During the interval between rising from his bed of sickness and the opening of the session in November he had determined to retire from public life in the course of the following year, and to devote the rest of his days to literary pursuits. His determination was not destined to be carried out. He took a part in the debates while the session was in progress, and some of the most statesmanlike utterances that ever passed his lips were delivered during this, the last winter he was ever to see. On the evening of the 6th of April he occupied his usual place in the House, and made a brilliant and effective speech on the subject of the lately-formed Union. A little after two o'clock on the following morning he left the House in company with two of his political friends, and proceeded in the direction of the place where he lodged--the Toronto House, on Sparks Street, kept by a Mrs. Trotter. When the three had arrived within a hundred yards of Mr. McGee's destination they separated, each betaking himself to his own lodging-house. Mr. McGee, having reached his door and inserted his latch-key, was just about entering, when the sound of a pistol-shot was heard by his landlady, who was awaiting his arrival. She hurried to the door, and opened it, to find Mr. McGee's body lying prone across the sidewalk. The alarm was given, and a crowd soon collected on the spot. The body was raised, but the assassin's bullet had done its work. The ball had entered the back of the head and passed through the mouth, shattering the front teeth, and producing what must have been instant and painless death. The miscreant at whose hands D'Arcy McGee met his fate was a Fenian named Patrick James Whalen. He was subsequently arrested, tried, found guilty, and hanged at Ottawa. Had Mr. McGee lived another week he would have completed his forty-third year; so that he was still a young man, and had his life been spared there is good reason to believe that he would have made an abiding mark in literature. During his lifetime he published many volumes, but they were for the most part written under disadvantageous circumstances, and merely afford indications of what he might have achieved in literature. His poems have been collected in various editions; but the work by which he is best known is his "Popular History of Ireland," originally published in two volumes at New York in 1863, and since reprinted in various forms. [Illustration: DAVID ALLISON, signed as David Allison] DAVID ALLISON, M.A., LL.D., _SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION FOR THE PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA._