LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 485 



The reference being to a thouglitless editorial in tlie Times news- 

 paper, wliicli recommended Cana,da, as speedily as might be, to take 

 up her freedom and depart — a sentiment to ■which Tennyson rejoins i 



" Is this the tone of Empire ? This the faith 

 That made us rulers ? This indeed, her voice 

 And meaniirg, whom tlie roar of Hougoumont 

 Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven ? 

 What shock has fool'd her since, that she should speak 

 So feebly? * * * 



The loyal to their crown 

 Are loyal to their own far sons, who love 

 Our Ocean Empire with her boundless homes." 



In a letter to Mr. Wm. Kii'by, of Niagara, Tennyson used the 

 following language : " For myself, I hope I may live to see England 

 and her Colonies absolutely one, with as complete a reciprocity of the 

 free gifts of God as there is between one coiuity and another in the 

 Mother Country. I would not -wish anything better for my sons — 

 nor would they for themselves — ^than that they should devote their 

 lives towards helping to effect this * seamless xmion.' " 



One poetess— Mrs. Hemans — is represented in my collection. I 

 show her copy of the Araucana of Don Alonso de Ercillo, a cele- 

 brated Spanish poem named in Don Quixote. On a fly-leaf she has 

 transcribed in Spanish with her own hand, the passage in which 

 Cervantes says of this poem, that it is one of the best in heroic verse 

 which the Castilians possessed, and that it might be compared with 

 the most famous productions of Italy. Thus it reads : 



" Seftor compadre, que me place, respondib el Barbero, y aqui 

 vienen tres todos juntos : La Araucana de Dmi Alonso de Ercillo, la 

 Austriada de Juan Rufo Jiirado de Cordova, y el Monferrato de 

 Christobal de Virtues, Poeta Valenciano." "Todos esos tres libros, 

 disco el Cura, son los mejores que en verso heroyco, en lengua Cas- 

 tellana estan escritos, y pueden competir con los mas famosos de 

 Italia." "Guai'dense como las mas ricas prendas de Poesia quo tiene 

 Espana." Vide D. Quixote, cap. vi, tom. i. On the back of the fly- 

 leaf is the signature " Charles Hemans;" and a mem. made by the 

 late Rev. Dr. John Leifchild in these terms : " Mrs. Hemans' copy : 

 with her writing on fly-leaf, and autograph of her son, Charles 

 Hemans, who gave me this book,— John Leifchild." Throughout 

 the poem numerous pencillings are to be seen, evidently made while 

 Mrs.. Hemans was prosecuting her studies in Spanish, The many 



