their country-satisfied with their Government, and with the institutions under which they prosper-satisfied to be the subjects of the Queen-satisfied to be members of the British Empire. Indeed, I cannot help thinking that, quite apart from the advantages to myself, my yearly journeys through the Provinces will have been of public benefit, as exemplifying with what spontaneous, unconcerted unanimity of language the entire Dominion has declared its faith in itself, in its destiny, in its connection with the mother country, and in the well-ordered freedom of a constitutional Monarchy.

And, gentlemen, it is this very combination of sentiments which appears to me so wholesome and satisfactory. Words cannot express the pride I feel as an Englishman in the loyalty of Canada to England. Nevertheless, I should be the first to deplore this feeling if it rendered Canada disloyal to herself, if it dwarfed or smothered Canadian patriotism, or generated a sickly spirit of dependence. Such, however, is far from being the case. The legislation of your Parliament, the attitude of your statesmen, the language of your Press, sufficiently show how firmly and intelligently you are prepared to accept and apply the almost unlimited legislative faculties with which you have been endowed; while the daily growing disposition to extinguish sectional jealousies, and to ignore an obsolete provincialism, proves how strongly the young heart of your confederated commonwealth has begun to throb with the consciousness of its nationalized existence. At this moment not a shilling of British money finds its way to Canada, the interference of the Home Government with the domestic affairs of the Dominion has ceased, while the Imperial relations between the two countries are regulated by a spirit of such mutual deference, forbearance, and moderation, as reflects the greatest credit on the statesmen of both. Yet, so far from the gift of autonomy having brought about any divergence of aim or aspiration on either side, every reader of our annals must be aware that the sentiments of Canada towards Great Britain are infinitely more friendly

now than in those earlier days when the political intercourse of the two countries was disturbed and complicated by an excessive and untoward tutelage; that never was Canada more united than at present in sympathy of purpose and unity of interest with the mother country, more at one with her in social habits and tone of thought, more proud of her claim to share in the heritage of England's past, more ready to accept whatever obligations may be imposed upon her by her partnership in the future fortunes of the Empire.

Again, nothing in my recent journey has been more striking, nothing has been more affecting, than the passionate loyalty everywhere evinced towards the person and the throne of Queen Victoria. Wherever I have gone, in the crowded cities, in the remote hamlet, the affection of the people for their Sovereign has been blazoned forth against the summer sky by every device that art could fashion or ingenuity invent. Even in the wilds and deserts of the land, the most secluded and untutored settler would hoist some cloth or rag above his shanty, and startle the solitudes of the forest with a shot from his rusty firelock, and a lusty cheer from himself and his children, in glad allegiance to his country's Queen. Even the Indian in his forest, or on his reserve, would marshal forth his picturesque symbols of fidelity in grateful recognition of a Government that never broke a treaty or falsified its plighted word to the red man, or failed to evince for the ancient children of the soil a wise and conscientious solicitude.

Yet, touching as were the exhibitions of so much generous feeling, I could scarcely have found pleasure in them had they merely been the expressions of a traditional habit or of a conventional sentimentality. No, gentlemen, they sprang from a far more genuine and vital source. The Canadians are loyal to Queen Victoria, in the first place because they honour and love her for her personal qualities-for her lifelong devotion to her duties-for her faithful observance of all the obligations of a constitutional monarch; and in the next place, they revere her as the symbol and representative of as

glorious a national life, of as satisfactory a form of government as any country in the world can point to a national life illustrious through a thousand years with the achievements of patriots, statesmen, warriors and scholars—a form of government which more perfectly than any other combines the element of stability with a complete recognition of popular rights, and ensures by its social accessories, so far as is compatible with the imperfections of human nature, a lofty standard of obligation and simplicity of mauners in the classes that regulate the general tone of our civil intercourse.

On my way across the lakes I called in at the city of Chicago-a city which has risen more splendid than ever from her ashes-and at Detroit, the home of one of the most prosperous and intelligent communities on this continent. At both these places I was received with utmost kindness and courtesy by the civil authorities and by the citizens themselves, who vied with each other in making me feel with how friendly an interest that great and generous people, who have advanced the United States to so splendid a position in the family of nations, regard their Canadian neighbours; but though disposed to watch with genuine admiration and sympathy the development of our Dominion into a great power, our friends across the line are wont, as you know, to amuse their lighter moments with the 'large utterances of the early gods.' More than once I was addressed with the playful suggestion that Canada should unite her fortunes with those of the great Republic. To these invitations I invariably replied by informing them that in Canada we were essentially a democratic people; that nothing would content us unless the popular will could exercise an immediate and complete control over the Executive of the country; that the Ministers who conducted the Government were but a Committee of Parliament, which was itself an emanation from the constituencies, and that no Canadian would be able to breathe freely if he thought that the persons administering

the affairs of his country were removed beyond the supervision and contact of our legislative assemblies.

And, gentlemen, in this extemporized repartee of mine, there will be found, I think, a germ of sound philosophy. In fact, it appears to me that even from the point of view of the most enthusiastic advocate of popular rights, the government of Canada is nearly perfect; for while you are free from those historical complications which sometimes clog the free running of our parliamentary machinery at home, while you possess every popular guarantee and privilege that reason can demand-you have an additional element of elasticity introduced into your system in the person of the GovernorGeneral; for, as I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, in most forms of government, should a misunderstanding occur between the head of the State and the representatives of the people, a dead-lock might ensue of a very grave character, inasmuch as there would be no power of appeal to a third party-and dead-locks are the dangers of all constitutional systems-whereas in Canada, should the Governor-General and his Legislature unhappily disagree, the misunderstanding is referred to England as amicus curiæ, whose only object of course is to give free play to your parliamentary institutions, whose intervention can be relied upon as impartial and benevolent, and who would immediately replace an erring or impracticable Viceroy by another officer more competent to his duties, without the slightest hitch or disturbance having been occasioned in the orderly march of your affairs.

If then the Canadian people are loyal to the Crown, it is with a reasoning loyalty. It is because they are able to appreciate the advantage of having inherited a constitutional system so workable, so well balanced, and so peculiarly adapted to their own especial wants. If to these constitutional advantages we add the blessing of a judiciary not chosen by a capricious method of popular election, but selected for their ability and professional standing by responsible Ministers, and alike independent of popular favour and

political influences; a civil service whose rights of permanency both the great political parties of the country have agreed to recognize and consequently a civil service free from partisanship, and disposed to make the service of the State rather than that of party their chief object; an electoral system purged of corruption by the joint action of the ballot and the newly constituted courts for the trial of bribery ; a population hardy, thrifty, and industrious, simple in their manners, sober in mind, God-fearing in their lives; and lastly, an almost unlimited breadth of territory, replete with agricultural and mineral resources, it may fairly be said that Canada sets forth upon her enviable career under as safe, sound, and solid auspices as any state whose bark has been committed to the stream of Time.

LORD DUFFERIN.

THE CHIEF ACTORS IN THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION.

WE must always see with a pity not unmixed with respect, the errors of those who are timid and doubtful of themselves, with regard to points wherein the happiness of mankind is concerned. But in these gentlemen there is nothing of the tender parental solicitude which fears to cut up the infant for the sake of an experiment. In the vastness of their promises, and the confidence of their predictions, they far outdo all the boasting of empirics. The arrogance of their pretensions, in a manner provokes, and challenges us to an inquiry into their foundation.

I am convinced that there are men of considerable parts among the popular leaders in the National Assembly. Some of them display eloquence in their speeches and their writings. This cannot be without powerful and cultivated talents. But eloquence may exist without a proportionable gree of wisdom. When I speak of ability, I am obliged to