who has always lived among that class of the
Canadian people and been a close observer of their national and personal
characteristics. He is the only writer who has succeeded in giving a
striking portraiture of life in the cabin, in the "shanty" (_chantier_),
and on the river, where the French habitant, forester, and canoe-man can
be seen to best advantage.

But if Canada can point to some creditable achievements of recent years
in history, poetry and essays, there is one department in which
Canadians never won any marked success until recently, and that is in
the novel or romance. Even Mr. Kirby's _Le Chien d'Or_ which recalls the
closing days of the French regime--the days of the infamous Intendant
Bigot who fattened on Canadian misery--does not show the finished art of
the skilled novelist, though it has a certain crude vigour of its own,
which has enabled it to live while so many other Canadian books have
died. French Canada is even weaker in this particular, and this is the
more surprising because there is abundance of material for the novelist
or the writer of romance in her peculiar society and institutions. But
this reproach has been removed by Mr. Gilbert Parker, now a resident in
London, but a Canadian by birth, education and sympathies, who is
animated by a laudable ambition of giving form and vitality to the
abundant materials that exist in the Dominion for the true story-teller.
His works show great skill in the use of historic matter, more than
ordinary power in the construction of a plot, and, above all, a literary
finish which is not equalled by any Canadian writer in the same field of
effort. Other meritorious Canadian workers in romance are Mr. William
McLennan, Mrs. Coates (Sarah Jeannette Duncan), and Miss Dougall, whose
names are familiar to English readers.

The name of Dr. Todd is well known throughout the British empire, and
indeed wherever institutions of government are studied, as that of an
author of most useful works on the English and Canadian constitutions.
Sir William Dawson, for many years the energetic principal of McGill
University, the scientific prominence of which is due largely to his
mental bias, was the author of several geological books, written in a
graceful and readable style. The scientific work of Canadians can be
studied chiefly in the proceedings of English, American and Canadian
societies, especially, of late years, in the transactions of the Royal
Society of Canada, est