LXII ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



To say that it is sometimes untrue is no more a reproach to history 

 than to any other branch of knowledge. Contemporary history is 

 f^eldom impartial. But the truth prevails in the end, as has been 

 notably manifest in the case of the American Pievolutiou. For a hun- 

 dred years never was history so perverted, but, within the last fifteen 

 years, our loyalist forefathers have been more than justified by a new 

 school of historians grouped around the greater United States Uni- 

 versities who, writing from original sources, have risen above the special 

 pleading of Bancroft and the rest, and admit (to borrow one of their 

 own phrases) that " false and exaggerated conceptions of British des- 

 potism and tyranny had prevailed in American literature." So far has 

 this gone that a professor of history in one of the State Univiersities 

 has prepared for his own students a text-book on the history of the 

 American Eevolution, extracted from Lecky's " History of the 18th 

 Century," which might be adopted with acceptance in any university 

 in Canada. 



Literature, at the highest level of its power, is expressed in poetiy, 

 which must be counted among the Fine Arts, since it is the product 

 of the creative power of the imagination and is clothed with beauty of 

 form, of proportion, and of cadence. Music expresses pure emotion, 

 and in it the deep passion underlying universal humanity seeks expres- 

 sion ; but its utterance is indefinite. Painting, while definite, is limited 

 to the presentation of action at one moment of time, but poetry is not 

 only the music of language, but it sustains its action over indefinitely 

 long spaces of time. It appeals to the intellect as well as to the emo- 

 tions, and touches all the chords of life. Poetry is more philosophical 

 than history, and its subject matter is higher; for, while history relates 

 what the spirit of man has done, the power of the imagination, working 

 on an ideal plane, reveals what it is possible for the spirit of man 

 to do. 



And yet a reference to the volumes of our " Transactions " will 

 show that no poetry has appeared in the English literary section, and 

 very little in the French. There is no fixed standard by which it can 

 be measured, and the judgment of posterity be anticipated. Poetry of 

 the very highest order has not yet been written in Canada, nor probably 

 anywhere upon this western continent. Much beautiful descriptive 

 poetry we have, but the great creative Canadian poet has yet to appear. 

 When he comes he will be a gift from the unknown; colleges, nor 

 societies, nor culture will produce him. The origin of poetic genius 

 is hidden in the impenetrable mystery of personality. Great poets arise 

 from all classes and under all circumstances. Burns was a ploughman, 



