The memory and influence of McGee lived not merely in the counsels of the "Canada First" party, but in the efforts of Canadian statesmen in succeeding years to make Canada strong within herself. Even when leaders appeared who may have forgotten his name and had not heard in the legislature or on the public platform his silver speech, their work for the completion of Canadian autonomy was but a fulfilment of what he had advocated. Canada as a self-governing nation, linked fraternally to Britain and other parts of the Empire, was McGee's goal for the Canadian people. Since Confederation they have been steadily advancing towards it, and thus paying homage to the strength and vision of McGee's ideals. McGee has importance in Canadian history for other reasons than his statesmanship. He holds no mean place in Canadian literature. Historical myth puts into the mouth of Wolfe the remark that he would sooner have written Gray's "Elegy" than take Quebec. The poet may be greater than the soldier, and similarly the literary artist may be placed above the statesman; yet statecraft has drawn fervid minds from poetry to political action. It drew McGee. While, in temperament and aspiration, he was a man of letters, so resistless was the attraction of politics that in it he expended most of his energies. But any account of his life which would leave out of consideration McGee as a _littérateur_ would be incomplete. Something has already been said about his oratory. A native oratory was one of the most distinctive elements in his equipment as he started on the path to fame. Yet from the outset he used his pen more frequently than his tongue. From his first arrival in America to his death, he wrote continuously prose and poetry. Most of this literary output found expression in the journals with which he had been connected, but he left to his name a goodly number of volumes dealing with historical and biographical subjects. Of these two have already been mentioned as contributing to the cause of Canadian Confederation, _Notes on Federal Government Past and Present_ and _Speeches on British American Union_. All the others deal with Irish history and biography, which next to living political causes engaged McGee's imagination. The most noted of these books was his _Popular History of Ireland_, on which he had begun earnest labour in 1858, but which exacting political activities had prevented him from finishing till 1863. On many an evening within these years, he would retire to his room from the battles of parliamentary debate and, forgetful for the time being of Canadian problems, would trace out the struggle of the Vikings for Ireland or some other dramatic phase of Irish history.