24 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
the Club, mentions that Heavysege attended their meetings occasionally 
and read portions of his dramas. 
Although not a Canadian by birth or education, his dramatic and 
other works were written entirely in Canada, with the exception of his 
first poem, The Revolt of Tartarus.! And, indeed, it can hardly be 
said that his education was much more English than Canadian, for he 
was intellectually a self-made man, a close student of Shakespeare and 
the Bible, beyond which he concerned himself little with English or 
any other literature. It may be safely said that he owed much to 
the sympathetic and intelligent friendship of such of his Montreal 
contemporaries as John Reade, George Murray, 8S. E. Dawson, W. D. 
Lighthall, George H. Flint, and George Martin. To the latter he 
indeed was more deeply indebted, for we are told? that when the 
second edition of Saul was proposed by the publishers, Heavysege was 
in financial difficulties, and confided himself to Martin. The latter, 
who had put aside a sum for the publication of his own book of verse, 
generously lent it to Heavysege. Saul turned out a financial loss, 
however, and poor Heavysege went disconsolately to Martin on the day 
his note fell due. Martin took the note and tore it into pieces, and it 
was never again mentioned between them. It is pleasing to know that 
Martin’s own book, Marguerite and Other Poems, which contains, among 
many other poems, a fine lyrical tribute to Heavysege, was eventually 
published. 
It is hard for anyone not familiar with the intellectual condition 
of Canada in the days when Heavysege was writing his dramas and 
poems, to appreciate the difficulties and discouragements of his task. 
Our people, even in these days of national and imperial growth, are 
not too sympathetic in their treatment of Canadian men-of-letters and 
Canadian books. They generally wait until a man has made his mark 
in London or New York, before they applaud him as a Canadian. We 
have not yet quite outgrown the pitiful tendency to mimic the good- 
natured contempt of English critics for Colonial productions; nor is 
that contempt quite a thing of the past in England, though happily 
fast becoming so. And if this is so now, it was vastly more apparent 
in the middle of the last century. With the single exception of Hali- 
burton (“Sam Slick”), there was not a Canadian to be found whose 
work, whether in verse or prose, was known outside the borders of 


1The Revolt of Tartarus, according to Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors, was 
published at London, in 1852. Mrs. Pettigrew, Heavysege’s daughter, con- 
firms this. Mr. C. C. James, in his Bibliography of Canadian Poetry, mentions 
a Montreal edition published in 1853. After diligent search I have been 
unable to find a single copy of this book extant. 
*Lighthall’s Songs of the Great Dominion, Introduction. 
