1 8 TRANSACTIONS. 19101 



Club" hardly comes up to the level of "Innocents Abroad." 

 It does not possess the overmastering appeal of iM.ark Twain's 

 book, though its humor is as true, and the narrative equally 

 bright and entertaining. 



James De Mille's novels did not in any case represent 

 the best work of which he was capable. He was always an 

 extremely busy man, and his books of fiction were written 

 at night, after the fatiguing work of the lecture room had 

 been gone through He himself called them mere "Pot- 

 boilers," and looked forward to a period of comparative 1 isure, 

 when he might produce the best that was in him. He died, 

 however, in the prime of life, before his dream could be ful- 

 filled. 



Personally he was a most charming companion, a geniaK 

 and entertaining talker among his friends, a musician and 

 artist of more then ordinary skill, and a remarkable linguist. 

 He read and spoke nearly all the languages of Europe, under- 

 stood Latin, Greek and Anglo-Saxon, and had a working 

 knowledge of Arabic and Sanskrit. He had wandered into 

 every road and by-way of English literature, and enricheJ a 

 text-book on Rhetoric which he prepared with such a wealth 

 of illustrative passages from the English classics as will 

 hardly be found elsewhere, i 



From about i860, when the last of Major Richardson's 

 books appeared, no book of fiction of any consequence 

 came out in Upper Canada, (or Ontario,) until the year 1874, 

 when Miss \gnes Maule Machar, of Kingston, a friend of 

 Whittier's, publishsd a little tale called " For King and 



1. The following is a fairly c-omplet" list of Professor De Mille's 

 books of fiction, besides those mention d above : "Ma tyrs of the ("ata 

 combs," 1858; "Andy O'Hara" 1860; "John Wheeler's Two Uncles." 

 1860; "The Soldier and the Spy," 186.5; "Arkansas Ranger," 1865 ; 

 "The Lilv and the Cross," 1874, 1893; "Lady of the Ice," 1870; "An 

 Open Question," 1872; "The American Baron," 1869; "The Living 

 Link," 1874 ; " A Comedy -f Terrors," 1872 ; " The Babes in the W. .od," 

 1879; " A Cas'le in Spain," 18S3. The dates of publication are tho-e 

 given in Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," but their absolute 

 accuracy is problematiial, hs MacFarlane in his "BibilogrHphy of New 

 Brunswick " gives different dates in near ly every instance, while he, 

 again, is not sure of some of his own dates. 



