CANADIAN NOMS-DE-PLUME IDENTIFIED. 271 



work. The *'Maple Leaf" tlius contributed mucli to the genesis of a 

 high-class Canadian literature. It were to be wished that the editor 

 of this volume had identified himself with Maple Leaf as a nom- 

 de-plume instead of resigning it altogether to the volumes of which 

 he superintended the issue. The papers iia that book are all anony- 

 mous. If none of them are from his own facile and elegant pen, it is 

 certain that the prefaces are his handwork. From these accordingly 

 I venture to make an excerpt or two, treating them as though they 

 had appeared under the signature of Maple Leaf. 



First, I give a pleasant account of our Canadian London as it was in 

 1848, with some remarks on tlie Canadian habit of transplanting local 

 names from the "Old Countiy." " The good custom," Maple Leaf 

 says, " of naming places, as they spring into existence in this new 

 world, after the old localities with which the early associations of the 

 settlers are connected, at once attests the afiectionate remembrance 

 of the fatherland, and preserves unimpaired the sweet ties which 

 bind us to ' home,' as we still fondly call the far-distant land of our 

 birth. In the present case the town of London, the county of which 

 it is the capital is Middlesex, the stream the banks of which it 

 graces bears that name so closely associated with the most thrilling 

 events of English history, the Thames. The toll-gate on the right 

 of our view opens on another Westminster Bridge; and a second 

 Blackfriars would meet the eye if we could but see a little more to 

 the left." 



" Procedo et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis 

 Pergama, et areiitem Xantki cognomine rivum 

 Agnosco, Scaeeeque amplector limina portaa." 



"Nor is the Canadian stream," Maple Leaf continues, "wholly 

 wanting in historic interest ; for in a battle in its neighbourhood fell 

 the noblest Indian warrior that ever drew bow, or raised rifle, in 

 defence of the ' White Father ' of the tribes. It was at the battle 

 of the Thames that the gallant Tecumseth was lost to his brother 

 warriors, and to his country ; but this, however, was at a distance 

 from the scene more immediately under our notice. Elevated on a 

 pleasant bank, which looks down upon the junction of two streams, 

 stands our Canadian London. As it stretches itself towards the 

 waters that flow on either side of it, it seems as if fondling them into 

 that amity with which they embrace and flow on united, ere they 

 leave the reconciler of their variance. From this ' meeting of the 



