what we have said on this point in regard to Toronto may be said of every city, town, village or country place in the Province. It will be proper to notice here that from the settlement of the country up to 1831, marriage could only be legally solemnized by a minister of the Church of England, or of the established Church of Scotland. There was a provision which empowered a justice of the peace or a commanding officer to perform the rite in cases where there was no minister, or where the parties lived eighteen miles from a church. In 1831, an Act was passed making it lawful for ministers of other denominations to solemnize matrimony, and to confirm marriages previously contracted. This act of tardy justice gave great satisfaction to the people. The day for cheap books, periodicals and newspapers had not then arrived. There were but few of any kind in the country, and those that were to be found possessed few attractions for either old or young. The arduous lives led by the people precluded the cultivation of a taste for reading. Persons who toil early and late, week in and week out, have very little inclination for anything in the way of literary recreation. When the night came, the weary body demanded rest, and people sought their beds early. Consequently the few old volumes piled away on a shelf remained there undisturbed. Bacon says: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested;" and he might have added--"others still to be left alone." At all events the last was the prevailing sentiment in those days. I do not know that the fault was altogether with the books. It is true that those generally to be seen were either doctrinal works, or what might be termed heavy reading, requiring a good appetite and strong digestive powers to get through with them. They were the relics of a past age, survivors of obsolete controversies that had found their way into the country in its infancy; and though the age that delighted in such mental pabulum had passed away, these literary pioneers held their ground because the time had not arrived for the people to feel the necessity of cultivating the mind as well as providing for the wants of the body. Seneca says: "Leisure without books is the sepulchre of the living soul;" but books without leisure are practically valueless, and hence it made but little difference with our grandfathers what the few they possessed contained. [Footnote: From an inventory of my grandfather's personal effects I am enabled to give what would have been considered a large collection of books in those days. As I have said before, he was a Quaker, which will account for the character of a number of the books; and by changing these to volumes in accord with the religious tenets of the owner, the reader will get a very good idea of the kind of literature to be found in the houses of intelligent and well-to-do people:--1 large Bible, 3