[bourinot] builders OF NOVA SCOTIA 83 



character, some accounts of his inner life, some stories of his humour and 

 wit, some description of those personal traits which delight all readers, 

 which give such a charm to Boswell's Johnson, and Lockhart's Scott. 

 As it is, however, Mr. Howe attempted no more than to give a very 

 meagre account of his own life, and a short and even inadequate 

 historical narrative to explain each speech and address. His speeches 

 and letters, however, were cori-ected by him with a careful literary hand, 

 and are well worthy the study of every young man who wishes to think 

 well of his country and imbue himself with the true principles of political 

 liberty and sound patriotism. Although delivered so many years ago 

 they can still be read with pleasure and profit, replete as they are with 

 passages of striking eloquence and illustrating his deep study of the 

 great masters of thought, wit and oratory. It is his graces of style — 

 evidence of how deeply he had drunk from the well of English undefiled 

 that give to his speeches and letters a value and interest that cannot be 

 found in the efforts of any other public man of British North America. 

 "We find more incisive debating power, closer argument, more legal and 

 constitutional learning, in the great speeches of Mr. Johnston and other 

 contemporaries, but in none of them is there that rare genuine eloquence, 

 that wealth of illustrations drawn from the masters of English prose 

 and poetry, that originality of idea, that comprehension of what consti- 

 tutes true political liberty, which we find in the speeches and letters of the 

 famous Liberal of Nova Scotia. 



His career was in many respects most remarkable, from the day he 

 worked at the compositor's case until he died in that old brown 

 stone government house which has stood for the greater part of this 

 century a few blocks from the somewhat younger province building. 

 During the hot fight he carried on against Lord Falkland, who was sent 

 out to Nova Scotia as a lieutenant-governor at a most critical stage of its 

 constitutional history, he found himself actually shut out from the hosjoi- 

 talities of government house and was " cut " by the governor and his 

 friends. Indeed, it could hardly have been otherwise, as Howe fiercely 

 attacked Lord Falkland for his very doubtful course during a time when 

 impartiality and tact were qualities indispensable in a governor, called 

 upon to work out responsible government at its very inception. The 

 'lieutenant-governor had been chosen unfortunately for Nova Scotia — for 

 he was not a strong man intellectually — to conciliate the popular leaders 

 and give them a legitimate share in the government, but it was not long 

 before he practically found himself at the head of the Tories and engaged 

 in a conflict with Howe and his friends. He even so far forgot his 

 dignity as to pubUsh a letter in his own defence in the public press. 

 Howe wrote as well as he spoke ; he could be as sarcastic in verse as in 

 prose, and Lord Falkland suffered accordingl3^ Some of the most 

 patriotic verses ever written by a Canadian can be found in his collection 



