We get _blasé_ now and then perhaps through the reading of so many moderns, but the cure for that lies within easy range. We can take a peep at those old fellows in old- fashioned bindings, who used to delight our grandfathers in the "brave days of old," when Richardson told the story of "Pamela," and "Clarissa Harlowe," when Fielding wrote "Tom Jones," and Smollett narrated the history of "Humphrey Clinker," and the career of "Tristram Shandy" found a truthful historian in that mad parson Lawrence Sterne. We might even read those ancient authors, ancient in style at least, for a change, and still be reading English literature in its truest and widest sense. But it is less with the fiction- writers that we have to deal, than with the thinkers who have given to _belles-lettres_ in this age, its robustness and vigour. In political economy, in scientific thought, in history, in moral philosophy and in polite learning, and in criticism, I think our day has produced the greatest teachers, as well as the largest number of them since the English tongue had a literature of its own. (Applause.) This is true at least in prose writing. I know that in poetry we are surpassed in grandeur and majesty by the bards of other periods of our mental activity, I know that we have not produced a Milton yet, nor a Dryden, nor a Pope--I leave Shakespeare and Chaucer out of the question, nor a Spenser. We have very many more than our share of really tuneful singers and fine poets like Tennyson and Longfellow, Morris and Swinburne, the Arnolds and Lowell--all of them sweet and in every way charming, none of them grand and magnificent like the sons of song of the great days of poesy. We have singers and singers, minor poets and minor poets, all engaged in weaving for our delight very many pretty fancies; graceful story-tellers in verse, if you will, but our chief strength lies in prose, sober, scholarly and healthful prose. Our fame will rest on that branch of the service. (Applause.) Turning to Canada, I might say that our mental outfit is by no means beggarly. In fiction we have produced, and I confine myself particularly to those who have written in English, Judge Haliburton, James DeMille, Wm. Kirby, John Lesperance. (Applause.) In poetry, Heavysege, John Reade, Roberts, Charles Sangster, Wm. Murdoch, Chandler, Howe; in history, Beamish Murdoch, Todd, Morgan, Hannay, Mr. LeMoine--(Applause)--whom I see present here to night; Dr. Miles, Mr. Harper, the efficient Rector of our High School, and others of more or less repute. In Science, Dr. Dawson and Sir Wm. Logan; in logic, Wm. Lyall; in rhetoric, James DeMille. In political and essay writing we have a good list, the most prominent names being Goldwin Smith, whom we may fairly claim, Bourinot, Haliburton, Todd, Howe, Elder, Ellis,