474 



MACDONALD, SIR JOHN ALEXANDER. 



That far from the herd on the hill-top bounds swift 



through the blue solitude, 



Is more to be envied, though death with his dart fol- 

 low fast to destroy, 

 Than the tame beast that, pent in the paddock, tastes 



neither the danger nor joy 

 Of the mountain, and all its surprises.. The main 



thing is, not to live long, 

 But to live. Better moments of rapture soon ended 



than ages of wrong. 

 Life's feast is best spiced by the flavor of death in it. 



Just the one chance 

 To lose it to-morrow the life that a man lives to-day 



doth enhance. 

 The may -be for me. not the must-be ! Best nourish 



while nourish the flowers, 

 And fall ere the frost falls. The dead, do they rest or 



arise with new powers? 

 Either way, well for them. Mine, meanwhile, be the 



cup of life's fullness to-night. 

 And to-morrow . . . Well, time to consider " (he felt 



at the fruit). " What delight 

 Of his birthright had Esau, when hungry ? To-day 



with its pottage is sweet. 



For a man can not feed and be full on the faith of to- 

 morrow's baked meat." 



Among minor poems is the following typical 

 one, entitled " Changes " : 



Whom first we love, you know, we seldom wed. 



Time rules us all. And life, indeed, is not 

 The thing we planned it out ere hope was dead. 



And then, we women can not choose our lot. 



Much must be borne which it is hard to bear : 

 Much given away which it were sweet to keep. 



God help us all ! who need, indeed, his care. 

 And yet, I know, the Shepherd loves his sheep. 



My little boy begins to babble now 



Upon my knee his earliest infant prayer. 



lie has his father's eager eyes, I know. 



And, they say, too, his mother's sunny hair. 



But when he sleeps and smiles upon my knee, 

 And I can feel his light breath come and go, 



I think of one (Heaven help and pity me ! ) 

 Who loved me, and whom I loved, long ago, 



Who might have been . . . ah, what I dare not think ! 



We all are changed. God iudges for us best. 

 God help us do our duty, and not shrink, 



And trust in Heaven humbly for the rest. 

 But blame us women not, if some appear 



Too cold at times ; and some too gay and light. 

 Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are hard to bear. 



Who knows the past ? and who can judge us right ? 

 Ah, were we judged by what we might have been, 



And not by what we are, too apt to fall ! 

 My little child he sleeps and smiles between 



These thoughts and me. In heaven we shall know all ! 



Owen Meredith has been severely criticised as 

 a plagiarist, and there is some show of truth in 

 the charge. The plot of his " Lucile " is bor- 

 rowed from a novel of George Sand's. The 

 striking likeness between his "Bird at Sunset" 

 and Bryant's " To a Waterfowl " has been point- 

 ed out many times, but few of the critics appear 

 to have noticed the fact that Lytton's is by far 

 the finer poem. Martha Walker Cook, who 

 translated Krasinki's " Undivine Comedy " (Phil- 

 adelphia, 1875), accused Lytton of knowing far 

 more than he acknowledged of this poem, and of 

 borrowing very largely from it in his " Orval.'" 

 In the preface to that poem he had said that he 

 had never seen the Polish work, did not even 

 know the name of its author, and had simply 

 used an analysis of it which he found in the 

 " Revue des Deux Mondes." Whatever may be the 

 truth of all these indictments, it is certain that, 

 when every deduction has been made for them, 

 the unquestionably original work that is still 

 left gives him very high rank as a poet. Among 

 his English contemporaries, Browning and Ten- 

 nyson alone surpassed him. 



Lord Lytton died in Paris, where his funeral 

 was attended with great ceremony, 3,500 troops 

 being detailed by the French Government as 

 escort. His wife and five children two sons and 

 three daughters survive him. In England the 

 service was attended with every mark of con- 

 sideration. 



M 



MACDONALD, SIR JOHN ALEXANDER, 



a Canadian statesman, born in Glasgow, Scot- 

 land, Jan. 11, 1815 ; died in Ottawa, Canada, 

 June 6, 1891. He was the eldest son of Hugh 

 Macdoriald, of Kingston, Ontario, formerly of 

 Sutherlandshire, Scotland, and was educated at 

 the Grammar School, Kingston. He married 

 (first) Isabella, daughter of Alexander Clark, of 

 Dalnavert, Inverness-shire, Scotland (she died 

 in 1856), and (second, in 1867) Susan Agnes, 

 daughter of T. J. Bernard, a member of Her Maj- 

 esty's Privy Council for the Island of Jamaica. 

 He studied law with George Mackenzie, was 

 called to the bar of Upper Canada in 1836, and 

 was appointed Queen's counsel in 1846. He was 

 a bencher ex officio of the Law Society of On- 

 tario. He entered parliamentary life in' Novem- 

 ber, 1844, when he became member of the Cana- 

 dian Assembly for Kingston, which constituency 

 he represented uninterruptedly until the union 

 of the provinces in 1867. He was returned for 

 the same seat for the Commons of the Dominion 

 of Canada at the general election of 1867, in 1872, 



and in 1874; was unseated on petition, Nov. 21, 

 1874; re-elected, Dec. 29, 1874; contested the 

 city of Kingston in 1878, when he was defeated : 

 but immediately afterward was elected by accla- 

 mation for Marquette, Manitoba, which seat he 

 vacated on acceptance of office as Premier and 

 Minister of the Interior, Oct. 17. 1878. He was 

 then elected for Victoria, British Columbia: was 

 elected for Carlton and Lennox in 1882 (double 

 return), and decided to sit for the former con- 

 stituency : was elected for Carlton andKingston 

 in 1887, decided to sit for the latter, and was re- 

 elected for Kingston in 1891. 



He became a member of the Executive Coun- 

 cil (Cabinet) of Canada, on May 11, 1847, and so 



.continued until March 10, 1848 (in the adminis- 

 tration of the Hon. W. Morris); from Sept. 11, 

 1854, to July 29, 1858. in the McNab-Morin, the 

 Tache-Macdonald, and the Macdonald-Cartier 



.administrations; irom Aug. 6, in the latter year, 

 to May 23, 1862. in the Cartier-Macdonald ad- 

 ministration ; and from March 30, 1864, until the 

 union, in the Tache-Macdonald and the Belleau- 



