Heavysege was thirty-seven years of age when he arrived in Canada. The accident of his having remained in Canada and of having published at Montreal his _Saul_, which, as a matter of fact, had been conceived in England, does not give him as much right, if any at all, to be considered a Canadian _émigré_ poet as attaches to Kidd or Mrs. Moodie. _Saul_ was published in 1857. As a poetic drama there is no other poem which was written in Canada that is so much in the grand manner. Its theme is Biblical, and it is really treated with epic grandeur and romantic intensity. But with all its excellences, it had no influence, by way of example, on subsequent Canadian poetic dramatists, such as Charles Mair, Wilfred Campbell, or Robert Norwood. The first Canadian poetic dramatist, native-born, was Charles Mair. Though the theme of his _Tecumseh_ is not so sublimated as Heavysege’s _Saul_, it is Canadian; and though its style is not so altiloquent as that of _Saul_, Mair’s _Tecumseh_ is an original and notable contribution to the ‘nativistic’ literature of Canada. It was really, however, the later _émigré_ men of letters, particularly John Reade and George Murray, who by their own work in verse and in literary criticism held up the ideal of native production of worthy poetry in Canada. They were active in the first and second decade after Confederation. They did much to awaken the literary spirit in Canada and to correct the literary or artistic conscience of native-born writers. But when they had done this, their work for Canadian Literature was at an end. Archibald McLachlan came to Canada in his twenties and he followed, in much of his writing, the themes, the dialect, and even the stanza-forms of Robert Burns. Both poets were intensely patriotic, both sang the gospel of the brotherhood of man. To both life was very much a mystery, a mystery tinged with pathos. The work of McLachlan which may be regarded as purely Canadian in tone and subject is found chiefly in the depiction of scenes of pioneer life, treated objectively: _The Fire in the Woods_, _The Old Hoss_, _The Backwood’s Philosopher_; and in _The Emigrant_ he projected a pioneer epic, which opens with an apostrophe to Canada and traces the progress of the emigrant from the old land to his arrival and settlement in the new. The cutting of the first tree, the building of the log-cabin and the Indian battle are successive incidents of the poem. The style of the poem is rather formal, and recalls Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_, but is without so much life or color. The poet loved the spirit of freedom and independence which he found in the new land and voiced this love in some stirring patriotic lyrics, such as _Hurrah for the New Dominion_.