e-ways, the gate-ways of the days of Wolfe, have bowed to
the fate of Temple Bar. Yet even to-day the traveller in Canada who
stands upon that height may vividly recall the scene that lay before
the eyes of Wolfe during that memorable campaign.

Wolfe made an attempt to carry a battery above the Montmorency mouth,
but failed, and was repulsed with considerable loss. He then cast
about him if it were possible to attack the town from the Heights of
Abraham on the southern side. It seemed on the face of it an
impossibility. How was it possible for the attacking force to make its
way unseen by the French up the precipitous cliffs to the Heights of
Abraham? Luckily, there was a young man in Wolfe's army, a Lieutenant
McCulloch, who had been held prisoner in Quebec in 1756. With a view
to future possibilities, he employed his time in surveying the cliffs,
and he thought that he had discovered a particular spot where the steep
hills might be successfully scaled by an attacking force. He now
communicated this to Wolfe. Indeed, the idea of attack in this way
seems to have been suggested by him, and on the memorable September
night the attempt was made.

{289}

[Sidenote: 1759--Wolfe's tribute to literature]

Who has not heard--who has not been touched and thrilled by the story
of Wolfe, while being rowed across the spreading waters of the St.
Lawrence to the cove where the attempt was to be made, repeating in low
tones to his officers near him Gray's "Elegy in a Country Church-yard"?
Who does not remember Wolfe's famous saying that he would rather have
written the Elegy than take Quebec? It is a fine saying, akin to that
of Caesar when he swore that he would rather be the first man in an
obscure Italian village than the second man in Rome. We may perhaps
take the liberty of questioning the absolute accuracy of either saying.
In Caesar's case he was, no doubt, sufficiently conscious that he was
going to be the first man in Rome. In Wolfe's case we may well believe
that his exquisite tribute to literature, and to the most charming work
of one of the most charming men of letters then alive, was not meant
very seriously. He was a soldier; Quebec was his duty; Quebec was to
be his fame. But it is one of those sayings that live forever, and the
mere thought of it at once calls up two widely different pictures,
pictures of places in two widely different parts of the world. One
shows the shining, swelling St. Lawrence