LETELLIER DE SAINT^JUST, LUC. LITERATURE, AMERICAN, IN 1881. 485 



posed of the most eminent publicists, and be- 

 longed to many literary and scientific societies. 

 IQ politics he was ever true to those principles 

 which in youth he personally learned from 

 Jefferson and Madison. His several residences 

 in Europe, associating there with the leading 

 scholars, statesmen, and diplomatists, and for 

 more than sixty years enjoying the same privi- 

 lege in his native land, gave to Governor Law- 

 rence a courtly and classic dignity of manner 

 not often met with among our public men. 

 For thirty years, Governor Lawrence was noted 

 for the generous hospitality dispensed at Ochre 

 Point. Few persons of distinction, in any walk 

 of life, visited Newport without being enter- 

 tained by him at his beautiful mansion by the 

 sea. Here he had collected probably the most 

 valuable private library of its character in the 

 land, numbering more than ten thousand vol- 

 umes, and including everything of value re- 

 lating to international law and political econo- 

 my to be found in the English, French, Spanish, 

 and Italian languages. Governor Lawrence left 

 three sons and two daughters, Mrs. Lawrence 

 having died in 1858, a short time previous to 

 his third visit to* Europe. The closing item of 

 his will contains a valuable warning to testators: 

 " Aware of the ruinous consequences of litiga- 

 tion to all concerned in the case of wills, I do 

 hereby declare it to be my will that in case any 

 child or descendant of a child, who may claim 

 any share in my estate, shall oppose the pro- 

 bate of this, my last will and testament, or take 

 any legal proceedings to impeach the validity 

 of any of its provisions, the said child or other 

 descendant shall be debarred from all partici- 

 pation in my property, real or personal, and 

 the share of such child or descendant shall 

 descend to and be possessed by the person or 

 persons who would have been entitled thereto, 

 had said child or descendant of child died in 

 my life-time." At the annual meeting of the 

 New York Historical Society, held January 3, 

 1882, General James Grant Wilson delivered an 

 address on Governor Lawrence, and at the same 

 time presented to the society a fine marble 

 bust by Dunbar, the gift of his eldest son, Isaac 

 Lawrence; and also presented, in behalf of his 

 executors, an unfinished paper on " The Life, 

 Character, and Public Services of Albert Gal- 

 latin," which had been prepared for the so- 

 ciety, but was not quite completed at the time 

 of his death. This very valuable paper, the 

 last literary work of his long and laborious 

 career, was read to the society by Edward F. 

 De Lancey, February 8, 1882, and has since 

 been published; while General Wilson's ad- 

 dress, with a portrait of Lawrence, appeared in 

 the April number of the " Genealogical and 

 Biographical Record." 



LETELLIER DE SAFNT-JTOT, Luo, a Cana- 

 dian statesman and ex-Lieutenant-Governor of 

 Quebec, died February 1st, at the age of sixty- 

 two. He was born at the seignory of River 

 Ouelle, which he always considered his home, 

 and where he died of a lingering lung-disease. 



He was by profession a notary public, but his 

 active bent led him into political life. He was 

 elected to represent Kamouraska in the Cana- 

 dian Parliament, at the age of thirty-one, and 

 in several subsequent elections was defeated 

 in the same district. In 1860 he was chosen 

 one of the Legislative Council as representa- 

 tive from Grenville Division. After the Con- 

 federation he was made a Senator of the Do- 

 minion. Although deprived by the circum- 

 stances of his career from taking the promi- 

 nent part as a political leader which he might 

 have done as a member of the popular Assem- 

 bly, he was still an active and decided politi- 

 cian of the liberal persuasion. In the popular 

 Assembly he held the position of Minister of 

 Agriculture for a few months in the Macdon- 

 ald-Dorion Government, and when Mr. Macken- 

 zie was called upon to form an administration 

 in 1875 he accepted the same portfolio, with the 

 position of leader of the French Liberal con- 

 tingent in the Senate. In 1876 he resigned 

 both senatorship and portfolio on his appoint- 

 ment to the lieutenant-governorship of Que- 

 bec. During his tenure of this office occurred 

 the famous conflict which resulted in his defeat 

 and retirement to private life, while the polit- 

 ical world of Canada was shaken to the foun- 

 dations by the constitutional crisis which he 

 precipitated. He came into collision with his 

 advisers, the members of the De Boucherville 

 Government ; and the quarrel between him 

 and them ended in their dismissal, the forma- 

 tion of the Joly Government, and an appeal to 

 the people, which resulted in a majority of one 

 for the new administration. Letellier was ac- 

 cused by his political opponents of a blind and 

 reckless partisanship which led him to over- 

 step the principles of the Constitution, while his 

 fellow-Liberals, though piqued at the electoral 

 defeat which his course entailed, and disposed 

 to condemn that course as a mistake in policy, 

 applauded the courage with which he asserted 

 the authority of the Executive, and approved 

 his position at the time as just and patriotic. 



LITERATURE, AMERICAN, IN 1881. There 

 has been much more than the usual activity in 

 American literature during the year. All de- 

 partments of knowledge have received more 

 or less attention, and the production of sound, 

 healthful works has kept fair pace with the 

 increasing mass of imaginative and fantastic 

 publications in prose and verse. A consider- 

 able portion of American literary effort has 

 been devoted to the translation of foreign 

 books, the preparation and issue of new edi- 

 tions of all kinds of works that have met with 

 favor, and the editing and making additions to 

 English publications for the American market. 

 A large amount of activity also, in American 

 as in English literature, has found its outlet in 

 reviews, magazines, journals, etc. 



"The Publishers' Weekly," the organ of the 

 American book-trade, gives as heretofore the 

 lists of publications of the chief American 

 houses, with a classified monthly synopsis of 



