TORONTO OP OLD. 239 



could not be troubled," lie observes, "with the details myself, but exhorted him to make the 

 invitations as numerous as possible." In extenuation of his evident moodiness of mind, it is 

 to be observed that his quarters at York were very uncomfortable. " The reader is probably 

 acquainted," he says in his Autobiography, "with the manner of living in the American hotels, 

 but without experience he can have no right notion of what in those days (1827,) was the con- 

 dition of the best tavern in York. It was a mean two-storey house ; the landlord, however, 

 [this was Mr. Phau-,] did," he says, "all in his power to mitigate the afflictions with whirh such 

 a domicile was quaking, to one accustomed to quiet." Such an impression had his unfortunate 

 accommodation at York made on him, that, in another place, when endeavouring to describe 

 Dover, in Kent, as a dull place, we have him venturing to employ such extravagant language as 

 this : "Everybody who has ever been at Dover knows that it is one of the vilest [hypochondria- 

 cal] haunts on the face of the earth, except Little York in Upper Canada." We notice in Leigh 

 ELunt's London Journal for J nne, 1834, some verses entitled "Friends and Boyhood," written 

 by Mr. Gait, in sickness. They will not sound out of place in a paper of early reminiscences : 



"Talk not of years ! 'twas yesterday 

 We chased the hoop together. 

 And for the plover's speckled egg 

 We waded through the heather. 



" The green is gay where gowans grow, 

 'Tis Saturday — oh ! come. 

 Hark ! hear ye not our mother's voice. 

 The earth ? — she calls us home. 



" Have we not found that fortune's chase 

 For glory or for treasure. 

 Unlike the rolling circle's race. 

 Was pastime, without pleasure ? 



"'But seize your glass — another time 

 We'U think of clouded days^ 

 I'll give a toast— fill up, my friend '. 

 Here's ' Boys and merry plays !' " 



But Market Lane and its memories detain us too long from King Street. We now return to 

 the point where Church Street intersects that thoroughfare. 



VIIL— KING STREET : ST. JAMES'S CHURCH. 

 The first Church of St. James, at York, was a plain structure of wood, placed some yards 

 back from the road. Its gables faced east and west, and its solitary door was at its western 

 end, and was approached from Church Street. Its dimensions were 50 by 40 feet. The sides 

 of the building were pierced by two rows of ordinary windows, four above and four below. 

 Altogether it was, in its outward appearance, sunply, as a contemporary American "Geographi- 

 cal View of the Province of Upper Canada," now before us, describes it, a "meeting-house for 

 Episcopalians." The work referred to, which was written by a Mr. M. Smith, before the war of 

 1812, thus depicts York: " This village," it says, "is laid out after the form of Philadelphia, 

 the streets crossing each other at right angles ; though the ground on which it stands is not 

 suitable for buUding. This at present," the notice continues, " is the seat of Government, and 

 the residence of a number of English gentlemen. It contains some fine buildings, though they 

 stand scattering, among which are a Court-house, Council-house, a large brick building, in 

 which the King's store for the place is kept, and a meeting-house for Episcopalians ; one print- 

 ing, and other offices." The reservation of land in which the primitive St. James's Church 

 stood, long remained plentifully covered with the original forest. In a wood-cut from a sketch 

 taken early in the present century, prefixed to the "Annals of the Diocese of Toronto," the 

 building is represented as being in the midst of a great grove, and stumps of various sizes are 

 visible in the foreground. Up to 1805, the Anglican congregation had assembled for Divine 



