Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness: A Short Historical and Critical Review of Literature, Art and Education in CanadaBourinot, John George
History
Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness: A Short Historical and Critical Review of Literature, Art and Education in Canada
Bourinot, John George
Canada -- Intellectual life; Canadian literature -- History and criticism; French-Canadian literature -- History and criticism
"Aye! we had a glorious gallop after 'Starlight' and his gang,
When they bolted from Sylvester's on the flat;
How the sun-dried reed-beds crackled, how the flint-strewn ranges
rang
To the strokes of 'Mountaineer' and 'Acrobat';
Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath,
Close behind them through the tea-tree scrub we dashed;
And the golden-tinted fern-leaves, how they rustled underneath!
And the honeysuckle osiers, how they crash'd!"
The best known novels of Australian life are these: "For the Term of
His Natural Life," by Marcus Clarke, who was an Englishman born and
educated; "The Miner's Right," "The Squatter's Dream," "A Colonial
Reformer," and "Robbery Under Arms," by Thomas A. Browne ("Rolf
Boldrewood"), who was also English born: "Uncle Piper of Piper's
Hill," by Madame Couvreur ("Tasma"), who is of Belgian descent, and is
now a resident of Belgium, though she was born in Australia and there
studied its social conditions; "The Australian Girl" and "A Silent
Sea," by Mrs. Alick McLeod. Mrs. Campbell Praed, who is colonial born,
has, in addition to several novels, written "Australian Life," which is
described by Sir Charles Dilke ("Problems of Greater Britain," i., 374)
as "a vivid autobiographical picture of the early days of Queensland."
Copies of these and other Australian books the writer owes to the
thoughtfulness of Chief Justice Way, D.C.L., Oxon., of Adelaide, South
Australia. For many years he has been the recipient of these graceful
attentions from friends in that fair land of the Southern Cross, and
though it looks very much as if he will never meet some of them face
to face--for the time is passing rapidly with us all--he takes this
opportunity of now sending them his thanks across the seas.]
HOWE'S "FLAG OF OLD ENGLAND."
[Footnote 43: Page 26.--This spirited song was written for the one
hundredth anniversary of the landing of Lord Cornwallis at Halifax. As
many persons in old Canada do not know it--for it is not reproduced
in recent collections of Canadian poems--I give it in full for the
benefit of the youth of this Dominion, on whom the future destiny of
the country depends:
"All hail to the day when the Britons came over,
And planted their standard with sea-foam still wet,
Around and above us their spirits will hover,
Rejoicing to mark how we honour it yet.
Beneath it the emblems they cherished are waving,
The Rose of Old England the roadside perfumes;
The Shamrock and Thistle the north winds are braving,
Securely the Mayflower blushes and blooms.
CHORUS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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