[boukinot] builders OF NOVA SCOTIA 85 



Then the governor's friend suggests a method of settling matters, 

 quite common in these as in old times. 



"Suppose ; and his voice half recovered its tone, 

 You ask them to dinner, he cried, 

 And when you can get them aloof and alone 

 Let threats and persuasion be tried. 



" If you swear you'll dissolve, you may frighten a few. 

 You may wheedle and coax a few more. 

 If the old ones look knowing, stick close to the new 

 And we the opposition may floor. 



This advice was obviously palatable to his Lordship. 



" I'll do it, my D— dy, I'll do it this night. 

 Party government still I eschew. 

 But if a few dinners will set you all right, 

 I'll give them and you may come too. 



"The Romans of old, when to battle they pressed 

 Consiulted the entrails, 'tis said, 

 And arguments if to the stomach addressed. 

 May do more than when aimed at the head." 



In this way Howe and the political fighters of the maritime provinces 

 diversified the furious contest that they fought with the lieutenant- 

 governor, and it was certainly better that the people should be made to 

 laugh than be hurried into such unfortunate uprisings as occurred in the 

 upper provinces. Happily such a style of controversy has also passed 

 away with the causes of irritation, and no Lord Falkland could be found 

 nowaday to step down into the arena and make a personal issue of 

 political controversies. 



But Howe's genius as a poet was better illustrated by other poems 

 before me as I write than by satirical verses called forth by heated poli- 

 tical controversies, and now almost forgotten with the death of the men 

 who took part in them. In the little volume of verses, which one of his 

 sons^ had printed and published after his father's death, we see some- 

 thing of the true nature of the man — his love of nature and her varied 

 charms, his affection for wife, children and friends, his fervid patriotism, 

 his love for England and her institutions. No poems ever written by a 

 Canadian surpass, in point of poetic fire and patriotic ideas, those he 

 wrote to recall the memories of the founders and fathers of our country. 

 Great as were his services to his native province and to Canada — for 

 had he continued to oppose confederation, Nova Scotia would have 

 remained much longer a discontented section of the Dominion — we look in 

 vain in the capital or any laige town of ISTova Scotia, for a monument 



1" Poems and Essays, by the Hon. Joseph Howe, Montreal, 1874." Collected by 

 his son Sydenham Howe, who contributes a short preface. 



