Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of OntarioScadding, Henry
History
Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario
Scadding, Henry
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
Mr. Fothergill belonged to the distinguished Quaker family of that name
in Yorkshire. A rather good idea of his character of countenance may be
derived from the portrait of Dr. Arnold, prefixed to Stanley's Memoir.
An oil painting of him exists in the possession of some of his
descendants.
We observe in Leigh Hunt's _London Journal_, i. 172, a reference to
"Fothergill's Essay on the Philosophy, Study and Use of Natural
History;" and we have been assured that it is our Canadian Fothergill
who was its author. We give a pathetic extract from a specimen of the
production, in the work just referred to: "Never shall I forget," says
the essayist, "the remembrance of a little incident which many will deem
trifling and unimportant, but which has been peculiarly interesting to
my heart, as giving origin to sentiments and rules of action which have
since been very dear to me."
"Besides a singular elegance of form and beauty of plumage," continues
the enthusiastic naturalist, "the eye of the common lapwing is
peculiarly soft and expressive; it is large, black, and full of lustre,
rolling, as it seems to do, in liquid gems of dew. I had shot a bird of
this beautiful species; but, on taking it up, I found it was not dead. I
had wounded its breast; and some big drops of blood stained the pure
whiteness of its feathers. As I held the hapless bird in my hand,
hundreds of its companions hovered round my head, uttering continued
shrieks of distress, and, by their plaintive cries, appeared to bemoan
the fate of one to whom they were connected by ties of the most tender
and interesting nature; whilst the poor wounded bird continually moaned,
with a kind of inward wailing note, expressive of the keenest anguish;
and, ever and anon, it raised its drooping head, and turning towards the
wound in its breast, touched it with its bill, and then looked up in my
face, with an expression that I have no wish to forget, for it had power
to touch my heart whilst yet a boy, when a thousand dry precepts in the
academical closet would have been of no avail."
The length of this extract will be pardoned for the sake of its
deterrent drift in respect to the wanton maiming and massacre of our
feathered fellow-creatures by the firearms of sportsmen and missiles of
thoughtless children.
Eastward from the house where we have been pausing, the road took a
slight sweep to the south and then came back to its former course
towards the Don bridge, descending in the meantime into the valley of a
creek or watercourse, and ascending again from it on the other side.
Hereabout, to the left, standing on a picturesque knoll and surrounded
by the natural woods of the region, was a good sized two-storey
dwelling; this was the abode of Mr. David MacNab, sergeant-at-arms to
the House of Assembly, as his father had been before him. With him
resided several accomplished, kind-hearted sisters, all of handsome and
even stately presence; one of them the belle of the day in society at
York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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