Captain Phillip's
voyage to the other side of the world, when he led his little
convict-laden fleet to Botany Bay--a bay as unknown almost as any
bay in Laputa--that voyage which resulted in the founding of a
cluster of great nations any one of whose mammoth millionaires could
now buy up Ilium and the Golden Fleece combined if offered in the
auction mart? The Spirit of Antiquity knows not that captain. In
a thousand years' time, no doubt, these things may be as ripe for
poetic treatment as the voyage of the Argonauts; but on a planet
like this a good many changes may occur before an epic poet shall
arise to sing them. Mr. Lighthall would remind us, did we in England
need reminding, that Canada owes her very existence at this moment
to a splendid act of patriotism--the withdrawal out of the rebel
colonies of the British loyalists after the war of the revolution.
It is 'the noblest epic migration the world has ever seen,' says
Mr. Lighthall, 'more loftily epic than the retirement of Pius
AEneas from Ilion.' Perhaps so, but at present the dreamy spirit
of Antiquity knows not one word of the story. In a thousand years'
time he will have heard of it, possibly, and then he will carefully
consider those two 'retirements' as subjects for epic poetry."

The article went on to remark that until the Spirit of Antiquity
hears of this latter retirement and takes it into his consideration,
it must, as poetic material, give way to another struggle which he
persists in considering to be greater still--the investment by a
handful of Achaians of a little town held by a handful of Trojans.
It is the power of this Spirit of Antiquity that tells against
English poetry as a reflex of the life of man. In Europe, in which,
as Pericles said, "The whole earth is the tomb of illustrious men,"
the Spirit of Antiquity is omnipotent.

The article then discussed the main subject of the argument, saying
how very different it is when we come to consider poetic art as the
reflex of the life of Nature. Here the muse of Canada ought to be,
and is, so great and strong. It is not in the old countries, it is
in the new, that the poet can adequately reflect the life of Nature.
It is in them alone that he can confront Nature's face as it is,
uncoloured by associations of history and tradition. What Wordsworth
tried all his life to do, the poets of Canada, of the Australias,
of the Cape, have the opportunity of doing. How many a home-bounded
Englishman must