To take this point of view about the aim and significance of Haliburton as a satiric humorist is the first step towards a proper approach to his humorous writings, and the only way rightly to estimate his importance in Canadian, American, English, and world literature. It is a simple matter to trace the origin of his genius and to show his place and influences on Canadian, American, and English Literature. Briefly, Haliburton’s satiric mood or temper was a recrudescence of the revolutionary Loyalist mood or temper. He also inherited the Loyalist love of British connection and an antipathy to republican institutions and civilization, as in the United States. Further, in his time the realistic revolt against the historical romance in fiction was under way. Born with an inherited satiric temper, and finding to hand a great problem, namely, the effecting of the Anglo-Saxon dream of Imperialistic unity amongst the peoples of British origin, Haliburton decided to be a satiric realist, and to have his satiric writings reach and move the hearts of his compatriots in the Maritime Provinces and Canada and of the people of the United States and in the United Kingdom. But as a satirist he saw all the facts with a humorous appreciation, and in presenting the facts of life, the psychology of society, the idiosyncrasies of peoples, political institutions and culture and civilization, as he saw them, Haliburton decided to write with realism and truth but without rancor. He was the _protégé_ of Joseph Howe; and when Howe founded ‘The Club,’ a coterie of Nova Scotia wits, Haliburton contributed his share of the skits in political and personal satire for which ‘The Club’ was famous. These skits were derivative in manner. But in 1835 Haliburton invented a method of his own and definitively set out on his career as a systematic humorist, presenting his thoughts, ‘as the sunny side of common sense,’ in a series of sketches entitled _The Clockmaker; or The Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick of Slickville_. These sketches were published in Joseph Howe’s newspaper _The Novascotian_ (1835-36). There were twenty-three of them. These were augmented to thirty-three, and were published in book form by Joseph Howe, at Halifax, in 1837, and by Richard Bentley, at London, in the same year. Bentley published a second Series in 1838, and a third Series in 1840. Reprints appeared in the United States, and translations in France and Germany.