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favourites among the ancients ; he had them by heart, 

 it was said, whilst he doted on Milton among modern 

 writers. He liked and spoke fluently, the language of 

 his ancestors, the French, the pure, old French of 

 Louis XIV, the idiom of Racine, Corneille, Sevigne ; 

 making fun of what he styled V Argot Parisien, he 

 good humouredly jeered the French emigres who fre- 

 quented his salon, on their modern effeminate accent, 

 though at all times ready to extend to them the hand 

 of friendship. Round his hospitable board, says an 

 old memoir, were grouped Archbishops, Bishops and 

 other eminent members of the French clergy, safe in 

 England from the guillotine of Robespierre. Amongst 

 others, might be noticed a dignitary of the Parliament 

 of Paris — an exile — greeted with a hearty welcome in 



Mas&res expressed himself in a tone of vehemence and agit- 

 ation, which surprised me in an Englishman. He had none 

 of the coolness of the nation ; there was vivacity ; Gascon 

 quickness ; in a word, he was a hot-headed enthusiast. I 

 am not surprised that the head ofDuCalvet burns and his 

 brain evolves anger and violence. He is at a good school, and 

 will go far under the lessons of his master. When the English 

 Parliament prepared the Act of Quebec in 1774, it heard the 

 testimonies of a good number of persons, who were reputed 

 to know the country and its wants. Among those who were 

 interrogated were found Carleton. Chief Judge William Hey, 

 Marriott, the Solicitor-General, M. de Lotbiniere, a native of 

 Canada, and belonging to the body of the nobility of this 

 country — a well thinking man and proprietor of immense 

 seigniories, next to Maseres, — and finally Maseres himself, 

 who was known to have resided in Canada, and who should 

 have acquired special knowledge on the question in point. 

 He pretended there, among many other assertions, difficult 

 to prove, that the Canadians would be very glad if England 

 would not grand to the clergy the right to reclaim their tithes 

 before tribunals, and he insisted that many Canadians had 

 refused to paj^ their tithes since the conquest, — in building 

 on the fact that Lord Amherst had refused to grant the right 

 to deduct ; the reserving this question for the good pleasure 

 of the King of England. He said also that he believed that if 

 immediately after the conquest they had begun gradually to 

 replace the Catholic priests, who died, by Protestant minis- 



