270 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



recently developed themselves into large-sized trees, notwithstanding the 

 shrubs observed here and there on that field soon after the conquest. 



Even before the conquest there was a prepared ground for studies 

 and literary displays. Beauharnois, Hocquart, La Galissonnière, from 

 1725 to 1750, kept the elite of the colony well posted with the contempor- 

 ary works of that nature. Poems were written which circulated in manu- 

 script for Avant of a printing oifice, and most of them were no doubt lost 

 for the same reason. We may quote the composition of Jean Taché rel- 

 ative to his tri]) across the Atlantic, and the one from the able pen of 

 Abbé Etienne Marchand, both of 1736 or thereabouts. Marchand's 

 Troubles de VE(jlise is well worth reading, inasmuch as it deals with a 

 purely Canadian subject. 



The first printing establishment in Lower Canada was that of The 

 Gazette, Quebec, 17G4, but neither the English nor the French population 

 made use of it at first in a literary sense. Their early publications bear 

 strictly on topics of immediate call, as were the following : " Case of 

 Canadians at Montreal, distressed by a fire on the 18th of May, 1765 " ; 

 " Catéchisme du diocèse de Sens, Québec, 1765 " ; prayer-books and 

 alphabets printed for Father Labrosse, Jesuit, 1766 67 ; " Trial of Daniel 

 Disney, 1767 " ; "A compendium of laws concerning the religious com- 

 munities, 1768 " ; observations of J. F. Cugnet on the proposed plan of 

 F. Maseres for a new constitution, 1771 ; " Lettre sur la ville de Québec, 

 1774." 



JJ Adoration j^erpétuelle, Montreal, by Fleury Mesplet, 1776, is the 

 first book printed in that town. Mesplet had procured a press and some 

 type from Philadelphia during the winter of 1775-76, and immediately 

 issued several small volumes from Chateau Rainezay. Montreal, where he 

 had settled for that purpose. A compilation of sacred songs, in French, 

 1776, is the second known work out of his press. Most of these poems are 

 paraphrases and imitations of obsolete operatic compositions, with very 

 pretty tunes and rather poor verses. These canticles became so generally 

 known by heart, that every individual could sing one or more of them 

 a short time after they were introduced, 



Mesplet published in 1778 the narrative of St. Luc de Lacorne con- 

 cerning the wreck of L'Auguste in the Gulf St. Lawrence, 1761. Same 

 year, 1778, he founded the Gazette of Montreal, half English, half French 

 — still in existence in English. 



Quebec had a Cercle Littéraire, so called, but it must have been a 

 reading-room. Anyway, it was a beginning of something. 



Mesplet started in 1779 a satirical paper styled Tant pis, tant mieux, 

 which lived about twelve months and got into difficulty with Governor 

 Haldimand, who put the editor under lock and key. The name of that 

 writer was Yalentin Jotard an advocate by profession. 



The almanac issued by Mesplet in 1783 is styled by him, " curieux et 

 intéressant." In 1786 (Montreal) was published a description of a certain 



