120 LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



should go, according to my view the next, indeed the only hope 

 would be the promotion of some Government on a still larger scale, 

 more or less like a federation, which shall gather up the reins and 

 control the St. Lawrence, as well as the Western and Eastern waters. 

 I do not undertake to say," he adds, " that I should be for framing a 

 Government strictly ' federal' — that is, one in which the C?) residue of 

 power belonged to the local governments, and the limited power to 

 the central one. It is possible, nay, probable in my opinion, that 

 the local powers should be the limited ones, and the central power 

 the unlimited one. We stai't, not from the separate existence of five 

 or six independent states, but from the fact that all are already 

 provinces subject to the same sovereign. All this, I think, matter 

 for grave discussion ; full of difELculties, but not therefore impracticable 

 or absurd." In 1856 again we have Sir Edmund, in a letter from 

 Toronto to the same friend, making the following startling observation : 

 " I think," he says, " the Toronto University and its Colleges give 

 about as much trouble as the rest of the Government business put 

 together." Now that the storms alluded to are all over, how pleasant 

 to hear or read these words ! 



With my literary relics relating to the United States I shall be 

 very brief. I show first a volume from the library of William Penn, 

 a splendid copy of the first edition of Gilbert Wats' translation of 

 Bacon's Instauratio Magna, printed at Oxford in 1640, with 

 Marshall's portrait and mystical title-page ; the whole dedicated to 

 Charles I. in a Latin inscription, in which that king is styled 

 "Dominus Yirginise et Vastorum Territoriorum adjacentium et 

 dispersarum Insularum in Oceano Occidentali." The bookplate 

 therein exhibits the arms of the Penn family, and underneath, the 

 following V, " William Penn, Esq., Proprietor of Pensylvania. 1703." 

 The motto is Dum clavum teneam, " Let me but hold the helm." 

 The family motto, as given by Burke, is Dum clavum rectwm teneam, 

 " Let me but hold the helm aright" — which accords with the verse 

 of Ennius, from which the words are borrowed. The omission of 

 rectum makes the sentiment savour of ambition. It may be observed 

 that the first syllable of " Pensylvania" has only one n; and so the 

 name of the province appears in the older Gazetteers, and in early 

 French works. Penn survived the date on his bookplate fifteen 

 years. On several pages of my copy of the Instauratio there are 

 marginal annotations in manuscript which are probably from the 



