••• ,, ■•THI1-•111.1DBL148 , OF , VANKDA4, • TIM otherday, when looking over
the announcements of an " tient," publiSher's ibrtheotning hooks, the sisperstitiouS reSpeef.'paid to names, without the Slightest respect to fitness, Was . foreibly im- pressed upon our minds.The bibliopole's advertiSements'a. not indeed say„ "I have secured a intstersroll of fitmons 'names, With- eritt troubling myself about the quality or character of the produc tion ;" nor did his ready writers formally confess, " We have been tempted, like Jtro.As, by pieces Of silver. and undertaken any* thing. whose title was likely to take:" but the transactions were as legible as if such words had been nakedly Written down. Let a man, nosi-:a days, produce a history of sufficient merit to justify a paragraph of praise and furnish forth matter for puffs and he is set doWn for an historical novel. If he write a clever :ketch of the country and people of some foreign place, he is assumed to have an intuitive knowledge of its history, politics, condition, and so forth; or, if he have shown skill in these matters, he is at once endowed with the powers of a romance-writer. Sometimes mere personal peculi- arity, or aeident, will do the trick, if it be of a nature to excite attention, and justify " chips in capitals ;" and a man who has been in a country, or mixed in a certain society, shall ipse facto be possessed with all requisites thr describing or embodying it, as the mode of the season may require. Hence the vast promises with which each season opens and the small perthrmance with which it termi- nates ; hence the rarity of books which do not maintain their market- able value or rather price for a twelvemonth ; hence the complaints of "losses " upon works of "distinguished authors ;" and hence the disappointment of the public, the nausea of reviewers, and the degradation of letters. .. The Bubbles of Canada well illustrates the system we have been touching upon ; but in no common degree, for there is downright imposition somewhere. Having written a clever, satiri- cal, humorous, aml sensible work on Nova Scotia, in which colotty he seems to have been a resident, the author undertakes to do something on Canada, where, fiir aught that appears, Ise has never been, and of which he knows nothing beyond what records open to any one can teach. Armed with these and his reputation, he pounces upon Canada as an interesting subject ; he steals a titlepanse froth HEAD ; he concocts a dull party pamphlet in the shape of' a volume ; and, we conceive, imposes upon his publisher, for. Mr. flaismia would never have been so inconsi- derate as to print the book, had he been, at starting, fully aware of it nature and character.
These are harsh charges ; and we proceed to substantiate them by an analysis of the volume.
The apparent object of the author was to give a history of the peoples, governMents, and constitutions of Canada, from its con- quest by WOLFE to the present day ; in order to inflirm the Bri- tish public of the cause of the late outbreak, and thus to indi- cate the true nature of the remedy to be applied. With such judgment and industry does he set about his task, that out of 330 pages, 130 are mere bodily reprints of state papers; namely, 26 pages A despatch of Lord Goothuen, pp. 104-130; 54 — A string of Resolutions of the Canadian House of As- sembly, pp. 135-189 ; 25 — A minute of Lord ABERDEEN', pp. 193-218 ; 25 A virtual, if not positively a verbatim reprint of a des- patch of Lord GLENEMeS; hut printed without the usual marks of quotation, so as"to deceive an incautious reader, pp. 221-246.
• ' 130
Besides these, the volume (for its parts cannot be called by any literary term implying workmanship) is stuflial with other quota- tions. Their extent we have not taken the trouble to reckon, but we should conceive full one third, perhaps one half'. They consist of extracts, interwoven with the author's text, from addresses of the House of Assembly, speeches and despatches of Governors and Ministers ; a quotation from the Abb6 RAYNAL, another from the Duke. DE LA ROCIIEFOUCAULT LIANCOURT, besides innume- rable passages from American and Canadian writers and pamph- leteers„ and from speeches by English Lords and Commoners. And what is worse than all, they are neither apt nor useful ; throw- ing no net, and nO true light upon any point in dispute. "Facts and not theories are wanted," says the writer in his introduction : but there is not a single Ilia in the book which is necessarily the re- snit of personal observation ; scarcely one which is not taken front public records or generally accessible documents; whilst it abounds, not in theories, but in the notions of a furious partisan inflated to intoxication by success in a narrow provincial sphere. The plan of the book was not injudicious, had the writer pos- sessed the requisite qualifications for carrying it into execution. The period treated of is divided into five epochs ; the first em- bracing the time from the conquest of the colony to 1791, when the Constitutional Act was brought into operation; the second the conduct of the House of Assembly (with, at starting, thirty- five French and fifteen British members—the latter subsequently reduced to three,) till 1818, when a Civil List was first demanded ; the third closes with 1828, and the appointment of the Parlia- mentary Committee to inquire into Canadian grievances; 1834 is the limit Of the fourth epoch, when another CoMinittee. was ap- pointed; the fifth comes down to this "present time of writing." Throughout so long a period, the only epochs that have a par- ticle of what may be called information, are the first two: and what they contain is of a scant and general nature,—being A brief steels of the various and conflicting laws of Canada • an ac- count 'of the seigneurial tenures, with the obstacles they Of necein. sty row in Alm way, of 411 improvements: and something 'likes& proof that the trne • origin • of the discontent. is theIivaly of the races..., 4,,fter admitting, (pp.. 320, 3300 what it is the *ain't of the book to •&..ny,.that there were grievances- toeomplain. of and that thaLegislative Council was far from immaculate, this author shows,, by !his-at:coin-it of the earlier proceedings of the' house of AsSeinhly,s, (1791-1818,) that the French Canadians were actuated by a hatred of the British settlers, envying their prosperity, throwing every ob- stacle, in its way that they could, and resisting every change that tended to promote immigration into the country or settlement in' their own districts; whilst they pursued their plans of depressing
the British interests as much as possible, and absorbing the whole • power of the colony, with a systematic cunning for their immediate'
purpose, but a very profound ignorance of their true interest, miti. their own strength, measured either against America or Great Britain. This conclusion is of course drawn front the one-sided' statement of an enraged partisan,* who gives symptoms of suppres- sing records which might make against him ; and the French Cana- dians could probably tell another tale. But this is now of little' consequence. The doom of the Red Indian seems impending over "lit nation Canadienne "—they will be absorbed by tho Britishers, or the Americans.
Of literary merit the volume has not a particle, except occasion- ally a clear, rapid, slashing style ; and the first few pages of intro- duction have a neat and trenchant sarcasm, with an indiscriminate- ness of attack that reminded one ()fa reverend satirist, end' induced a hope that we were going to enjoy the Letters of a Canadian "Peter Plymley." This is about the best passage, if not the only good one.
LORDS BROUGRAM. AND DERIIAM.
As the people of this country know but little of the dissensions in Canada, they very wisely confine their observations to the dissensions of those whir ,ouvern it. This is a more intelligible as well as a more amusing subject. Everybody talks of Lord Brougham and Lord Durham, but nobody speaks of Canada. Instead, therefore, of inquiring what is to become of that valuable colony, what measures are or ought to he adopted, to insure its tranquillity this to protect British subjects and British property there, people very properly limit their attention to the more interesting question, What will the Governor- General tlo when Parliament meets? To inquire. whether the English or the French population of Canada is in the right, requires some investigation to as- certain facts, and sonic constitutional knowledge to judge of these facts when
I collected. t is, at best, but a dry subject. But to decide whether Lord
Brougham or Lord Durham has the best of the dispute, is a matter so well suited for easy conversation and humorous argument, that it is no wonder it bee more attractions than the other. Such, however, is the acerbity of politics in this country, that even this affair is made a party question and the worst motives are imputed for every thing that is said or done by either. There are not wanting those who gravely assert, that while Lord Brougham was affect- ing to brush off the flies from the heels of an out rival, he intentionally switched him so bard as to arouse his temper and iodine him to kick. They maintain that there are two sorts of tickling, one that is so delicate as to pro- duce laughter mad pleasurable sensations, and another that irritates both the skin and the temper by the coarseness or its application. They city that his Lordship is much addicted to the latter species, and applies it equally to both friends and files ; in short, that his play is too rough to be agreeable. While, on the other band, there are some who are so unkind as to insnmate that Lord Durham was very wining to take offence, and to shelter himself under it. That he felt he luul voluntarily undertaken a load which he was unable to draw, and that knowing greater expectations had been formed of him than he could ever realize, had no objection to kick himself out of harness, and extricate himself by overthrowing friend or foe, so long as the public were willing to believe the fiiult to be that of the teamster mutt not of the steed.
" It is possible that this violence ninny be less prompted by regard for Canada, Whigs, or Tories, than for Nova Seotia. It peeps out ineidentaliv' that the writer entertains a great dread of the confederation of the North. American Colonies; pp. 320-323.
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