. The Society has not been unproductive of good. Indeed it
acquired at one time even a distant reputation. There have been both
able and educated men connected with it. The Reverend Daniel Wilkie,
LL.D., one of the most eminent teachers of youth, which the country
has yet known, a man of great learning, and capable of profound
thought, contributed many valuable papers to it. The Honorable Andrew
William Cochran, an accomplished scholar, was its President. The Skeys,
the Badgleys, the Fishers, the Sewells, the Vallieres, the Stuarts, the
Blacks, the Sheppards, the Morrins, the Doluglasses, the Reverend Dr.
Cook, the Bishops Mountain, the Greens, the Faribaults, and indeed all
the men of learning and note in the country were associated with it.
But it is decaying. The men, a greater part of whom were, in a
political sense, injurious to the country, who were capable of holding
up such a society, are being supplanted by more practicable men of
inferior literary acquirements, such as the Camerons, the Richards, the
Smiths, or the Browns. The literature of the country is increasing in
quantity and diminishing in quality, and so it will continue to do
until the wealth of the country becomes more considerable. The means
for the obtainment of a simply classical education are now at the very
door. There are universities in Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and
Toronto, but there are yet only a very few men with time sufficient at
their disposal, even in winter, to become Icelandically learned. The
society should, however, be maintained, and it would reflect credit on
any government to vote it a yearly grant of at least L300. Lord
Dalhousie was a benevolent and personally upright man. Among other good
things which he did, unconnected with politics, was the gift from the
Jesuits' Estates Fund of L300, and a large donation out of his privy
purse to assist in the enlargement of St. Andrew's Church; which at an
expense of L2,300 was completed in 1824. As a gentleman, no man could
have been more respected than the Earl of Dalhousie was. There was
nothing despicably mean about him. He was liable to be deceived by
others. He never intentionally deceived himself or others. He did not
like the French. He did not like diplomacy. The trickeries of the
hustings were distasteful to him. He rejoiced in being a good soldier
and an honest man, and he would have been glad had all the world been
as he was. He should not, however, have been the Governor of