TORONTO: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 



drive and promenade which was planned by Simcoe 

 and which might be made as beautiful as the English 

 garden at Geneva. When the plans of the Harbour 

 Commission have been carried out Toronto will have 

 achieved its destiny and secured the most beautiful 

 and most valuable lakefront in America. And as 

 the Duke of Brunswick gave a model theatre to the 

 Swiss city of his adoption, so a native Torontonian 

 has built the Alexandra Theatre in addition to start- 

 ing the subscription for the new hospital. The Car- 

 negie Library on St. George and College Streets is as 

 perfect a model in its way as St. Andrew in partibus 

 himself. The reading-room is unexcelled. The col- 

 lection of paintings and sketches and photographs to 

 illustrate the early history of Toronto is in the eastern 

 gallery of the building, and is a permanent monument 

 to the historic flair, the civic patriotism and public- 

 spirited munificence of Mr. John Ross Robertson. 

 It is also the best appendix to the present article, 

 every page of which is indebted to Robertson's 

 " Landmarks of Toronto " (5 vols. Toronto, 1894- 

 1908). 



The Public Library is also the centre for the 

 exhibitions of the Canadian Academy of Art, the 

 Ontario Society of Artists, and the Art Club. Lit- 

 erature is united with art in the work of the Arts 

 and Letters Club, the Round Table, and the Strolling 

 Players, the last being rather social than scientific. 

 Among purely social clubs the old-established down- 

 town Toronto Club, on the corner of York and Wel- 

 35 



