20 TRANSACTIONS. 1900-r 



an Aide-de-Camp to Mr. Kirby, and after he had been present- 

 ed to her, conveyed to him publicly the Queen s thanks for 

 the p'easure Her Majesty had feit in reading- his book. This 

 incident is noticeable not only as a personal tribute to Mr. 

 Kirby, but also as marking in a peculiar degree the thoughtful- 

 ness and tact for which the late Queen was so justly noted. 



AnotlKf interesting point i connection with Mr. Kirhx's 

 novel may also be mentioned. It i-^ embodied in the follow- 

 ing letter, which I received a short time since from Mr. G. 

 Mercer Adam, a Canadian man-of-letters, now editing 

 tlie American edition of the '' Encyclopaedia Britannica,'" aid 

 the. was for some years editor of the Canadian M 7tthly^ 

 Toronto r — 



" Early in 1878 " (he writes) "I was instrumental in bringing cut William Kirby's 

 C-inadian romance, " Le Chien D'Or," whicli was founded on the legend related by J. 

 M. LeMoine in his "Maple Leaves." The London 6r?'ajoAic, in an issue subsequent to 

 this published a n.ivelette vvitli the same name, contribtite I by Besant and Rice, wtien 

 tht'Se writers were working their literary partnership. About this time a numb r of 

 piracies of Ciiiadian things had been appearing in England, owing to the then absence 

 of an international copyright. Among these unacknowledged reprints was the episode 

 in regard 10 Lord Nelson related be LeMoine in " Maple Leaves," and other things. 

 Being in' crested as a Canadian writer and publisher I wrote a 1 jtter protesting against 

 th se delinquencies, which was published in the Toronto newspapers as well as in the 

 London Athenceuni In that letter I gibbetted Besant and Rice among the latter de- 

 linquents, who, as J conceived, had just boiled down Earby's romance and made 

 a novelette of it for the Graphic, and this without a word of acknowledgment. I was 

 by no means alone in conceiving that the Graphic novelette was, a plagiarism ; not 

 only Kirby, the author of the story, was convinced of the theft, but LeMoine of Que- 

 b ic was also of this opinion, and when my Athenceum letter appeared he was about to 

 wriic showing up the appropriation 'n the London Times. Of this he tells me in a 

 letter from him in my possession, dated September 24th, 1878. He calls Besant and 

 Rice's novelette '^ ' clumsy, pale copy of a good original— Kirby's ' Chien D'Or,' " and 

 adds that if Besant arid Rice's denial that they had ever seen the latter is to be 

 accepted, " then a curiou-s literary coincidence must be accounted for." Well, the 

 English novelists threatened legal action and cabled this information over, promising 

 to send by mail a categorical denial of my charge. To meet this and defend myself I 

 prepared a careful and lengthy statement enumerating all the points of resemblance 

 between Kirby's book and their novelette, and my st (tement appeared in the Toronto 

 Globe and Mail, occupying some columns in length, on or about September 22ud, 1878. 

 Of course, a'* a gentleman, I was bound to accept th'ir denial, and I closed by with- 

 drawing my statements!, an 1 the suit fell to the ground The points I made, however, 

 were >o convincing th it everyone believed that I had hit th^ nail on the head, and that 

 the English novelist-; (Rice especially) were the culprits I had taken them to be. Kice, 

 Dr. S. E. Dawson— then a publisher in Montreal- afterwards told me, was in Canada 

 the previ' us summer, and had asked for any recent native literature, which he look 

 home with him." 



