572 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY: 



In some verses of the same date as this address to the home authorities, viz., 1S15, he refers 

 to the peril h supposed himself to be in. A stanza or two will suffice as a sijeoimen of his 

 poetical jiroductions, which are all of the same Sternhold and Hoplcins type, with the disad- 

 vantage of great grammatical irregularity. Thus he sings : (The tone of the ci-devant Jack-tar 

 is perhaps to be slightly detected.) 



The powers of hell are now eombin'd — If God doth give what I receive 



With war against me rage ; The same is due to thee ; 



But in my God my soul's resigned — And thou in spirit must believe 



The rooli of every age, &c. In gospel liberty, &e. 



Some thou doth set in king's estate. It's also mine, by George our king, 



And some on earth must serve ; The ruler of my day ; 



And some hath gold and silver plate. And yet if I dishonour bring. 



When others almost starve, &c. Cut short my feeble stay, &o. 



The eartlr doth hunger for my blood. For this is in your hearts to do. 

 And Satan for my soul ; Ye inferiors of the eartli : 



And men my flesh for daily food. And it's in mine to do so too, 

 That they may me control, &c. And stop that cursed birth, &c. 



The style of the volume entitled "Impressions," which used to be sold or given away to 

 visitors in the Temple, does not rise much above the foregoing, either in its verse or prose. 

 What Mosheim says of Menno's books, may be said with at least equal truth of WUlson's : "An 

 excessi\-ely diffuse and rambling style, frequent and unnecessary repetitions, an irregular and 

 confused method, with other defects of equal moment, render the perusal of the productions 

 highly disagreeable." Nevertheless, the reduction of his solitary meditations to writing had, 

 we may conceive, a pious operation and effect on Willson's own spirit ; and the perusal of them 

 may, in the simple-minded few wlio still profess to be his followers, have a like operation and 

 effect, even when in the reading constrained, with poor monk Felix, to confess that, though 

 believing, they do not understand. 



The worthy man did not win martyrdom nor suffer exile ; but lived on in great worldly pros- 

 perity here in Sharon, reverenced by his own adherents as a sort of oracle, and flattered by 

 attentions from successive political leaders on account of the influence which he might be 

 supposed locally to possess, down to the year 1806, when he died in peace, aged eighty-nine 

 years and seven months. 



Of Willson's iseriodical missionaxy expeditions into town, we have spoken in another 

 connexion. 



LVI.— YONGB STREET FROM THE NEWMARKET ROAD TO THE LOWER LANDING 

 ON THE HOLLAND RIVER. 



We return now to the great northern route, from which we have been deviating, and hasten 

 on with all sjjeed to tlie Landing. We place ourselves at the point on Yonge Street where we 

 turned off to Newmarket. Proceeding onward, we saw almost immediately, on the left, the 

 conspicuous dwelling of Mr. Irving — the Hon. Jacob iEmilius Irving, a name historical in 

 Canada, a Paulus iEmilius Irving having been Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in British 

 America in 1765, and also President for a time of the Province of Quebec. (This Paulus. 

 .aSmilius Irving had previously taken pai-t under General Wolfe in the capture of Quebec.) The 

 house of his descendant, Jacob iEmilius Irving, here on Yonge Street, was known as Bonshaw, 

 from some ancient family property in Dumfriesshire. He had been an oflScer in the 13tli Light 

 Dragoons, and was wounded at Waterloo. In addition to many strongly-marked English traits 

 of character and physique, he possessed fine litei-ai-y tastes and histrionic skill of a high order, 

 favoui-ed by the possession of a grand barytone voice. To the last, gmulehat in equis might be 

 said of him. A four-in-hand, guided by himself, issuing from the gates at Bonshaw and 

 whirling along Yonge Street into town, was a common phenomenon. He died at the Falls of 

 Niagara in 1856. Since 1843 Mr. Irving had been a memiber of the Upper House of United Canada. 



A little way back, ere we descended the northern slope of the Ridges we cauglit sight, as we 

 have narrated, of the Holland River, or at least of some portion of the branch of it with which 

 we are immediately concerned — issuing, " a new-born rill," from one of its fountains. 



As we traversed the Quaker settlement it was again seen, a brook meandering through 

 i meadows. This was the eastern branch of the river. Th.e main stream lies off to the wast. 



