Benjamin Sulte, a member of this society, has also given us the results of many years of conscientious research in his "Histoire des Canadiens," which is not so well known as it ought to be, probably on account of its cumbrous size and mode of publication.[36] The Abbé Casgrain, also a member of the society and a most industrious author, has recently devoted himself with true French Canadian fervour to the days of Montcalm and Lévis, and by the aid of a large mass of original documents has thrown much light on a very interesting and important epoch of the history of America.[37] Dr. Kingsford with patience and industry has continued his history of Canada, which is distinguished by accuracy and research.[38] It is not my intention to enumerate all those names which merit remark in this connection, for this is not a collection of bibliographical notes,[39] but simply a review of the more salient features of our intellectual development in the well-marked periods of our history. Indeed it is gratifying to us to know that the Royal Society comprises within its ranks nearly all the historical writers in Canada, and it would seem too much like pure egotism were I to dilate on their respective performances. Of poets since the days of Crémazie we have had our full proportion, and it is encouraging to know that the poems of Fréchette,--whose best work has been crowned by the French Academy,--LeMay, Reade, Mair, Roberts, Bliss Carman, Wilfred Campbell and Lampman have gained recognition from time to time in the world of letters outside of Canada.[40][B] We have yet to produce in English Canada a book of poems which can touch the sympathies and live on the lips of the world like those of Whittier and Longfellow, but we need not despair since even in the country which gave these birth they have not their compeers. Some even declare that the only bard of promise who appears in these days to touch that chord of nature which makes the whole world kin is James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet, despite his tendency to exaggerate provincial dialect and make his true poetic genius too subordinate to what becomes at last an affectation and a mere mannerism which wearies by its very repetition. Even in England there is hesitation in choosing a poet laureate; there are Swinburne, Morris and other poets, but not another Tennyson, and it has been even suggested that the honour might pass to a master of poetic prose, John Ruskin, whose brilliant genius has been ever devoted to a lofty idealism which would make the world much happier and better. At the present time Canadian poets obtain a place with regularity in the best class of American magazines, and not infrequently their verse reaches a higher level than the majority of poetic aspirants who appear in the same field of poetry; but for one I am not an ardent admirer of American magazine poems which appear too often mere machine work and not the results of that true poetic inspiration which alone can achieve