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
There was another journal from New York much esteemed at York for the
real respectability of its character, the _New York Spectator_. It was
read for the sake of its commercial and general information, rather
than for its literary news. To the minds of the young the Greek
revolution had a singular fascination. We remember once entertaining the
audacious idea of constructing a history of the struggle in Greece, of
which the authorities would, in great measure, have been copious
cuttings from the _New York Spectator_ columns. One advantage of the
embryo design certainly was a familiarity acquired with the map of
Hellas within and without the Peloponnesus. Navarino, Modon, Coron,
Tripolitza, Mistra, Missolonghi, with the incidents that had made each
temporarily famous, were rendered as familiar to the mind's eye as
Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Thermopylæ, and the events connected with each
respectively, of an era two thousand years previously, afterwards from
other circumstances became. Colocotroni, Mavrocordato, Miaulis,
Bozzaris, were heroes to the imagination as fully as Miltiades,
Alcibiades, Pericles, and Nicias, afterwards became.
Partly in consequence of the eagerness with which the columns of the
_New York Spectator_ used to be ransacked with a view to the composition
of the proposed historical work, we remember the peculiar interest with
which we regarded the editor of that periodical at a later period, on
falling in with him, casually, at the Falls of Niagara. Mr. Hall was
then well advanced in years; and from a very brief interview, the
impression received was, that he was the beau ideal of a veteran editor
of the highest type; for a man, almost omniscient; unslumberingly
observant; sympathetic, in some way, with every passing occurrence and
every remark; tenacious of the past; grasping the present on all sides,
with readiness, genial interest and completeness. In aspect, and even to
some extent in costume, Mr. Hall might have been taken for an English
bishop of the early part of the Victorian era.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XX.
QUEEN STREET, FROM GEORGE STREET TO YONGE STREET.--MEMORIES OF THE OLD
COURT HOUSE.
When we pass George Street we are in front of the park-lot originally
selected by Mr. Secretary Jarvis. It is now divided from south to north
by Jarvis street, a thoroughfare opened up through the property in the
time of Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, the Secretary's son. Among the
pleasant villas that now line this street on both sides, there is one
which still is the home of a Jarvis, the Sheriff of the County.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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