evolve the truth, and necessarily give additional stimulus to intellectual thought in this country, where, so far, there has been a great dearth of original thinkers to elevate us above purely selfish, material interests. In the natural order of things, the next half century ought to witness a far larger development of the intellect of this country. We have already seen that, with the progress of the Dominion in population and wealth, education has been stimulated to a remarkable degree, journalism has become more of a profession, and not only have several books, of more than ordinary value and merit, been produced in various departments of knowledge, but there are already signs of a spirit of intellectual emulation which must, sooner or later, have its full fruition. If Canada makes the material progress within the next few decades that her people hope, and her statesmen are endeavouring to accomplish, in the face, no doubt, of many difficulties, we may confidently look forward to a corresponding intellectual development. So much practical work of immediate importance has to be performed in a comparatively new country like this, that native talent has naturally found chief expression in politics, the professions, and the press; but with greater wealth, and an older condition of society, literature, science, and art, will be cultivated to a far larger extent. 'It was amid the ruins of the Capitol,' says Gibbon, 'that I first conceived the idea of writing the "History of the Roman Empire."' Such a work could not have been written among the forests of Canada, while men were labouring with the many difficulties of a pioneer existence. But with the greater opportunities of leisure and culture necessarily opening up to us in the future, Canadians may yet have a literature, not merely imitative, as at present, but creative and original. It is stated somewhere in an old English review of American literature, that on this new continent we can hardly expect the rich fruition which springs from that deep, humanized soil of the old world, which has for ages been enriched by the ripe droppings of a fertile national life, where, in the words of an American poet,-- One half the soil has walked the rest, In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages.