Louis Honore Frechette, the best known of the French-Canadian poets, was born near the forties, at Levis, a suburb of Quebec. He is patriotic; his genius is plainly that of New France, while the form of it is of that older France which produced the too exquisite sonnets of Voiture; and what counts greatly with the Canadians, he has received the approbation of the Academy; he is a personage in Paris, where he spends a great deal of time. From 'Nos Gens de Lettres' (Our Literary Workers: Montreal, 1873), we learn that the father of M. Frechette was a man of business, and that he did not encourage his son's poetic tendencies to the detriment of the practical side of his character. Levis has traditions which are part of that stirring French-Canadian history now being made known to us by Mrs. Catherwood and Gilbert Parker. And the great St. Lawrence spoke to him in "All those nameless voices, which are Beating at the heart." At the age of eight he began to write verses. He was told by his careful father that poets never become rich; but he still continued to make verses. He grew to be a philosopher as well as a poet, and a little later became firmly of Horace's opinion, that a poet to be happy does not need riches gained by work. His father, who no doubt felt that a philosopher of this cult was not fit for the world, sent him to the Seminary at Quebec. At the Seminary he continued to write verses. The teachers there found merit in the verses. The "nameless voices" still beat at his heart, though the desks of the preparatory college had replaced the elms of the St. Lawrence. But poets are so rare that even when one is caught young, his captors doubt his species. The captors in this case determined to see whether Pegasus could trot as well as gallop. "Transport yourself, little Frechette," they said, "to the Council of Clermont and be a troubadour." What is time to the poet? He became a troubadour: but this was not enough; his preceptors were still in doubt; they locked him in a room and gave him as a subject the arrival of Mgr. de Laval in Canada. An hour passed; the first sufferings of the young poet having abated, he produced his verses. It was evident that Pegasus could acquire any pace. His talent was questioned no more. [Illustration: _MUSIC, SCIENCE AND ART._ Photogravure from a Painting by Francois Lafon.] As he became older, Frechette had dreams of becoming a man of action, and began to learn telegraphy at Ogdensburg; but he found the art too long and life too brief. He went back to the seminary and contributed 'Mes Loisirs' (My Spare Hours) to the college paper. From the seminary--the _Petit Seminaire_, of course,--he went to the College of Ste. Anne, to Nicolet, and finally to Laval University, "singing, and picking up such crumbs of knowledge as suited his taste."