But if Canada can point to some creditable achievement of recent years in history, poetry and essay-writing--for I think if one looks from time to time at the leading magazines and reviews of the two continents he will find that Canada is fairly well represented in their pages[44]--there is one respect in which Canadians have never won any marked success, and that is in the novel or romance. "Wacousta, or the Prophecy: a Tale of the Canadas," was written sixty years ago by Major John Richardson,[45_a_] a native Canadian, but it was at the best a spirited imitation of Cooper, and has not retained the interest it attracted at a time when the American novelist had created a taste for exaggerated pictures of Indian life and forest scenery. Of course attempts have been made time and again by other English Canadians to describe episodes of our history, and portray some of our national and social characteristics, but with the single exception of "The Golden Dog,"[45] written a few years ago by Mr. William Kirby, of Niagara, I cannot point to one which shows much imaginative or literary skill. If we except the historical romance by Mr. Marmette, "François de Bienville,"[46] which has had several editions, French Canada is even weak in this particular, and this is the more surprising because there is abundance of material for the novelist or writer of romance in her peculiar society and institutions, and in her historic annals and traditions. But as yet neither a Cooper, nor an Irving, nor a Hawthorne has appeared to delight Canadians in the fruitful field of fiction that their country offers to the pen of imaginative genius. It is true we have a work by De Gaspé, "Les Anciens Canadiens,"[47] which has been translated by Roberts and one or two others, but it has rather the value of historical annals than the spirit and form of true romance. It is the very poverty of our production in what ought to be a rich source of literary inspiration, French Canadian life and history, that has given currency to a work whose signal merit is its simplicity of style and adherence to historical fact. As Parkman many years ago first commenced to illumine the too often dull pages of Canadian history, so other American writers have also ventured in the still fresh field of literary effort that romance offers to the industrious, inventive brain. In the "Romance of Dollard," "Tonty," and the "Lady of Fort St. John," Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood has recalled most interesting episodes of our past annals with admirable literary taste and a deep enthusiasm for Canadian history in its romantic and picturesque aspects.[48] When we read Conan Doyle's "Refugees"--the best historical novel that has appeared from the English Press for years--we may well regret that it is not Canadian genius which has created so fascinating a romance out of the materials that exist in the history of the _ancien régime_. Dr. Doyle's knowledge of Canadian life and history is