GENTLEMEN,--In the name of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, I thank you cordially for the health just proposed--As the President of a society numbering close on 400 members, who though diverse in creed and language, are united for one common object--the promotion of culture and science and the encouragement of historical studies,--I cannot help feeling I stand here somehow in the character of a representative man. In tendering a welcome to Mr. Fréchette, our honoured guest, I can add but little to the sentiments conveyed in the resolution adopted at our last meeting and which you have heard read. In presence of so many distinguished persons, several of whom have made their mark, at the Bar--or on the Bench--the forum--in literature--in the bank parlor or in the counting house,--with so many fluent speakers here present and prepared to applaud, with all the graces of oratory and fervour of patriotism,--the distinction conferred on French Canada, by the highest literary tribunal in France--convinced myself of the honour which Mr. Fréchette's laurels must confer on this ancient and picturesque Province of Quebec, with its glorious though yet unrevealed destinies, I feel proud as a Canadian in standing here, the bearer even of a solitary rosebud for the fragrant _bouquet_, which a grateful country offers this night to its gifted child. Alas! had not the relentless hand [32] of death--had not a self-imposed fate, darker even than death, removed from our midst, another "mind pregnant with celestial fire," Canada this night might possibly have counted two laurel-crowned poets--Louis Honoré Fréchette and Octave Crémazie. For I am not one of those who refuse to recognize Canadian talent; on the contrary, I feel myself moved to rejoice in our wealth of intellect. I am reminded to be brief; around me there is a surging stream of eloquence ready to burst through its floodgates. I must give way. With your permission, I shall therefore merely ask a question. What propitious turn of fortune? which of the benign fairies who watched over his natal hour has Mr. Fréchette to thank for his present success? How came it to pass that, though he was born a poet, he should have to undergo an ordeal like another great poet (whom posterity may specially claim as an historian) the author of the "Lays of Ancient Rome," of emancipating himself from his earthy--at one time not burdensome--thraldom before soaring on the wings of poesy to that lofty region, where his classic diction and lyric power attracted the attention of those worthy but fastidious gentlemen, yclept "The Forty Immortals of the French Academy." I have mentioned a very illustrious name in the Republic of Letters,--a name as dear to Britain as that of our Laureate ought to