would be a ready relinquishment of political traditions, of inherited ideas, which their possessors had never dreamt of rationally analyzing, and which they deemed it all but treason to call in question.

And moreover it is to be remembered that the chief propagandist of the doctrines of reform, although very intelligent and ready of speech, did not himself possess the dignity and repose of character which give weight to the utterances of public men. Hence, with the persons who really stood in need of instruction and enlightenment, his words had an irritating, rather than a conciliatory and convincing effect. This was a fault which it was not in his power to remedy. For his microscopic vision and restless temperament, while they fitted him to be a very clever local reformer, a very clever local editor, unfitted him for the grand role of a national statesman, or heroic conductor of a revolution.

Accordingly, although the principles advocated by him finally obtained the ascendancy, posterity only regards him as the Wilkes, the Cobbett, or the Hunt of his day, in the annals of his adopted country. In the interval between the outbreak or feint at outbreak in 1838, and 1850, the whole Canadian community made a great advance in general intelligence, and statesmen of a genuine quality began to appear in our Parliaments.

Prior to the period of which we have just been speaking, a name much in the mouths of our early settlers was that of Robert Gourlay. What we have to say in respect to him, in our retrospect of the past, will perhaps be in place here.

Nothing could be more laudable than Mr. Gourlay's intentions at the outset. He desired to publish a statistical account of Canada, with a view to the promotion of emigration. To inform himself of the actual condition of the young colony, he addressed a series of questions to persons of experience and intelligence in every township of Upper Canada. These questions are now lying before us; they extend to the number of thirty-one. There are none of them that a modern reader would pronounce ill-judged or irrelevant.

But here again it is easy to see that personal character and temperament marred the usefulness of a clever man. His inordinate self-esteem and pugnaciousness, insufficiently controlled, speedily rendered him offensive, especially in a community constituted as that was in the midst of which he had suddenly lighted; and drove, naturally and of necessity, his opponents to extreme measures in self-defence, and himself to extreme doctrines by way of retaliation: thus he became overwhelmed with troubles from which the tact of a wiser man would have saved him. But for Gourlay, as the event proved, a latent insanity was an excuse.

It is curious to observe that, in 1818, Gourlay, in his heat against the official party, whose headquarters were at York, threatened that town with extinction; at all events, with the obliteration of its name, and the transmutation thereof into that of Toronto. In a letter to the Niagara Spectator, he says:—"The tumult excited stiffens every nerve and redoubles the proofs of necessity for action. If the higher classes are against me, I shall recruit among my brother farmers, seven in eight of whom will support the cause of truth. If one year does not make Little York surrender to us, then we'll batter it for two; and should it still hold out, we have ammunition for a much longer siege. We shall raise the wind against it from Amherstburgh and Quebec—from Edinburgh, Dublin and London. It must be levelled to the very earth, and even its name be forgotten in Toronto."

But to return for a moment to Mr. McKenzie. On the steps of the Court House, which we are to suppose ourselves now passing, we once saw him under circumstances that were deeply touching. Sentence of death had been pronounced on a young man once employed in his printing-office. He had been vigorously exerting himself to obtain from the Executive a mitigation of the extreme penalty. The day and even the hour for the execution had arrived; and no message of reprieve had been transmitted from the Lieutenant-Governor. As he came out of the Sheriff's room, after receiving the final announcement that there could be no further delay, the white collars on each side of his face were wet through and through with the tears that were gushing from his eyes and pouring down his cheeks! He was just realizing the fact that nothing further could be done; and in a few moments afterwards the execution actually took place.

We approach comparatively late times when we speak of the cavalcade which passed in grand state the spot now under review, when Messrs. Dunn and Buchanan were returned as members for the town. In the pageant on that occasion there was conspicuous a train of railway carriages, drawn of course, by horse power, with the inscription on the sides of the carriages—"Do you not wish you may get it?"—the allusion being to the Grand Trunk, which, was then only a thing in posse.

And still referring to processions associated in our memory with Court House Square, the recollection of another comes up, which once or twice a year used formerly to pass down King Street on a Sunday. The townspeople were familiar enough with the march of the troops of the garrison to and from Church, to the sound of military music, on Sundays. But on the occasions now referred to, the public eye was drawn to a spectacle professedly of an opposite character:—to the procession of the "Children of Peace," so-called.

These were a local off-shoot of the Society of Friends, the followers of Mr. David Willson, who had his headquarters at Sharon, in Whitchurch, where he had built a "Temple," a large wooden structure, painted white, and resembling a high-piled house of cards. Periodically he deemed it proper to make a demonstration in town. His disciples and friends, dressed in their best, mounted their waggons and solemnly passed down Yonge Street, and then on through some frequented thoroughfare of York to a place previously announced, where the prophet would preach. His topic was usually "Public Affairs: their Total Depravity."

The text of all of Willson's homilies might, in effect, be the following mystic sentence, extracted from the popular periodical, already quoted—Patrick Swift's Almanac: "The backwoodsman, while he lays the axe to the root of the oak in the forests of Canada, should never forget that a base basswood is growing in this his native land, which, if not speedily girdled, will throw its dark shadows over the country, and blast his best exertions. Look up, reader, and you will see the branches—the Robinson branch, the Powell branch, the Jones branch, the Strachan branch, the Boulton twig, &c. The farmer toils, the merchant toils, the labourer toils, and the Family Compact reap the fruit of their exertions." (Almanac for 1834.)

Into all the points here suggested Mr. Willson would enter with great zest. When waxing warm in his discourse, he would sometimes, without interrupting the flow of his words, suddenly throw off his coat and suspend it on a nail or pin in the wall, waving about with freedom, during the residue of his oration, a pair of sturdy arms, arrayed, not indeed in the dainty lawn of a bishop, but in stout, well-bleached American Factory. His address was divided into sections, between which "hymns of his own composing" were sung by a company of females dressed in white, sitting on one side, accompanied by a band of musical instruments on the other.

Considerable crowds assembled on these occasions: and once a panic arose as preaching was going on in the public room of Lawrence's hotel: the joists of the floor were heard to crack; a rush was made to the door, and several leaped out of the windows.—A small brick school-house on Berkeley Street was also a place where Willson sometimes sought to get the ear of the general public.—Captain Bonnycastle, in "Canada as it Was, Is, and May Be," i. 285, thus discourses of David Willson, in a strain somewhat too severe and satirical; but his words serve to show opinions which widely prevailed at the time he wrote: "At a short distance from Newmarket," the Captain says, "which is about three miles to the right of Yonge Street, near its termination at the Holland Landing, on a river of that name running into Lake Simcoe, is a settlement of religious enthusiasts, who have chosen the most fertile part of Upper Canada, the country near and for miles round Newmarket, for the seat of their earthly tabernacle. Here numbers of deluded people have placed themselves under the temporal and spiritual charge of a high priest, who calls himself David. His real name is David Willson. The Temple (as the building appropriated to the celebration of their rites is called,) is served by this man, who affects a primitive dress, and has a train of virgin-ministrants clothed in white. He travels about occasionally to preach at towns and villages, in a waggon, followed by others, covered with white tilt-cloths; but what his peculiar tenets are beyond that of dancing and singing, and imitating David the King, I really cannot tell, for it is altogether too farcical to last long: but Mr. David seems to understand clearly, as far as the temporal concerns of his infatuated followers go, that the old-fashioned signification of meum and tuum are religiously centered in his own sanctum. It was natural that such a field should produce tares in abundance."

The following notice of the "Children of Peace" occurs in Patrick Swift's Almanac for 1834, penned, probably, with an eye to votes in the neighbourhood of Sharon, or Hope, as the place is here called. "This society," the Almanac reports, "numbers about 280 members in Hope, east of Newmarket. They have also stated places of preaching, at the Old Court House, York, on Yonge Street, and at Markham. Their principal speaker is David Willson, assisted by Murdoch McLeod, Samuel Hughes, and others. Their music, vocal and instrumental, is excellent, and their preachers seek no pay from the Governor out of the taxes."

On week-days, Willson was often to be seen, like any other industrious yeoman, driving into town his own waggon, loaded with the produce of his farm; dressed in home-spun, as the "borel folk" of Yonge Street generally were: in the axis of one eye there was a slight divergency.—The expression "Family Compact" occurring above, borrowed from French and Spanish History, appears also in the General Report of Grievances, in 1835, where this sentence is to be read: "The whole system [of conducting Government without a responsible Executive] has so long continued virtually in the same hands, that it is little better than a family compact." p. 43. (In our proposed perambulation of Yonge Street we shall have occasion to speak again of David Willson.)

After the Court House Square came the large area attached to St. James' Church, to the memories connected with which we shall presently devote some space; as also to those connected with the region to the north, formerly the play-ground of the District Grammar School, and afterwards transformed into March Street and its purlieus.

At the corner on the south side of King Street, just opposite the Court House, was the clock-and-watch-repairing establishment of Mr. Charles Clinkenbroomer. To our youthful fancy, the general click and tick usually to be heard in an old-fashioned watchmaker's place of business, was in some sort expressed by the name Clinkunbroomer. But in old local lists we observe the orthography of this name to have been Klinkenbrunner, which conveys another idea. Mr. Clinkenbroomer's father, we believe, was attached to the army of General Wolfe, at the taking of Quebec.

In the early annals of York numerous Teutonic names are observable. Among jurymen and others, at an early period, we meet with Nicholas Klinkenbrunner, Gerhard Kuch, John Vanzantee, Barnabas Vanderburgh, Lodowick Weidemann, Francis Freder, Peter Hultz, Jacob Wintersteen, John Shunk, Leonard Klink, and so on.

So early as 1795 Liancourt speaks of a migration hither of German settlers from the other side of the Lake. He says a number of German settlers collected at Hamburg, an agent had brought out to settle on "Captain Williamson's Demesne" in the State of New York. After subsisting for some time there at the expense of Capt. Williamson, (who, it was stated, was really the representative of one of the Pulteneys in England), they decamped in a body to the north side of the Lake, and especially to York and its neighbourhood, at the instigation of one Berczy, and "gained over, if we may believe common fame," Liancourt says, "by the English;" gained over, rather, it is likely, by the prospect of acquiring freehold property for nothing, instead of holding under a patroon or American feudal lord.

Probably it was to the accounts of Capt. Williamson's proceedings, given by these refugees, that a message from Gov. Simcoe to that gentleman, in 1794, was due. Capt. Williamson, who appears to have acquired a supposed personal interest in a large portion of the State of New York, was opening settlements on the inlets on the south side of Lake Ontario, known as Ierondequat and Sodus Bay.

"Last year," Liancourt informs us, "General Simcoe, Governor of Upper Canada, who considered the Forts of Niagara and Oswego, . . . as English property, together with the banks of Lake Ontario, sent an English officer to the Captain, with an injunction, not to persist in his design of forming the settlements." To which message, "the Captain," we are then told, "returned a plain and spirited answer, yet nevertheless conducted himself with a prudence conformable to the circumstances. All these difficulties, however," it is added, "are now removed by the prospect of the continuance of peace, and still more so by the treaty newly concluded." (Of Mr. Berczy, and the German Settlement proper, we shall discourse at large in our section on Yonge Street.)

VII.

King Street: Digression Southwards at Church Street: Market Lane.

Across Church Street from Clinkunbroomer's were the wooden buildings already referred to, as having remained long in a partially finished state, being the result of a premature speculation. From this point we are induced to turn aside from our direct route for a few moments, attracted by a street which we see a short distance to the south, namely, Market Lane, or Colborne Street, as the modern phraseology is.

In this passage was, in the olden time, the Masonic Hall, a wooden building of two storeys. To the young imagination this edifice seemed to possess considerable dignity, from being surmounted by a cupola; the first structure in York that ever enjoyed such a distinction. This ornamental appendage supported above the western gable, by slender props, (intended in fact for the reception of a bell, which, so far as our recollection extends, was never supplied), would appear insignificant enough now; but it was the first budding of the architectural ambition of a young town, which leads at length to turrets, pinnacles, spires and domes.

A staircase on the outside led to the upper storey of the Masonic Hall. In this place were held the first meetings of the first Mechanics' Institute, organized under the auspices of Moses Fish, a builder of York, and other lovers of knowledge of the olden time. Here were attempted the first popular lectures. Here we remember hearing—certainly some forty years ago—Mr. John Fenton read a paper on the manufacture of steel, using diagrams in illustration: one of them showed the magnified edge of a well-set razor, the serrations all sloping in one direction, by which it might be seen, the lecturer remarked, that unless a man, in shaving, imparted to the instrument in his hand a carefully-studied movement, he was likely "to get into a scrape."—The lower part of the Masonic Hall was for a considerable while used as a school, kept successively by Mr. Stewart and Mr. Appleton, and afterwards by Mr. Caldicott.

At the corner of Market Lane, on the north side, towards the Market, was Frank's Hotel, an ordinary white frame building. The first theatre of York was extemporized in the ball-room of this house. When fitted up for dramatic purposes, that apartment was approached by a stairway on the outside.

Here companies performed, under the management, at one time, of Mr. Archbold; at another, of Mr. Talbot; at another, of Mr. Vaughan. The last-named manager, while professionally at York, lost a son by drowning in the Bay. We well remember the poignant distress of the father at the grave, and that his head was bound round on the occasion with a white bandage or napkin. Mrs. Talbot was a great favourite. She performed the part of Cora in Pizarro, and that of Little Pickle, in a comedy of that name, if our memory serves us.

Pizarro, Barbarossa or the Siege of Algiers, Ali Baba or the Forty Thieves, the Lady of the Lake, the Miller and his Men, were among the pieces here represented. The body-guard of the Dey of Algiers, we remember, consisted of two men, who always came in with military precision just after the hero, and placed themselves in a formal manner at fixed distances behind him, like two sentries. They were in fact soldiers from the garrison, we think. All this appeared very effective.

The dramatic appliances and accessories at Frank's were of the humblest kind. The dimensions of the stage must have been very limited: the ceiling of the whole room, we know, was low. As for orchestra—in those days, the principal instrumental artist of the town was Mr. Maxwell, who, well-remembered for his quiet manner, for the shade over one eye, in which was some defect, and for his homely skill on the violin, was generally to be seen and heard, often alone, but sometimes with an associate or two, here, as at all other entertainments of importance, public or private. Nevertheless, at that period, to an unsophisticated yet active imagination, innocent of acquaintance with more respectable arrangements, everything seemed charming; each scene, as the bell rang and the baize drew up, was invested with a magical glamour, similar in kind, if not equal in degree, to that which, in the days of our grandfathers, ere yet the modern passion for real knowledge had been awakened, fascinated the young Londoner at Drury Lane.

And how curiously were the illusions of the mimic splendors sometimes in a moment broken, as if to admonish the inexperienced spectator of the facts of real life. In the performance of Pizarro, it will be remembered that an attempt is made to bribe a Spanish soldier at his post. He rejects and flings to the ground what is called "a wedge of massive gold:"—we recollect the sound produced on the boards of the stage in Frank's by the fall of this wedge of massive gold: it instantly betrayed itself by this, as well as by its nimble rebound, to be, of course, a gilded bit of wood.

And it is not alone at obscure village performances that such disclosures occur. At an opera in London, where all appearances were elaborately perfect, we recollect the accidental fall of a goblet which was supposed to be of heavy chased silver, and also filled with wine—a contretemps occasioned by the giddiness of the lad who personated a page: two things were at once clear: the goblet was not of metal, and nothing liquid was contained within it: which recalls a mishap associated in our memory with a visit to the Argentina at Rome some years ago: this was the coming off of a wheel from the chariot of a Roman general, at a critical moment: the descent on this occasion from the vehicle to the stage was a true step from the sublime to the ridiculous; for the audience observed the accident, and persisted in their laugh in spite of the heroics which the great commander proceeded to address, in operatic style, to his assembled army.

It was in the assembly-room at Frank's, dismantled of its theatrical furniture, that a celebrated fancy ball was given, on the last day of the year 1827, conjointly by Mr. Galt, Commissioner of the Canada Company, and Lady Mary Willis, wife of Mr. Justice Willis. On that occasion the general interests of the Company were to some extent studied in the ornamentation of the room, its floor being decorated with an immense representation, in chalks or water-colour, of the arms of the association. The supporters of the shield were of colossal dimensions: two lions, rampant, bearing flags turning opposite ways: below, on the riband, in characters proportionably large, was the motto of the Company, "Non mutat genus solum." The sides and ceiling of the room, with the passages leading from the front door to it, were covered throughout with branchlets of the hemlock-spruce: nestling in the greenery of this perfect bower were innumerable little coloured lamps, each containing a floating light.

Here, for once, the potent, grave and reverend signiors of York, along with their sons and daughters, indulged in a little insanity. Lady Mary Willis appeared as Mary, Queen of Scots; the Judge himself, during a part of the evening, was in the costume of a gay old lady, the Countess of Desmond, aged one hundred years; Miss Willis, the clever amateur equestrienne, was Folly, with cap and bells; Dr. W. W. Baldwin was a Roman senator; his two sons William and St. George, were the Dioscuri, "Fratres Helenæ, lucida Sidera;" his nephew, Augustus Sullivan, was Puss in Boots; Dr. Grant Powell was Dr. Pangloss; Mr. Kerr, a real Otchipway chief, at the time a member of the Legislature, made a magnificent Kentucky backwoodsman, named and entitled Captain Jedediah Skinner. Mr. Gregg, of the Commissariat, was Othello. The Kentuckian (Kerr), professing to be struck with the many fine points of the Moor, as regarded from his point of view, persisted, throughout the evening, in exhibiting an inclination to purchase—an idea naturally much resented by Othello. Col. Givins, his son Adolphus, Raymond Baby, and others, were Indian chiefs of different tribes, who more than once indulged in the war-dance. Mr. Buchanan, son of the British Consul at New York, was Darnley; Mr. Thomson, of the Canada Company's office, was Rizzio; Mr. G. A. Barber was a wounded sailor recently from Navarino (that untoward event had lately taken place); his arm was in a sling; he had suffered in reality a mutilation of the right hand by an explosion of gunpowder, on the preceding 5th of November.

Mr. Galt was only about three years in Canada, but this short space of time sufficed to enable him to lay the foundation of the Canada Company wisely and well, as is shewn by its duration and prosperity. The feat was not accomplished without some antagonism springing up between himself and the local governmental authorities, whom he was inclined to treat rather haughtily.

It is a study to observe how frequently, at an early stage of Upper Canadian society, a mutual antipathy manifested itself between visitors from the transatlantic world, tourists and settlers (intending and actual), and the first occupants of such places of trust and emolument as then existed. It was a feeling that grew partly out of personal considerations, and partly out of difference of opinion in regard to public policy. A gulf thus began at an early period to open between two sections of the community, which widened painfully for a time in after years;—a fissure, which, at its first appearance, a little philosophy on both sides would have closed up. Men of intelligence, who had risen to position and acquired all their experience in a remote, diminutive settlement, might have been quite sure that their grasp of great imperial and human questions, when they arose, would be very imperfect; they might, therefore, rationally have rejoiced at the accession of new minds and additional light to help them in the day of necessity. And on the other hand, the fresh immigrant or casual visitor, trained to maturity amidst the combinations of an old society, and possessing a knowledge of its past, might have comprehended thoroughly the exact condition of thought and feeling in a community such as that which he was approaching, and so might have regarded its ideas with charity, and spoken of them in a tone conciliatory and delicate. On both sides, the maxim Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner would have had a salutary and composing effect, "for," as the author of Realmah well says, "in truth, one would never be angry with anybody, if one understood him or her thoroughly."

We regret that we cannot recover two small "paper pellets of the brain," of this period, arising out of the discussions connected with the appointment of an outsider (Mr. Justice Willis) to the Bench of Upper Canada. They would have been illustrative of the times. They were in the shape of two advertisements, one in reply to the other, in a local Paper: one was the elaborate title-page of a pamphlet "shortly to appear," on the existing system of Jurisprudence in Upper Canada; with the motto "Meliora sperans;" the other was an exact counterpart of the first, only in reversed terms, and bearing the motto "Deteriora timens."

In the early stages of all the colonies it is obviously inevitable that appointments ab extra to public office must occasionally, and even frequently, be made. Local aspirants are thus subject to disappointments; and men of considerable ability may now and then feel themselves overshadowed, and imagine themselves depressed, through the introduction of talent transcending their own. Some manifestations of discontent and impatience may thus always be expected to appear. But in a few years this state of things comes naturally to an end. In no public exigency is there any longer a necessity to look to external sources for help. A home supply of persons "duly qualified to serve God in Church and State" is legitimately developed, as we see in the United States, among ourselves, and in all the other larger settlements from the British Islands.

The dénouement of the Willis-trouble may be gathered from the following notice in the Gazette of Thursday, July 17th, 1828, now lying before us: "His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor has been pleased to appoint, by Commission under the Great Seal, Christopher Alexander Hagerman, Esq., to be a Judge in the Court of King's Bench for this Province, in the room of the Hon. John Walpole Willis, amoved, until the King's pleasure shall be signified."

Lady Mary Willis, associated with Mr. Galt in the Fancy Ball just spoken of, was a daughter of the Earl of Strathmore. A trial of a painful nature known as Willis v. Bernard in the annals of the Common Pleas, arising out of circumstances connected with Judge Willis's brief residence in Canada, took place in 1832 before the Chief Justice of England and a special jury, at Westminster, Mr. Sergeant Wilde acting for the plaintiff; Mr. Sergeant Spankie, Mr. Sergeant Storks and Mr. Thesiger, for the defendant: when a thousand pounds were awarded as damages to the plaintiff. On this occasion Mr. Galt was examined as a witness. Judge Willis was afterwards appointed Chief Justice of Demerara.

In the Canadian Literary Magazine for April, 1833, there is a notice of Mr. Galt, with a full-length pen-and-ink portrait, similar to those which used formerly to appear in Fraser. In front of the figure is a bust of Lord Byron; behind, on a wall, is a Map shewing the Canadian Lakes, with York marked conspicuously. From the accompanying memoir we learn that "Mr. Galt always conducted himself as a man of the strictest probity and honour. He was warm in his friendships, and extremely hospitable in his Log Priory at Guelph, and thoroughly esteemed by those who had an opportunity of mingling with him in close and daily intimacy. He was the first to adopt the plan of opening roads before making a settlement, instead of leaving them to be cut, as heretofore, by the settlers themselves—a plan which, under the irregular and patchwork system of settling the country then prevailing, has retarded the improvement of the Province more, perhaps, than any other cause."

In his Autobiography Mr. Galt refers to this notice of himself in the Canadian Literary Magazine, especially in respect to an intimation given therein that contemporaries at York accused him of playing "Captain Grand" occasionally, and "looking down on the inhabitants of Upper Canada." He does not affect to say that it was not so; he even rather unamiably adds: "The fact is, I never thought about them [i. e., these inhabitants], unless to notice some ludicrous peculiarity of individuals."

The same tone is assumed when recording the locally famous entertainment, given by himself and Lady Willis, as above described. Having received a hint that the colonelcy of a militia regiment might possibly be offered him, he says: "This information was unequivocally acceptable; and accordingly," he continues, "I resolved to change my recluseness into something more cordial towards the general inhabitants of York. I therefore directed one of the clerks [the gentleman who figured as Rizzio,] to whom I thought the task might be agreeable, to make arrangements for giving a general Fancy Ball to all my acquaintance, and the principal inhabitants. I could not be troubled," he observes, "with the details myself, but exhorted him to make the invitations as numerous as possible."

In extenuation of his evident moodiness of mind, it is to be observed that his quarters at York were very uncomfortable. "The reader is probably acquainted," he says in his Autobiography, "with the manner of living in the American hotels, but without experience he can have no right notion of what in those days (1827,) was the condition of the best tavern in York. It was a mean two-storey house; the landlord, however, [this was Mr. Frank,] did," he says, "all in his power to mitigate the afflictions with which such a domicile was quaking, to one accustomed to quiet."

Such an impression had his unfortunate accommodation at York made on him, that, in another place, when endeavouring to describe Dover, in Kent, as a dull place, we have him venturing to employ such extravagant language as this: "Everybody who has been at Dover knows that it is one of the vilest [hypochondriacal] haunts on the face of the earth, except Little York in Upper Canada." We notice in Leigh Hunt's London Journal for June, 1834, some verses entitled "Friends and Boyhood," written by Mr. Galt, in sickness. They will not sound out of place in a paper of early reminiscences:

"Talk not of years! 'twas yesterday We chased the hoop together, And for the plover's speckled egg We waded through the heather. "The green is gay where gowans grow, 'Tis Saturday—oh! come, Hark! hear ye not our mother's voice, The earth?—she calls us home. "Have we not found that fortune's chase For glory or for treasure, Unlike the rolling circle's race, Was pastime, without pleasure? "But seize your glass—another time We'll think of clouded days— I'll give a toast—fill up my friend! Here's 'Boys and merry plays!'"

But Market Lane and its memories detain us too long from King Street. We now return to the point where Church Street intersects that thoroughfare.

VIII.

King Street: St. James' Church.

The first Church of St. James, at York, was a plain structure of wood, placed some yards back from the road. Its gables faced east and west, and its solitary door was at its western end, and was approached from Church Street. Its dimensions were 50 by 40 feet. The sides of the building were pierced by two rows of ordinary windows, four above and four below. Altogether it was, in its outward appearance, simply, as a contemporary American "Geographical View of the Province of Upper Canada," now before us, describes it, a "meeting-house for Episcopalians."

The work just referred to, which was written by a Mr. M. Smith, before the war of 1812, thus depicts York: "This village," it says, "is laid out after the form of Philadelphia, the streets crossing each other at right angles; though the ground on which it stands is not suitable for building. This at present," the notice subjoins, "is the seat of Government, and the residence of a number of English gentlemen. It contains some fine buildings, though they stand scattering, among which are a Court-house, Council-house, a large brick building, in which the King's store for the place is kept, and a meeting-house for Episcopalians; one printing and other offices."

The reservation of land in which the primitive St. James' Church stood, long remained plentifully covered with the original forest. In a wood-cut from a sketch taken early in the present century, prefixed to the "Annals of the Diocese of Toronto," the building is represented as being in the midst of a great grove, and stumps of various sizes are visible in the foreground.

Up to 1803 the Anglican congregation had assembled for Divine Worship in the Parliament Building; and prior to the appointment of the Rev. Mr. Stuart, or in his absence, a layman, Mr. Cooper, afterwards the well-known wharfinger, used to read the service. In March, 1799, there was about to be a Day of General Thanksgiving. The mode proposed for its solemn observance at York was announced as follows in the Gazette and Oracle of March 9: "Notice is hereby given that Prayers will be read in the North Government Building in this Town, on Tuesday, the 12th instant, being the day appointed for a General Thanksgiving throughout the Province to Almighty God for the late important victories over the enemies of Great Britain. Service to begin half after eleven o'clock."

We give a contemporary account of the proceedings at an important meeting of the subscribers to the fund for the erection of the first St. James' Church at York, in 1803. It is from the Oracle and Gazette of January 22, in that year.

"At a Meeting of the subscribers to a fund for erecting a Church in the Town of York, holden at the Government Buildings, on Saturday the 8th day of January instant, the Hon. Chief Justice [Elmsley] in the Chair. Resolved unanimously: That each subscriber shall pay the amount of his subscription by three instalments: the first being one moiety in one month from this day; the second being a moiety of the residue in two months; and the remainders in three months: That Mr. William Allan and Mr. Duncan Cameron shall be Treasurers, and shall receive the amount of the said subscriptions; and that they be jointly and severally answerable for all moneys paid into their hands upon the receipt of either of them: That His Honour the Chief Justice, the Honourable P. Russell, the Honourable Captain McGill, the Reverend Mr. Stuart, Dr. Macaulay, Mr. Chewett, and the two Treasurers, be a Committee of the subscribers, with full power and authority to apply the moneys arising from subscriptions, to the purpose contemplated: Provided, nevertheless, that if any material difference of opinion should arise among them, resort shall be had to a meeting of the subscribers to decide. That the Church be built of stone, brick, or framed timber, as the Committee may judge most expedient, due regard being had to the superior advantages of a stone or brick building, if not counterbalanced by the additional expense: That eight hundred pounds of lawful money, be the extent upon which the Committee shall calculate their plan; but in the first instance, they shall not expend beyond the sum of six hundred pounds (if the amount of the sums subscribed and paid into the hands of the Treasurers, together with the moneys which may be allowed by the British Government, amount to so much), leaving so much of the work as can most conveniently be dispensed with, to be completed by the remaining two hundred pounds: Provided, however, that the said six hundred pounds be laid out in such manner that Divine Worship can be performed with decency in the Church: That the Committee do request the opinion of Mr. Berczy, respecting the probable expenses which will attend the undertaking, and respecting the materials to be preferred; due regard being had to the amount of the fund, as aforesaid; and that after obtaining his opinion, they do advertise their readiness to receive proposals conformable thereto. N.B. The propriety of receiving contributions in labour or materials is suggested to the Committee. A. MacDonell, Secretary to the Meeting."

In the Gazette and Oracle of June 4, 1803, D. Cameron and W. Allan are inviting tenders for the supply of certain materials required for "building a Church in this Town."

"Advertisement. Wanted. A quantity of Pine Boards and Scantling, Stones and Lime, for building a Church in this Town. Any person inclined to furnish any of these articles will please to give in their proposals at the lowest prices, to the subscribers, to be laid before the Committee. D. Cameron, W. Allan. York, 1st June, 1803."

It would seem that in July the determination was to build the Church of stone.

"On Wednesday last, the 6th instant," says the Oracle and Gazette, July 9th, 1803, "a meeting of the subscribers to the fund for erecting a Church in this Town was held at the Government Buildings, on which occasion it was unanimously resolved: That the said Church should be built of Stone. That one hundred toises of Stone should accordingly be contracted for without delay. That a quantity of two-inch pine plank, not exceeding 6,000 feet, should also be laid in; and a reasonable quantity of Oak studs, and Oak plank, for the window-frames and sashes.—A future meeting we understand," the Oracle adds, "will be held in the course of the season, at which, when the different Estimates and Proposals have been examined, and the extent which the fund will reach, has been ascertained, something decisive will be settled."

The idea of building in stone appears to have been subsequently relinquished; and a Church-edifice in wood was decided on. We are informed that the Commandant of the Garrison, Col. Sheaffe, ordered his men to assist in raising the frame.

In 1810, a portion of the church-plot was enclosed, at an expense of £1 5s. for rails, of which five hundred were required for the purpose. At the same time the ground in front of the west-end, where was the entrance, was cleared of stumps, at an expense of £3 15s. In that year the cost for heating the building, and charges connected with the Holy Communion, amounted to £1 7s. 6d., Halifax currency.

In 1813, Dr. Strachan succeeded Dr. Stuart as incumbent of the church; and in 1818 he induced the congregation to effect some alterations in the structure. From an advertisement in an early Gazette of the year 1818, it will be seen that the ecclesiastical ideas in the ascendant when the enlargement of the original building was first discussed, were much more in harmony with ancient English Church usages, than those which finally prevailed when the work was really done. With whomsoever originating, the design at first was to extend the building eastward, not southward; to have placed the Belfry at the west end, not at the south; the Pulpit was to have been placed on the north side of the Church; a South Porch was to have been erected. The advertisement referred to reads as follows:—"Advertisement. Plans and Estimates for enlarging and repairing the Church will be received by the subscribers before the 20th of March, on which day a decision will be made, and the Contractor whose proposals shall be approved of, must commence the work as the season will permit. The intention is: 1st. To lengthen the Church forty feet towards the east, with a circular end; thirty of which to form part of the body of the Church, and the remaining ten an Altar, with a small vestry-room on the one side, and a Government Pew on the other. 2nd. To remove the Pulpit to the north side, and to erect two Galleries, one opposite to it, and another on the west end. 3rd. To alter the Pews to suit the situation of the Pulpit, and to paint and number the same throughout the Church. 4th. To raise a Belfry on the west end, and make a handsome entrance on the south side of the Church, and to paint the whole building on the outside. Thomas Ridout, J. B. Robinson, Churchwardens. William Allan. Feb. 18, 1818."

The intentions here detailed were not carried into effect. On the north and south sides of the old building additional space was enclosed, which brought the axis of the Church and its roof into a north and south direction. An entrance was opened at the southern end, towards King Street, and over the gable in this direction was built a square tower bearing a circular bell-turret, surmounted by a small tin-covered spire. The whole edifice, as thus enlarged and improved, was painted of a light blue colour, with the exception of the frames round the windows and doors, and the casings at the angles, imitating blocks of stone, alternately long and short, which were all painted white.

The original western door was not closed up. Its use, almost exclusively, was now, on Sundays and other occasions of Divine Worship, to admit the Troops, whose benches extended along by the wall on that side the whole length of the church.—The upper windows on all the four sides were now made circular-headed. On the east side there was a difference. The altar-window of the original building remained, only transformed into a kind of triplet, the central compartment rising above the other two, and made circular headed. On the north and south of this east window were two tiers of lights, as on the western side.

In the bell-turret was a bell of sufficient weight sensibly to jar the whole building at every one of its semi-revolutions.

In the interior, a central aisle, or open passage, led from the door to the southern end of the church, where, on the floor, was situated a pew of state for the Lieutenant-Governor: small square pillars at its four corners sustained a flat canopy over it, immediately under the ceiling of the gallery; and below this distinctive tester or covering, suspended against the wall, were the royal arms, emblazoned on a black tablet of board or canvas.

Half-way up the central aisle, on the right side, was an open space, in which were planted the pulpit, reading-desk and clerk's pew, in the old orthodox fashion, rising by gradations one above the other, the whole overshadowed by a rather handsome sounding-board, sustained partially by a rod from the roof. Behind this mountainous structure was the altar, lighted copiously by the original east window. Two narrow side-aisles, running parallel with the central one, gave access to corresponding rows of pews, each having a numeral painted on its door. Two passages, for the same purpose ran westward from the space in front of the pulpit. To the right and left of the Lieutenant-Governor's seat, and filling up (with the exception of two square corner pews) the rest of the northern end of the church, were two oblong pews; the one on the west appropriated to the officers of the garrison; the other, on the east, to the members of the Legislature.

Round the north, west, and south sides of the interior, ran a gallery, divided, like the area below, into pews. This structure was sustained by a row of pillars of turned wood, and from it to the roof above rose another row of similar supports. The ceiling over the parts exterior to the gallery was divided into four shallow semi-circular vaults, which met at a central point. The pews everywhere were painted of a buff or yellowish hue, with the exception of the rims at the top, which were black. The pulpit and its appurtenances were white. The rims just referred to, at the tops of the pews, throughout the whole church, exhibited, at regular intervals, small gimlet-holes: in these were inserted annually, at Christmas-tide, small sprigs of hemlock-spruce. The interior, when thus dressed, wore a cheerful, refreshing look, in keeping with the festival commemorated.

Within this interior used to assemble, periodically, the little world of York: occasionally, a goodly proportion of the little world of all Upper Canada.

To limit ourselves to our own recollections: here, with great regularity, every Sunday, was to be seen, passing to and from the place of honour assigned him, Sir Peregrine Maitland,—a tall, grave officer, always in military undress; his countenance ever wearing a mingled expression of sadness and benevolence, like that which one may observe on the face of the predecessor of Louis Philippe, Charles the Tenth, whose current portrait recalls, not badly, the whole head and figure of this early Governor of Upper Canada.

In an outline representation which we accidentally possessed, of a panorama of the battle of Waterloo, on exhibition in London, the 1st Foot Guards were conspicuously to be seen led on by "Major-General Sir Peregrine Maitland." It was a matter of no small curiosity to the boyish mind, and something that helped to rouse an interest in history generally, to be assured that the living personage here, every week, before the eye, was the commander represented in the panorama; one who had actually passed through the tremendous excitement of the real scene.

With persons of wider knowledge, Sir Peregrine was invested with further associations. Besides being the royal representative in these parts, he was the son-in-law of Charles Gordon Lennox, fourth Duke of Richmond, a name that stirred chivalrous feelings in early Canadians of both Provinces; for the Duke had come to Canada as Governor-in-Chief, with a grand reputation acquired as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and great benefits were expected, and probably would have been realized from his administration, had it been of long continuance. But he had been suddenly removed by an excruciating death. Whilst on a tour of inspection in the Upper Province, he had been fatally attacked with hydrophobia, occasioned by the bite of a pet fox. The injury had been received at Sorel; its terrible effects were fatally experienced at a place near the Ottawa, since named Richmond.

Some of the prestige of the deceased Duke continued to adhere to Sir Peregrine Maitland, for he had married the Duke's daughter, a graceful and elegant woman, who was always at his side, here and at Stamford Cottage across the Lake. She bore a name not unfamiliar in the domestic annals of George the Third, who once, it is said, was enamoured of a beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox, grandmother, as we suppose, or some other near relative, of the Lady Sarah here before us at York. Moreover, conversationalists whispered about (in confidence) something supposed to be unknown to the general public—that the match between Sir Peregrine and Lady Sarah had been effected in spite of the Duke. The report was that there had been an elopement; and it was naturally supposed that the party of the sterner sex had been the most active agent in the affair.

To say the truth, however, in this instance, it was the lady who precipitated matters. The affair occurred at Paris, soon after the Waterloo campaign. The Duke's final determination against Sir Peregrine's proposals having been announced, the daughter suddenly withdrew from the father's roof, and fled to the lodgings of Sir Peregrine, who instantly retired to other quarters. The upshot of the whole thing, at once romantic and unromantic, included a marriage and a reconciliation; and eventually a Lieutenant-Governorship for the son-in-law under the Governorship-in-Chief of the father, both despatched together to undertake the discharge of vice-regal functions in a distant colony. At the time of his marriage with Lady Sarah Lennox, Sir Peregrine had been for some ten years a widower. On his staff here at York was a son by his first wife, also named Peregrine, a subaltern in the army.

After the death of the Duke of Richmond, Sir Peregrine became administrator, for a time, of the general government of British North America. The movements of the representative of the Crown were attended with some state in those days. Even a passage across from York to Stamford, or from Stamford to York, was announced by a royal salute at the garrison.

Of a visit to Lower Canada in 1824, when, in addition to the usual suite, there were in the party several young Englishmen of distinction, tourists at that early period, on this continent, we have the following notice in the Canadian Review for December of that year. After mentioning the arrival at the Mansion House Hotel in Montreal, the Review proceeds: "In the morning His Excellency breakfasted with Sir Francis Burton, at the Government House, whom he afterwards accompanied to Quebec in the Swiftsure steamboat. Sir Peregrine is accompanied," the Review reports, "by Lord Arthur Lennox, Mr. Maitland, Colonels Foster, Lightfoot, Coffin and Talbot; with the Hon. E. G. Stanley [from 1851 to 1869, Earl of Derby], grandson of Earl Derby, M.P. for Stockbridge, John E. Denison, Esq. [subsequently Speaker of the House of Commons], M.P. for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and James S. Wortley, Esq. [afterwards Lord Wharncliffe], M.P. for Bossiney in Cornwall. The three latter gentlemen," the magazine adds, "are now upon a tour in this country from England; and we are happy to learn that they have expressed themselves as being highly gratified with all that they have hitherto seen in Canada."

It will be of interest to know that the name of Sir Peregrine Maitland is pleasantly preserved by means of Maitland Scholarships in a Grammar School for natives at Madras; and by a Maitland Prize in the University of Cambridge. The circumstances of the institution of these memorials are these as originally announced: "The friends of Lieutenant-General Sir Peregrine Maitland, K.C.B., late Commander in Chief of the Forces in South India, being desirous of testifying their respect and esteem for his character and principles, and for his disinterested zeal in the cause of Christian Truth in the East, have raised a fund for the institution of a prize in one of the Universities, and for the establishment of two native scholarships at Bishop Corrie's Grammar School at Madras; such prize and scholarships to be associated with the name of Sir Peregrine Maitland. In pursuance of the foregoing scheme, the sum of £1,000 has been given to the University of Cambridge for the purpose of instituting a prize to be called "Sir Peregrine Maitland's Prize," for an English essay on some subject connected with the propagation of the Gospel, through missionary exertions in India and other parts of the heathen world." This Prize, which is kept up by the interest accruing every three years, has been awarded at Cambridge regularly since 1845.

The successor to Sir Peregrine Maitland in the Government of Upper Canada was another distinguished military officer, Sir John Colborne. With ourselves, the first impression of his form and figure is especially associated with the interior in which we are supposing the reader to be now standing. We remember his first passing up the central aisle of St James's Church. He had arrived early, in an unostentatious way; and on coming within the building he quietly inquired of the first person whom he saw, sitting in a seat near the door: Which was the Governor's pew? The gentleman addressed happened to be Mr. Bernard Turquand, who, quickly recognizing the inquirer, stood up and extended his right arm and open hand in the direction of the canopied pew over which was suspended the tablet bearing the Royal Arms. Sir John, and some of his family after him, then passed on to the place indicated.

At school, in an edition of Goldsmith then in use, the name of "Major Colborne" in connection with the account of Sir John Moore's death at Corunna had already been observed; and it was with us lads a matter of intense interest to learn that the new Governor was the same person.

The scene which was epitomized in the school-book, is given at greater length in Gleig's Lives of Eminent British Military Commanders. The following are some particulars from Colonel Anderson's narrative in that work: "I met the General," Colonel Anderson says, "on the evening of the 16th, bringing in, in a blanket and sashes. He knew me immediately, though it was almost dark, squeezed me by the hand and said 'Anderson, don't leave me.' At intervals he added 'Anderson, you know that I have always wished to die in this way. I hope the people of England will be satisfied. I hope my country will do me justice. You will see my friends as soon as you can. Tell them everything. I have made my will, and have remembered my servants. Colborne has my will and all my papers.' Major Colborne now came into the room. He spoke most kindly to him; and then said to me, 'Anderson, remember you go to ——, and tell him it is my request, and that I expect, he will give Major Colborne a lieutenant-colonelcy.' He thanked the surgeons for their trouble. He pressed my hand close to his body, and in a few minutes died without a struggle."

He had been struck by a cannon ball. The shot, we are told, had completely crushed his shoulder; the arm was hanging by a piece of skin, and the ribs over the heart, besides been broken, were literally stripped of flesh. Yet, the narrative adds, "he sat upon the field collected and unrepining, as if no ball had struck him, and as if he were placed where he was for the mere purpose of reposing for a brief space from the fatigue of hard riding."

Sir John Colborne himself afterwards at Ciudad Rodrigo came within a hair's-breadth of a similar fate. His right shoulder was shattered by a cannon shot. The escape of the right arm from amputation on the field at the hands of some prompt military surgeon on that occasion, was a marvel. The limb was saved, though greatly disabled. The want of symmetry in Sir John Colborne's tall and graceful form, permanently occasioned by this injury, was conspicuous to the eye. We happened to be present in the Council Chamber at Quebec, in 1838, at the moment when this noble-looking soldier literally vacated the vice-regal chair, and installed his successor Lord Durham in it, after administering to him the oaths. The exchange was not for the better, in a scenic point of view, although the features of Lord Durham, as his well-known portrait shews, were very fine, suggestive of the poet or artist.

Of late years a monument has been erected on Mount Wise at Plymouth, in honour of the illustrious military chief and pre-eminently excellent man, whose memory has just been recalled to us. It is a statue of bronze, by Adams, a little larger than life; and the likeness is admirably preserved. (When seen on horseback at parades or reviews soldiers always averred that he greatly resembled "the Duke." Dr. Henry, in "Trifles from my Portfolio" (ii. 111.) thus wrote of him in 1833: "When we first dined at Government House, we were struck by the strong resemblance he bore to the Duke of Wellington; and there is also," Dr. Henry continues, "a great similarity in mind and disposition, as well as in the lineaments of the face. In one particular they harmonize perfectly—namely, great simplicity of character, and an utter dislike to shew ostentation.")

On the four sides of the granite pedestal of the statue on Mount Wise, are to be read the following inscriptions: in front: John Colborne, Baron Seaton. Born MDCCLXXVIII. Died MDCCCLXIII. On the right side: Canada. Ionian Islands. On the left side: Peninsula. Waterloo. On the remaining side: In memory of the distinguished career and stainless character of Field Marshal Lord Seaton, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., G.C.H. This Monument is erected by his friends and comrades.

Accompanying the family of Sir John Colborne to their place in the Church at York was to be seen every Sunday, for some time, a shy-mannered, black-eyed, Italian-featured Mr. Jeune, tutor to the Governor's sons. This was afterwards the eminent Dr. Jeune, Master of Pembroke College at Oxford, a great promoter of reform in that University, and Bishop of Lincoln. Sir John himself was a man of scholarly tastes; a great student of history, and a practical modern European linguist.

Through a casual circumstance, it is said that full praise was not publicly given, at the time, to the regiment commanded by Sir John Colborne, the 52nd, for the particular service rendered by it at the battle of Waterloo. By the independent direction of their leader, the 52nd made a sudden flank movement at the crisis of the fight and initiated the final discomfiture of which the Guards got the sole praise. At the close of the day, when the Duke of Wellington was rapidly constructing his despatch, Colonel Colborne was inquired for by him, and could not, for the moment, be found. The information, evidently desired, was thus not to be had; and the document was completed and sent off without a special mention of the 52nd's deed of "derring do."

During the life-time of the great Duke there was much reticence among the military authorities in regard to the Battle of Waterloo from the fact that the Duke himself did not encourage discussion on the subject. All was well that had ended well, appeared to have been his doctrine. He once checked an incipient dispute in regard to the great event of the 18th of June between two friends, in his presence, by the command, half-jocose, half-earnest: "You leave the Battle of Waterloo alone!" He gave £60 for a private letter written by himself to a friend on the eve of the battle, and was heard to say, as he threw the document into the fire, "What a fool was I, when I wrote that!"

Since the death of the Duke, an officer of the 52nd, subsequently in Holy Orders,—the Rev. William Leeke—has devoted two volumes to the history of "the 52nd or Lord Seaton's Regiment;" in which its movements on the field of Waterloo are fully detailed. And Colonel Chesney in his "Waterloo Lectures; a Study of the Campaign of 1815" has set the great battle in a new light, and has demolished several English and French traditions in relation to it, bringing out into great prominence the services rendered by Blucher and the Prussians.

The Duke's personal sensitiveness to criticism was shewn on another occasion: when Colonel Gurwood suddenly died, he, through the police, took possession of the Colonel's papers, and especially of a Manuscript of Table Talk and other ana, designed for publication, and which, had it not been on the instant ruthlessly destroyed, would have been as interesting probably as Boswell's.

On Lord Seaton's departure from Canada, he was successively Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland. He then retired to his own estate in the West of England, where he had a beautiful seat, in the midst of the calm, rural, inland scenery of Devonshire, not far from Plympton, and on the slope descending southward from the summits of Dartmoor. The name of the house is Beechwood, from the numerous clean, bold, magnificent beech trees that adorn its grounds, and give character to the neighbourhood generally. In the adjoining village of Sparkwell he erected a handsome school-house and church.

On his decease at Torquay in 1863 his remains were deposited in the Church at Newton Ferrers, the ancient family burying-place of the Yonges.

Mrs. Jameson's words in her "Winter studies and Summer Rambles," express briefly but truly, the report which all that remember him, would give, of this distinguished and ever memorable Governor of Canada. "Sir John Colborne," she says incidentally, in the Introduction to the work just named, "whose mind appeared to me cast in the antique mould of chivalrous honour; and whom I never heard mentioned in either Province but with respect and veneration." Dr. Henry in "Trifles from my Portfolio," once before referred to, uses similar language. "I believe," he says, "there never was a soldier of more perfect moral character than Sir John Colborne—a Bayard without gasconade, as well as sans peur et sans reproche." The title "Seaton," we may add, was taken from the name of an ancient seaport town of Devon, the Moridunum of the Roman period.

IX.

KING STREET: ST. JAMES' CHURCH—(Continued.)

At the southern end of the Church, in which we are supposing ourselves to be, opposite the Lieutenant-Governor's pew, but aloft in the gallery, immediately over the central entrance underneath, was the pew of Chief Justice Powell, a long narrow enclosure, with a high screen at its back to keep off the draughts from the door into the gallery, just behind. The whole of the inside of the pew, together with the screen by which it was backed, was lined with dark green baize or cloth. The Chief's own particular place in the pew was its central point. There, as in a focus, surrounded by the members of his family, he calmly sat, with his face to the north, his white head and intelligent features well brought out by the dark back-ground of the screen behind.

The spectator, on looking up and recognizing the presence of the Chief Justice thus seated, involuntarily imagined himself, for the moment, to be in court. In truth, in an absent moment, the Judge himself might experience some confusion as to his whereabouts. For below him, on his right and left, he would see many of the barristers, attorneys, jurors and witnesses (to go no farther), who on week days were to be seen or heard before him in different compartments of the Court-room.

Chief Justice Powell was of Welsh descent. The name is, of course, Ap Howell; of which "Caer Howell," "Howell's Place," the title given by the Chief Justice to his Park-lot at York, is a relic. His portrait exists in Toronto, in possession of members of his family. He was a man of rather less than the ordinary stature. His features were round in outline, unmarked by the painful lines which usually furrow the modern judicial visage, but wakefully intelligent. His hair was milky white. The head was inclined to be bald.

We have before us a contemporary brochure of the Chief's, from which we learn his view of the ecclesiastical land question, which for so long a period agitated Canada. After a full historical discussion, he recommends the re-investment of the property in the Crown, "which," he says, "in its bounty, will apply the proceeds equally for the support of Christianity, without other distinction:" but he comes to this determination reluctantly, and considers the plan to be one of expediency only. We give the concluding paragraph of his pamphlet, for the sake of its ring—so characteristically that of a by-gone day and generation: "If the wise provision of Mr. Pitt," the writer says, "to preserve the Law of the Union [between England and Scotland], by preserving the Church of England predominant in the Colony, and touching upon her rights to tythes only for her own advantage, and by the same course as the Church itself desiderates in England (the exchange of tythes for the fee simple), must be abandoned to the sudden thought of a youthful speculator [i. e., Mr. Wilmot, Secretary for the Colonies, who had introduced a bill into the Imperial Parliament for the sale of the Lands to the Canada Company], let the provision of his bill cease, and the tythes to which the Church of England was at that time lawfully entitled be restored; she will enjoy these exclusively even of the Kirk of Scotland: but if all veneration for the wisdom of our Ancestors has ceased, and the time is come to prostrate the Church of England, bind her not up in the same wythe with her bitterest enemy; force her not to an exclusive association with any one of her rivals; leave the tythes abolished; abolish all the legal exchange for them; and restore the Reserves to the Crown, which, in its bounty, will apply the proceeds equally for the support of Christianity, without other distinction."

In the body of the Church, below, sat another Chief Justice, retired from public life, and infirm—Mr. Scott—the immediate predecessor of Chief Justice Powell; a white-haired, venerable form, assisted to his place, a little to the south of the Governor's pew, every Sunday. We have already once before referred to Mr. Scott.

And again: another judicial personage was here every week long to be seen, also crowned with the snowy honours of advanced age—Mr. Justice Campbell—afterwards, in succession to Chief Justice Powell, Chief Justice Sir William Campbell. His place was on the west side of the central aisle. Sir William Campbell was born so far back as 1758. He came out from Scotland as a soldier in a Highland regiment, and was taken prisoner at Yorktown when that place was surrendered by Cornwallis in 1781. In 1783 he settled in Nova Scotia and studied law. After practising as a barrister for nineteen years he was appointed Attorney-General for the Island of Cape Breton, from which post, after twelve years, he was promoted to a Judgeship in Upper Canada. This was in 1811. Fourteen years afterwards (in 1825), he became Chief Justice.

The funeral of Sir William Campbell, in 1834, was one of unusual impressiveness. The Legislature was in session at the time, and attended in a body, with the Bar and the Judges. At the same hour, within the walls of the same Church, St. James', the obsequies of a member of the Lower House took place, namely, of Mr. Roswell Mount, representative of the County of Middlesex, who had chanced to die at York during the session.

A funeral oration on the two-fold occasion was pronounced by Archdeacon Strachan.—Dr. Henry, author of "Trifles from my Portfolio," attended Sir William Campbell in his last illness. In the work just named, his case is thus described: "My worthy patient became very weak towards the end of the year," the doctor says, "his nights were restless—his appetite began to fail, and he could only relish tit bits. Medicine was tried fruitlessly, so his doctor prescribed snipes. At the point of the sandy peninsula opposite the barracks," Dr. Henry continues, "are a number of little pools and marshes, frequented by these delectable little birds; and here I used to cross over in my skiff and pick up the Chief Justice's panacea. On this delicate food the poor old gentleman was supported for a couple of months; but the frost set in—the snipes flew away, and Sir William died." (ii. 112.)

Appended to the account of the funeral ceremonies, in the York Courier of the day, we notice one of those familiar paragraphs which sensational itemists like to construct, and which stimulate the self-complacency of small communities. It is headed Longevity, and then thus proceeds: "At the funeral of the late Sir W. Campbell, on Monday, there were twenty inhabitants of York, whose united ages exceed fourteen hundred and fifty years!"

It is certain that there were to be seen moving up the aisles of the old wooden St. James', at York, every Sunday, a striking number of venerable and dignified forms. For one thing their costume helped to render them picturesque and interesting. The person of our immediate ancestors was well set off by their dress. Recall their easy, partially cut-away black coats and upright collars; their so-called small-clothes and buckled shoes; the frilled shirt-bosoms and the white cravats, not apologies for cravats, but real envelopes for the neck. (The comfortable, well-to-do Quaker of the old school still exhibits in use some of their homely peculiarities of garb.) And then remember the cut and arrangement of their hair, generally milky white, either from age or by the aid of powder; their smoothly-shaven cheek and chin; and the peculiar expression superinduced in the eye and the whole countenance, by the governing ideas of the period, ideas which we are wont to style old-fashioned, but which furnished, nevertheless, for the time being, very useful and definite rules of conduct.

Two pictures, one, Trumbull's Signing of the Declaration of Independence; the other, Huntingdon's Republican Court of Washington (shewn in Paris in 1867), exhibit to the eye the outward and visible presentment of the prominent actors in the affairs of the central portion of the Northern Continent, a century ago. These paintings may help to do the same, in some degree, for us here in the north, also; any one of the more conspicuous figures in the congregation of the old St. James's, at York, might have stepped out from the canvas of one or other of the historic works of art just named. On occasions of state, even the silken bag (in the case of officials at least) was attached to the nape of the neck, as though, in accordance with a fashion of an earlier day still, the hair were yet worn long, and required gathering up in a receptacle provided for the purpose.

It seems to-day almost like a dream that we have seen in the flesh the honoured patriarchs and founders of our now great community—

"Zorah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot;"—

that our eyes really once beheld the traces on their countenances of their long and varied experiences, of their cares, and processes of thought; the traces left by the lapse of years, by times, rough and troublous, not merely heard of by the hearing of the ear, as existing across the Lakes or across the Seas, but encountered in their own persons, in their own land, at their own hearths; encountered and bravely struggled through:—that we were eye-witnesses of their cheerfulness and good courage after crisis upon crisis had thus passed over them; eye-witnesses again, too, of their earnest devotedness to the duties of calmer days, discharged ever honestly and well according to the beliefs and knowledge of the period, and without the realization, in many an instance, of the reach and vastness of the scheme of things which was being wrought out:—that with our own eyes we saw them, again and again, engaged within consecrated walls, in solemn acts which expressed, in spite of the vicissitudes which their destiny had brought with it, their unaffected faith in the unseen, and their living hope in relation to futurity.

All this, we say, now seems like a dream of the night, or a mystic revelation of the scenes of a very distant period and in a very distant locality, rather than the recollections of a few short years spent on the spot where these pages are indited. The names, however, which we shall produce will have a sound of reality about them: they will be recognized as familiar, household words still perpetuated, or, at all events, still freshly remembered in the modern Toronto.

From amongst the venerable heads and ancestral forms which recur to us, as we gaze down in imagination from the galleries of the old wooden St. James', of York, we will single out, in addition to those already spoken of, that of Mr. Ridout, sometimes Surveyor-General of the Province, father of a numerous progeny, and tribal head, so to speak, of more than one family of connections settled here, bearing the same name. He was a fine typical representative of the group to which our attention is directed. He was a perfect picture of a cheerful, benevolent-minded Englishman; of portly form, well advanced in years, his hair snowy-white naturally; his usual costume, of the antique style above described.

Then there was Mr. Small, Clerk of the Crown, an Englishman of similar stamp. We might sketch the rest separately as they rise before the mind's eye; but we should probably, after all, convey an idea of each that would be too incomplete to be interesting or of much value. We therefore simply name other members of the remarkable group of reverend seniors that assembled habitually in the church at York. Mr. Justice Boulton, Colonel Smith, sometime President of the Province; Mr. Allan, Mr. M'Gill, Mr. Crookshank, Colonel Givins, Major Heward, Colonel Wells, Colonel Fitzgibbon, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Macaulay, Dr. Baldwin, Dr. Lee, Mr. Samuel Ridout, Mr. Chewett, Mr. McNab (Sir Allan's father); Mr. Stephen Jarvis, who retained to the last the ancient fashion of tying the hair in a queue.

We might go on with several others, also founders of families that still largely people York and its vicinity; we might mention old Captain Playter, Captain Denison, Mr. Scarlett, Captain Brooke, sen., and others. Filial duty would urge us not to omit, in the enumeration, one who, though at a very early period removed by a sudden casualty, is vividly remembered, not only as a good and watchful father, but also as a venerable form harmonizing perfectly in expression and costume with the rest of the group which used to gather in the church at York.

Of course, mingled with the ancients of the congregation, there was a due proportion of a younger generation. There was for example Mr. Simon Washburn, a bulky and prosperous barrister, afterwards Clerk of the Peace, who was the first, perhaps, in these parts, to carry a glass adroitly in the eye. There was Dr. Grant Powell, a handsome reproduction, on a larger scale, of his father the Chief, as his portrait shews; there were the Messrs. Monro, George and John; the Messrs. Stanton; Mr. Billings; the Messrs. Gamble, John and William; Mr. J. S. Baldwin, Mr. Lyons, Mr. Beikie, and others, all men of note, distinguishable from each other by individual traits and characteristics that might readily be sketched.

And lastly in the interstices of the assemblage was to be seen a plentiful representation of generation number three; young men and lads of good looks, for the most part, well set-up limbs, and quick faculties; in some instances, of course, of fractious temperament and manners. As ecclesiastical associations are at the moment uppermost, we note an ill habit that prevailed among some of these younglings of the flock, of loitering long about the doors of the church for the purpose of watching the arrivals, and then, when the service was well advanced, the striplings would be seen sporadically coming in, each one imagining, as he passed his fingers through his hair and marched with a shew of manly spirit up the aisle, that he attracted a degree of attention; attracted, perhaps, a glance of admiration from some of the many pairs of eyes that rained influence from a large pew in the eastern portion of the north gallery, where the numerous school of Miss Purcell and Miss Rose held a commanding position.

It would have been a singular exception to a general law, had the interior into which we are now gazing, and whose habitués we are now recalling, not been largely frequented by the feminine portion of society at York. Seated in their places in various directions along the galleries and in the body of the old wooden church, were to be regularly seen specimens of the venerable great-grandmammas of the old English and Scottish type (in one or two instances to be thought of to this day with a degree of awe by reason of the vigour, almost masculine, of their character); specimens of kindly maiden aunts; specimens of matronly wives and mothers, keeping watch and ward over bevies of comely daughters and nieces.

Lady Sarah Maitland herself cannot be called a fixed member of society here, but having been for so long a time a resident, it seems now, in the retrospect, as if she had been really a development of the place. Her distinguished style, native to herself, had its effect on her contemporaries of the gentler sex in these parts. Mrs. Dunn, also, and Mrs. Wells, may likewise be named as special models of grace and elegance in person and manner. In this all-influential portion of the community, a tone and air that were good prevailed widely from the earliest period.

It soon became a practice with the military, and other temporary sojourners attached to the Government, to select partners for life from the families of York. Hence it has happened that, to this day, in England, Ireland and Scotland, and in the Dependencies of the Empire on the other side of the globe, many are the households that rise up and call a daughter of Canada blessed as their maternal head.

Local aspirants to the holy estate were thus unhappily, now and then, to their great disgust, baulked of their first choice. But a residue was always left, sufficient for the supply of the ordinary demand, and manifold were the interlacings of local connections; a fact in which there is nothing surprising and nothing to be condemned: it was from political considerations alone that such affinities came afterwards to be referred to, in some quarters, with bitterness.

Occasionally, indeed, a fastidious young man, or a disappointed widower, would make a selection in parts remote from the home circle, quite unnecessarily. We recall especially to mind the sensible emotion in the congregation on the first advent amongst them of a fair bride from Montreal, the then Paris of Canada; and several lesser excitements of the same class, on the appearance in their midst of aerial veils and orange blossoms from Lobo, from New York, from distant England. Once the selection of a "helpmeet" from a rival religious communion, in the town of York itself, led to the defection from the flock of a prominent member; an occurrence that led also to the publication of two polemical pamphlets, which made a momentary stir; one of them a declamation by a French bishop; the other, a review of the same, by the pastor of the abandoned flock.

The strictures on the intelligence and moral feeling of the feminine, as well as the masculine portion of society at York, delivered by such world-experienced writers as Mrs. Jameson, and such enlightened critics as were two or three of the later Governors' wives, may have been just in the abstract, to a certain extent, as from the point of view of old communities in England and Germany; but they were unfair as from the point of view of persons calmly reviewing all the circumstances of the case. Here again the maxim applies: Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.

We have said that the long pew on the west side of the Governor's seat was allotted to the military. In this compartment we remember often scanning with interest the countenance and form of a youthful and delicate-looking ensign, simply because he bore, hereditarily, a name and title all complete, distinguished in the annals of science two centuries ago—the Hon. Robert Boyle: he was one of the aides-de-camp of Sir Peregrine Maitland. Here, also, was to be seen, for a time, a Major Browne, a brother of the formerly popular poetess, Mrs. Hemans. Here, too, sat a Zachary Mudge, another hereditary name complete, distinguished in the scientific annals of Devonshire. He was an officer of Artillery, and one of Sir John Colborne's aides-de-camp; for some unexplained reason he committed suicide at York, and his remains were deposited in the old military burying-ground. In this pew familiar forms were also—Major Powell, Capt. Grubbe, Major Hillier, Capt. Blois, Capt, Phillpotts, brother of the Bishop.

The compartment on the east side of the Governor's pew, was as we have said, appointed for the use of the members of the Legislature, when in session. Here at certain periods, generally in mid-winter, were to be observed all the political notabilities of the day; for at the period we are glancing at, non-conformists as well as conformists were to be seen assisting, now and again, at public worship in St. James' Church.

In their places here the outward presentments of Col. Nichol (killed by driving over the precipice at Queenston), of Mr. Homer (a Benjamin Franklin style of countenance), of Dr. Lefferty, of Hamnet Pinhey, of Mahlon Burwell, of Absalom Shade, of other owners of old Canadian names, are well remembered. The spare, slender figure of Mr. Speaker Sherwood, afterwards a judge of the King's Bench, was noticeable. Mr. Chisholm, of Oakville, used facetiously to object to the clause in the Litany where "heresy and schism" are deprecated, it so happening that the last term was usually, by a Scotticism, read "Chisholm." Up to the Parliamentary pew we have seen Mr. William Lyon McKenzie himself hurriedly make his way, with an air of great animation, and take his seat, to the visible, but, of course, repressed disconcertment of several honourable members, and others.

Altogether, it was a very complete little world, this assemblage within the walls of the old wooden church at York. There were present, so to speak, king, lords, and commons; gentle and simple in due proportion, with their wives and little ones; judges, magistrates and gentry; representatives of governmental departments, with their employés; legislators, merchants, tradespeople, handicraftsmen; soldiers and sailors; a great variety of class and character.

All seemed to be in harmony, real or conventional, here; whatever feuds, family or political, actually subsisted, no very marked symptoms thereof could be discerned in this place. But the history of all was known, or supposed to be known, to each. The relationship of each to each was known, and how it was brought about. It was known to all how every little scar, every trivial mutilation or disfigurement, which chanced to be visible on the visage or limb of any one, was acquired, in the performance of what boyish freak, in the execution of what practical jest, in the excitement of what convivial or other occasion.

Here and there sat one who, in obedience to the social code of the day, had been "out," for the satisfaction, as the term was, of himself or another, perhaps a quondam friend—satisfaction obtained (let the age be responsible for the terms we use), in more than one instance, at the cost of human life.

(Pewholders in St. James' Church from its commencement to about 1818, were President Russell: Mr. Justice Cochrane: Mr. Justice Boulton: Solicitor General Gray: Receiver General Selby: Christopher Robinson: George Crookshank: William Chewett: J. B. Robinson: Alexander Wood: William Willcocks: John Beikie: Alexander Macdonell: Chief Justice Elmsley: Chief Justice Osgoode: Chief Justice Scott: Chief Justice Powell: Attorney General Firth: Secretary Jarvis: General Shaw: Col. Smith: D'Arcy Boulton: William Allan: Duncan Cameron: John Small: Thomas Ridout: William Stanton: Stephen Heward: Donald McLean: Stephen Jarvis: Capt. McGill: Col. Givins: Dr. Maccaulay: Dr. Gamble: Dr. Baldwin: Dr. Lee: Mr. St. George: Mr. Denison: Mr. Playter: Mr. Brooke: Mr. Cawthra: Mr. Scadding: Mr. Ketchum: Mr. Cooper: Mr. Ross: Mr. Jordan: Mr. Kendrick: Mr. Hunt: Mr. Higgins: Mr. Anderson: Mr. Murchison: Mr. Bright: Mr. O'Keefe: Mr. Caleb Humphrey.—The Churchwardens for 1807-8 were: D'Arcy Boulton and William Allan. For 1809: William Allan and Thomas Ridout. For 1810: William Allan and Stephen Jarvis. For 1812: Duncan Cameron and Alexander Legge.)

X.

KING STREET: ST. JAMES' CHURCH—(Continued.)

It is beginning, perhaps, to be thought preposterous that we have not as yet said anything of the occupants of the pulpit and desk, in our account of this church interior. We are just about to supply the deficiency.

Here was to be seen and heard, at his periodical visits, Charles James Stewart, the second Bishop of Quebec, a man of saintly character and presence; long a missionary in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, before his appointment to the Episcopate. The contour of his head and countenance, as well as something of his manner even, may be gathered from a remark of the late Dr. Primrose, of Toronto, who, while a stranger, had happened to drop in at the old wooden church when Bishop Stewart was preaching: "I just thought," the doctor said, "it was the old King in the pulpit!" i. e., George III.

Here Dr. Okill Stewart, formerly rector of this church, but subsequently of St. George's, Kingston, used occasionally, when visiting York, to officiate—a very tall, benevolent, and fine featured ecclesiastic, with a curious delivery, characterized by unexpected elevations and depressions of the voice irrespective of the matter, accompanied by long closings of the eyes, and then a sudden re-opening of the same. Whenever this preacher ascended the pulpit, one member of the congregation, Mr. George Duggan, who had had, it was understood, some trivial disagreement with the doctor during his incumbency in former years, was always expected, by on-lookers, to rise and walk out. And this he accordingly always did. The movement seemed a regular part of the programme of the day, and never occasioned any sensation.

Here the Rev. Joseph Hudson officiated now and then, a military chaplain, appointed at a comparatively late period to this post; a clergyman greatly beloved by the people of the town generally, both as a preacher and as a man. He was the first officiating minister we ever saw wearing the academical hood over the ordinary vestment.

Here, during the sittings of Parliament, of which he was chaplain, Mr. Addison, of Niagara, was sometimes to be heard. The Library of this scholarly divine of the old school was presented by him en bloc to St. Mark's Church, Niagara, of which he was incumbent. It remained for some years at "Lake View," the private residence of Mr. Addison; but during the incumbency of Dr. McMurray, it has been removed to the rectory-house at Niagara, where it is to continue, in accordance with the first rector's will, for the use of the incumbent for the time being.

It is a remarkable collection, as exhibiting the line of reading of a thoughtful and intelligent man of the last century: many treatises and tracts of contemporary, but now defunct interest, not elsewhere to be met with, probably, in Canada, are therein preserved. The volumes, for the most part, retain their serviceable bindings of old pane-sided calf; but some of them, unfortunately, bear marks of the havoc made by damp and vermin before their transfer to their present secure place of shelter. Mr. Addison used to walk to and from Church in his canonicals in the old-fashioned way, recalling the Johnsonian period, when clergy very generally wore the cassock and gown in the streets.

Another chaplain to the Legislative Assembly was Mr. William Macaulay, a preacher always listened to with a peculiar attention, whenever he was to be heard in the pulpit here. Mr. Macaulay was a member of the Macaulay family settled at Kingston. He had been sent to Oxford, where he pursued his studies without troubling himself about a degree. While there he acquired the friendship of several men afterwards famous, especially of Whately, sometime Archbishop of Dublin, with whom a correspondence was maintained.

Mr. Macaulay's striking and always deeply-thoughtful manner was set off to advantage by the fine intellectual contour of his face and head, which were not unlike those to be seen in the portrait of Maltby, Bishop of Durham, usually prefixed to Morell's Thesaurus.

One more chaplain of the House may be named, frequently heard and seen in this church—Dr. Thomas Phillips—another divine, well read, of a type that has now disappeared. His personal appearance was very clerical in the old-fashioned sense. His countenance was of the class represented by that of the late Sir Henry Ellis, as finely figured, not long since, in the Illustrated News. He was one of the last wearers of hair-powder in these parts. In reading the Creed he always endeavoured to conform to the old English custom of turning towards the east; but to do this in the desk of the old church was difficult.

Dr. Phillips was formerly of Whitchurch, in Herefordshire. He died in 1849, aged 68, at Weston, on the Humber, where he founded and organized the parish of St. Philip. His body was borne to its last resting-place by old pupils. We once had in our possession a pamphlet entitled "The Canadian Remembrancer, a Loyal Sermon, preached on St. George's Day, April 23, 1826, at the Episcopal Church (York), by the Rev. T. Phillips, D.D., Head Master of the Grammar School. Printed at the Gazette Office."

There remains to be noticed the "pastor and master" of the whole assemblage customably gathered together in St. James' Church—Dr. John Strachan. On this spot, in successive edifices, each following the other in rapid succession, and each surpassing the other in dignity and propriety of architectural style, he, for more than half a century, was the principal figure.

The story of his career is well known, from his departure from Scotland, a poor but spirited youth, in 1799, to his decease in 1867, as first Bishop of Toronto, with its several intermediate stages of activity and promotion. His outward aspect and form are also familiar, from the numerous portraits of him that are everywhere to be seen. In stature slightly under the medium height, with countenance and head of the type of Milton's in middle age, without eloquence, without any extraordinary degree of originality of mind, he held together here a large congregation, consisting of heterogeneous elements, by the strength and moral force of his personal character. Qualities, innate to himself, decisiveness of intellect, firmness, a quick insight into things and men, with a certain fertility of resource, conspired to win for him the position which he filled, and enabled him to retain it with ease; to sustain, with a graceful and unassuming dignity, all the augmentations which naturally accumulated round it, as the community, of which he was so vital a part, grew and widened and rose to a higher and higher level, on the swelling tide of the general civilization of the continent.

In all his public ministrations he was to be seen officiating without affectation in manner or style. A stickler in ritual would have declared him indifferent to minutiæ. He wore the white vesture of his office with an air of negligence, and his doctor's robe without any special attention to its artistic adjustment upon his person. A technical precisian in modern popular theology would pronounce him out now and then in his doctrine. What he seemed especially to drive at was not dogmatic accuracy so much as a well-regulated life, in childhood, youth and manhood. The good sense of the matter delivered—and it was never destitute of that quality—was solely relied on for the results to be produced: the topics of modern controversy never came up in his discourse: at the period to which we refer they were in most quarters dormant, their re-awakening deferred until the close of a thirty years' peace, but then destined to set mankind by the ears when now relieved from the turmoil of physical and material war, but roused to great intellectual activity.

Many a man that dropped in during the time of public worship, inclined from prejudice to be captious, inclined even to be merry over certain national peculiarities of utterance and diction, which to a stranger, for a time, made the matter delivered not easy to be understood, went out with quite a different sentiment in regard to the preacher and his words.

In the early days of Canada, a man of capacity was called upon, as we have seen in other instances, to play many parts. It required tact to play them all satisfactorily. In the case of Dr. Strachan—the voice that to-day would be heard in the pulpit, offering counsel and advice as to the application of sacred principles to life and conduct, in the presence of all the civil functionaries of the country, from Sir Peregrine Maitland to Mr. Chief Constable Higgins; from Chief Justice Powell to the usher of his court, Mr. Thomas Phipps; from Mr. Speaker Sherwood or McLean to Peter Shaver, Peter Perry, and the other popular representatives of the Commons in Parliament;—the voice that to-day would be heard in the desk leading liturgically the devotions of the same mixed multitude—to-morrow was to be heard by portions, large or small, of the same audience, amidst very different surroundings, in other quarters; by some of them, for example, at the Executive Council Board, giving a lucid judgment on a point of governmental policy, or in the Chamber of the Legislative Assembly, delivering a studied oration on a matter touching the interests and well-being of the whole population of the country, or reading an elaborate original report on the same or some cognate question, to be put forth as the judgment of a committee: or elsewhere, the same voice might be heard at a meeting for patriotic purposes; at the meeting of a Hospital, Educational, or other important secular Trust; at an emergency meeting, when sudden action was needed on the part of the charitable and benevolent.

Without fail, that voice would be heard by a large portion of the juniors of the flock on the following day, amidst the busy commotion of School, apportioning tasks, correcting errors, deciding appeals, regulating discipline; at one time formally instructing, at another jocosely chaffing, the sons and nephews of nearly all the well-to-do people, gentle and simple, of York and Upper Canada.

To have done all this without awkwardness shews the possession of much prudence and tact. To have had all this go on for some decades without any blame that was intended to be taken in very serious earnest; nay, winning in the process applause and gratitude on the right hand and on the left—this argues the existence of something very sterling in the man.

Nor let us local moderns, whose lot it is to be part and parcel of a society no longer rudimentary, venture to condemn one who while especially appointed to be a conspicuous minister of religion, did not decline the functions, diverse and multiform, which an infant society, discerning the qualities inherent in him, and lacking instruments for its uses, summoned him to undertake. Let no modern caviller, we say, do this, unless he is prepared to avow the opinion that to be a minister of religion, a man must, of necessity, be only partially-developed in mind and spirit, incapable, as a matter of course, of offering an opinion of value on subjects of general human interest.

The long possession of unchallenged authority within the immediate area of his ecclesiastical labours, rendered Dr. Strachan for some time opposed to the projects that began, as the years rolled on, to be mooted for additional churches in the town of York. He could not readily be induced to think otherwise than as the Duke of Wellington thought in regard to Reform in the representation, or as ex-Chancellor Eldon thought in regard to greater promptitude in Chancery decisions, that there was no positive need of change.

"Would you break up the congregation?" was the sharp rejoinder to the early propounders of schemes for Church-extension in York. But as years passed over, and the imperious pressure of events and circumstances was felt, this reluctance gave way. The beautiful cathedral mother-church, into which, under his own eye, and through his own individual energy, the humble wooden edifice of 1803 at length, by various gradations, developed, forms now a fitting mausoleum for his mortal remains—a stately monument to one who was here in his day the human main-spring of so many vitally-important and far-reaching movements.

Other memorials in his honour have been projected and thought of. One of them we record for its boldness and originality and fitness, although we have no expectation that the æsthetic feeling of the community will soon lead to the practical adoption of the idea thrown out. The suggestion has been this: that in honour of the deceased Bishop, there should be erected, in some public place, in Toronto, an exact copy of Michael Angelo's Moses, to be executed at Rome for the purpose, and shipped hither. The conception of such a form of monument is due to the Rev. W. Macaulay, of Picton. We need not say what dignity would be given to the whole of Toronto by the possession of such a memorial object within its precincts as this, and how great, in all future time, would be the effect, morally and educationally, when the symbolism of the art-object was discovered and understood. Its huge bulk, its boldly-chiselled and only partially-finished limbs and drapery, raised aloft on a plain pedestal of some Laurentian rock, would represent, not ill, the man whom it would commemorate—the character, roughly-outlined and incomplete in parts, but, when taken as a whole, very impressive and even grand, which looms up before us, whichever way we look, in our local Past.

One of the things that ennoble the old cities of continental Europe and give them their own peculiar charm, is the existence of such objects in their streets and squares, at once works of art for the general eye, and memorials of departed worth and greatness. With what interest, for example, does the visitor gaze on the statue of Gutenberg at Mayence; and at Marseilles on that of the good Bishop Belzunce!—of whom we read, that he was at once "the founder of a college, and a magistrate, almoner, physician and priest to his people." The space in front of the west porch of the cathedral of St. James would be an appropriate site for such a noble memorial-object as that which Mr. Macaulay suggests—just at the spot where was the entrance, the one sole humble portal, of the structure of wood out of which the existing pile has grown.

Our notice of the assembly usually to be seen within the walls of the primitive St. James', would not be complete, were we to omit all mention of Mr. John Fenton, who for some time officiated therein as parish clerk. During the palmy days of parish clerks in the British Islands, such functionaries, deemed at the time, locally, as indispensable as the parish minister himself, were a very peculiar class of men. He was a rarity amongst them, who could repeat in a rational tone and manner the responses delegated to him by the congregation. This arose from the circumstance that he was usually an all but illiterate village rustic, or narrow-minded small-townsman, brought into a prominence felt on all sides to be awkward.

Mr. Fenton's peculiarities, on the contrary, arose from his intelligence, his acquirements, and his independence of character. He was a rather small shrewd-featured person, at a glance not deficient in self-esteem. He was a proficient in modern popular science, a ready talker and lecturer. Being only a proxy, his rendering of the official responses in church was marked perhaps by a little too much individuality, but it could not be said that it was destitute of a certain rhetorical propriety of emphasis and intonation. Though not gifted, in his own person, with much melody of voice, his acquisitions included some knowledge of music. In those days congregational psalmody was at a low ebb, and the small choirs that offered themselves fluctuated, and now and then vanished wholly. Not unfrequently, Mr. Fenton, after giving out the portion of Brady and Tate, which it pleased him to select, would execute the whole of it as a solo, to some accustomed air, with graceful variations of his own. All this would be done with great coolness and apparent self-satisfaction.

While the discourse was going on in the Pulpit above him, it was his way, often, to lean himself resignedly back in a corner of his pew and throw a white cambric handkerchief over his head and face. It illustrates the spirit of the day to add, that Mr. Fenton's employment as official mouth-piece to the congregation of the English Church, did not stand in the way of his making himself useful, at the same time, as a class-leader among the Wesleyan Methodists.

The temperament and general style of this gentleman did not fail of course to produce irritation of mind in some quarters. The Colonial Advocate one morning averred its belief that Mr. Fenton had, on the preceding Sunday, glanced at itself and its patrons in giving out and singing (probably as a solo) the Twelfth Psalm: "Help, Lord, for good and godly men do perish and decay; and faith and truth from worldly men are parted clean away; whoso doth with his neighbour talk, his talk is all but vain; for every man bethinketh now to flatter, lie and feign!" Mr. Fenton afterwards removed to the United States, where he obtained Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church. His son was a clever and ingenious youth. We remember a capital model in wood of "Cæsar's Bridge over the Rhine," constructed by him from a copper-plate engraving in an old edition of the Commentaries used by him in the Grammar School at York.

The predecessor of Mr. Fenton in the clerk's desk was Mr. Hetherington—a functionary of the old-country village stamp. His habit was, after giving out a psalm, to play the air on a bassoon; and then to accompany with fantasias on the same instrument such vocalists as felt inclined to take part in the singing. This was the day of small things in respect of ecclesiastical music at York. A choir from time to time had been formed. Once, we have understood, two rival choirs were heard on trial in the Church; one of them strong in instrumental resources, having the aid of a bass-viol, clarionet and bassoon; the other more dependent on its vocal excellencies. The instrumental choir triumphantly prevailed, as we are assured: and in 1819 an allowance of £20 was made to Mr. Hetherington for giving instruction in church music. One of the principal encouragers of the vocalist-party was Dr. Burnside. But all expedients for doing what was, in reality, the work of the congregation itself were unreliable; and the clerk or choir-master too often found himself a solitary performer. Mr. Hetherington's bassoon, however, may be regarded as the harbinger and foreshadow of the magnificent organ presented in after-times to the congregation of the "Second Temple" of St. James', by Mr. Dunn—a costly and fine-toned instrument (presided over, for a short time, by the eminent Dr. Hodges, subsequently of Trinity Church, New York), but destined to be destroyed by fire, together with the whole church, after only two years of existence, in 1839.

In the conflagration of 1839 another loss occurred, not so much to be regretted; we refer to the destruction of a very large triplet window of stained glass over the altar of the church, containing three life-size figures by Mr. Craig, a local "historical and ornamental painter," not well skilled in the ecclesiastical style. As home-productions, however, these objects were tenderly eyed; but Mrs. Jameson in her work on Canada cruelly denounced them as being "in a vile tawdry taste."—Conceive, in the presence of these three Craigs, the critical authoress of the "History of Sacred and Legendary art," accustomed, in the sublime cathedrals of Europe, to

"See the great windows like the jewell'd gates Of Paradise, burning with harmless fire."

Mr. Dunn, named above as donor of an organ to the second St. James', had provided the previous wooden church with Communion Plate. In the Loyalist of March 1, 1828, we read: "The undersigned acknowledges the receipt of £112 18 5 from the Hon. John Henry Dunn, being the price of a superb set of Communion Plate presented by him to St. James' Church at this place. J. B. Macaulay, Church Warden, York, 23rd Feb., 1828."

Before leaving St. James' Church and its precincts, it may be well to give some account of the steps taken in 1818, for the enlargement of the original building. This we are enabled to do, having before us an all but contemporary narrative. It will be seen that great adroitness was employed in making the scheme acceptable, and that pains were shrewdly taken to prevent a burdensome sense of self-sacrifice on the part of the congregation. At the same time a pleasant instance of voluntary liberality is recorded. "A very respectable church was built at York in the Home District, many years ago"—the narrative referred to, in the Christian Recorder for 1819, p. 214, proceeds to state—"which at that time accommodated the inhabitants; but for some years past, it has been found too small, and several attempts were made to enlarge and repair it. At length, in April 1818, in a meeting of the whole congregation, it was resolved to enlarge the church, and a committee was appointed to suggest the most expeditious and economical method of doing it. The committee reported that a subscription in the way of loan, to be repaid when the seats were sold, was the most promising method. No subscription to be taken under twenty-five pounds, payable in four instalments."

"Two gentlemen," the narrative continues, "were selected to carry the subscription paper round; and in three hours from twelve to thirteen hundred pounds were subscribed. Almost all the respectable gentlemen gave in loan Fifty Pounds; and the Hon. Justice Boulton, and George Crookshank, Esq., contributed £100 each, to accomplish so good an object. The church was enlarged, a steeple erected, and the whole building with its galleries, handsomely finished. In January last (1819)," our authority proceeds to say, "when everything was completed, the pews were sold at a year's credit, and brought more money than the repairs and enlargement cost. Therefore," it is triumphantly added, "the inhabitants at York erect a very handsome church at a very little expense to themselves, for every one may have his subscription money returned, or it may go towards payment of a pew; and, what is more, the persons who subscribed for the first church count the amount of their subscription as part of the price of their new pews. This fair arrangement has been eminently successful; and gave great satisfaction."

The special instance of graceful voluntary liberality above referred to is then subjoined in these terms: "George Crookshank, Esq., notwithstanding the greatness of his subscription, and the pains which he took in getting the church well finished, has presented the clergyman with cushions for the pulpit and reading desk, covered with the richest and finest damask; and likewise cloth for the communion-table." "This pious liberality," the writer remarks, "cannot be too much commended; it tells us that the benevolent zeal of ancient times is not entirely done away. The congregation were so much pleased," it is further recorded, "that a vote of thanks was unanimously offered to Mr. Crookshank for his munificent present." (The pulpit, sounding-board, and desk had been a gift of Governor Gore to the original church, and had cost the sum of one hundred dollars.)

When the necessity arose in 1830 for replacing the church thus enlarged and improved, by an entirely new edifice of more respectable dimensions, the same cool, secular ingenuity was again displayed in the scheme proposed; and it was resolved by the congregation (among other things) "that the pew-holders of the present church, if they demanded the same, be credited one-third of the price of the pews that they purchased in the new church, not exceeding in number those which they possessed in the old church; that no person be entitled to the privilege granted by the last resolution who shall not have paid up the whole purchase money of his pew in the old church; that the present church remain as it is, till the new one is finished; that after the new church is completed, the materials of the present one be sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds of the same be applied to the liquidation of any debt that may be contracted in erecting the new church, or furnishing the same; that the upset price of pews in the new church be twenty-five pounds currency;" and so on.

The stone edifice then erected (measuring within about 100 by 75 feet), but never completed in so far as related to its tower, was destroyed by fire in 1839. Fire, in truth, may be said to be, sooner or later, the "natural death" of public buildings in our climate, where, for so many months in every year, the maintenance within them of a powerful artificial heat is indispensable.

Ten years after the re-edification of the St. James' burnt in 1839, its fate was again to be totally destroyed. But now fire was communicated to it from an external source—from a general conflagration raging at the time in the part of the town lying to the eastward. On this occasion was destroyed in the belfry of the tower, a Public Clock, presented to the inhabitants of Toronto, by Mr. Draper, on his ceasing to be one of their representatives in Parliament.

In the later annals of St. James' Church, the year 1873 is memorable.

Several very important details in Mr. Cumberland's noble design for the building had long remained unrealized. The tower and spire were absent: as also the fine porches on the east, west, and south sides, the turrets at the angles, and the pinnacles and finials of the buttresses. Meanwhile the several parts of the structure where these appendages were, in due time, to be added, were left in a condition to shew to the public the mind and intention of the architect.

In 1872, by the voluntary munificence of several members of the congregation, a fund for the completion of the edifice in accordance with Mr. Cumberland's plans was initiated, to which generous donations were immediately added; and in 1873 the edifice, of whose humble "protoplasm" in 1803 we have sought, in a preceding section, to preserve the memory, was finally brought to a state of perfection.

By the completion of St. James' Church, a noble aspect has been given to the general view of Toronto. Especially has King Street been enriched, the ranges of buildings on its northern side, as seen from east or west, culminating centrically now in an elevated architectural object of striking beauty and grandeur, worthy alike of the comely, cheerful, interesting thoroughfare which it overlooks, and of the era when the finial crowning its apex was at length set in its place.

Worthy of special commemorative record are those whose thoughtful liberality originated the fund by means of which St. James' Church was completed. The Dean, the Very Rev. H. J. Grasett, gave the handsome sum of Five thousand dollars. Mr. John Worthington, Four thousand dollars. Mr. C. Gzowski, Two thousand dollars. Mr. J. Gillespie, One thousand dollars. Mr. E. H. Rutherford, One thousand dollars. Mr. W. Cawthra, One thousand dollars. Mr. Gooderham and Mr. Worts, conjointly, One thousand dollars. Miss Gordon, the daughter of a former ever-generous member of the congregation, the Hon. J. Gordon, One thousand dollars. Sums, in endless variety, from Eight Hundred dollars downwards, were in a like good spirit offered on the occasion by other members of the congregation, according to their means. An association of young men connected with the congregation undertook and effected the erection of the Southern Porch.

Let it be added, likewise, that in 1866, the sum of Fourteen thousand nine hundred and forty-five dollars was expended in the purchase of a peal of bells, and in providing a chamber for its reception in the tower—a free gift to the whole community greatly surpassing in money's worth the sum above named: for have not the chimes, with all old-countrymen at least, within the range of their sound, the effect of an instantaneous translation to the other side of the Atlantic? Close the eyes, and at once the spirit is far, far away, hearkening, now in the calm of a summer's evening, now between the fitful wind-gusts of a boisterous winter's morn, to music in exactly the same key, with exactly the same series of cadences, given out from tree-embosomed tower in some ancient market-town or village, familiar to the listener in every turn and nook, in days bygone.

And further, let it be added, that in 1870, to do honour to the memory of the then recently deceased Bishop Strachan, the congregation of St. James "beautified" the chancel of their church at a cost of Seven thousand five hundred dollars, surrounding the spacious apse with an arcade of finely carved oak, adding seats for the canons, a decanal stall, a bishop's throne, a pulpit and desk, all in the same style and material, elaborately carved, with a life-like bust in white marble of the departed prelate, by Fraser of Montreal, in a niche constructed for its reception in the western wall of the chancel, with a slab of dark stone below bearing the following inscription in gilded letters:—

"NEAR THIS SPOT REST THE MORTAL REMAINS OF JOHN STRACHAN, FIRST BISHOP OF TORONTO, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOVEMBER THE 1ST, 1867, IN THE NINETIETH YEAR OF HIS AGE AND THE TWENTY-NINTH OF HIS EPISCOPATE. HIS CONSPICUOUS LABOURS, FORESIGHT, AND CONSTANCY IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH AND COMMONWEALTH, AS AN EDUCATOR, AS A MINISTER OF RELIGION, AS A STATESMAN, FORM AN IMPORTANT PORTION OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF WESTERN CANADA. DURING THIRTY-FIVE YEARS HE WAS RECTOR OF THIS CHURCH AND PARISH. IN REMEMBRANCE OF HIM, THE CONGREGATION HAVE BEAUTIFIED THE CHANCEL AND ERECTED THIS MEMORIAL. EASTER, 1870."

XI.

King Street: Digression Northward at Church Street: The Old District Grammar School.