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
Eastward of Spadina House, on the same elevation of land, was Davenport,
the picturesque and chateau-like home of Col. Wells, formerly of the
43rd regiment, built at an early period. Col. Wells was a fine example
of the English officer, whom we so often see retiring from the camp
gracefully and happily into domestic life. A faithful portrait of him
exists, in which he wears the gold medal of Badajoz. His sons, natural
artists, and arbiters of taste, inherited, along with their æsthetic
gifts, also lithe and handsome persons. One of them, now, like his
father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, was highly distinguished in
the Crimea; and on revisiting Toronto after the peace with Russia, was
publicly presented with a sword of honour. The view of the Lake and
intervening forest, as seen from Davenport and Spadina, before the
cultivation of the alluvial plain below, was always fine. (On his
retirement from the army, the second Col. Wells took up his abode at
Davenport.)
[Illustration]
III.
FROM BROCK STREET TO THE OLD FRENCH FORT.
Returning again to the front. The portion of the Common that lies
immediately west of the foot of Brock Street was enclosed for the first
time and ornamentally planted by Mr. Jameson. Before his removal to
Canada, Mr. Jameson had filled a judicial position in the West Indies.
In Canada, he was successively Attorney-General and Vice-Chancellor, the
Chancellorship itself being vested in the Crown. The conversational
powers of Mr. Jameson were admirable: and no slight interest attached to
the pleasant talk of one who, in his younger days, had been the familiar
associate of Southey, Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In a
volume of poems by Hartley Coleridge, son of the philosopher, published
in 1833, the three sonnets addressed "To a Friend," were addressed to
Mr. Jameson, as we are informed in a note. We give the first of these
little poems at length:
"When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:
Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:
One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
That, wisely doating, asked not why it doated,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
That man is more than half of nature's treasure,
Of that fair Beauty which no eye can see,
Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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