XXIV ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



be pleased to take this important matter into your favourable con- 



eideration, 



(Signed) T. C. Kj:efki{, President. 



J. G. BouRiNOT, llon.-Secretary. 



24. Decease of Fellows — the Historian Kingsford and the 



Poet Lampman. 



With a feeling of deep sorrow we record the death of two of the 

 most distinguished workers of the Royal Society. Dr. Kingsford dis- 

 appeared from the field of earthly endeavour at an extreme old age — 

 Mr. Ijampman in the ver}' prime of life. Both were writers who had 

 made an impress on Canadian literature, though their personal char- 

 acteristics and intellectual powers were very different. One was a 

 sweet singer endowed with a rich gift of imagination, the other had a 

 mind witli a decidedly practical bias which always forced him to call a 

 spade a spade and rarely, if ever, permitted him to rise beyond the 

 stern conditions or thoughts of human life. One was a very personi- 

 fication of modesty which too often prevented him from giving full 

 scope to his poetic genius and forcing himself on the attention of a 

 Canadian world which now, that he is beyond all earthly aspirations 

 and ambitions, is willing to pay a tribute of esteem and admiration 

 which it forgot to give him in the days when some generous apprecia- 

 tion might have saved him some bitterness and encouraged him to 

 greater effort. 



Dr. Kingsford had in the course of a long and eventful life, fought 

 courageously with the world — sometimes he was on the top of a wave 

 of prosperity, but as often as not he was tossed about in the surging 

 current of adversity ; but amid all the fluctuating circumstances of 

 his career he showed a bold front which resisted all "the stings and 

 arrows of an outrageous fortune." Like all men of deep feeling and 

 earnest conviction he was a warm friend and a passionate opponent ; 

 he never forgot or forgave when he believed that he had been unfairly 

 treated or injured in the battle of existence. Possessed of a strong 

 physique and a powerful will, he was well fitted for the rude competi- 

 tion of humanity though his friends have often thought that a little 

 calmness of judgment and a more yielding or conciliatory spirit at 

 times might have saved him many heartburnings. When men once 

 knew him well, and made allowance for the weaknesses which all of us 

 possess, they learned to value highly his rugged sincerity and his kindly 

 heart which always responded gratefully to the acts of kindness and 

 appreciation which now and then oame to soothe his declining years, 

 otlierwise too often years of gloom and despondency. 



