illiant
period of parliamentary annals (1867--1873), when in the first
parliament of the Dominion the most prominent men of the provinces were
brought into public life, under the new conditions of federal union. The
debating power of the provincial legislative bodies is excellent, and
the chief defects are the great length and discursiveness of the
speeches on local as well as on national questions. It is also admitted
that of late years there has been a tendency to impair the dignity and
to lower the tone of discussion.

Many Canadians have devoted themselves to art since 1867, and some
Englishmen will recognise the names of L.R. O'Brien, Robert Harris,
J.W.L. Forster, Homer Watson, George Reid--the painter of "The
Foreclosure of the Mortgage," which won great praise at the World's Fair
of Chicago--John Hammond, F.A. Verner, Miss Bell, Miss Muntz, W.
Brymner, all of whom are Canadians by birth and inspiration. The
establishment of a Canadian Academy of Art by the Princess Louise, and
of other art associations, has done a good deal to stimulate a taste
for art, though the public encouragement of native artists is still very
inadequate, when we consider the excellence already attained under great
difficulties in a relatively new country, where the great mass of people
has yet to be educated to a perception of the advantages of high
artistic effort.

Sculpture would be hardly known in Canada were it not for the work of
the French Canadian Hebert, who is a product of the schools of Paris,
and has given to the Dominion several admirable statues and monuments of
its public men. While Canadian architecture has hitherto been generally
wanting in originality of conception, the principal edifices of the
provinces afford many good illustrations of effective adaptation of the
best art of Europe. Among these may be mentioned the following:--the
parliament and departmental buildings at Ottawa, admirable examples of
Italian Gothic; the legislative buildings at Toronto, in the Romanesque
style; the English cathedrals in Montreal and Fredericton, correct
specimens of early English Gothic; the French parish church of
Notre-Dame, in Montreal, attractive for its stately Gothic proportions;
the university of Toronto, an admirable conception of Norman
architecture; the Canadian Pacific railway station at Montreal and the
Frontenac Hotel at Quebec, fine examples of the adaptation of old Norman
architecture to modern necessities; the provin