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T
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AQC. ABOUT 4S
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HALIBURTON
/
I i
Centenary Chaplet.
WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY BY JOHN PARKER ANDERSON.
British Museum, London, Eng.
Published for
THE HALIBURTON CLUB,
King's College, Windsor, N.S.,
WILLIAM BRIGGS,
Toronto.
1897.
Otticete
or
THE HALIBURTON CLUB.
1896-97.
Mcbidcnt:
A. B. de MILLE, M.A.
VioK.PRcaioiNT:
O. W. SM/TH, B.E.
■ccRCTAnv:
R. W. NORWOOD, B.A.
TncAauRcn :
J. KHADDER, B.A.
Historian :
H. A. ANCIENT.
A TOAST TO TOM HALIBURTON.
Hire's a health to thee, Tom ! May the mists of this earth
Never shadow the light of that soul
Which so often has lent the mild flashes of mirth
To illumine the depths of the Bowl.
With a world full of beauty and fun for a theme,
And a glass of good wine to inspire,
E'en without thee wo sometimes are bless'd with a gleam
That resembles thy spirit's own fire.
Yet still in our gayest and merriest mood
Our pleasures are tasteless and dim,
For the thoughts of the past and of Tom, that intrude.
Make us feel we're but happy with him.
Like the Triumph of old, where the absent one threw
A cloud o'er the glorious scene.
Are our feasts, my dear Tom, when we meet without you,
And think of the nights that have been,
1
A
/
Whun thy ({eiiiuH, nuuiiiing hU Huuh uf dulight,
Fleil Hway with thu mpturoUH huui-H,
And whun windoni and wit, t<> enliven the night,
Scattered freely their fruitu and thuir tluwerH ;
When thy elo<iuonce played round each topic in turn,
Shedding luHtre and life wliera it fell,
As thu sunlight, in which the tall niountain-topa bum,
PnintH each bud in the lowliest dell ;
When that uyo, before which the i)alu Senate once ({uailed,
With humour and deviltry hIiouu,
And the voice which the heart of thu [latriot hailed,
Had mirth in its every tone.
Then a health to thee, Tom ! Ev'ry bumi)ur we drain
But renders tliinu image more dear :
As the bottle goes round, and again, and again.
We wish, from our hearts, you were here !
— From Poems, by Joseph Howe.
rrurs
' to
I proponed
Itenary ol
Istancos ro
Ihu8 been i
I the public
It seen
lundertake
Ijil King's
lliterury ii
I to keep it
■their worl*
Ibooka and
Ichief prom
iProfessor (
llo the office
■from the c(
Ithrou^liout
■the way, th^
used by J\
F^OREWORD
rPHIS book, (18 its nnme iinplien, ia intended for a tribute
to the memory of Judge Haliburton. It wan first
[proposed to publiHh the volume within a month of the cen-
tenary of his birth, on December 17th, 1896, but circuni-
Istances rendered this impossible. The original title, however,
Iha8 been allowe<J to stand as expressing the raison d'etre of
the publication.
It seemed appropriate that Tub Haliuukton should
[undertake the issue of such a volume. This club was founded
lal King's College, Windsor, N.S., in 1884. Almost purely
lliterary in its aims, it endeavors, among other things,
Ito keep its members in touch with (Canadian writers and
Itheir work. It also attempts the collection of Canadian
■books and manuscripts. Its first president was one of its
Ichief promoters, Mr. H. P. Scott, of Windsor. In 1885
[Professor 0. G. D. Roberts, M.A., F.R.S.C, was appointed
[to the office, which he held ccmtinuously until his departure
Ifrom the college in 1895. Meetings take place fortnightly
Ithrou^rhout the academic year. It is an interesting fact, uj
Ithe way, that the club-room is a large apartment which was
ised by Judge Haliburton during his course at King's
7
frr
College, from 1810 to 1815. One other publication has been
put forth by the Club, " Haliburton : The Man and the |
Writer," by Mr. Crofton. It appeared in 1889, and ia sub-
stantially reproduced in the present volume.
The centenary of Haliburton's birth, which this book I
commemorates in a more permanent form, was pleasantly
observed on the evening of December 17th, 1896, when a|
meeting was held in the Assembly Chamber of the Legisla-
tive building, Halifax, N.S., under the auspices of the Nova I
Scotia Historical Society. An admirable programme of
speeches was compiled by the Secretary, Mr. Crofton, to
whom chiefly the success of the occasion was due. Among
the speakers were the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia,
the Archbishop of Halifax, Hon. Mr. Justice Townshend,
Hon. Speaker Lawrence, of the House of Assembly, the
Attorney-General of Nova Scotia, J. J. Stewart, Esq., and
the President of the Haliburton Club. A satisfactory
feature was the representative nature of the audience.
It is believed that " The Centenary Chaplet " will be not I
unworthy of its object. It is unnecessary to preface the!
various articles by any words of explanation or praise;
special attention, however, is directed to the Bibliography,
which is the only one of its kind extant. The Hali-
burton esteems itself fortunate in having secured thei
services of Mr. Anderson. That gentleman's work is tool
widely known to call for comment ; it will be remembered I
that he contributes the bibliographies to the " Great!
Writers" series of English authors. In justice to Mr.
Anderson it may be said that his work in the present I
instance would have been even more complete if he had not
been constrained by the exigencies of publication. The|
illustrations are made from photographs kindly loaned by a
member of Judge Haliburton's family.
The " Chaplet " has been issued, as far as possible, by
subscription. The thanks of the Club are due to those
friends who have assisted towards this end.
The Haliburtok has kept in view the fact that in issuing
this book it is honoring the memory of one who was a
Canadian and something more — an Imperialist, whose great
ideas must eventually give him a place in the hearts of all
who love Canada, and who cherish hopes of what a united
Empire may achieve.
A. B. DE MiLLE.
m
ASk(
Httlib
Halibi
Biblio)
Judge ]
Clifton,
The Pij
Gordon
Library
CONTENTS.
A Sketch of the Life and Times of Judge Haliburton
Haliburton as a Humorist and Descriptive Writer,
By H. P. ScoiT, M.A., Windsor, N.S.
Haliburton : The Man and the Writer
By F. Blake Crofton, Provincial Librarian
Halifax, N.S.
Bibliography
By John Parkkk Andebson, British Museum.
London, England.
PAOI
13
41
53
107
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Judge Haliburton . „
-Prontispiece.
Clifton, Windsor, N.S.
„„ ^. Opposite 13
Ihe Piper's Pond .
I! 17
Gordon House, Isleworth
,., •" 41
Library, Gordon House .
" 107
I
I
wr
y.
y.
c
'/
/
^1
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
JUDGE HALIBURTON.
fVi/A Five Illustrations.
Entekko
accdrding to Ai;t of tlie Parliament of 0:in»d», In the year
on^ tbntiiuind elglil hnndr.ia anil ninety-seven, by Robekt
ORANT HALIBtr.TOS, at thn Dtpiirlment of Airiic illiin-
M -'i
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
JUDGE HALIBURTON/
IN the absence of any suitable biography of the author of
"The Clockmaker," his centenary may lend an interest
to the following brief sketch of his life and times.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton was born at Windsor, in
the Province of Nova Scotia, on the 17th day of December,
1796. He was descended from the Haliburtons of Mertoun
and Newmains, a Border family, one of whom was Barbara
Haliburton, only child of Thomas Haliburton, of New-
mains, who married Robert Scott, and whose second son
was Walter Scott, the father of the immortal Sir Walter.
Her eldest son left numerous descendants. Sir Walter's tomb
I
* The anonymous form seemed to me the most convenient to adopt
in writing the above sketch, and it was understood that, while I should
be generally known as the author, my name should not be published as
such. As, however, since the above was written, the circulars an-
nouncing the forthcoming volume have mentioned my name in con-
nection with it; I have thought it best to append this note. — R. 6.
Haliburton.
13
w
in in the ancient burial place of the Haliburtons, St. Mary's
Aisle, in Dryburgh Abl)ey. Alxjut the beginning of the last
century nearly all of her numerous uncles migrated to
Jamaica, and the eldest of them, Andrew Haliburton, re-
moved thence to Scituate, ripar Boston, Massachusetts, where
he, and, subsequently, his son William, married members of
the Otis family, to which the well-known James Otis
belonged. William Haliburton (whose cousin, ATajor John
Haliburton, Olive's colleague, was, according to Mill's History
of India, " the Founder of the Sepoy force,"*) removed to
Nova Scotia with many persons from Scituate, when the
vacant lands of the Acadian French were offered to settlers.
His son, the Hon. William Hersey Otis Haliburton, Chief
Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, in Nova Scotia, mar-
ried Lucy Grant, a daughter of Major Alexander Grant, one
of Wolfe's Highland officers at the siege of Quebec, who,
after the French war, settled in the colony of New York,
where he married a Miss Kent, a near relative of the famous
Chancellor Kent. He was killed in the Revolutionary War,
at the storming of Fort Stanwix, while in command of the
New York Volunteers.
Chief Justice William Hersey Otis Haliburton left an only
child, the future author of " Sam Slick," who was educated
at the Grammar School, Windsor, and afterward, at the same
place, at the University of King's College, for Tory King's
College of the Colony of New York had migrated to
Windsor, Nova Scotia, where, preserving the traditions
• The only references to him in Scott's " Memorials of the Halibut-
tens " (printed privately in 1820 to show that that family had become
extinct in the male line) are, "killed on parade at Madras by a fanatical
Sepoy," and " he was the last survivor in the male line of the Hali-
burtons of Newmains and Mertoun." Mill speaks of his death, and
says that " the name of Haliburton was long remembered by the
Madras Sepoys."
There is no tablet to his memory in the burial place of his family.
14
Hi
of Oxford of olden times, it remained out and out Tory in
its politics, and continued unchanged, even after Oxford itself
had long felt the influence of modem ideas. Tn its colle-
giate school, as late at least as 1845, that venerable heirloom,
" Lilly's Latin Grammar," which had not a word of English
from cover to cover, and which was a familiar ordeal for boys
long before Shakespeare was born (Cardinal Wolsey, it is
said, assisted in its composition), was still employed. It even
retained the quaint old frontispiece representing boys with
knee-breeches and shoebuckles (prolmbly a picture of the
original " Blue-coat Boys ") climbing up the tree of know-
ledge, and throwing down the golden fruit. Daily, too, at
the meals in the College Hall there was, and perhaps may
be to this day, heard a quaint Latin grace, which was droned
by the "senior scholar," lieginning, Oculi omnium ad te speciant,
Domine ; probably the same that was heard in some college
halls in the days of the Crusades. It is to be hoped that the
" spirit of the age " has not led it to discard this and other
venerable heirlooms derived from an ancient ancestry. This
truly conservative and orthodox institution, in which the
future author was crammed with classics, and taught to
"fear God and honour the King," was then considered one of
the most successful educational institutions in America, and
it still ranks high in its reputation as a college. It is the
oldest in the Colonies, and it is the only one that has a Royal
Charter.
Mr. Haliburton used often to puzzle his friends by saying
that he and his father were born twenty miles apart, and in
the same house.
The enigma throws some light on the early history of
Windsor. His father had extensive grants of land at
Douglas, a place situated at the head waters of the St.
16
I
'' ' I
Oroiz, a tributary of the Avon, as to which there is a grue-
some tablet at St. Paul's Church, Halifax, Nova Scotia, to
the memory of a nobleman, who lost his life " from exposure
during an inclement winter, while settling a band of brave
Carolinians " at Douglas.
The famous Flora McDonald, whose husband was a captain
in that regiment, spent a winter in Fort Edward, the old
blockhouse of which still overlooks the village of Windsor.
The house at Douglas was built in the middle of the last
century, like a Norwegian lodge, of solid timber covered
with boards. When Mr. Haliburton's father removed from
Douglas it was floated down the river, and was placed on the
bank of the Avon, where the town of Windsor now is, and
in it Mr. Haliburton was bom. The tide there is very remark-
able, as it rises over thirty-six feet ; and while at high tide
hundreds of Great Easterns could float there, when the tide
is out the river dwindles into a rivulet, lost in a vast expanse
of square miles of chocolate. The village early in the
century consisted of one straggling street along the river
bank, under green arches formed by the meeting of the
boughs of large elms, a pretty little Sleepy Hollow, the quiet
of which was only at times disturbed by the arrival from
Halifax of a six-horse stage-coach at full gallop, or by the
melancholy whistle of a wheezy little steamer from St. John,
New Brunswick. The limited society of the place, a bit of
rural England which had migrated, was far more exclusive
and aristocratic than that now found in Halifax, or any
Canadian city (for a shop-keeper or retailer, however wealthy,
could not get the entrie to it), and was composed mainly of
families of retired naval and military officers, " U.E. Loyal-
ists," professional men, Church of England clergy, and pro-
fessors at the College, and also one or two big provincial
16
^
■—.-»»
V*'^"'
dignitaries, with still bigi^er salaries, who had country seats
where they spent their summers. The officers, too, of a
detachment of infantry stationed there largely contributed
to break the monotony of the place.
The migratory house was in time succeeded by a much
more commwlious one, V)uilt almost opposite to it ; and this,
in its turn, soon after Mr. Ifaliburton was made a Judge,
was deserted for what was his home for a quarter of a cen-
tury, Olifton, a picturescfue property to the west of the village,
consisting in all of over forty acres, bounding to the eastward
on the village, to the north on the river, and to the south on
the lands of King's College. Underlaid by gypsum, it was
much broken up and very uneven ; and the enormous amount
of earth excavated in openiiig up the gypsum quarries was
all needed to make the property a comfortable and suitable
I)lace of residence. Lord Falkland, a Lieutenant-Governor
of Xova Scotia, used to say that he had never seen any place
of its size that had such a variety of charming scenery. One
precipitous, sunny bank, about one hundred and fifty feet
long and thirty feet high, became a dense thicket of acacias,
and when they were in bloom, was one; mass of purple
and white blossoms, while pathways wandered up and down
through gleaming spruce copses and mossy glades.
One of its special points of interest was the " Piper's
Pond," so named after a probably mythical piper of a
Highland regiment, who, having dropped his watch into the
water, dived after it, and never came up. Tt was one of the
few " punch-bowls " in gypsum regions that are not found
dry.
As a landscape gardener, he was greatly aided by the
thorough art training his assistant had obtained at the best
ladies' school of her day — one at Paris supported by the old
2 17
r
Noblesse.- Her history, from early childhood to the time
when she arrived at Windsor, the youthful bride of Mr.
Haliburton, who himself was still a minor, was a singular
succession of romantic incidents. She was a daughter of
Captain Laurence Neville, of tlie 19th Light Dragoons, and
as she was very young when her mother died, her father,
having made provision for her support and education before
rejoining his regiment in India,* left her in charge of the
widow of a brother officer, a sister of Sir Alexander Lockhart,
who subsequently, unknown to him, married William Put-
nam McCabe, a man of means, who became the Secretary of
*' the United Irishmen " of '98. When he escaped to
France in an open smuggler's boat, he took with him his
wife and also her ward, Miss Neville ; and in 1816, the year
the latter was married, in spite of the ten thousand pounds
placed on his head he secretly went to England to bid her
good-bye.
Long before the thrilling tales of his escapes from the
troops in pursuit of him, and other adventures, appeared in
Madden's " History of the United Irishmen," they had been
household words in the nursery at Clifton.
The story of her marriage was equally romantic. When
her father, who was living at Henley-on-Thames in 1812,
was on his death-bed, he heard that a very old military friend,
named Captain Piercy, was living not far from that place,
and he therefore wrote to him, asking him to call on Miss
Neville, and to render her such services as she might need
until the arrival of her only brother, who was then in India
with his regiment, the 11th Hussars. He died in ignorance
* The sword of Tippoo Sahib, taken from his dead body by Capt.
Neville, after the famous charge of his regiment at Seringapatam,
which earned for them the name of " the Terror of India," is now in
the possession of Sir Arthur Haliburton, G.C.B.
18
of the fact that ho had written to a perfect stranger, an old
retired naval officer of that name, who, with his wife, on
receipt of the letter, called on Miss Neville, and invited
her, as they had no children, to make their house her
home. His step-nephew, Mr. Haliburton, while on a visit
to England, met her at his house, and though still a minor,
became engaged to and married her. The memory of these
incidents was long preserved in the local traditions of
Henley-on-Thames.
Mr. Haliburton, who had graduated with honors on leaving
college, in lime was called to the bar, and practised at
Annapolis Royal, the former capital of Nova Scotia, where
he acquired a large and lucrative practice; but a wider sphere
of action was opened to him when he became the represen-
tative of the county of Annapolis, and, as such, by his power
of debate and his ability, he speedily attained a leading
position.*
He was the first public man who in a l>ritish Legislature
successfully advocated the removal of Roman Catholic dis-
abilities. Speaking of his speech on that occasion, Mr.
Beamish Murdoch, in his " History of Nova Scotia," says it
was " the most splendid bit of declamation that it has ever
been my fortune to listen to. He was then in the prime of
life and vigor, both mental and physical. The healthy air of
country life had given him a robust appearance, though his
figure was yet slender and gniceful. As an orator, his
manner and Jittitude were extremely impressive, earnest and
dignified ; and, although the strong propensit}' of his mind to
wit and humor was often apparent, they seldom detracted from
lis now in
* With tho permission of Mr. Henry J. Morgan, portions of this
paper are reproduced, in an abridged form, from his " Bibliotheca
Canadensis," published in 18G7.
19
w
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the seriousness of his language, when the subject under dis-
cussion was important. Although he sometimes exhibited
rather more hauteur than was agreeable, yet his wit was
usually kind and playful. On this occasion he absolutely
entranced his audience. He was not remarkable for readi-
ness of reply in debate ; but when he had time to prepare his
ideas and language he was almost always sure to make an
impression on his hearers."
On this point Mr. Duncan Campbell, in his "History of
Nova Scotia " (p. 334), says : " The late Mr. Howe spoke of
him to the writer as a polished and effective speaker. On
some passages of his more elaborate speeches he bestowed
great pains, and in the delivery of them, Mr. Howe, who
acted in the capacity of a reporter, was so captivated and
entranced that he had to lay down his pen and listen to his
sparkling oratory. It is doubtless to one of these passages
that Mr. Beamish Murdoch refers."
It is difficult to imagine a more uninviting arena than
was presented at that time by Nova Scotian politics, or more
undesirable associates in public life than the politicians of
that day. The Province was ruled over by a Council consist-
ing of a few officials living at Halifax, one of the leaders of
which was the Church of England Bishop. In vain, there-
fore, year after year Mr, Haliburton got the House to vote
a grant to a Presbyterian institution, the Pictou Academy.
It was invariably rejected by the Council ; while a small
grant in aid of public schools was contemptuously rejected
without any discussion as to it. His ridicule of the
conduct of the Council in that matter gave them great
offence, and they demanded an apology from the House,
which, however, was refused, as the House resolved that there
was nothing objectionable in his remarks, and also that they
20
were privileged. The Council again more peremptorily de-
manded an apology, when the House, incredible as it may
seem, unanimously stultified itself by resolving that Mr.
Haliburton should be censured for his remarks. He accord-
ingly attended in his place, and was censured by the Speaker!
It must, therefore, have been an infinite relief, when an
opportunity offered of escape from such an ordeal as public
life was in those days.
Ho lived in the district embraced by the ^liddlo Division
of the Court of Common Pleas, of which his father was Chief
Justice, while he himself was the leader on that circuit.
When, therefore, his father died, the vacant post was, as a
matter of course, offered to him, and was gladly accepted.
But in Pictou County, which was largely settled by
" dour " Cameronians, and which gloried in those annual and
ever-recurring battles against the Bishop and his followers,
there are no doubt types of " Old Mortality" that will never
cease to denounce his retirement from the perennial strife as
a great sin, and an act of treason to his country, or (what is
the same thing) to the Pictou Academy.
In 1828, when only thirty-two years of age, he received the
appointment of Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas.
In 1841 the Court of Common Pleas was abolished, and his
services were transferred to the Supreme Court. In
February, 1856, he resigned his office of a Judge of that
Court, and soon afterwards removed to England, where he
continued to reside till his death.
It was a curious instance of " the irony of fate," when the
successful advocate of the removal of the political disabilities
of Roman Catholics was a quarter of a century afterwards
called on as a Judge to rule that the rights of Roman
Catholic laymen, as British subjects, could not be restricted
by any ecclesiastical authority.
f
I
Garten, a very prominent and respected Irishman living
in Halifax, having been excommunicated, was denied access
to his pew in St. Mary's Cathedral, of which he was the
legal otoner. Judge Haliburton's ruling in favor of the
plaintiif in Garten vs. "Walsh et al. was a very able one.
This was probably the only case in which a judge in Nova
Scotia ever had to order a court room to be cleared in con-
sequence of manifestations of public excitement and feeling.
About 1870 the same point was raised at Montreal in
the famous " Guibord case." The members of a French-
Canadian literary society, which had refused to have standard
scientific works weeded out of its library, were excommuni-
cated. One of them, named Guibord, had bought and was
the legal owner of a lot in the public cemetery at Montreal,
and, when he died, his body was refused admission to it.
Though this proceeding was justified by the Quebec courts,
their judgments were reversed by the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council ; and upon the defendants refusing to obey
" the order of Her Majesty in Council in the matter," some
thousands of troops were called out, and the body, under
military protection, was buried under several feet of Portland
cement in the Guibord lot.
While the ruling in Garten vs. Walsh et al. created some
bitter enemies that were powerful enough to make their
hostility felt, some offence (perhaps not altogether without
apparent cause) may also have been taken by them at
a few incidental philosophical allusions in " Rule and
Misrule of the English in America" to tViv important
results that were likely to flow from the now role of the
Roman Catholic Church as a political power in the New
World, a subject that he would no doubt have prudently
avoided could he have foreseen the bitter controversy as to
,4
that question that was about to be caused by the rise of the
" Know-nothing Movement."
Thanks to that wonder-worker, Titne, the lapse of fifty
years rarely fails to take all the caloric out of *' burning
questions," and is able to convert the startling forecasts of
thinkers into the trite truisms of practical politics.
The animus against him, however, was probably of a per-
sistent type. " From the ills of life," says Longinus, " there
is for mortals a sure haven — death, while the woes of the
gods are eternal." But successful authors are not much
better off than the unlucky gods, for their names and their
works survive them and can be tabooed.
The generous tribute from the Archbishop of Halifax and
Mr. Senator Power, at the Haliburton Centenary meeting
at Halifax, to the important services he had rendered three-
quarters of a century ago, is a pleasing proof that a public
man may safely do his duty and leave his life to the impartial
verdict of a later generation.
A few years after taking up his residence in England, he
paid a visit to Ontario, Canada, where he negotiated the pur-
chase by the Canadian Land and Immigration Company of an
exteuoive tract of country near Peterborough. Most of it
that is not now sold is included in the county of Haliburton,
which returns a member to the Ontario Legislature, and the
county town of Haliburton is the terminus of the Haliburton
branch of the Grand Trunk Railway.
In 1816, as already stated, he married Louisa, only daughter
of Captain Laurence Neville, of the 19th Light Dragoons (she
died 1840), by whom he had a large family.* And secondly,
in 1856, Sarah Harriet, widow of Edward Hosier Williams,
^ He left two sons and livo daughters.
1
Ih
of Eaton Mascott, Shrewsbury, hy wliom he had no iiwue, and
who survived him several years.
That life-long exile, the poet Petrarch, says that men, like
plants, are the better for transplanting, and that no man
should die where he was born. For years Judge Haliburton
stagnated and moped in utter solitude at Clifton, for his large
family had grown up and were settled in life elsewhere, while
death had removed the little band of intellectual companions
whose society had been a great source of enjoj'ment to him.
But he got a new lease of life by migrating to England. His
second wife was a very intelligent and agreeable widow lady
of a good social position, who even after having made a con-
siderable sacrifice of her means in order to marry him, was
comfortably off. It was a very happy match, and she proved
to be a most devoted wife. Before they were married she
had leased Gordon House, situated on the Thames, not
far from Richmond (a house built by George I. for the
Duchess of Kendal, who after his death believed that her
royal lover used to visit her in the form of a crow in what
is still known as " The haunted room "). In time the gardens
and grounds there were referred to as showing what lady
floriculturists can accomplish. His family, most of whom
resided in England, were delighted at seeing him in his old
age well cared for in a comfortable home.
As an author, he first came before the public in 1829, as the
historian of his native Province. His work, which was
well received by both the public and the press, and was so
highly thought of that the House of Assembly tendered him
a vote of thanks, is to the present time regarded as a standard
work in the Province.
Six years subsequently he became unconsciously the author
of the inimitable "Sam Slick." In a series of anonymous
24
articles in the Nova Scotian newspaper, then edited by Mr.
Joseph Howe, he made uHe of a Yankee peddler as his mouth-
piece. The character proved to lie "a hit," and the articles
greatly amused the readers of that paper, and were widely
copied by the American press. They were collected together
and published anonymously by Mr. Howe, of Halifax, and
several editions were issued in the United States. A copy
was taken thence to England by General Fox, who gave it to
Mr. Richard Lentley, the publisher. To Judge Haliburton's
surprise, he found that an edition that had been very favorably
received had been issued L\ England. For some time the
authorship was assigned to an American gentleman in London,
until Judge Haliburton visited England and became known
as the real author.
For his " Sam Slick " he received nothing from the
publisher, aa the work had not been copyrighted, but Mr.
Bentley presented him with a silver salver, on which was an
inscription written by tiie Rev. Richard Barham, the author
of the " Ingoldsby Legends." Between Barham, Theodore
Hook and Judge Haliburton an intimacy sprang up. They
frequently dined together at the Athenaeum Club, to which
they belonged, and many good stories told by Hook and Bar-
ham were remembered by the Judge long after death had
deprived him of their society.
As regards " Sam Slick," he never expected that his name
would be known in connection with it, or tliat his productions
would escape the usual fate of colonial newspaper articles.
On his arrival in London, the son of Lord Abinger (the
famous Sir James Scarlett) who was confined to his lied,
asked him to call on his father, as there was a question which
he would like to put to him. When he called, his Lordship
said, " T am convinced that there is a veritable Sam Slick in
25
I ,
■!'l
I'l I
ii
li.
the flesh now selling clocks to the Bluenoses. Am I right ? "
" No," replied the Judge, " there is no such pemon. He was
a pure accident. I never intended to descrilw a Yankee
olockmaker or Yankee dialect ; but Sam Slick slipped into
my book before I was aware of it, and once there he was
there to stay."
In some respects, perhaps, the prominence given to the
Yankee dialect was a mistake, for, except in very isolated
communities, dialect soon changes. A Harvard professor,
nearly fifty years ago, indignantly protested against Sam
Slick being accepted "as a typical American." His indigna-
tion was a little out of place. It would be etjually foolish in
an Englishman should he protest against Sam Weller being
regarded as a typical Englishman. Do typical Americans
wander about in out-of-the-way regions selling wooden clocks 1
Sam Slick represented a very limited class that sixty years
ago was seen oftener in the Provinces than in the United
States, but we have the best proof that The Clockmaker
suggested a true type of some " Downeasters " of that day in
the fact that the people of many places in the North-eastern
States were for many years convinced that they had among
them the original character whom Judge Haliburton had
met and described.
Sixty years ago the Southern States wei-e familiar with the
sight of Sam Slicks, who had always good horses, and whose
Yankee clocks were everywhere to be seen in settlers' log
houses.
Since Sam Slick's day the itinerant vendor of wooden
clocks has moved far west, and when met with there, is a
very different personage from Sam Slick. Within the past
forty years, however, veritable Sam Slicks have occasionally
paid a visit to Canada. One of them sold a large number of
26
i^i
w(XKlen clocks throughout Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.
They were warranted to keep accurate time for a year, and
hundreds of notes of hand were taken for the price. The
notes passed by endorsement into third hands, but, unfortu-
nately, the clocks would not go. Actions were brought in
several counties by the indorsees, and the fact that Seth'a
clocks had stopped caused as much lamentation and dismay
as a money panic. The first case that came up was tried
before Judge Haliburton, much to the amusement of the
public and to the edification of the Yankee clockmaker, who
had a long homily read to him on the impropriety of cheating
Bluenoses with Yankee clocks that would do anything sooner
than keep time.
But a man may be a Yankee clockmaker without having
the "cuteiiess" and common sense of Sam Slick. In liis
Early Reminisce.nces, Sir Daniel Lysons describes such an one
who, while selling clocks in Canada, was tempted to stake his
money and clocks, etc., on games of billiards with a knowing
young subaltern. "The clocks soon passed into British pos-
session. They then played for the waggon and horse. Finally,
Sam Slick, pluck to the backbone, and still confident, staked
his broad-brimmed hat and his coat ; Bob won them ; and
putting them on in place of his own, which he gave to his
friend Sam, he mounted the waggon and drove into barracks
in triumph, to the immense amusement of the whole garrison."
An English Reader has for half a century been in use in
French schools, which gives Sam Slick's chapter on "Buying
a Horse " as one of its samples of classical English literature.
Experience is proving that the value attached by Sam
Slick to the geographical position and natural advantages of
the Province of Nova Scotia was not a mistaken one. We
are, however, apt to be more grateful to those that amuse
27
]'
I
than to thoso who instruct uh. Many pprsons who laughwl
at Sam Slick's jokes did not it h'sh histiuths, and his popu-
hvrity as an author was far greater out of Nova Scotia than
in it ; but it had ceased to depend on the verdict of his
countrymen.
Art(Mnus Ward pronounced him to ho the "father of tlio
American school of humor."
The illustrati(ms of the Clockmaker by Hervicu, and of
Wise Saws by Leech, supplied the convontional type of
*' Brother Johathan," or " Uncle Sam," with his shrewd smile,
his long hair, his goatee, his furry hat, and his short striped
trousers held down by long straps, a precise contrast to tlio
conventional testy, pompous, pot-bellied John liull, with his
knee-broeches and swallow-tail coat.
Among all the numerous notices of Sam Slick's works that
have appeared from time to time, that by the Illustrated
LondoT News, on July IStli, 1842, which was accompanied
by an excellent portrait of Judge Ilaliburton, is the most
discriminating and appreciative.
" Sam Slick's entree into the literary world would appear to
have been in the columns of a weekly Nova Scotian journal,
in which he wrote seven or eight years ago a series o/"
sketches illustrative of homely American character. There
was no name attached to them, but they soon became so pop-
ular that the editor of the Nova Scotian newspaper applied
to the author for permission to reprint them entire ; and this
being granted, he brought them out in a small, unpretending
duodecimo volume, the popularity of which, at first confined
to our American colonies, soon spread over the United States,
by all classes of whose inhabitants it was most cordially wel-
comed. At Boston, at New York, at Philadelphia, at Balti-
more, in short, in all the leading cities and towns of the
28
Unit)n, this anonymous littlo voluun was to be found on tho
drawing-room tables of tlio most influential members of the
social comnmnity ; while, oven in tho emij^rant's H«)litary
farm house and tho squatter's lojjf hut among the primeval
forests of the Far West, it was read with the deepest interest,
cheering the spirits of tiie backwoodsman by its wholesome,
vigorous and lively pictures of everyday life. A recent
traveller records his surpris«5 and pleasure at meeting with a
well thumbed copy in a log hut in the wo<h1s of the Mississippi
valh^y.
"Tho primary cause of its Hucoeas, we conceive, maybe
found in its sound, sagacious, unexaggeratod views of human
nature — not of human nature as it is luodifHid by artificial
institutions and subjected to tho despotic caprices of fashion,
but as it exists in a free and comparatively unsophisticaUid
state, full of faith in its own impulses and quick to sympathize
with kindred humanity ; adventurous, self-relying, untram-
melled by social etiquette ; giving full vent to the emotions
that rise within its breast ; regardless of the distinctions of
cjvste, but ready to find friends and brtjthren among all of
whom it may come in contact.
" Such is the human nature delineated in Sam Slick.
" Another reason for Sam Slick's popularity is the humor
with which the work is overflowing. Of its kind it is
decidedly original. In describing it we must borrow a
phrase from architecture, and say that it is of a ' composite
order;' by which we mean that it combines the (jualities of
English and Scotch humor — the hearty, mellow spirit of the
one, and tho shrewd, caustic qualities of the other. It derives
little help from the fancy, but has its ground-work in tho
understanding, and affects us by its quiet truth and force
and the piquant satire with which it is flavored. In a word —
it is the sunny side of common sense."
29
mi
A review of " Nature and Human Nature " drew attention
to the fact that no writer has produced purer conceptions of
the female character than are to be found in Sam Slick's
works. They show none of those morbid, sexualistic
tendencies which are betrayed in some modern novels written
by young ladies, or in semi-scientific papers on sexual subjects
by •' advanced females." Tacitus praised the social purity of
the Germans at the expense of his corrupt fellow-countrymen.
" No one there makes a jest of vice," which we may now read,
"No one there writes novels about adultery." Sam Slick
tells us how he romped and flirted with country girls ; but in
all he has written there is not the slightest trace of impro-
priety, even by the most remote implication. There is no
harm in Sam Slick's jokes, which were originally intended for
rough, plain-spoken backwoods Bluenoses of sixty years ago ;
for, while impurity corrupts, however refined it may be,
coarseness does not. The Bible is often coarse, but never
impure.
Some years before Sydney Smith made what is generally
set down as his best joke, as to a day being so hot that it
would be a comfort to " take off our flesh and sit in our
bones" it had made its appearance in " Sam Slick ; " and
the country girl who says, " I guess I wasn't brought up at
all, I growed up," probably suggested Topsy's, " spec I
growed."
After this sketch had been written, a somewhat startling
suggestion, that the idea of The Clockmaker had been
borrowed from Dickens, and that Sam Slick was merely a
Yankee version of Sam Weller, led to an inquiry into the
point. The coincidences were many, and could hardly be
accidental. Dickens sends off Pickwick in his wanderings
without any apparent object in view, accompanied by a
30
shrewd and humorous Cockney valet, whose sayings and
doings are the prominent feature of the book; while Juc'-^e
Haliburton sends off the author on very similar travels,
accompanied by a cute Yankee, for whose yarns and jokes
the book is simply a peg on which they can be hung. In
both cases there is the faintest apology for a connected story.
If any one had been guilty of plagiarism, it was Dickens,
for the first number of the " Pickwick Papers " appeared
in April, 1836, while the early chapters of *' The Clock-
maker" were published in 1835, and were at once widely
copied by the American press, and may have been seen by
Dickens.
The Cockney dialect was used as far back as 1811 in a
farce by Samuel Beazley, architect ; and no doubt the
Yankee dialect in ** The Clockmaker " was not its first appear-
ance in literature.
Duncan Campbell says in his " History of Nova Scotia "
(p. 335), " Sam Slick, the Clockmaker, immediately attracted
attention. The character proved to be as original and
amusing as Sam Weller. Samuel amuses us only. Slick
both amuses and instructs. Rarely do we find in any
character, not excepting the best of Scott's, the same
degree of originality and force, combined with humor,
sagacity, and sound sense, as we find in the Clockmaker.
Industry and perseverance are effectively inculcated in
comic story and racy narrative. In the department of
instructive humor Haliburton standf), perhaps, unrivalled in
English literature."
The Spectator (Tjondon) calls hira " One of the shrewdest
of humorists ;" and his biographer in Chambers' Encyclo-
pedia says, " he attained a place and fame difficult to acquire
at all times — that of a man whose humor was a native of one
r^
81
country and became naturalized in anotlier, for humour is
the least exotic of the gifts of Genius."
Philarete Chasles in the Revue ilea Deux Mondes,* in a
long and favorable notice of Judge Ilaliburton's works,
pronounced them to be unequalled by anything that had been
written in England since the days of Sir Walter Scott.
Long after "Sam Slic j Clockmaker," first appeared, it
was by many persons re ed to as a store-house of practical
wisdom and common sense, and a vade mecum as to the
aifairs of e very-day life. Forty years ago an able but very
eccentric Danish Governor at St. Thomas, in the West Indies,
was noted far and wide for liis excessive admiration for Sara
Slick's works. Whenever a very knotty point arose before
him and his Council, which consisted of three persons, he
used to say " We must adjourn till to-morrow. I should like
to look into this point. I nmst see what Sam Slick has to
say about it."
A traveller on reaching the most northern town in the
world, Hammerfest, found that Sam Slick had been there
before him, for the " Clockmaker " was a hobby and a text-
book of a humorous Scotchman, who was the British consul
there at that time.
Judge Haliburton was very fond of youthful society ; old
men were too old for him, for he used to say that a large
majority of men when they begin to grow old become very
pi'osy. On the other hand, his humor and conversational
powers were vei'y attractive to young men. In illustration
of this, the late Sir Fitzroy Kelly, who considered him the
most agreeable talker he had ever met, used to tell of meeting
him once during the shooting season, at a country house.
Next morning, to his surprise, he found all the young men
• Tome XXVI, 307 (1841).
32
imour 18
gathered around the Judge in the smoking room, instead of
their being among the turnips. They preferred hearing Sam
Slick talk to the delights of shoqj-ing.
In 1859, he consented to run for Launceston, where his
friend, the Duke of Northumberland had great influence.
On his election he thanked his constituents, "in behalf of
four million of British subjects on the other side of the water,
who, up to the present time, had not one individual in the
House of Commons through whom they might be heard."
It seems almost providential that when an advocate of the
Unity of the Empire was most sorely needed, he had for a
quarter of a century been writing in favor of the colonies.
But for the strong public opinion aa to their value among
the masses, whom the popularity of his works had enabled him
to reach, fanatical free traders, in order to prevent the possi-
bility of a return to "the Colonial System," might have
persuaded the nation to burn its ships by getting rid of its
colonies.
A solitary colonist at that period in the House of Commons
soon found that he had fallen on evil times, and that among
all classes above the mass of the people, but especially among
politicians. Conservative as well as Liberal, there was a
growing hostility to the colonies.
" Oh ! was it wise, when, for the love of gain,
England forgot her sons beyond the main ;
Held foes as friends, and friends as foes, for they
To her are dearest, who most dearly pay ?"
Though no one in Parliament dared to openly advocate
disintegration, there was a settled policy on the part of a
secret clique, whose headquarters were in the Colonial Office,
to drive the colonies out of the Empire by systematic snub-
bing, injustice and neglect.
3 88
This infamous state of things, of which all classes of
Englishmen profess now to be ashamed, was made apparent
when Judge Haliburton moved in the House of Commons
that some months notice should be given of the Act to throw
open British markets to Baltic timber, a measure which, if
suddenly put in operation, would seriously injure New
Brunswick merchants ; and he urged as a reason for due
consideration for that interest, that it was not represented in
Parliament. Mr. Gladstone did not condescend to give any
explanation or reply, but led his willing majority to the vote,
and the Bill was passed.
People sometimes cite what occurred at this debate as a
proof that " Judge Haliburton was not a success in the House
of Corumons ; " but it is difficult to imagine a more uncon-
genial audience for an advocate of Imperial Unity.
Gladstone, as if to remove any doubt as to his animus in
these proceedings, sent a singularly insolent reply to a letter
written to him by a New Brunswick timber merchant pro-
testing against this unexpected measure. " You protest, as
well as remonstrate. Were I to critically examine your
language, I could not admit your right, even individually, to
protest against any legislation which Parliament may think
fit to adopt on this matter." Had the protest only been in
the form of dynamite he would have submissively bowed
down at the sound of that " chapel bell" which has since then
from time to time uc'led him and his cabinets to repentance.
His two attempts to destroy the Empire, first by attacking
its extremities through Imperial disintegration, and, next, its
heart by Home Rule, alike failed ; and he has retired from
public life, leaving behind him the fragments, not of a great
Empire, but of a shattered party.
Though a majority of both parties. Conservatives as well as
34
' M
m
Liberals, agreed with their two leaders in their wish to get
nd c* the Colonies, (for Disraeli, as far back as 1852, wrote,
" These wretched Colonies will all bo independent in a few
years, and are a millstone around our neck"), the people were
wiser and more patriotic than their politicians; and in 1869
(only four years after Judge Haliburton's death) over one
hundred and four thousand workingmen of I-iondon signed
an address to the Queen protesting against any attempt to
get rid of that heritage of the people of England — the Colonial
Empire. This memorial was not considered worthy of any
reply or acknowledgment.* At that time, when the fate of
• It could not have been conveniently pigeon-holed, for i<. re-
quired six men to carry it ; but we may assume that it never got
farther than the Home Office, and that Her Majesty never heard of it,
and therefore never replied to it, The petition was written by the
truest friend the colonies have ever had — one who died in harness
while working in their cause — the late C. W. Eddy, who informed the
writer that the Disintegration party had for a time so effectually
" captured " the Royal Colonial Institute, of which he was Secretary,
that the Council refused to allow the petition to lie on the table of the
reading-room on the ground that it was " revolutionary ! " So un-
satisfactory was their conduct as late as 1872, that another colonial
society would have been founded, had not the colonial element gained
the day in the Institute.
How far the petition waa " revolutionary " may be seen from the
following extracts :
" We beg to represent to your Majesty that we have heard with
regret and alarm that your Majesty has been advised to consent to
give up the colonies, containing millions of acres of unoccupied land,
which might be employed profitably both to the colonies and to our-
selves as a field for emigration. We respectfully sr.omit that your
Majesty's colonial possessions were won for your M'-jesty, and settled
by the valor and enterprise and the treasure of the English people ;
and that, having thus become part of the national freehold and in-
heritance of your Majesty's subjects, they are held in trust by your
Majesty, and ought not to bo surrendered, but transmitted to your
Majesty's successors, as they were received by your Majesty."
The petition, after urging that by proclamation the mother country
and the colonies should be declared to be one Empire, adds, "we
would also submit that your Majesty mi^ht call to your Privy Council
representatives from the colonies for the purpose of consultation on
the aifairs of the more distant parts of your Majesty's dominion."
35
It'.;; '»
I ■•
it
I '1!
m
England as a first-class power was in the balance, there was
no need for the masses to bo " educated up " to the subject ;
it was rather their statesmen and politicians that required to
be educated down — down to the common sense of the common
people.
The next move against the Disintegrationists was made
four years later, in 1872, when "The United Empire
Review" revived the now familiar watchword of the old
"U. E. Loyalists" of 1776 (those Abe Lincolns, who fought
for the Union a hundred years ago), " a United Empire ; "
and in 1873 an agitation was begun in the Premier's own
Ttonstituency (Greenwich) against the dismemberment policy
< I fche Government, that six months later drove them out of
]/0'.- . ; a,t the general election.
Wh.'ii) Gladstone was deliberately striving to breed dis-
un".on be' -i the people of England, Scotland, Ireland and
"gaiiaat I'; -jit r'Ues," and to get rid of our Colonial Empire,
his exact antipodes in everything, Bismarck, that Colossus of
the Nineteenth Century, was devoting his giant energies to
his life-work, — the unity of Germany, and the creation of a
German Colonial Empire. It is possible that, as Sam Slick's
works are among his favorite books, he may have imbibed
to some extent Sam Slick's ideas as to the value of our
colonies, and the incredible folly of those that wished to get
rid of them; and that we may here find a clue to the
unmeasured contempt which the Prince used so often to
openly express for English politicians, But he must have
been most interested in Rule and Misrule of the English in
America, one of the most profoundly philosophical and pro-
phetic works to be found in the literature of any country.
Published in England, and by Harper Brothers, New
York, in 1851, a troubled time all over Europe, and
36
even in America, wliich had its Tammany Hall rule, and,
later on, its •' Know-nothing Movement," it pointed out that
American republican institutions, which dated back to the
old Puritjins, were of slow growth, and could not be acquired
or preserved in European countries by revolutions and uni-
versal suffrage ; and he foretold the collapse of the French
Republic, the rise of Communism, the stern rule of self-
imposed Imperialism, and nearly all the leading features of
the political history of Europe and America since that date.
Time, however, had a marvel in store, the fruit of half a
century of social and political development, which even he
did not foresee — a French-Canadian Roman Catholic, sup-
ported by a Liberal majority from Quebec, ruling from ocean
to ocean over a new Dominion !
Some of his views, visionary as they may have appeared
tifty years ago, seem to have taken a practical shape at the
Queen's Jubilee.
" The organization is all wrong. They are two people, but
not one. It shouldn't be England and her colonies, but they
should be integral parts of one great whole — all counties of
Great Britain. There should be no tax on colonial produce,
and the colonies should not be allowed to tax British manu-
factures. All should pass free, as from one town to another
in England ; the whole of it one vast home market from
Hong-Kong to Labrador. . . . They should be repre-
sented in Parliament, help to pass English laws, and show
them what laws they want themselves. It should no more be
a bar to a man's promotion, as it is now, that he lived beyond
the sea, than being on the other side of the channel. It
should be our navy, our army, our nation. That's a great
word, but the English keep it to themselves, and colonists
have no nationality. They have no place, no station, no
37
!( '
rank. Honors don't reach them ; coronations are blank days
to them ; no brevets go across the water except to the
English o£Gicers, who are 'on foreign service in the colonies.'
No knighthood is known there — no stars — no aristocracy — no
nobility. They are a mixed race ; they have no blood. They
are like our free niggers. They are emancipated, but they
haven't the samd social position as the whites. The fetters
are off, but the caste, as they call it in India, remains.
Colonists are the Pariahs of tlie Empire."
Many persons have been surprised that the ablest colonial
statesmen and journalist since the days of Franklin, the
Hon. Joseph Howe, " the father of Responsible Government,"
and an advocate of the Unity of the Empire, died without
having received any mark of Imperial recognition, while a
motley crowd of Maltese, Levantines and stray Englishmen
in the colonies were able to add a handle to their unknown
names. That this was the case need not surprise us, for the
dispensing of such favors was (and we must trust no longer
is) in the hands of those who were able, from behind the
scenes, to pull the strings of the Dismemberment movement.
The Rev. George Grant, D.D., in a very able address at
Halifax, on the life and times of Joseph Howe, said :
" We are, all of us, pupils of Haliburton and Howe. Is
not this a proof that, if you would know those secrets of the
future which slumber in the recesses of a nation's thought,
unawakened as yet into consciousness, you must look for them
in the utterances of the nation's greatest sons ? "
Before closing this sketch it is but right to mention an
instance (the only one) in which the British Government
seemed disposed to pay a tribute to the ablest author and the
most profound thinker that the Colonial Empire has yet
produced. As Judge Haliburton's unrivalled mastery of
colonial questions eminently fitted him to be the Governor of
an important dependency, the Colonial Office offered to appoint
him President of Montserrat, a wretched little West Indian
Island, inhabited by a few white families and a thousand or
two of blacks. As the manufacture of Montserrat lime-juice
had not then been commenced, the island must have been
even more desolate and woe-begone than it now is.
"Judge Haliburton died at his residence at Isleworth, on
the banks of the Thames, where he had greatly endeared
himself to the people of the place during the few years which
he had spent among them, and was buried in the Isleworth
churchyard ; and, in accordance with one of his last wishes,
his funeral was plain and unostentatious."
" In the words of a local chronicler : — ' The village of Isle-
worth will henceforth be associated with the most pleasing
reminiscences of Mr. Justice Haliburton ; and the names of
Cowley, Thompson, Pope, and Walpole will find a kindred
spirit in the world-wide reputation of the author of Sam
Slick, who, like them, died on the banks of the Thames.' " *
In the same gi-aveyard rests the immortal Vancouver.
Judge Haliburton, several years before his death, was told
by the sexton that a famous navigator was buried there, but
he did not remember the name, as it had become illegible on
the tombstone. It was found, on making enquiries, that the
person in question must have been Vancouver. A new
tombstone, with a suitable inscription, was placed over Van-
couver's grave; and several years subsequently a tablet to
his memory was erected in the church. It is to be hoped
that the day will come when a suitable monument will be
raised to the great explorer ; and that Westminster Abbey
and St. Paul's may yet become the Valhalla, not only of the
Mother Country, but also of her Colonial Empire.
•Morgan's Bibliotheca Canadensis, p. 169.
39
', ! •
It matters not that there is uo public memorial to an
author whose writings created among the masses a public
opinion in favor of the colonies that baffled the dismember-
ment craze of English statesmen and theorists. He will have
a monument as long as the British Empire lasts.
40
al to an
a public
smember-
will have
y.
HALIBURTON AS HUMORIST AND
DESCRIPTIVE WRITER.
BV H. P. SCOTT, M.A., WINDSOR, N.S.
WHEN Haliburton first presents himaelf as humorist
in the opening pages of " The Clockmaker," the
story- telling element is the most conspicuous.
His descriptive powers are not particularly noticeable until
he begins the third series with his admirabl picture of "The
Prince's Lodge in Ruins." Character drawing again comes
later, and his best efforts in this line are to be found in "The
Old Judge." The influence of the " Bentley's Miscellany "
set, and the advantage of editorial revision and pruning are
apparent here also.
Probably the most carefully drawn of all his characters is
that of Stephen Richardson in the series of chapters entitled
" The Keeping Room of an Inn." He tries to put too much
into the creation of Sam Slick, making one instead of several
characters embodying distinct and, in some cases, antagonistic
traits. Dickens never wastes his material in this way. Every
character of his, however elaborately dressed up, stands for one
41
simple quality. Hallburton spread the idea of Sam Slick
over a vast surface, trying to represent in him the genius of
the United States with its many virtues and limitations.
Thus in "The Socdolager" introduced in the prefatory
chapter of " Sam Slick's Wise Saws," we have a character
something like Edward Everett, the Unitarian preacher who
became a professor and president of Harvard University, then
politician and diplomatist. Clever, eloquent and versatile
— a type represented in American letters to-day by Edward
Eggleston — Everett also appears I'uder his own name in an
early chapter of " The Clockmr.Ker." Rev. Ahab Meldrum
embodies his views of camp-meeting excitement, in which he
has been followed by the late Dr. Holland in " Arthur
Bonnycastle " and by Mark Twain in one (/' his Mississippi
sketches.
President Felton of Harvard repaid Haliburton for satiris-
ing Everett by saying some nasty things about "The Clock-
maker."
It is doubtful whether American readers and critics have
ever cheerfully acquiesced in the summary of their differentia-
tion embodied in " Sam Slick." Readers may have done so,
but from occasional references it is surmised that the critics
are still very sore over the work. George William Curtis,
for instance, in a sketch in Harj)er's Easy Chair some time
ago, of the beginnings of literature in North America, stigma-
tizes Haliburton's creations as caricatures and extravaganzas,
seen without imagination, and drawn without skill or sym-
pathetic insight. To create some distinctly national t3'pe in
literature has always been the aim of the best writers in the
United States. Hawthorne studied and dreamed and wrote
a life-time on the subjecu, Oarlyle, in one of his letters to
Emerson, asks him why he does not embody his ideas in some
42
personal sketch. No one has better limned the salienc
features of Americanism than Emerson in his aphoristic essays,
but he tells Carlyle frankly that he cannot create a representa-
tive character. W. D. Howells has essayed the task in
many elaborately drawn characters from Silas Lapham to
Northwick, the manufacturing defaulter, in "The Quality
of Mercy," and Jefif Durgin ; but his critics are obliged to
confess that they cannot remember even the names of half of
his characters. Dr. H. S, Peck, in the February Bookman,
discusses the possible ability of Mr. Howells to be the
writer of the long expected American Novel, but upon the
whole considers him ineligible as obscure and feeble in his
powers of characterization. For want of a more striking
subject for the great American Novel, how will Sam Siick
dol Certainly he summarizes a great number of the national
characteristics, and his range is long and his eye compre-
hensive. He has one western type — Lucifer Wolfe, the pre-
cursor of Mark Twain's Mississippi heroes.
The question has often been asked where Haliburton got
such a clinging idea of the old-fashioned Yankee — the Yankee
of sixty years ago. The descendants of the expatriated
Loyalists scattered along the Nova Scotian sea-coast and
rivers may have supplied him with his material. The best
local description, perhaps, is that of the German and Dutch
settlement of Lunenburg contained in the chapter of " The
Old Judge," entitled " Hufeisen Bucht." The old Dutchman,
seated bolt upright in his chair surrounded by the goods
which he had found in the deserted French fort, elevating hia
toe as if in derision of some gentleman at Lunenburg — as
Rudolph, Von Zwicker or Oxuer, who had belonged to good
families in their own country, and who had in consequence
been the life-long objects of his envy and malevolence, and
43
■ l 4
I' 'f.
.*?
]
,i
whom he thinks he has now got even with — is spiritedly
conceived and drawn. It is odd that no one has ever pro-
jected an annotated edition of these books. Many allusions
have already become obscure, and more are growing dim in
the popular memory. He speaks, for instance, of " Old Mrs.
Fuller, that married her sister's husband's brother" — Crane
Fuller that was — an evident allusion to the famous repartee
that Deacon Crane got off on Deacon Fuller who had inquired
of him the difference between certain species of wild-fowl.
Names of places and people, historical references and the like
will be the subject of debate before many years have passed
away. Now would be a good time for the publication of
such an edition while these things could be in part elucidated.
His letters, too, have never been published, and he must
have left unpublished, as every writer does, sketches which
the public would like to see. How eagerly everything that
Hawthorne ever put on paper has been seized upon and
printed ! Even inferior writers generally have friends who
consider it a sacred duty to bring out their posthumous
works. How many good things would have perished save
for this !
If one were asked to give a selection of passages in which
Haliburton appears at his best as merely a humorist, the
following might be named :
The Deacon and the French Acadian Horsetrader. — " The
Attach^," Chapter xxvii.
The Snow-wreath. — " Clockmaker," Chapter ix.
Bedding Old Clay.— "The Attach^," Chapter xi.
Fire in the Dairy. — "The Attach*^," Chapter xxviii.
The Talisman. — " Clockmaker," second series. Chapter x.
Wilmot Springs. — " Clockmaker," second series. Chapter vi.
A Pippin. — "Old Judge," Chapter xvi.
44
pter X.
3ter vi.
Passages in which humor is intermingled with descriptive
touches :
A Hot Day. — " Wise Saws," Chapter xxiv.
A Picnic at La Have. — "Wise Saws," Chapter xxvi.
Aunt Thankful.—" Wise Saws," Chapter xx.
A Juicy Day in the Country. — " The Attach^," Chapter ii.
Passages purely descriptive :
The Prince's Lodge. — "Clockmaker," third series. Chapter i.
A Long Night and a Long Story. — "Old Judge," Chap-
ter xiii.
The Lone House. — "Old Judge," Chapter cxl.
Hufeisen Bucht. — "Old Judge," Chapter xvii.
The Chesapeake in Halifax Harbor. — Murdoch's " His-
tory of Nova Scotia," Volume iii., page 352.
Louisbourg. — "Nature and Human Nature," Chapter xxv.
Sam Slick ranks with Pickwick, Dick Swiveller, the
Marquis of Steyne, Judge Pyncheon and the other greater
creations of fiction of the century. There are various stories
of how and where Haliburton captured him, whether from
the fund of stories of his coachman, Lennie Geldert, who
drove him round on circuit, or from Judge Peleg Wiswell, or
with a flesh- and-blood clockmaker, Seth ; but, after sifting all
of them, the conclusion is reached that he had, at most, but
shadows to assist him in embodying his idea. No type of
humor since My Uncle Toby has been so thoroughly worked
out as Sam Slick. The reader of the second part of " The
Attach^ " has a lurid picture, which fairly burns itself into
the memory, of the actual crime and spoliation which accom-
panied the outbreak of the Canadian rebellion, and which,
no doubt, tinged Haliburton's mind with a horror of extreme
popular movements.
Sam and his companion visit d'Anville's sunken fleet in a
46
If
diving-bell. "The ships," he says, "are etill distinctly
visible in calm weather, and the rising ground in the neigh-
borhood, where the Due d'Anville and his mighty host were
buried, is again clothed with wood, and not to be distinguished
from the surrounding forest, except by the inequality of the
surface, caused by numerous trenches cut into it to receive the
dead. The whole scene is one of surpassing beauty and deep
and melancholy interest. The ruined lodge, the sunken fleet,
the fatal encampment, the lovely and desolate cemetery of
those unfortunate strangers, form a more striking and painful
assemblage of objects than is to be found in any other part of
British America."
A summer's residence, some years ago, on the shores of
Bedford Basin, with its rarely-broken Sabbath stillness, made
me well acquainted with the peaceful beauties of the above
locality. It is an odd fact that the Duke of Kent's half-
dozen broken years' stay here is about the only romantic
occurrence in our later history. For a long time it formed
the one great subject about which gossips of a historical turn
of mind loved to talk. Old men and women living in Halifax
until recently remembered the Prince with his French friend,
Madame St. Laurent. On the Prince's marriage she went
into a convent. One story ran that on their arrival here
Lady Inglis, the bishop's wife, cried, " Tut ! I won't call on
the nasty French hussy ! " But she had to do it.
True, there is the story of the ghost of Dr. Copeland's wife,
which appeared to the brave Captain Torrens one lovely night
on Sable Island (told in Sam Slick's Wise Saws, chapter xvi.) ;
but there is nothing definite for the imagination to work on
except this semi-regal residence of Prince Edward, his father's
aversion, by Bedford Basin, the inner harbor of Chebucto.
In spite of the lapse of time and the complete absence of
4»
's wife,
night
xvi.) ;
[ork on
lather's
ebucto.
mce of
repairs, it is surprising how vivid an impression may be
obtained from the ruins of what the grounds were in their
prime.
Sara has a horse, " Old Clay," that will do his fourteen
miles an hour. " He can pick up miles on his feet, throw 'em
behind him faster than a steam doctor a racin' oft* with
another man's wife." " Mr. Slick proposed drawing me in his
wagon to Horton, by the INIount Denson road, that I might
have an opportunity of seeing what he pronounced to be some
of the most beautiful scenery in the province. ... I
was by no means prepared to find a scene of such exquisite
beauty as now lay before me. I had seen at different times a
good deal of Europe and much of America, but I have seldom
seen anything to be compared to the view of the Basin of
Minas and its adjacent landscape, as it presents itself to you
on your ascent of Mount Denson (five miles below Windsor,
on the opposite shore of the Avon), and yet, strange to say,
so little is it known or appreciated here, that I never recollect
to have heard it spoken of before as anything remarkable."
Haliburton comments upon the rapid transmission of slang
words and phrases through the States, and points out the
great differences (greater in his time than now) between the
dialects and humor of the various sections of the country,
therein anticipating the learned disquisitions of Homer
Wilbur in "The Bigelow Papers." Finally, this curious pair
of tourists arrive at Slickville, where Sam is publicly enter-
tained, and shortly afterwards, on the strength of 1 's
literary (?) reputation, appointed attache to the U. S. Lega-
tion in London.
In " The Attach^" Sam comes up radiant as ever with his
social discoveries in England. The Derby, he opines, is the
best place in which to see the wealth of the country. He
47
IIS
I I
publishes, also, an interview with his chief, Edward Everett,
on whom Haliburton seems to have a special "pick," now
introduced as Abednego Layman. " Books," he says, " spile
your mind. I wouldn't swap ideas with any man. The
Turks are so cursed lazy, they hire people to dance for 'em.
The English are wuss, for they hire people to think for 'era.
Never read a book, squire ; always think for yourself."
Haliburton made the Yankee of literature. The English,
to this day, draw the old Sam Slick figure when they carica-
ture the people of the Union. As much as the English
travel over here, they have never accepted any other type of
American than the nasal-speaking, slangy, under-bred, half-
educated figment of the earlier tourists. So much for Hali-
burton's literary force. The man who could stamp into
such a nation the impression of his humor to last so many
years after his time, must have been not without some kind
of power. Haliburton's greatest success was achieved in the
conversational passages. In this medium he could be very
eflFective ; but, when he tried plain narrative, he was apt to
become dry and prosy. At Dutch painting, in the school of
broad humor, he was as good as any of his successors.
Whilst in Annapolis Royal, where the years of his earlier
manhood were passed, he resided in one of the most pictur-
esque and historically interesting nooks of America, and his
practice as a lawyer brought him into relations with a very
clearly-marked order of humanity. The descendants of those
Acadians, who were scattered along the Atlantic seaboard
by Governor Lawrence, are thickly settled along the shores
of Annapolis basin. Their queer habits and naive talk
furnished plenty of opportunities for the humorist. That
favorite poser of Slick's, "How many fins has a cod at a
word ? " was probably taken out of the mouth of some rakish
48
V .
Everett,
s," now
, "spile
n. The
for 'era.
for 'era.
English,
5^ carica-
English
' type of
ed, half-
ior Hali-
rap into
so raany
>me kind
sd in the
be very
Eis apt to
ichool of
iccessors.
s earlier
t pictur-
and his
rh a very
of those
seaboard
e shores
ive talk
That
;od at a
le rakish
schooner-skipper from St. Mary's Bay or Chegogin. For this
kind of writing by bis early life, his travels, his genial
observant nature, and, more than all, by his exceptional
opportunities as a judge on circuit in a sparsely settled
country in which individualism is apt to be fostered, he was
well equipped. For there is, probably, no position in which
a man of quick apprehension, keen sympathies, and clear
insight, like Fielding, can obtain such a wide familiarity with
the characters and dialects and ways of thinking of the
masses as on a bench of justice. The human mind is laid
bare to the accurate observer in such positions. Dickens
may have had a larger idea than a mere wish for a perma-
nent and assured income, when he thought seriously of trying
for the job of a London police court magistrate.
If one were asked to give, in a few words, the most
prominent characteristics of everyday life during the year
in Nova Scotia, he could not do better than to quote a
portion of Chapter XIX. of "The Old Judge," entitled
" Comers and Goers."
" The seasons in this colony are not only accompanied by
the ordinary mutations of weather observed in other countries
but present a constant and rapid succession of incidents and
people. From the opening of the ports to the close of navi-
gation, everything and everybody is in motion. The whole
province is a sort of railroad station, where crowds are
perpetually arriving and departing. It receives an immi-
grant population, and either hurries it onward or furnishes
another of its own in exchange. It is the land of comers
and goers. The yeomanry of the rural districts approach
nearer to the character of inhabitants than do those who
dwell in towns or villages, but the love of change is inherent
even among them, and richer lands, warmer climates and
4 48
! I
better times, those meteor terms that seduce them thither,
still precede them and light the way to Canada or the far
west, to ruin or the grave. That portion which may be
denominated society, presents the same dissolving views.
New groups gradually fill the space vacated by others. The
new know not the old, and the old inhabitant feels that he is
in the land of strangers. Day by day, the exchange of
emigration for immigration continues with this diflFerence,
that they who go seldom return, except to speak of disap-
pointment and broken fortunes, and that those who come
remain only for a season."
Then follows a most graphic and faithful description of the
changes in temperature, customs and habits, dress amusements
and work from the opening of spring with its " robin " or
" wild geese " storms to the return of winter. This chapter is
our Ilias in nuce.
Observe also the nice powers of perception he employs in
describing the change of autumn leaves :
" There has been a slight frost near the brook that brawls
down the mountain side, for there is a variegated waving
scarf-1 ike strip of foliage extending each side of it, and mark-
ing all its devious courses with its bright colors of a thousand
tints, while the leaves of the trees on the dry land have
escaped this first stage of decay. In a few days the whole
scene becomes changed, and all is enveloped in a blaze of
beauty. The larch rises like a cone of gold, the maple is
clothed with a crimson robe, fading in the distance into
changeable shades of brown j the beech presents its bright
yellow leaves, gradually yielding to a strong green near the
trunk, where the frost has not yet penetrated ; and the birch
Mrith its white stem and gaudy coloring, is relieved by a pale
grey tint, produced by the numerous branches of trees that
50
thither,
the far
may be
g views,
rs. The
hat he is
lange of
ifFerence,
of disap-
irho come
on of the
lusements
•obin" or
chapter is
have already shed their leaves, and by the rich glowing colors
of the fruit of the ash ; while the tremulous aspen grieves in
alarm at the universal change around it, and timidly exposes
its reversed leaf to the sun, in the vain hope of protecting it
from its baneful influence. The dark and melancholy-looking
pines and firs defy the effects of alternate heat and cold, and
as they tower above the work of destruction, break with their
pointed tops the smooth uniform round outlines of the hard-
wood trees. It is a rich and gaudy but transitory scene, for
the rude southern blasts will soon tear the fluttering leaves
from their stems, and the forest will again exhibit the same
cold cheerless naked aspect as when lately breathed upon by
the first genial air of spring."
imploys in
lat brawls
d waving
md mark-
thousand
and have
the whole
blaze of
maple is
mce into
ts bright
near the
the birch
by a pale
,rees that
51
I
lij
J
Pro
yeai
houi
edit
Y
mail
book
bono
Liter
writt
even
wbos(
to mi
HALIBURTON : THE MAN AND THE
WRITER.
BY F. BLAKE CROFTON,
Author q/ " The Major't Big-talk Storiei," etc., etc.
IN the eyes of the English-speaking world outside of the
Dominion of Canada, Haliburton is still the most
prominent man of letters yet produced in any existing
Province of British North America. Within the last few
years three of his works have been republished by one London
house, and no less than six by another, and some new
editions have also been issued in the United States.
Yet in Canada, whose rights and interests he zealously
maintained in his parliamentary speeches as well as in his
books, he has not generally been given his rightful place of
honor. In a somewhat flippant r(?sitm^ of "English-Canadian
Literature" in The Week (Toronto) of August 28, 1884,
written by a New Brunswick litterateur, Haliburton was not
even referred to ! And it is only of late that even Nova Scotia,
whose resources he has done more than any other human being
to make known, has begun to grant him his due precedence
53
I' ;i
h
among hor more eminent sons. His biographer in the
" Bibliotheca Canadensis" has illustrated this comparative lack
of appreciation for Haliburton in the land of his birth by
pointing out that, shortly after his own college gave him the
honorary degree of M.A., the great University of Oxford
found him worthy of the higher degree of D.C.L. Certainly
there has been of late years a revival of local interest in
Haliburton, as is evidenced by the formation of the Halibur-
ton Club at Windsor, whose first President was Professor
Charles G. D. Roberts, himself one of the most eminent
Canadian authors. This revived interest has been recently
fanned, here as well as elsewhere, by the champions of
Imperial Federation and by the censors of the expatriation of
the Acadians, who have been widely quoting Haliburton in
support of their opinions.
This is not a biographical sketch of Judge Haliburton, but
a slight study of him as a writer, thinker and observer.
It may, however, smooth the way for Haliburton's future
biographer, if I step aside from my task to correct a few
strange errors which have come under my notice.
Whoever wrote the short sketch of Haliburton in AUi-
bone's Dictionary of English Literature evidently confuses our
Nova Scotian author with his chief creation, "Sam Slick."
Judge Haliburton, according to this bewildered biographer,
*' in 1842 visited England as an attache of the American
Legation (I), and in the next year embodied the results of his
observations in his amusing work, * The Attache ; or Sam
Slick in England.'" This curious mistake had previon''
been made by the British *' Annual Register " for ] ^65
obituary of the Judge.
Haliburton was appointed Chief Justice ot le Info r
Courts of Common Pleas for the Middle Division of Nova
64
in the
ive lack
irth by
liim the
Oxford
ertoinly
ereat in
Halibur-
'rofessor
eminent
recently
pions of
iation of
)urton in
rton, but
observer.
I's future
fct a few
1 in AUi-
if uses uur
Slick."
igrapher,
merican
ta of his
or Sam
Irevion '
Int'e .
of Nova
Scotia (an office wliicli, by the way, is generally misnamed) in
tlie year 1829. He was made a Judge of the Supreme Court
in 1841. He resigned the latter office early in 1856, and
soon afterwards took his final departure for England. But
the " Encyclopuxlia Britannica " says, " Within two years (of
his appointment) he resigned his seat on the bench " — an
error of just thirteen years ! Appleton's " Cycloptedia of
American Biography" follows the "Britannica" in this blun-
der, as well as in giving 1840 as the date of his appointment
to the Supreme Bench. "The Imperial Dictionary of
Universal Biography " fixes the date of his resignation only
six years before the event. "In 1847," it observes, "Mr.
Haliburton contributed to Eraser' a Magazine a story entitled
'The Old Judge.' Three years later Mr. Haliburton resigned
his colonial judgeship, and exchanged the narrow field of
colonial life for the wider sphere of political life in England."
" The Bibliotheca Canadensis " also falls into the error that
the Courts of Common Pleas in Nova Scotia wore abolished,
and Haliburton appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court in
1840. Both ei-'ftnts occurred in 1841.
The four books which alone narrate the say'.igs and doings
of the celebrated Samuel Slick, of Slickville, are, in their
chronological order, "The Clockmaker," "The Attach^,"
"Wise Saws," and "Nature and Human Nature." Two
others, "The Letter-Bag of the Great Western" and "The
Bubbles of Canada," are expressly attributed to Mr. Slick as
their author, as may be gathered from the last letter in the
former, and from the dedication of the latter work ; and
publishers have placed the name of Sam Slick on the covers
of "The Old Judge," "The Season Ticket," "American
Humor," and " Americans at Home."
The first series of " The Clockmaker," which first appeared
55
":. it
lii
in Tfie If ova Scotian in 1835 and 1836, was published in book
form in Halifax and London in 1837. The second series was
issued in 1838 ; the third in 1840. In most later editions
the three series make one volume. The cute dodges of the
clockmaker in pushing his trade are said to have been
reminiscences of suits tried by Haliburton, and brought by
an itinerant" vendor of clocks for the payment of notes given
him for his time-pieces. In the first chapter of "The
Attach^ " its ostensible writer speaks of " The Clockmaker "
as an accidental hit, a success which he did not purpose to
imperil by experimenting in other literary lines. "When
Sam Slick," he says, " ceases to speak, I shall cease to write."
But Haliburton's self-confidence grew with his fame, and he
failed to keep this modest resolution.
"The Attach^," the two series of which appeared respec-
tively in 1843 and 1844, was probably suggested by Dickens'
"American Notes," which had been published early in 1842.
After deprecating Slick's lively indignation at the latter book,
" the Squire " observes in "The Attach^ " : " If the English
have been amused by the sketches their tourists have drawn
of the Yankees, perhaps the Americans may laugh at oiir
sketches of the English." "The Attach^," however, is not
uniformly satirical. Slick's own descriptions of persons and
things in this work are indeed, as they are meant to be,
generally jaundiced caricatures. But some social sketches by
other personages are drawn with strict fidelity, and some even
with a slight partiality for England. The sub-title of this
book, " Sam Slick in England," has been made the only title
in some editions.
This last remark may be made also of " Wise Saws and
Modern Instances," which has been given to the public, at
least once, under its second title of " Sam Slick in Search of a
56
i in book
icries was
r editions
jes of the
ive been
pought by
jtes given
of "The
ckmaker "
)urpo3e to
" When
to write."
le, and he
•ed respec-
f Dickens'
y in 1842.
,tter book,
16 English
ive drawn
;h at otir
er, is not
arsons and
,nt to be,
:etche8 by
lome even
lie of this
only title
ISaws and
jublic, at
jarch of a
Wife." The earliest edition of " Wise Saws" of which I
am aware is the London edition of 1854. "Nature and
Human Nature " is a continuation of " Wise Saws," and con-
cludes the record of the sayings and doings of the rcdoi'.bted
Sam Slick.
The earliest of Judge Haliburton's works was his " Histor-
ical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia," published in
Halifax in 1829. His opinion that the expulsion of the
Acadians was unjustifiable has often been quoted in recent
controversies, and so has his misleading stateir»ent that there
were " no traces of this important event among the records "
at Halifax, and that " the particulars of this affair seem to
have been carefully concealed." It may therefore be well to
put on record once more that Haliburton was not a very
painstaking searcher of documents. Indeed, as some gentle-
men still living can testify, he was content to obtain many of
his facts and statistics vicariously. Had he been more indus-
trious in his reseai'ches, he would doubtless have found in the
Province Building the important papers on the subject of the
expatriation which have since been arranged (and some of
them printed) by Mr. T. B. Akins.
There is now no doubt that our author's History tinctured
Longfellow's picture of the expulsion. " The poet," says his
brother and biographer, " read such books as were attainable ;
Haliburton, for instance, with his quotations from the Abb6
Raynal." The pathetic separations of kinsfolk are dwelt
upon in our Nova Scotian historian's chapter on the expul-
sion, particularly in the "humble petition " from the Acadian
exiles in Pennsylvania ; and the name of " Ren^ Lablanc,
the notary public," is expressly mentioned. But may not the
publication of Haliburton's History have been a link in the
chain of incidents that led to the inception of " Evangeline " 1
57
jpj
^ '
i!
The tale of the separated Acadian lovers, it is well known,
was told to Longfellow by Hawthorne, who had heard it from
his friend, the Rev. H. L. Conolly, at one time rector of a
church in South Boston. "The incident had been related to
him by a parishioner of his, Mrs. Haliburton," writes the
Rev. Samuel Longfellow. This was Mrs. George Haliburton,
an aunt by marriage of the Judge's. Is it not likely that her
attention was first drawn to the Acadians by the touching
description of their virtues and their woes in the History
written by her nephew 1
Haliburton himself does not seem to have thought very
highly of his History in later years. In chapter 9 of the
second series of " The Clockmaker," the Squire refers to it
slightingly as " Haliburton's History of Nova Scotia, which,
next to Mr. Josiah Slick's History of Cattyhunk in five
volumes, is the most important account of unimportant things
I have ever seen."
Our author's second historical book was " The Bubbles of
Canada," a series of letters on Canada and the Imperial
Colonial policy, purporting to be written by Sam Slick, in
1838, but showing none of the clockmaker's peculiarities
of diction. The last letter ends with a quasi-prophetic warn-
ing : "The fate of Canada will determine that of all the
colonies. The retreat of the soldiers will invite the incursions
of the barbarians, and the withdrawal of the legions, like
those of Rome, from the distant parts of the Empire will show
that England, conscious of her present weakness and past
glories, is contracting her limits and concentrating her
energies to meet, as becomes her character, the destiny that
awaits all human greatness." The drift and aim of the work
are shown in these closing words, as well as in the character-
istic note beneath, in which the author urges ironically that a
59
tree " would be much more vigorous, if the branches, with
their prodigious expenditure on the leaves, were all lopped
off (for it is a well-known fact that the trunk supplies the
branches with sap, and not the branches the trunk), and that
the stem would be larger, stronger and better without such
useless and expensive appendages."
'* Rule and Misrule of the English in America," the last of
Haliburton's historical works, appeared in 1851. It is a
general history of the British Colonies on this continent,
valuable for its philosophic comments and its thoughtfully
reasoned theories of colonial government. In this work he
essays to prove that " American Democracy does not owe its
origin to the Revolution and to the great statesmen that
formed the Federal Constitution ; but that a Republic de facto
was founded at Boston in 1630, which subsisted in full force
and vigor for more than half a century."
"The Letter-Bag of the Great Western, or Life in a
Steamer," first published in 1839, is a collection of letters
supposed to be written by various passengers from England to
America in the famous steamship of that name. These
letters contain not only comments upon life at sea, but the
writers' reflections on the country they are leaving or the
country they are going to — a plan which enables the author
to present us with some lively studies in his favorite subject,
human nature.
In 1846 and 1847 Haliburton contributed to Eraser' a
Magazine a series of papers, which in 1849 were collected in
the book entitled " The Old Judge, or Life in a Colony."
This work depicts various phases of life in Acadia in the
earlier part of this century. As in the " Sam Slick " series,
the plot is a mere thread on which to string facts, jests and
opinions. Little interest seems to be invited, and certainly
69
mf'
I '«"•
none is aroused, for the English traveller who listens to and
notes the Old Judge's tales, and adds his own experiences to
them. In works designed to inform as much as to amuse,
this weakness of the main plot is not an unmixed defect, if it
be a defect at all. One is not irritated by Haliburton's
innumerable digressions so much as by the far fewer inter-
ludes which break the continuity of Victor Hugo's thrilling
romances. Hugo's episodes are charmingly told, it is true,
but then it is difficult to appreciate even the loveliest
landscape when one is looking at an exciting race. One can,
however, turn aside without impatience to read the mono-
logues in " The Old Judge." Some of them, like the chapter
on " The Seasons," are rather long, it is true, for any reader
with only a slight appetite ; but they are all germane to the
author's design to give outsiders a fair idea of Nova Scotia.
The Old Judge's opinions, by the way, seem to march pretty
closely with Haliburton's own.
"Traits of American Humour" and "Americans at Home,"
(also published under the title of "Yankee Stories") are
merely collections of tales, mirthful or marvellous, edited by
Haliburton, but culled from American books and periodicals.
His latest work was " The Season Ticket," a series of miscel-
laneous notes made and conversations reported by a Mr.
Shegog, the holder of a season ticket on an English railroad.
The papers which comprise this work were first published
anonymously in The Dublin University Magazine, in 1858
and 1859, and were afterwards sold by the author, with the
right of attaching his name thereto, to Messrs. Bentley and
Son. By this firm the copyright of the papers was resold to
Frederick Warne <fe Co., who published them in book form.
Owing, perhaps, ' the fact that " The Season Ticket "
appeared originally without the author's name, and that it
60
13 to and
riences to
amuse,
$fect, if it
liburton's
ver inter-
1 thrilling
t is true,
loveliest
One can,
rhe mono-
le chapter
,ny reader
me to the
va Scotia,
ch pretty
it Home,"
des") are
edited by
riodicals.
of miscel-
y a Mr.
railroad.
ublished
in 1858
with the
tley and
resold to
ok form.
Ticket "
that it
deals mainly, though not exclusively, with British topics, this
book was almost unknown in Nova Scotia a few years ago.
Indeed none of Judge Haliburton's friends or relations in the
Province, with whom I spoke on the subject, were aware of
the existence of this work. One of them having at first doubted
the authenticity of the book, and its name being omitted in
Allibone's Dictionary, the Bibliothec.a Canadensis, and every
other list of Haliburton's works which I had seen, I wrote to
Messrs. Warne & Co., and by their courtesy ascertained the
facts stated above. The papers in The Dublin University
Magazine are correctly credited to Haliburton in the last
edition of the Index to Periodical Literature — a publication
which generally succeeds in tracing the authorship of unsigned
articles. " The Season Ticket " is important to the student
of Haliburton, showing, as it does, that his conservative and
imperialistic views, and his opinions of the resources and
needs of Nova Scotia and Canada, were not materially
changed in his old age. In this book, too, we may be sure
that the author expresses himself absolutely without fear or
favor, for it was evidently designed to remain anonymous.
Otherwise he would hardly have been bold enough to make a
gentleman (p. 123) group him with the two greatest writers
of the day and scoflF at the influential Athenaeum Club, of
which Haliburton was a member. " Defend me from a learned
Club like mine ! " observes Mr. Gary. " The members are
not genial, and they must be incurable, when such men as
Thackeray, Sam Slick, and Dickens, who (to their credit be
it spoken) are all smokers, can't persuade them" — to have a
smoking room.
I have now noticed all of Haliburton's books, unless one
credited to him in Morgan's " Bibliotheca Canadensis," but
seemingly unknown to all his other biographers and friends,
is really his. This is "Kentucky, a Tale. London, 1834.
2 vols., 12mo."
61
II "i
Besides his books Haliburton published a few pamphlets,
including " A Reply to Lord Durham's Report," and a couple
of speeches delivered in Great Britain. " A General Descrip-
tion of Nova Scotia," a pamphlet published in Halifax in 1825,
and which is attributed to Haliburton in the " Bibliotheca
Canadensis," is in the same compilation also attributed to its
real author, Walter Bromley.
* ♦ * ♦ * ♦
Judge Haliburton was an Epicurean philosopher, modified
a little, for the better by Christianity, and for the worse by
practical politics. He loved fun and creature comforts. He
smoked a great deal, he drank moderately, and he did not
try to conceal these weaknesses.
It must be admitted that he sometimes carried his love of
fun to unseemly lengths, and that even on the bench. A
well-known ex-governor of this Province humorously described
how on one occasion, when a very young lawyer, he was con-
ducting a cause before Haliburton, and how, during his
examination of a certain witness he was pleased to observe
his lordship apparently making careful and continuous notes.
All the time, however, the judge had been merely sketching
a caricature of the witness, who was afflicted with a most
colossal and peculiar nose ! This sketch he afterwards showed
to the youthful barrister, much to his surprise and disillusion-
ment. It cannot be denied, either that Haliburton's keen
relish for the ludicrous has sometimes made him stoop to
unmistakable double entendres. In palliation of some of these,
at least, it may be urged that their wit preponderates over
their grossness.
Our author makes his " Old Judge " declare himself to be
" in religion a Churchman, and in politics a Conservative, as
is almost every gentleman in these colonies." His tastes and
62
.mphlets,
a couple
Descrip-
in 1825,
bliotheca
bed to its
modified
worse by
)rts. He
e did not
lis love of
ench. A
described
5 was con-
uring his
p observe
ous notes.
sketching
a most
Is showed
isillusion-
)n's keen
stoop to
of these,
.tes over
elf to be
lative, as
Lstes and
instincts wyre both conservative and aristocratic. He dis-
liked innovations, unless they were unquestionable improve-
ments. Certain articles of furniture, some of them solid, but
others lighter and flimsier, "are types," says the Old Judge,
" of the new and old generation ; for, alas, it is to be feared
that what has been gained in appearance has been lost in
substance, in things of far more value and importance."
Haliburton would have liked to see the old regime restored in
France, minus the feudal prerogatives whose abuse occasioned
the Revolution. Before that uprising, says his ideal divine,
Mr. Hopewell, (Attach^, c. 38), France had "a clergy of
gentry." " A mild, tolerant, gentle, humble creed, like that
of a Christian, should be taught and exemplified by a gentle-
man ; for nearly all his attributes are those of a Christian.
This is not theory. An Englishman is himself a practical
example of the benefits resulting from the union between the
Church and State, and the clergy and the gentry." In these
and many other of his utterances Mr. Hopewell is evidently
voicing the Judge's own views, tinctured by his affectionate
intercourse with the venerable Abb^ Sigogne, an exile of the
Revolution.
Failing a union of Church and State, Mr. Hopewell
believed in fixed stipends and fixed tenure for clergymen.
Where their bread and butter depends upon their flock,
there must be, he thought, a temptation to preach only
popular doctrines. He is made to describe his own humiliat-
ing experiences. He was "catechised like a converted
heathen." Various parishioners refused to pay their contri-
butions ; one because the pastor didn't join the temperance
society and therefore countenanced drunkenness ; another
because he smoked, and tobacco was raised by slaves ;
another because he prayed for a rascally President ; another
68
because he was too Calvinistic ; another because he was an
Arminian. In consequence this excellent parson was well-
nigh starved. Under the voluntary system, thought Hali-
burton, a minister is in danger either of losing his soul to
save his body, or of losing his body to save his soul.
Our author disapproved of voting by ballot and universal
suflfrage. To the latter Mr. Hopewell traced the repudiation
of their debts by certain States of the Union. " When we
speak," he said, " of the honor of the American people and of
the English people we speak of two different things, because
the word people is not used in the same sense. . . . The
question of payment or non-payment in the repudiating
States has been put to every male in those States
over the age of twenty-one, and repudiation has been
the result" (Attach^, c. 52). And he declared that the
national debt of England would also be repudiated, if the
decision rested with all the adults of the United Kingdom.
" Now," observed the same reverend gentleman to Sam Slick,
at a time when the franchise was still restricted, " now men
of property and education make laws to govern rogues and
vagabonds, but by your beautiful scheme of universal suffrage
rogues and vagabonds will make laws to govern men of
property and character."
Judge Haliburton, in his historical works, opposed the
granting of responsible government to the colonies, and Mr.
Hopewell is made to utter a set tirade against it in "The
Attach^ " (c. 43).
Our author held that the tyranny of mobs and majorities
may be quite as bad and unbearable as that of despots. This
opinion is expressed at length by " the Squire " in his parallel
between Russia and the United States, and by Mr. Hopewell
in his parallel between the latter country and Great Britain,
64
^as an
1 well-
Hali-
}oul to
liversal
diation
rien we
and of
because
. The
idiating
States
,s been
hat the
1, if the
ingdom.
m Slick,
low men
;ues and
suffrage
men of
sed the
,nd Mr.
"The
ijorities
This
parallel
opewell
Jritain,
with its constitutional antidotes to ephemeral fads and
frenzies. These parallels are to be found, respectively, in
chapters 12 and 15 of the Second Series of "The Clock -
maker."
Under democratic forms of government, Mr. Hopewell
thought, the parable of the bramble, elected King of trees, is
perpetually illustrated. "Theolive, the fig and the vine decline
the honor. Content to remain in the sphere in which Provi-
dence has placed them, performing their several duties in a way
creditable to themselves and useful to the public, they prefer
pursuing the even tenor of their way to being transplanted
into the barren soil of politics, where a poisonous atmosphere
engenders a feeble circulation and a sour and deteriorated
fruit. Republicanism has caused our country to be overrun
by brambles. The Reform Bill has greatly increased them in
England, and responsible government has multiplied them
tenfold in the colonies."
The ultra conservatism of our author peeps forth again in
the clockmaker's f' iny classification of colonial patriots
(Olockmaker, 3, c. 13), His "true patriot," it will be
noticed, is simply a high-minded tory, •' who supports existin'
institutions as a whole, but is willin' to mend or repair any
part that is defective." But staunch conservative as he was,
Haliburton could see and deplore some wrongs and abuses that
professed levelers wholly ignored.
Politics, in our author's estimation, was a poor and over-
crowded business everywhere, but especially in the colonies.
" It would amuse, or rather I should say disgust you," says
Barclay in "The Old Judge," "to see how men and not
measures, office and not principle, is at the bottom of our
colonial politics." Sam Slick suggested that a law should be
enacted against quack politicians, as being infinitely more
6 66
dangerous than quack doctors. In spite, however, of his
pessimistic views about politicians, Haliburton believed that
neither political party, here or elsewhere, would think so
bitterly of the other party if it studied its aims and arguments
faithfully and thoroughly. But this is well-nigh impossible,
for as the clockmaker observed, " both are fooled and gulled
by their own designing champions."
To this petty game of politics ho lamented that his country-
men devoted far too much attention ; and he exhausted his
stores of epigram and ridicule in trying to open their eyes to
the fact. If Cumberland folk, said Sam Slick, would attend
more to rotations than elections, and to top-dressing than re-
dressing, it would be well for them. To a fisherman who
boasted that he had come from the biggest political meeting
he ever saw, Slick retorted that by so doing he had missed
the biggest meeting he had ever seen — of mackerel. Hali-
burton felt the truth of Goldsmith's lines :
" How small, of all that human hearts endure,
The part which laws or Kings can cause or cure ! "
Yet he saw too many of hia countrymen waiting inertly for
political panaceas, or else wasting their enei'gy in clamoring
for them. One third of the day, according to Mr. Slick, was
usually given to work, two-thirds of it was " blowin' time."
" What the Irish and machinery don't do for 'em," says Steve
Richardson, " they expect legislators to do." Nova Scotians,
says another of Haliburton's characters, have " everything but
enterprise, and that, I do believe in my soul, they expect to
find a mine of and dig out of the earth as they do coal."
It is singularly characteristic of Haliburton that he
attributed these alleged failings of his countrymen partly to
69
)r, of his
9ved that
think 80
rguments
Dpossible,
,nd gulled
s country-
a.usted hi^
sir eyes to
lid attend
g than re-
rman who
il meeting
lad missed
rel. Hali-
!"
inertly for
1 clamoring
|Slick, was
an' time."
jays Steve
Scotians,
rthing but
expect to
)al."
that he
partly to
" the almost universal suffrage that exists in the Province."
•'Where the lower orders form the majority of electors,"
observed the Old Judge, " their vanity is appealed to and not
their judgment — their passions and not their reason ; and the
mass, instead of being elevated in intelligence by the exercise
of political power, is lowered by the delusion and craft of
which it is made the willing victim. Nova Scotians have
been so often assured that they are the ablest, the wisest and
best of men, though their rulers are both ignorant and
corrupt, and that they have a rich and fertile country, blessed
with a climate more salubrious and agreeable than that of
any other part of the world, they begin to think that law and
not industry, government and not enterprise is all that is
wanting." And certainly if the electors were actually per-
suaded that they possessed every moral and material factor of
prosperity, and nevertheless were not prosperous, they would
be easily induced to lay the blame on their government and to
concentrate their efforts to reverse its disastrous policy. "If
any man were to say to them that their winters are long and
severe, their springs late, cold and variable . . . ; or venture
to assert that, although the province abounds with mineral
wealth, skill and capital and population are necessary to its
successful development; or that, although the innumerable
streams that intersect the country in every direction are
admirably adapted for manufactories, the price of labor is yet
too high to render such speculations safe or profitable ; and,
above all, to tell them that they are idle, conceited and
ignorant ; " the result would be, in the Old Judge's opinion,
that the demagogues would denounce him as " an enemy to
the people, a vile slanderer and a traitor to his country."
According to Mr. Slick, Nova Scotians yielded to laziness
and procrastination without any loss of self-esteem. Like
67
\il
many other sluggardu, they had their oonscieniious reasons :
" When the spring comes and the fieldn are dry enough to he
sowed, they have all to be plowed, 'cause fall rains wash the
lands too much for fall plotmn'. Well, the plows have to be
mended and sharpened, 'cause what's the use o/doin' that afore
it's wanted? Well, the wheat gets in too late, and then
comes rust, but whose fault is that? Why, the climate to be
sure, for Nova Scotia aint a bread country."
The same acute observer attributed the more general
business success of the Yankees mainly to their more per-
sistent industry. Their farmers had an endless round of
employment, as explained in detail in "The Clookmaker"
(1, c. 23). *' Instead of racin' over the country, like a young
doctor, to show how busy a man is that has nothin' to do, as
Bluenose does, and then takes a 'blowin' time,' we keep a
rael travellin' gait, an eight-mile-an-hour pace, the whole
year round."
But, though he freely criticised his countryman's faults,
with a view to their reform, Judge Haliburton also recog-
nized and adveitised the many advantages of his native
province. Thei-e is an enthusiastic enumeration of its natural
resources in the second series of "The Clockmaker," chapter
19, where Slick foretells that Nova Scotia is destined to have
the greatest trade, the greatest population, the most manu-
factures, and the most wealth of any state this side of the
water. The most intelligent and high-minded of the person-
ages introduced in "The Season Ticket," draws a flattering
picture of the Maritime Provinces, closing in these words :
"There is no point in Nova Scotia more than thirty miles
distant from navigable water. The whole of the borders of
the latter province are washed by the ocean, which in that
region furnishes one of the most extensive and valuable
68
easonn :
jh to be
vash the
ve to bfl
kat afore
fcnd then
late to be
general
lore per-
round of
kmaker "
I a young
to do, as
'}e keep a
ae whole
I's faults,
[so recog-
is native
js natural
" chapter
to have
ist manu-
ie of the
le person-
lattering
words :
|rty miles
irders of
in that
valuable
Hsheries in the world. Nova Scotia abounds with coal, iron
ore, gypsum, grindstone, slate, lead, manganese, plumbago,
copper, etc., which, l)eing recently liberated from the monopoly
under which they have so long been excluded from public
competition, will soon attract the capital and skill requisite
for their development. It is the most eastern part of
America, and of course the nearest to Europe. It is not too
much to say that its wonderful mineral wealth, its noble
harbors, its fertile soil, its extensive fisheries, its water
powers, its temperate climate arising from its insular position,
and last — not least — its possession of the winter outlet and
through passage by railway from England to New Brunswick,
Canada and the United States, all indicate that it is destined
for an extended commerce, for the seat of manufactories, the
support of a large population, and for wielding a controlling
power on the American continent."
These and other good words said of Nova Scotia in " The
Heason Ticket," which was published anonymously and after
the author had finally left the province, cannot have been
written to win local popularity, but from a genuine appreci-
ation of his native land.
To attain the prosperity which nature seemed to have
destined for them. Nova Scotians wanted, according to Hali-
})urton, more zeal and concentration in their work ; less
attention to politics (though not less watchfulness of political
place-holders) ; less false pride (which set some people against
agriculture and other honorable industries); more confidence
in domestic enterprises ; and at the same time a little less
self-complacency, that they might recognize their faults and
reform them.
Only a very loose thinker can confound the satirist of a
nation's weaknesses, like Haliburton, or even a caricaturist
69
of them, like Dickens, with the pessimists who, blind
to their country's resources, magnify and parade and harp
upon its (drawbacks. To call attention to the remediable
faults of one's countrymen is the action of a friend ; to ad-
vertise the irremediable disadvantages of one's country is the
action of an enemy. There can be little doubt that Hali-
burton's satirical criticisms have borne wholesome fruit, first
in some country towns and districts and later in slow old
Halifax itself. Yet, in the opinion of some observers, every
oue of the defects which he pointed out remains to-day, if
not in the whole province, at least in sections of it. At all
events Haliburton's vicaiious sarcasms had not produced the
swift and signal results which he doubtless fancied he dis-
cerned, and which Sam Slick complacently notes in " Nature
and Human Nature" (c. 18). "I have held the mirroi up
to these fellows," he says, " to see themselves in, and it has
scared them so they have shaved slick up and made them-
selves decent. . . . The blisters I have put or their
vanity stung 'em so they jumped high enough to see the right
road, and the way they travel ahead now is a caution to
snails."
Since Haliburton's death, Dudley Warner has written his
•' Baddeck " ; Miss Reeves has laid the scene of her " Pilot
Fortune " in Digby County ; 0. G. D. Roberts and Grace
Dean McLeod have written various tales of the Province;
Professor de Mille has made Nova Scotia tK^ theatre of the
adventures of tht> "B.C ^V.C." and the "Grand Fr^ School ";
Carman, Roberts. Lockhart and Eaton have sung of Acadian
scenery; the Abb^ Oasgrain has made his "P^lerinage au
Pays d'Evaugeline " ; and several other literary tourists
have printed their impressions of Acadie. Yet it is not too
much to say that Haliburton has advertised the Province
70
10, blind
and harp
smediable
d J to ad-
try is the
;hat Hiili-
Eruit, firat
1 slow old
era, every
to-day, if
t. At all
(duced the
ed he dis-
1 "Nature
mirroi up
and it has
lade them-
, or their
3 the right
laution to
/•ritten his
ler
' Pilot
Lnd Grace
Province ;
Ure of the
School";
Acadian
rinage au
tourists
I is not too
Province
more effectively than any other writer, except the great poet
who has thrown a halo of romance around her shores.
A better picture of Nova Scotian life and characteristics,
at the time when he wrote at all events, is given by Halibur-
ton than by any other writer. To depict the life of to-day
accurately the picture would need, of course, to be retouched ;
some old features would have to be erased and some new
features to be painted in. Such blendings of work and fun
as "raisings," "log-rollings" or "rolling frolics," " husk-
ings," "bees," and "apple-peelings," are now obsolete or
obsole.scent, owing to the denser settlement of the country
and the increased use of machinery. " Pickinick stirs " are
replaced by more conventional and temperate picnics. When
such jovial gatherings had already died out in Haliburton's
time, he found the result regrettable. Men lost their cheeri-
ness and hospi(:ality, he thought. One of his characters
notices " the irtjurious effect upon the health occasioned by
the absence of all amusement and the substitution of fanati-
cism or politics in its place."
As a rule, the habits of the personages in Haliburton's tales
were notably different from the present habits of Nova Sco-
tians in the matter of stimulants. Tn "The Old Judg " a
certain County Court Justice is represented to have spent his
time, while waiting for a verdict, in drinking, first a bottle of
wine, purchased by a fine which he had just imposed upon a
drunken fellow who made a disturbance in court, and after-
wards a bottle of brandy, purchased by a fine which he imposed
upon the prothonotary for presuming tii fill his own glass
first ! " For my own part," observed this model Justice, " I
am obliged to be very abstemious now, as I am subject to the
gout. I never exceed two bottles of late years, and I rectify
the acidity of the wine by taking a glass of clear brandy
71
1\
^1i
(which I call the naked truth) between every two of Madeira.
Ah, here is the brandy, lawyer ! Your very good health, air
— pray help yourself; and Mr. Prothonotary, here's better
manners to you in future. Seniorea priores, sir, that's the
rule."
It was a fancy of the old Greeks that the gods sent a judi-
cial blindness on persons doomed to destruction, lest they
might do something to avert their fate. The plausibility of
this notion has been often illustrated in modern history,
notably in the case of classes remaining stolidly insensible to
plain and ominous signs of coming social storms. The French
aristocrats, menaced by the organization of the oppressed
masses, despised the gathering tempest till it had burst ; and
the Irish landlords long ignored the growing strength of the
r^nt agitation. Both offered more or less reasonable com-
promises too late. To-day capitalists, threatened more and
more by trades-unions, socialism, Henry-George-ism, boycot-
ting, anarchy and dynamite, are either strangely blind or else
inert and vacillating — neither offering wise and timely con-
cessions, nor pressing for sternly deterrent legislation. The
Tweed ring in New York actually smiled at the rising indig-
nation of the citizens, and even asked flippantly, " What are
you going to do about it?" And so in the infancy of the
temperance movement publicans were generally quite blind to
its vitality and importance, and even in some instances fed
the flppie that promised to devour them. Halibu'-ton de-
scribes (Old Judge, c. 16) how the wails of a Nova ;jcotian
bar-room were covered with " hand-bills calling public meet-
ings for the promotion of temperance," and other objects.
Every here and there one or other of Haliburton's characters
hits the extravagance or the hypocrisy or the grotesqueness of
a certain class of temperance professors. Steve Richardson,
72
indig-
in " The Old Judge," speaking of a reformed drunkard who
was lecturing, observes that " the moment a feller reforms
here he turns preacher on the principle that the greater the
sinner the greater the saint." The Old Judge himself, in the
chapter on the Seasons, notes one of the shams that were even
then connected with the holy cause of temperance: "In a
little back room of that temperance inn, the winnings (of a
horse race) are spent in the purchase of numerous ' yards of
stone wall ' — a name for brandy omitted in the License Law
which is thus evaded or defied."
The various industries of the Province about the middle
of this century may be gathered from a statement in "Nature
and Human Nature" (c. 18) :
" Every place has its standing topic. At Windsor it is the
gypsum trade, the St. John's steamer, the Halifax coach, and
a new house that is building. In Kings County it is export
of potatoes, bullocks and horses. At Annapolis cord-wood,
oars, staves, shingles, and agricultural produce of all kinds.
At Digby, smoked herrings, fish weirs, and St. John's markets.
At Yarmoutli, foreign freights, berthing, rails, catheads, lower
cheeks, wooden bolsters, and the crown, palm, and shank of
anchors. At Shelburne, it is divided between fish, lumber,
and the price of vessels. At Liverpool, ship-building, deals
and timber, knees, transoms, and futtocks, pintles, keelsons,
and moose lines. At Lunenburg, Jeddore, and Chesencook,
the state of the tt"'arket at the capital. At the other harbo' s
farther to the eastward, the coal trade and the fisheriei
engross most of the conversation. You hear continually oi'
the fall run and the spring catch of mackerel that set in but
don't stop to bait. The remarkable discovery of the French
coasters, that was made fifty years ago, and still is as new
and as fresh as ever, that when fish are plenty there is no
73
:^'':
k
W!IMi
salt, and when salt is abundant there are no fish, continually
startles you with its novelty and importance. While you are
both amused and instructed by learning the meaning of coal
cakes, Albion tops, and what a Chesencooker delights in,
' slack ' ; you also find out that a hundred tons of coal at
Sydney means when it reaches Halifax one hundred and
fifteen, and that West Indian, Mediterranean, and Brazilian
fish are actually made on these shores. Those local topics are
greatly diversified by politics, which, like crow-foot and white-
weed, abound everywhere. Halifax has all sorts of talk."
The dress and character of the Chesencook Acadians is
graphically described in the 16th chapter of the same book.
And the equally picturesque costume of tlie Digby Acadienne
is sketched in " The Old Judge " (c. 16).
Among the features of the Acadian climate which our
author faithfully and graphically describes, ar3 a " silver
thaw " (Old Judge, c. 10) ; an intense frost at Halifax,
with its attendant phenomena and its breaking up (ibid. c.
11) ; and a still, hot day on the south coast (Wise Saws, c.
24). The " day on the lake " (Nature and Human Nature,
cc. 10 and 11), with its quaint personages, its varied incidents
and changing scenery, is perhaps the most alluring sketch of
bylvan summer life in Nova Scotia that has yet appeared in
prase.
There is a wholesome ">ral in the contrast between *he
big, untidy, bleak and com^.JK ;::s farmhouse described in t.\e
first series of " The Clockraaker " (c. 28), and the reat, weli
planned homestead, with its thrifty, hospitable, contented
inmates, to whom we are introduced in the second series of
the same work (c. 4). And a salutary warning to gentlemen
reared in luxury who may contemplate playing the roles of
country squires in this new country is given in the pathetic
74
;, ;i
atinually
B you are
g of coal
ights in,
)f coal at
Ired and
Brazilian
iopics are
tid white-
talk."
iadiana is
Lme book.
Lcadienne
'hich our
I " silver
Halifax,
p (ibid. c.
d Saws, c.
[ Nature,
incidents
sketch of
»eared in
Iweeu *he
sd in t.\e
sat, well
lontented
series of
jntlemen
roles of
I pathetic
picture of Captain Dechamps and his venture in the chapter
entitled "The Cucumber Lake," in "Nature and Human
Nature."
Not only the provincial scenery is unchanged since Hali-
burton's time, but also the provincial tendency to magnify it.
Still, just as Sam Slick observed, " every sizeable hill to Nova
Scotia is a mountain." And some social characteristics also
are almost unchanged. This penetrating remark of Sam
Slick about Halifax holds true to-day, and it might be worth
the while of tourists and temporary residents to note it : "A
man must know the people to appreciate them. He must not
merely judge by those whom he is accustomed to meet at the
social board, for they are not always the best specimens
anywhere, but by those, also, who prefer retirement and a
narrower circle, and rather avoid general society, as not suited
to their taste"
Military and naval life, too, on this station remains almost
as it was described by Haliburton, in " The Old Judge " and
elsewhere. The soldiers and sailors inspire similar loves,
ambitions and jealousies. Their coming creates a similar stir,
and their flitting leaves similar regrets and heart-aches
behind. The citizens, however, do not seem to appreciate
the presence of a garrison quite so universally as they used
to. There are even a few who, while willing to take the
soldiers' money as they accept Britain's protection, without
thanks, can see no good whatever in poor Tommy Atkins.
They will not even admit their deep indebtedness to him as a
convenient scapegoat, on whom they, from time to time, heap
all the sins and iniquities of the city.
The chief want of Ireland, as well as of Nova Scotia, in
Haliburton's opinion, was to settle down more steadily to
work, and pay less attention to politics and politicians. " It
76
?ii':
m
is time they turned their attention to the material and not
the political condition of their country," says the American
Senator Boodle in "The Season Ticket." Just before this
he had observed tliat " there never was a people so cajoled,
fooled, deceived and betrayed, as the Irish." " Poor Pat,"
says Slick, speaking of a certain Irishman in *' Nature and
Human Nature," " you were a good-hearted creature natur-
ally, as most of your countrymen are, if repealers, patriots
and demagogues, of all sorts and sizes, would only let you
alone." Senator Boodle found the Irish '* far more hum a-ous
at home than in America, which, perhaps, is also in part
attributable to the circumstance of their being more indus-
trious there, and in consequence more matter of fact."
The unsettled state of Ireland was partly due, however, to
the lack of thorough fusion among Irishmen; to their too
distinct division according to race and religion. The " two
great bodies," said the Yankee Mr. Peabody (Season Ticket,
p. 35), " can't agree in nothen. If you go for to talk of schools,
they keep apart, like the two forrard wheels of a stage coach.
If they come to elections, it's the same thing ; if they meet,
they fight ; all, too, for the sake of religion ; and if they
assemble in a jury-box, it's six of one and half a dozen of the
other. Killing comes natural, half the places in Ireland
begins with Kill ; there is Killboy (for all Irishmen are
called boys), and what is more onmanly, there is Killbride ;
Killbaron, after the landlords ; Killbarrack, after the English
soldiers ; Kilcrew, for the navy ; Kilbritain, for the English
proprietors ; Killcool, for deliberate murder, and Killmore if
that ain't enough."
The popularity of the name Jeremiah in Ireland is undeni-
able, and the punning Peaboay finds the cause of this popu-
larity in the fact that the Irish are " the boys for Lamen-
76
meet,
: they
of the
reland
en are
bride ;
nglish
nglish
nore if
ndeni-
popu-
lanien-
tations." " It's no wonder they had a famine," he adds,
" when the country raises nothen but grievances, and that's
a crop that grows spontenaciously here."
Haliburton's love and appreciation for Great Britain are
displayed in all his works. Sam Slick "enthused" over
the beauty and freshness of English girls. The high-
minded Hopewell displayed pious and touching emotion at
seeing the shores of the country which he had been used, in
his early days, to call " Home." According to the chronicler
of " The Attache (c. 7), his province owed to Britons a debt
of gratitude that not only cannot be repaid, but is too
great for expression. Their armies protect us within, and
their fleets defend us and our commerce without. Their
government is not only paternal and indulgent, but is wholly
gratuitous. . . . "Where national assistance has failed,
private contribution has volunteered its aid." " Gentle
reader," he says again (c. 8), " excuse the confessions of an
old man, for I have a soft spot in my heart yet, I love Old
England." He loved, he goes on to say, her law, her church,
her constitution, her literature, her people. And in the
" letter from the author," in " The Letter-Bag of the Great
"Western," it is remarked that the colonies " have experienced
nothing at the hand of the English but unexampled kindness,
untiring forbearance, and unbounded liberality. ... If
there should be any little changes required from time to time
in our limited political sphere, ... a temperate and
proper representation will always produce them from the
predominant party of the day, whatever it may be, if it can
only be demonstrated that they are wise or necessary changes.
It is the inclination as well as the interest of Great Britain
so to treat us ; and whoever holds out any doubts on this
subject, or proclaims the mild, conciliatory and parental sway
77
of the Imperial Government 'a baneful domination,' . .
should be considered as either an ignorant or a designing
man."
But Haliburton was not blind to the faults of the British
people or government. He was fond of satirising the blunders
of the Colonial Office and the sometimes ludicrous ignorance
of its officials about the colonies. And he lets Mr. Slick
comment freely on the monotonous, material existence of the
squirearchy, the mercenary attentions that are forced upon
travellers, and other British faults and flaws.
It goes without saying that our author was a strong
champion of the British connection, which in Sam Slick's
opinion (Clockmaker 2, 21) should not be dissolved even at the
desire of the colonies ! Looking far ahead of his contempo-
raries, Haliburton put forward some strong pleas for an
Imperial Federation. He felt that in its present state the
Empire was like a barrel without hoops (Clockmaker, 3, 19)
which must be bound together more securely or else tumble
to pieces ; or like a bundle of sticks (Nature and Human
Nature, c. 19) which needed to be tied or glued more firmly
or they would fall apart.
" The very word dependencies," said Mr. Hopewell (Attach^,
c. 21), and his words were endorsed by the Squire, "shows the
state of the colonies. If they are retained they should be
incorporated with Great Britain. . . . Now that steam
has united the two continents of Ei'rope and America, in such
a manner that you can travel from Nova Scotia to England
in as short a time as it once required to go from Dublin to
London, I should hope for a united legislature. Recollect
that the distance from New Orleans to the head of the
Mississippi River is greater than from Halifax, N.S., to
Liverpool, G.B. I do not want to see colonists and English-
78
ffii
r^esigning
le British
I blunders
ignorance
Mr. Slick
ice of the
reed upon
a strong
im Slick's
even at the
contempo-
las for an
, state the
ker, 3, 19)
Ise tumble
id Human
ore firmly
(Attach^,
shows the
should be
phat steam
ja, in such
England
iDublin to
I Recollect
Id of the
N.S., to
English-
men arrayed against each other as different races, but united
as one people, having the same rights and privileges, each
bearing a share of the public burdens, and all having a voice
in the general government."
A particular form of Imperial Federation that has many
advocates to-day is thus suggested by Sam Slick (Wise
Saws, c. 2o) : " It shouldn't be England and her colonies,
but they should be integral parts of one great whole — all
counties of Great Britain. There should be no taxes on
colonial produce, and the colonies should not be allowed to
tax British manufactures. All should pass free, as from one
town to another in England ; the whole of it one vast home-
market, from Hong Kf g to Labrador." In "The Attach^"
(c. 21), Mr. Slick observes of colonists: "They are attached
to England, that's a fact ; keep them so by making them
Englishmen. . . . Their language will change them.
It will be our army . . . not the English army ; our
navy, our church, our parliament, our aristocracy, etc., and
the word English will be left out holus-bolus and that proud
but endearin' word 'our' will be insarted." Haliburton
seems to have fretted under this subordinate status of the
colonies, and to have yearned for a fuller imperial citizenship
for colonists. "No, don't use that word 'our' till you are
entitled to it," says the clockmaker. " Be formal and ever-
lastin' polite. Say 'your' empire, 'your' army, etc., and
never strut under borrowed plumes." Elsewhere he has
compared the colonies to ponds, which rear frogs, but want
only inlets and outlets to become lakes and produce fine fish.*
* It is a curious coincidence that his ablest deprecator, Professor
Felton, of Harvard College, shared Haliburton's views on this subject.
In his review of "The Attache," in the North American Beview for
January, 1844, Felton attributed what he terms "the antiquated
political absurdities" of the judge to "the belittling effects of the
79
J'ii
In fact, the main cauRe of discontent among educated and
self-reliant colonistH, as he makes Mr. Hopewell point out
(Clockmaker, 3, 19, and still more impressively, Attach^,
c. 62), was the lack of openings for genius and ambition.
On the gate of any colonial cemetery, he thought, might be
aptly inscribed the stanzas of "Gray's Elegy," beginning,
" Porhaps in this neglected Bpot is laid."
The provinces are now confederated, and a Dominion
political career furnishes another opening to aspiring and
gifted Canadians. Yet while we remain in the present
cramping status of colonists some of our ambitious men must
feel, with Haliburton, a " want of room — of that employment
that is required for ability of a cortain description." George
Washington, Mr. Hopewell hinted, might never have led the
insurgert provinces to victory, had his gifts and ambition
had free vent " in other parts of the Empire." The repre-
sentation of colonists in the Imperial Parliament would not
only widen their thoughts and interests, but would also serve
colonial system on the intellects of colonists. A full and complete
national existence," added the Harvard professor, " is requisite to the
formation of a manly, intellectual character. What great work of
literature or art has the colonial mind ever produced ? What free,
creative action of genius can take place tinder the withering sense of
inferiority that a distant dependency of a great empire can never
escape from ? Any consciousness of nationality, however humble the
nation may be, is preferable to the second-hand nationality of a colony
of the mightiest empire that ever flourished. The intense national
pride which acts so forcibly in the United States is something vastly
better than the intellectual paralysis that deadens the energies of men
in the British North American Provinces." . . . Professor Drum-
mond has strikingly described the deterioration of the hermit crab
resulting from its habitually evading the natural responsibility of self-
defence. Haliburton evidently feared an analogous fate for a nation
permanently evading the same responsibility. — F. B. Crofton, in " The
Atlantic Monthly " for March, 1J92,
80
m
ated and
joint out
Attach^,
ambition,
might be
ining,
Dominion
iring and
e present
men must
aployment
" George
,ve led the
. ambition
rhe repre-
would not
also serve
id complete
lisite to the
at work of
What free,
ing sense of
can never
humble the
of a colony
36 national
hing vastly
lies of men
isor Drum-
ermit crab
lity of self-
tr a nation
t?i " The
to prevent dangerous disaffection : their reprosentatives " will
bo safety-valves to let off steam." Our author thought the
North American colonioa had reached a periml in their
growth "when the treatment of adults should supersede that
of children " ; but he was not of those who want to acquire
the full privileges of manhood and to shirk its obligations
and responsibilities.
"Ah, Doctor," said Sam Slick (Nature and Human Nature,
c. 19) things can't and tvon't remain long as tliey are. Eng-
land has three things among which to choose for her North
American colonies : First — Incorporation with herself, and
representation in Parliament. Secondly — Independence.
Thirdly — Annexation with the States." Wo have seen that
Haliburton preferred the first.
Sam Slick pooh-poohed the idea of Canadian independence
in "The Clockmaker" (2, c. 16), and pronounced it utterly
impracticable. But he was then speaking as an American ;
and even if our author personally held the same views, he
might have modified them had he lived till Canada supported
a large militia and a small army, and when Confederation
(which he thought an essential preliminary to independence)
was an accomplished fact. In " Nature and Human Nature "
(c. 19) Mr. Slick says that independence is better for the
colonies and England than annexation ; " but if that is
decided upon, something must be done soon. The way ought
to be prepared for it by an immediate federative and legisla-
tive union of them all."
Others of Haliburton's personages speak in favor of
colonial confederation. Among them is Senator Boodle
(Seiison Ticket, c. 8), who also argues that an intercolonial
railway should be constructed at once, and that "as soon as
this railway is finished immediate steps should be taken to
6 SI
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WEBSTER, NY. 14S80
(716) 873-4503
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provide a safe, easy and expeditious route to Eraser's River,
on the Pacific." In the first chapter of this same work the
senator had prophesied a great interoceanic railway and a
great metropolis at Esquimalt : " The enterprise, science and
energy of the West will require and command the labor of
the East, and Vancouver will be the centre where the pro-
ducts of both hemispheres will be exchanged. . . . You
have the shortest possible route and the most practicable,
through your own territory, from one ocean to the other, the
finest harbors in the world (Halifax and Esquimalt), abun-
dance of coal at the termini and the most direct communica-
tion with all the eastern world."
The infinite importance of Britain and her colonies parting
peaceably, if they are to part at all, was fully recognized by
our author. " If the partnership is to be dissolved," advised
Mr. Slick, "it had better be done by mutual consent, and it
would be for the interest of both that you should part friends.
You didn't shake hands with, but fists at, us when we
separated. , . . Wounds were given that the best part
of a century hasn't healed, and wounds that will leave tender
spots forever." Our author did not, however, anticipate an
angry parting. The holder of "the season ticket," in the
book bearing that name, says to an American who talks of
annexing Canada : " Be assured, if they (the Canadians) do
become independent, it will be by mutual consent and good
will, and, let me add, with the mutual regret of both parties."
If our author was averse to annexation, it was from no
narrow prejudice against the great American people. Indeed
his imagination had conceived and his judgment had approved
the very grandest of the various schemes propounded for the
future of our race — an Anglo-Saxon union or alliance, domi-
nating the world and dictating peace to the too heavily
88
I- i-i
I:
r's River,
work the
ay and a
;ience and
labor of
e the pro-
. . You
racticable,
other, the
alt), abun-
ommunica-
ies parting
ognized by
1," advised
ent, and it
art friends.
s when we
e best part
;ave tender
ticipate an
et," in the
ID talks of
ladians) do
and good
J parties."
IS from no
Indeed
d approved
ded for the
ance, domi-
xto heavily
armed nations. " Now we are two great nations," remarks
Mr. Slick, in his quaint style (Wise Saws, c. 26), "the
greatest by a long chalk of any in the world — speak the
same language, have the same religion, and our constitutions
don't differ no great odds. We ought to draw closer than we
do. We are big enough, equal enough, and strong enough not
to be jealous of each other. United, we are more nor a match
for all the other nations put together, and can defy their
fleets, armies and millions. Single, we couldn't stand against
all, and if one was to fall, where would the other be?
Mournin' over the grave that covers a relative whose place
can never l)e filled. It is authors of silly books, editors of
silly papers, and demagogues of silly parties that help to
estrange us. I wish there was a gibbet high enough and
strong enough to hang up all these enemies of mankind on."
Americans were generally, an our author found them,
shrewd, quick, energetic, enterprising. Thoy were generous,
too, and, in his opinion, '* those who have described the
Yankees as a cold, designing, unimpassioned people, know but
little of them in their domestic circles." But the Americans,
he thought, were "image worshippers ": they worshipped the
golden image and the American image. With them every-
thing was for sale, and they humbugged everybody — them-
selves included. Many of them were ostentatious and
snobbish in their own sense of the latter term. This trait of
theirs he often notes and caricatures. He describes some
New England factory girls who wanted to be " taken oflF"
{i.e., photographed) in company with certain alleged grand
relations of theirs. Miss Sally Slick is made to address her
letters to " Hon. Samuel Slick, late of the Embassy to the
Court of St. James's." This she used to do " to let some
folks know who some folks are." And Mr. Slick declared
83
i'l.
f
'I ■'
that if a young English commissariat oflicer went to his
native Onion County, Connecticut, he could marry the richest
girl in it, merely on account of the imposing length of his
title — Deputy -Assistant-Commissary -General.
The scamps and humbugs who, all over the North American
continent, used the holy cause of temperance as a profession or
as a cloak, receive a good deal of notice from our author. The
Rev. Mr. Hopewell laments (Attach*?, c. 29) that "emancipa-
tion and temperance have superseded the Scriptures in the
States. Formerly they preached religion there, but now they
only preach about niggers and rum." In the fourth chapter of
"The Season Ticket," the chronicler very minutely no'es and
comments on the various evasions of the prohibitory law in
Maine.
Sam Slick thus epigrammatically characterises his country-
men : " Brag is a good dog and Holdfast is a l)etter one, but
what do you say to a cross of the two 1 And that's just what
we are."
Americans, Haliburton thought, had no satisfactory safe-
guards against popular frenzies ; they lacked a clergy with
stipends independent of their congregations, and a nobility
and gentry with a social position too secure to be endangered
by their opposing the violent whims of the populace.
That our author discountenanced the abolition movement,
l)elieving slaves to be generally happier than peasants, may
1)6 inferred from Slick's ridicule of " ablutionists," and still
more clearly from the cynical letter of an abolitionist in
" The Letter-Bag of the Great Western."
Three prophecies relating to the United States were made
by personages in our author's works, of which two have not
and one has been already verified. There would be an upris-
ing of the colored population ; there would be an established
84
it to his
le richest
[th of his
A.morican
ifession or
hor. The
smancipa-
•es in the
now tlioy
chapter of
no'^s and
ry hvw in
8 country-
ir one, V)ut
just what
ctory safe-
ergy with
a nobility
ndangered
novement,
lants, may
and still
tionist in
■\'ere made
have not
an upris-
istablished
church (the Roman Catholic, txs succes^iive censuses would
indicate) ; and there would be a civil war on the question of
state-rights. " General Qovernment and State Government,"
said Mr. Slick, "every now and then square oiTand spar, and
the first blow given will bring a genu-ine set-to."
# ♦ ♦ * • ♦
Among Haliburton's distinctive gifts wiis his aptitude for
aphorisms and short, pithy sayings of all kinds. " Nothin',''
says the clockmaker, " improves a man's manners like runnin'
an election." "Reforms," says "The Old Judge," sarcasti-
cally, " are not applicable to reformers, for those who liberate
others must themselves be free." " When ladies wear the
breeches, their petticoats should be long enough t<j hide 'eiu,"
philosophises Mr. Slick. "No man, nor woman nother,"
(•pined the same philosopher, " can be a general favorite and
l)e true." " A long face is plaguy apt to cover a long con-
science," says Parson Hopewell. The only good of a college
education is " to show how devilish little other people know,"
according to some cynic introduced by our author. And
various personages of his utter the following discerning
ol)servations : " There is a private spring to every one's
affections ; if he can find that and touch it, the door will fly
open." " A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy ;
the smile that accepts the lover b»jfore words are spoken, and
the smile that alights on the first-born baby and assures it of
a mother's love." " A good temper must be kept cool ; even
sugar, when fermented, makes vinegar." " Though there be
more refinement in the citizen, there is less heart than in the
country man. Before you can impart its brightness to steel,
you must harden its texture."
The last two quotations illustrate our author's singular and
unfbiling facility for finding similes and metaphors to eluci-
86
U
fe ■!
^
9'M
w
I'm
If;
\i \
date a speaker's meaning. Let me add another quaintly
expressive figure. I think it is in " The Old Judge " that
somebody talks of '' a dusky night, when the moon looks tike
a dose of castor oil in a glass of cider."
Here is one of the lessons of the French Revolution in a
nutshell : " Concession never stopt agitation since the world
was squeezed out of a curd ; it only feeds it. Throwin' sops
to varmint only brings 'em back again ; and when you have
nothin' left to throw to 'em, they are plaguy apt to turn to
and tare you to pieces."
Here and there the reader is tickled by some quaint
original conceit. Some stokers on the Great Western are
represented as having " sour, Cameronian-Iooking faces, that
seem as if they were dreadfully disappointed they were not
persecuted any more." A looking-glass is styled a woman's
greatest enemy (Season Ticket, p. 286) not because it
reflects falsely but because it reflects a false face. When she
consults her glass she is looking at her dearest friend, and is
unconsciously disposed to look her very best. Hence the
mirror gives every woman an exaggerated opinion of her own
attractions.
With many readers, Haliburton's popularity rests upon his
peculiar gifts as a raconteur. A good memory and a fertile
imagination both aided him in constructing his stories, of
which many are wholly or partly true, while many are purely
fictitious. " Most of the anecdotes in those books called
' The Clockmaker ' and ' Attach^ ' are real ones," says the
chronicler of the latter work (c, 52).
Sometimes our author seems to moot a subject merely to
introduce an anecdote. And the connection between subject
and anecdote is sometimes so thin that it might be invisible
if it were not specially pointed out. This criticism applies
.1 i
.1
quaintly
ige" that
looks like
ution in a
the world
Dwin' sopa
you have
o turn to
lie quaint
'eatern are
Faces, that
' were not
a woman's
because it
When she
md, and is
!ence the
if her own
.s upon his
id a fertile
stories, of
[are purely
iks called
I' says the
merely to
ia subject
invisible
Im applies
more particularly to the narratives of Mr. Slick, who is
designed to be a somewhat inconsequent spinner of yarns,
and who, indeed, once pleaded guilty to making " one of my
ramblin' speeches," " with capital stories that illustrated
everything but the resolution."
It would be about as impracticable to select the best
dozen, or score, of Haliburton's yarns as it would be to do
that favorite modern puzzle — to " name the best one hundred
books." His tales are multitudinous. They are of all kinds
and characters, and illustrate most of his characteristics,
especially his ingenuity, power of imagination and keen relish
for the ludicrous. I may be permitted, however, to refer to
a few anecdotes which notably display these qualities — to the
tale of the broken-down old slave, for instance, who was
cunningly persuaded to buy his freedom by liis master's
assurance that he was quite sound and had a deal of work in
him yet, and who then sued his master for breach of war-
ranty and forced him to refund the purchase-money ; to the
tale of a Mormon in delirium tremens (Season Ticket) who
fancied himself a *' rooster " and his wives hens, and beat and
pecked at the latter because they wouldn't roost on the
garden-fence with their heads under their wings ; to the tale
of the Quaker and the marine insurance money (Clock-
maker, 2, 13), a nice case for casuists; to the tale of Sara
Slick saving a boy's life and getting "more kicks than half-
pence " as his reward (Nature and Human Nature, c. 4) ;
to the tale of the Yankee who got out of a fine imposed by a
grandmotherly law for smoking by brazenly denying that his
cigar was alight, inducing the constable to detect his false-
hood by taking a whiff hiinself, and then threatening the
otiicer with a fine for his own v iolation of the law ; to the
tale of how Sam Slick learned Gaelic and taught a pretty girl
87
<f
m
^t, ■;
i ^
t;
English on the object, lesson syHtem (Nature and Ifunian
Nature, c. 5) ; and to the tale of the Scotch sergeant's mis
understandings and mortifications while inquiring about the
name and nature of a moose {U>id. c. 9).
Specimens of our author's broader and more farcical humor
may be found in the Anale to the Governor's dinner party,
and in the yarn of the extemporized page's breeches, both in
" The Old Judge," and in the lady's ludicrous exhibition of
fright at a thunder-storm in "The Season Ticket." On one
occasion Mr. Slick was sent to Italy to purchase pictures for
a Yankee institution, and strongly 'cautioned against bring-
ing home anything that might seem indelicate. He carried
out his instructions with such carefulness that, a Virgin and
a Child being among his puroluvses and the Child's legs being
naked, he " hiid an artist to paint trousers an a pair of laced
boots upon him," to make him "look genteel."
To anybody who has read one of Haliburton's anecdotal
works, his proneness to punning will be too patent to need
illustration. Some signal instances of his capacity and his
weakness for puns are found in the " liCtter-Bag of the Great
Western ": — for instance, in the midshipman's description of
the seasickness of various passengers in terms borrowed from
their respective professions (No. 4) ; in the lawyer's clerk's
letter (No. 10) ; and in the Preface, where the author pours
a perfect torrent of postal puns on the Postmaster-General,
that " frank man of letters who transports the mails." The
same temptation to distort words which led him to perpetrate
some dmible entendres, led him also to perpetrate some pretty
bad puns. How strong this temptation must have been on
occasions may l)e gathered from his making a speaker pun
while seriously protesting against the mean treatment of the
Loyalists in the Canadian rebellion — a subject on which
88
t i
i
if!
m
i
Human
int'u niis-
Ekbout the
;nl humor
ler party,
s, both in
libition of
On one
cture8 ft»r
ist bring-
le carrit'd
'irgin and
legs being
ir of laced
anecdotal
it to need
V and his
the Great
•iption of
wed from
*s clerk's
[lor pours
'-General,
s.' The
[erpetrate
le pretty
been on
bker pun
t of the
which
Haliburton felt very deeply indeed, and to which he often
recurred. " He who calle<l out the militia," complains a
colonial Loyalist, '* and quelled the late rebellion amid a
shower of balls, was knighted. He who assented amid a
shower of eggs to a bill to indemnify the rebels, was created
an earl. Now to pelt a governor-general with eggs is an
overt act uf treason, for it is an attempt to throw oflf the
yolk." ReckleHs punning marked our author's conversation
as ^vell as his writings. He was notorious for it among his
classmates at college. He displayed it occasionally on the
bench. A man once begged exemption from jury duty on
the ground of having a certain skin disease vulgarly known
as the itch. " Scratch that man ! " promptly directed the
judge.
Artoiuus Ward was not without warrant in terming Hali-
burton the founder of the American school of humor, for
most of its phases are illustrated in his works. The affected
simplicity of Mark Twain is anticipated in the second chapter
of " Nature and Human Nature." Prototypes of Mrs. Part-
ington may be found in Mrs. Figg and the female servant in
" The Letter- Bag " and in an old woman in " The Season
Ticket." Several American jests and jocular phrases are
apparently borrowed from Haliburton. In " The Old Judge "
an Indian explains to the governor, who expresses surprise
at seeing him drunk so soon again, that it is " all same
old drunk."
Mr. D. R. I^ke ("Petroleum V. Nasby ") told me that he
once made quite a hit in a stump speech by dividing the
voters of his country into '* men vith clean shirts and Demo-
crats." I wonder whether he had read the definitions quoted
by Sam Slick of a Tory ("a gentleman every inch of him
. . . and he puts on a clean sMrt every day") and of a
89
m
m
pr
'J
)''
l'1'
Whig ("a gentleman every other inch of hitu and he puts on
an unfrilled shirt every other day "). Everybody has laughed
at Topsy'H idea that she was not made but "growod." About
fifteen years before the publication of " Uncle Tooi'm Cabin,"
in the first series of "The Clockmaker " (c. 12), a country girl
being asked where she was brought up, replied in these
words : *' Why, I guess I wasn't brought up at all, I growed
up."
The Tewkesbury workhouse people (or General Butler?)
may have taken the notion of tanning paupers' skins from the
Connecticut pedler mentioned in " The Season Ticket " (p. 49)
who bought a nigger's body " of the sheriff on spekelation,
and hired a doctor to take his hide off, and he dressed it with
alum and lime, and cut it into narrow pieces and mode razor
strops of it."
From time to time some wit-borrower suggests the advisa-
bility of freezing, or mesmerizing, or hypnotizing passengers as
a sovereign remedy for sea-sickness. I wonder whether this
suggestion wasjirst made in the Shareholder's letter in "The
letter-Bag," where it is shown that this plan would be
economical for the company, as well as pleasant for the
passengers.
If one wished to libel Haliburton, one might argue plaus-
ibly that he furnished the model for " Peck's Bad Boy," for
there is in " The Letter-Bag " an epistle from a certain en/ant
terrible, who plays a series of tricks almost as nefarious as
those of Peck's monstrosity. They range from putting glass
in passenger's boots, for the pleasure of hearing them swear,
to removing a leaf from his father's sermon, for the pleasure
of hearing " the old man " talk admiringly about " the beauty
— of — of the devil and all his works ! "
Not only have modern funny men taken hints from Hali-
90
■i
•\ \
I.
1;.
I puts on
laughed
' About
i Cabin,"
ntry girl
in these
[ growed
Butler 1)
from the
,"(p. 49)
kelation,
d it with
ode razor
e advisa-
engers as
ther this
in " The
ould be
for the
ue plaus-
loy," for
n eri/ant
.rioua as
Ing glass
swear,
pleasure
beauty
bm
Hali-
burton, but modern journalists have sometimes appropriated
his anecdotfH hnlus-liolus or with variations. The following
from the French passenger's missive in " The Letter-Bag "
was adapted by one or more newspapers not very long ago,
and spoiled in the adapting : " To-<Iay steward took hold of
de skylight and said 'look out.' Well, I put up ray head for
to ' look out,' and he shut down de sash on it and gave me a
cut almost all over my face with pains of glass, and said,
' Dat is not de way to look out, you should have took your
head in.' Dat is beating de English into your hood wit de
devil lo it likewise." A Halifax weekly, in 1885, offered a
prize for the best original story, and awarded half of the prize
money to a mere rechauffe of a yarn spun in " Wise Saws."
Haliburton pointed the shafts of his sarcasm usually at
types and classes, seldom at individuals. He saw an unoccu-
pied field for a satirist at home, and he proceeded to occupy
it. " The absurd importance attached in this country to
triHcs," observes one of his personages, " the grandiloquent
language of rural politicians, the flimsy veil of patriotism
under which solBshnoss strives to hide . . . present many
objects for ridicule and satire." Illustrations of his satiric
power may be found in his sketches of the Governor's aides-
de-camp in "The Old Judge," and of the Americans "who
ascend the Rhine that they may have an opportunity of
boasting of a larger American river " (Season Ticket, pp. 90,
91) ; in the flood of irony which is poured upon the false
distinctions between right and wrong that prevailed among
another type of Americans (Clockmaker, 2, c. 10); in the
" letter from a traveller before he has travelled," ridiculing
superficial English observei's with preconceived notions about
America (Letter- Bag) ; in the letter from a New York
"Loco-foco" (ibid.), which settles the affairs of England with
self-satisfied ignorance.
91
I
^1
t
'.i
r '
I! ,
Colonial hiiiliopH are nut exempt from the caustic atten-
tions of our author : " Thoy have (Old Judge, c. 3) one grand
object in view from the moment of their landing in a colony ;
and that i.s the erection of u cathedral ho largo tm to contain
all the churchmen of the province, and ao cxpenHive aH to
exhaust all the liberality of their friends ; and this unHnitihed
monument of ill-directed zual they are sure to place in a
situation wheru it can be of no use whatever."
As a general rule, the stylo of our author is lesH terse than
that of most modern American humorists. His otTocts are
produced by ludicrous situations and grotesque conceits more
often than by tricks of construction. His sentences are
seldom framed to rouse the flagging attention of the nnuler
by sudden jolts or jerks. Here and there, however, ho dis-
plays the piquant flippancy and careless exaggeration of a
modern puragraphist.
He used dialogue copiously, as a means to make his b<x>ks
and opinions popular. "Why is it," asks Sam Hlick (Wise
Saws, c. 19), " if you rotul a Ixxtk to u man you set him to
sleep ? Just because it is a lxK)k and the language aint com-
mon. Why is it if you talk to him ho will sit up all night
with you 1 Just because it's talk, the language of natur'."
And written chat, ho thought, was the next Ijest medium to oral
chat for holding the attention of all classes (for " the test of
a real genu-iue good book," in Mr. Slick's opinion at least, " is
that it is read in the parlor and in the kitchen"). Here is the
rationale of that "conversational style " that has helped to win
a circulation for so many modern society journals, and which
is growing so popular with " special contributors."
Our author's dialogue, however, is not invariably suited to
the character either in mattisr or in manner, and few of his
dramatis personce, if they display any peculiarities of idiom,
92
tic atteu-
unu grand
a colony ;
bo contain
itive aa to
tinflniahed
jiacu in a
terse than
ofTocts are
iceits more
tences are
the roader
'er, he dis-
atioi» <»f a
e his b«Joks
«ick (Wise
set him to
i aint com-
p all night
of natur'."
ium to oral
the test of
t least, " is
ere is the
ped to win
and which
suited to
Ifew of his
of idiom,
are made to use the Rann' diiilpct ronsiHtontly throughout,
FIven th«' HjH'llinK that is used to convoy provinrial nUHpnt-
nunciiitions is (;HpriciouHly vari«'tl. And our auihor'H chanir
tors Homotiuies stray from tlio main suhjoct of discuHMion with
an altruptnoHH that in roal life would Htu'itriNO and ofron<l.
In those particulars Ilalihurton displays tho carolessnoss
and want of finish which are ani(mg his chief dofocts.
Another fault also arising from carolossnoss is his too friMjuent
ropotition, Imth of ido;i« and forms of exprossinn.
When Ilalihurton exortod himself ho was capahio of rising
to a high (h'greo of eloquence and improssivonoss. Wlion ho
wroto carelessly ho was liable to Ixjcomo ditTuse «>r stilt<Ml,
Similar comments have Ix'on ma<lo hy men who have heanl
him speak. His ordinary speeches aros^iid to have Inwrn little
above the average, while parts of his sot orations, notably of
his plea for aliolishing the test oath in Nova Scotia, were
powerful and impressive in the extreme.
Our author is sometimes vivid and brilliant in his descrip-
tions of nature. Witness his detailed contrast lietween the
scenery of the White Mountains and the storied and varying
beauties of Killarney, in "The Season Ticket" (pp. 31, 32).
But he makes more hits as a portrait, than as a landscape,
painter. The sketch of a girl's '• company face " {ifnd. p.
327) is admirable, and so is the hypocritical thief's make-up,
to impose upon the jury, in "The Clockmaker" (2, c. 10).
In "The Attach*?" Sam Slick takes off, in a few characteristic
touches, the popular Cheltenham preacher who advertises the
frivolous gaieties of the place by violently denouncing them ;
and the fashionaVile Cheltenham doctor who dexterously
h imors the whims of his hypochondriac patients, and, through
the gratitude of his prof»;ssional brethren, constantly " gains
new patients by praising every London doctor individually,
93
f\
and only damning them in a lump." There is a broken-down,
drunken, soured remnant of what was once an English
scholar and gentleman introduced in a single chapter of '* The
Clockmaker " (2, c. 19). The portrait is almost too gloomy
to reproduce in its entirety, but it is wondroualy true to
nature — the spendthrift generosity, the impatience of Yankee-
isms, the fretful outbursts of jaundiced eloquence : —
" ' Curse the /ocation,' he exclaimed, * there is no location
like Old England.'" "'On this side the water'" he
found " ' nothing approaching the class of gentrj'.
What little they have here, sir, are second-hand airs copied
from poor models that necessity forces out here. It is the
farce of high life below stairs, sir, played in a poor theatre to
a provincial audience.' " And again he speaks bitterly of
" ' the sickly waxwork imitation of gentility here, the faded
artificial flower of fashion, the vulgar pretension, the con-
temptible struggle for precedence. Poor as I am, humble as
I am, and degraded as I am — for I am all three now — I have
seen better days, and ... I know what I am talking
about. There's nothing beyond respectable mediocrity here.
Little ponds never hold big fish ; there is nothing
but pollywogs, tadpoles and minims in them. Look at them
as they swim thro' the shallow water of the margins of their
little muddy pool, following some small fellow an inch long,
the leader of the shoal, that thinks himself a whale. .
(Jo to every press, and see the stuff that is printed ; go to the
people, and see the stuflF that is uttered or swallowed, and
then, tell me this is a location for anything above mediocrity.'
" ' What keeps you here then ? ' said Mr. Slick, ' if it is
such an everlastin' miserable country as you lay it out to bel'
' I'll tell you, sir,' said he, and he drained oflF the whole of the
brandy, as if to prepare for the effort — ' I will tell you w^^ wt
94
ken-down,
n English
!r of •' The
;oo gloomy
ly true to
}f Yankee-
tio location
ater'" he
airs copied
It is the
• theatre to
bitterly of
, the faded
1, the con-
, humble as
)w — I have
am talking
)crity here,
is nothing
ik at them
is of their
inch long,
; go to the
fowed, and
^ediocrity.'
'if it is
jut to ber
lole of the
you w^ jt
keeps me,' and he placed his hand on his knees, and looking
the Clockmaker steadily in the face until every muscle worked
with emotion — ' I'll tell you, sir, if you must know — my mis-
fortune.'" Then he fell from his chair.
Next to Sam Slick himself the Reverend Mr. Hopewell is
the personage with whom we are made most intimate in the
pages of Haliburton. Mr. Hopewell is morally consistent
throughout. We are given his character in pieces, but the
pieces fit. He utters no ignoble sentiment and does no
questionable deed. He disliked puritans and ascetics, and
used to say that youth, innocence and cheerfulness were the
Three Graces. " The sight of the sea, a great storm, a starry
sky or even a mere flower " would send him into a reverie or
rouse him to an ecstasy. He thundered like a Hebrew prophet
against the impious notion of utilizing the water-power of
Niagara. His saintly tolerance did not prevent his telling
his pharisaic flock their besetting sins and weaknesses.
Displaced by them, he strove to persuade himself that he was
at fault and not they ; he would rather have found himself in
the wrong than believe them so base and ungrateful. In this
true evangelist, it is likely that Haliburton reproduced some
traits of his revered friend, the Abb^ Sigogne.
It must be admitted, however, that this American clergj'-
man is sometimes made to display an almost incredibly
minute intimacy with Canadian and British politics and
personages. He knows, for example, all about Lord Durham
and Mr. Poulett Thompson — their acts, characters and
inner motives. Very possibly our author wished to fortify
his own political opinions by the endorsement of so high-
minded an observer. A slight oversight is also noticeable in
regard to Mr. Hopewell's age. In the second series of " The
Clockmaker" (c. 15), he declares himself to be ninety-five.
95
' ^.i
^
M.:
V- 1
Yet in " The Attach^," a work written five years later and
recording subsequent events, he is represented as going to
England with Mr. Slick and delighting the natives by his
sermons and discourses.
******
In most respects Sara Slick is a typical wide-awake Yankee
man of business.
He is shifty and versatile. When he wants to get a
particular deck seat on a steamer, he inquires innocently if a
certain sail in sight can be a Chinese junk. The occupant of
the coveted seat crosses the deck and joins the curious crowd
who are gazing at the mysterious craft. Slick takes the seat
and, when it is reclaimed, pretends ignorance of the English
language ! When living at Boston, he has a fast horse which
will not cross a bridge because it has once fallen through one.
This horse he sells for a high figure, advertising, with literal
truth, that he would not sell it at any price if he did not
want to leave Boston. Another fast trotter of his has " the
heaves." Slick advertises that his only reason for selling is
that the animal is " too heavey for harness." The unwary
buyer returns to reproach Slick, and only loses some more
money by betting that the latter had advertised the horse as
too heavy for harness. At a time when there is a high duty
of 30 per cent, on lead, and no duty on works of art, he
realizes a very handsome sum by investing heavily in leaden
busts of Washington, and melting the Father of his Country
after he has passed the custom-house.
Sam Slick feels a keen pleasure in "besting" a body in a
trade— especially when the other party thinks himself kn -
ing and wary. To take in another smart "down-Easter"
was to him an intense triumph. He compares it (Clockraaker
3, 1 2) with great minuteness to coaxing a shy fish to take the
96
ill:
later and
going to
38 by his
:e Yankee
to get a
:ently if a
cupant of
ous crowd
3 the Beat
le English
»rse which
•ough one.
'ith literal
le did not
has " the
r selling is
unwary
ome more
horse as
ligh duty
of art, he
in leaden
Country
3ody in a
elf kn -
Easter "
ockmaker
take the
bait. " There's no thin' a'most I like so much as to see folk
cheat themselves," he says in another place. It is by his
suggestion that Ichabod Gates manages to sell his goods to
the townspeople at twice their cost, by binding each customer
to keep the secret of his selling so cheap !
He is often discursive in his yarns and sometimes indirect
in his bargaining ; but like a good sporting dog, as he says of
himself, if he did beat about the bush, he generally put up
the birds.
He wants to turn everything to practical use. At Niagara
he is struck first by the water-power, and secondly by the
grandeur of the Falls ! In noting the beauties of Mount
Auburn Cemetery at Boston, he does not omit that it is " the
grandest place for courtin' in I know of, it's so romantic."
He flatters, wheedles, and " soft-sawders " everlastingly ;
but he never cringes to anyone.
He is a shrewd and close observer of character as well as
of externals, of classes as well as of individuals. So keen are
his perceptions that he is enabled, after only a short experi-
ence in the new field of London fashionable life, to formulate
the cynical " rules of society," which are to be found in Chapter
35 of " The Attach^."
Conceited and boastful of his country, he saw some of its
faults and dangers, and criticised it freely himself. In one of
his bilious moods he denies that it is the attractions of the
United States that draw so large an immigration : " It's
nothin' but its powers of suction ; it's a great whirlpool — a
great vortex — it drags all the straw and chips and floatin'
sticks, drift-wood and trash into it." But, if he abused it
himself, he would not let others abuse it. He was particularly
down upon tourists making superficial observations in his
country in search of " facts " to verify their preconceived ideas.
7 97
He dearly loved to '* bam " these gentry by such shocking
tales as the " Gouging School " and the " Black Stole," which
he tells in the 20th chapter of " The Attach^."
Illustrating the desirability of travelling in a cheerful,
instead of a censorious frame of mind, he observes that " the
bee, though he find every rose has a thorn, comes back loaded
with honey from his rambles ; and why shouldn't other tourists
do the same ? " Our author, it will be noticed, has endowed
Sam Slick with his own unfailing knack of hitting on an apt
simile at will.
Self-conceited, Mr. Slick was too sublimely so to be con-
scious of the failing. "That he is a vain man cannot be
denied — self-taught men are apt to be so everywhere," said
his chronicler. Some of Slick's boastfulness is doubtless due to
his comfortable confidence in himself. But some of it is put
on with a definite purpose. " Braggin'," observes our shifty
New Englander in " Nature and Human Nature," " saves
advertisin' ; " it makes people talk and think of you, and
incidentally of your wares. " I always do it," confesses Slick ;
" for, as the Nova Scotia magistrate said, who sued his debtor
before himself, ' what's the use of being a justice, if you can't
do yourself justice 1 ' "
When Slick, as attach^ to the American Legation, has
become a regular party-goer in London, he becomes proud of
his position, and attempts to suit himself to his environment
by gaudy overdressing. At this juncture his father, animated
by another weakness not unknown among Americans, comes
inopportunely to visit him. "Colonel " Slick has undertaken
the costly task of proving his title to a supposititious peerage.
At the advent of this uncouth relation Sam could sympathise
with the young lady who " wasn't at all exclusive, but was
really obliged to draw the line at pa." Sam, however, though
98
1 shocking
le," which
k cheerful,
that " the
ack loaded
ler tourists
IS endowed
; on an apt
to be oon-
cannot be
here," said
(tless due to
of it is put
i our shifty
ire," " saves
: you, and
^sses Slick ;
his debtor
: you can't
ation, has
3S proud of
ivironment
', animated
ans, comes
ndertaken
s peerage,
ympathise
, but was
er, though
mortified, is far too manly to give the cold shoulder to his
parent, though he does attempt to bottle him up with much
tact and some success. But the old man commits himself
sometimes, notwithstanding, as when the hero of Bunker Hill
sought an interview with the hero of Waterloo, and advised
the great duke to sleep with his son Sam, as the latter was a
wonderfully cute man and wise counsellor.
Sam Slick is hardly the typical Yankee of his time when
he pours contempt and ridicule on the mock modesty and
suggestive squeamishness of so many of his countrymen.
" Fastidiousness," he says in " Nature and Human Nature,"
is the envelope of indelicacy. To see harm in ordinary words
betrays a knowledge and not an ignorance of evil." Once, at
least, his antipathy to false refinement carried Slick too far —
when he makes an ultra-proper spinster wax playful and famil-
iar by suggesting, in purposely misleading terms, that she has
made a conquest. This in my opinion is the most unworthy
action recorded of Mr. Slick, and I am glad to say he had the
grace to be ashamed of it.
In religion Slick detests cant, and distrusts those who use
it. He likes to expose sanctimonious humbugs. Hypocrisy,
he thinks, " has enlisted more folks for Old Scratch than any
recruitin' serjeant he has " (Attach^, c. 36). " When the
fox turns preacher," he observes in " Wise Saws," " the gee.se
had better not go to night mee tin's." He considers ascetic
morality impracticable, and to preach it injurious, for the
masses. " Puritans," he says in " Nature and Human
Nature," " whether in or out of church make more sinners
than they save by a long chalk. They aint content with real
sin. . . . Their eyes are like the great magnifier at the Poly-
technic, that shows you awful monsters in a drop of water,
which were never intended for us to see, or Providence would
09
w
) li
I
have made our eyes like Lord Rosse's telescope. Of sects he
says, " Call 'em this dictionary name and that new-fangled
name, but give me the tree that bears the best fruit." Of
sermons he observes, " I don't like preaching to the narves
instead of to the judgment." He is a little cynical in some
particulars. He traces the influence of the clergy to having
the women on their side, and, in a story which he tells, the
Reverend rascal Meldrum attributes the prosperity he enjoys
for a season to his soft-sawdering the gentle sex. Sometimes
Slick is actually irreverent, as for instance in his speculations
on negroes' souls, which he locates in their heels.
Slick believes in treating criminals summarily, and even in
lynching on occasion. He uses drastic measures with bullies,
bad boys, and balky horses. He holds that there are " no
good scholars since birch rods went out of school and senti-
ment went in."
" So he won't leave the vessel, eh ? " said Skipper Love,
Slick's friend and co-believer in effective energy. " Well, a
critter that won't move muso be made to go, that's all. There's
a motive power in all natur'. There's a current or a breeze
for a vessel, an ingine for a rail-car, necessity for poverty, love
for the feminine gender, and glory for the hero. But for men
I like persuasion. It seems to convene better with a free and
enlightened citizen. Now here," said he, opening his closet
and taking out his rope-yarn, " here is a persuader that noth-
ing can stand. Oh, he won't come, eh 1 Well, we'll see ! "
Mr. Slick was an outrageous and successful flirt, and could
blarney the fair sex like an Irishman. He believed with
Byron that impudence — " brisk confidence " the poet calls it
— was the quality most effective with woman. He gives a
philosophic reason for this belief in " Nature and Human
Nature "(c. 14): "She didn't know whether it was impu-
100
Of sects he
new-fangled
b fruit." Of
the narves
lical in some
gy to having
1 he tells, the
ity he enjoys
Sometimes
} speculations
', and even in
i with bullies,
there are " no
lool and senti-
Skipper Love,
try. " Well, a
,'sall. There's
nt or a breeze
r poverty, love
But for men
vith a free and
ling his closet
der that noth-
we'Usee!"
lirt, and could
Ibelieved with
poet calls it
He gives a
and Human
it was impu-
dence or admiration ; but when a woman arbitrates on a case
she is interested in she always gives an award in her own
favor." For sour and sulky females, however, he approved
of stern discipline. He even once whipped a shrew. Women,
he asserted, require " the identical .same treatment " as
horses. " Incourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady
witli the fractious ones, but lather the sulky ones like blazes."
To this resemblance of women to horses in disposition, and
the desirability of treating them alike, he recurs several times.
In "The Season Ticket," Jemmy, a London hearse-driver,
declares — and the sentiment certainly seems more natural in
an Englishman of the lower classes than in a typical Yankee
— that "it's better to have the wife under the whip than on
the lead, and to have her well under command than for her
to take the bit into her mouth and play the devil." And
still another of our author's characters in the last chapter of
this his latest work, argues, in favor of divorce, that if one
may swap or change an unmanageable horse, a fortiori one
should be allowed to get rid of an unmanageable wife. For,
he says, " a horse don't pretend to be better than it is ; it is
no hypocrite. . . . But a woman aint so easy judged of, I
can tell you." Yet Mr. Slick is not an habitual detractor of
the fair sex ; he admits the faith, patience, courage and
gratitude of women, and he is particularly fond of their
society.
Constantly urging people to work and make money, he yet
sees that sudden riches often beget false pretentiousness and
conceit : " A cabbage," he says, " has plaguy large leaves to
the bottom, and spreads them out as wide as an old woman's
petticoats, to hide the ground it sprung from and conceal its
extraction." When he becomes rich himself, he avoids
ostentation and often uses his money in doing kindly acts.
101
■1
?!)
M
It
I
11!
11'
Indeed he ia generally amiable, except to fops, drones, brag-
garts, hypocrites, and detractors of his country. He helps
and cheers (Wise Saws, c. 13) a man who had given up the
battle of life, complaining that it was vain to swim forever
against the current. " Try an eddy," he advised, in one of
the happiest of his many happy metaphors ; " you ought to
know enough of the stream of life to find one, and then you
would work up river as if it was flood-tide. At the end of
the eddy is still water."
To believe that any human being, much less one who starts
life under considerable disadvantages, could know all that
Mr. Slick saya he knows, would tax one's credulity overmuch.
So various indeed are his accomplishments " that he seems to
be not one but all mankind's epitome." He is equally at
home in the politics of England, Canada and the United
States. He paints, he plays the piano and the bugle, he
dances, he is skilled in wood-craft and angling, he rows and
paddles neatly, he shoots like Leather Stocking or Dr. Carver.
He can speculate in any line with equal success. He has a
fair smattering of medicine and chemistry. He offers a
hawker of cement a much better receipt, of his own invention.
He has been in almost every country, including Poland, South
America, and Persia. In the latter country he has learned
the art of stupefying 6shes and making them float on the
surface. He dyes a drunken hypocrite's face with a dye
which he got from Indians " in the great lone land ;" and
when the hypocrite repents he has a drastic wash ready to
efface the stain. " I actilly larned French in a voyage to
Calcutta," he says, "and German on my way home." He
knew a little Gaelic too, which he had learned on a new and
agreeable system that, unfortunately, would never do in the
public schools.
102
[rones, braj;;-
He helps
[iven up the
wim forever
d, in one of
ou ought to
nd then you
t the end of
e who starts
ow all that
,y overmuch.
< he seema to
) equally at
the United
le bugle, he
he rows and
r Dr. Carver.
). He has a
He offers a
n invention.
land. South
has learned
oat on the
|with a dye
land ;" and
ih ready to
voyage to
ome." He
a new and
r do in the
At Rome in Juvenal's time it was the hungry Greek, in
Johnson's " London " it was the " fasting monsieur," who
knew all the sciences. And let it be granted that the typical
Jack-of-all-trades in this century and on this continent is the
inquisitive and acquisitive Yankee. Yet Sam Slick beats the
record of his shifty countrymen. Ho has been everywhere
where a lively reminiscence can be located, and he is endowed
with any art or attainment which comes in handy " to point
a moral or adorn a tale," to snub a snob or help a friend.
He understands every phase of human nature, male and
female, black, white and red, high and low, rich and poor.
He is equally familiar with every social stratum. In
" Nature and Human Nature " he minutely describes two
picnics soon after each other. At one of them the belles are
Indian half-breeds, at the other fashionable Halifax young
ladies. The ex-clockmaker has presumably obtained the
entree into the illogically exclusive society of Halifax. At all
events he shows a minute knowledge of its various phenomena,
not omitting the customary airs of a military parvenu.
I am afraid that this over-equipment of his hero is due to
carelessness or forgetful ness on Haliburton's part. When
Mr. Slick credits himself in all gravity with each new
accomplishment, I do not think that, in the author's inten-
tion, he is only adding another fib to his record. Were this
so, lying would be his most prominent characteristic. Now
Slick is quite capable of using ambiguous terms to help him
to dispose of a horse or a clock, but I am mistaken if he
is meant to be viewed as a .serious and habitual liar.
To draw the long bow for the sake of making fun, or with
a wink to his hearers, as it were, is quite another thing, and
of this pastime Mr. Slick was very fond. "Once," he said,
" I drawed a mutton chop so nateral that my dog broke his
103
H'n
.k'
teeth in tearing the panel to piecoH to get at it ; and at
another time I painted a shingle so like stone that, when I
threw it in the waU-r, it sunk right korlash to the bottom."
He imposes upon a ct^rtain great linguist by professing to
know all tlie North Aiufrioan Indian dialects, and informs
him that the redskins form new words by " gummification,"
u term which should be used in Indian grammar, he says, in
preference to "agglutination," because glue was unknown
and gum well known to the Indians ! The best glue in
America, he gravely adds, is made from negro hides ; whence
the saying, " It sticks like grim death to a dead nigger." In
another place he traces the origin of the phrase " he's been
through the mill " to a local accident at Slickville.
But if Sam Slick, as might be guessed from these last
incidents, is not a trustworthy etymologist, he is a past-master
of slang. His sayings are quoted widely, to illustrate col-
loquial terms, all through Bartlett's " Dictionary of Ameri-
canisms." Some of Slick's slangy expressions are very original
and forcible, as for example the following : " If I had a got a
hold of him, I'd a lammed him wuss than the devil beatin'
tan-bark ! "
He confesses that he hates poets, " lock, stock and barrel."
As he sometimes purposely shocks the British sense of
decorum by his Yankee irreverence, so he likes to ruffle one's
sentimentality by some anti-poetical simile. Poets have
thought of figure after figure to describe the changing music
of a running stream. Here is Slick's contribution — " the
noise water makes tumblin' over stones in a brook, a splut-
terin' like a toothless old woman scoldin' with a mouthful of
hot tea in her lantern cheek ! "
It is hard to determine in some cases whether Sam Slick's
utterances are intended to illustrate his character, or merely
104
I
,11
J' ■'
I ; and at
,t, when I
) bottom."
fessing to
(1 infomiH
iification,"
le says, in
unknown
it glue in
I ; whence
;ger." In
' he's been
these last
ast-master
»trate col-
of Ameri-
ry original
ad a got a
vil beatin'
d barrel."
sense of
ffle one's
»ets have
[ng music
-" the
I, a splut-
ithful of
Slick's
merely
to voice the author's personal views. This doubt of course
arises only when the clockraaker utters sentiments equally or
more in keeping with another character than his own — with
that, for instance, of an Englishman or Nova Scotian, or of a
well-read and well-bred gentleman. There is, however, a
specially strong probability that Haliburton generally en-
dorsed Sam Slick's criticisms on Nova Scotia. As a politician,
our author had learned to dread that many-headed monster, a
constituency, and to show outward respect for popular weak-
nesses. He would naturally shrink from lashing the pet feel-
ings of his countrymen only, and would find it expedient to
tell them unpalatable truths through the medium of a foreign
observer. For the clockniaker's satiric utterances — so often
grotesquely and purposeli/ exaggerated — the public could not
hold hnn responsible. '* A satirist," says Sam Slick in
" Nature and Human Nature," speaking of his already pub-
lished sayings and doings, "a satirist finds it convenient
sometimes to shoot from behind a shelter." And again, in
the same book, he observes to " the Squire," who was a Nova
Scotian : "If you was writin' and not me you would have to
call Halifax, to please the people, that flourishing great
capital," and so forth. For these reasons I have treated
Slick's views about Nova Scotia and Nova Scotians else-
where, with the personal opinions of our author. Enough to
say here, to complete this list of Mr. Slick's traits, that it
went against his grain to see a province giving its scant
enthusiasm too exclusively to politics, and wasting its energies
in pressing the government to create prosperity, instead of
seizing the existing openings for industry, as he and othei-
wide awake Yankees were so profitably doing.
* * ♦ * ♦ s|e
That so young a country as Nova Scotia should have reared
105
so great a writer aa Haliburton is somewhat surprising. Tu
what additional eminence he might have attained, had his
earlier eifortH been addressed to a more critical circle, must
remain a matter of conjecture. But it is not unlikely that
he might have taken rank among the very greatest literary
names of the century, if he hiuJ been a little less genial and
self-indulgent, or if he had had higher educational advantages
and a more stimulating literary environment at the outset of
his career. As it was, Haliburton generally wrote forcibly,
and often smoothly and classically, while in detached passages
he could be terse and even brilliant. I3ut the attractions uf
his style are not sustained, and ho is sometimes a little slip-
shod or diffuse. He is accordingly more to be admired as u
humorist than as a stylist, and more than either, perhaps, as
a thorough student and acute judge of human nature. He
noted with almost equal keenness and accuracy the idiosyn-
crasies of individuals, classes and nations. He intuitively
rf cognized the tendencies of the age ; he observed the cur-
rents of public opinion, and gauged their volume and their
force with appro.\iraate correctness. He foretold some im-
portant events that have happened already and others that
seem extremely probable to-day.
I have only touched lightly and incidentally on what strike
me as being his faults. I felt that they bear but a small ratio
to the merits of this great Canadian writer — to his exuberant
humor, his sound judgment, his wide horizon, and the general
beneficence of his aims. And above all, I could never ignore
his strong efforts to arouse a broader patriotism that might
guard forever the imperial birthright whose grandeur he was
great enough to understand.
106
..i t
surpriaing. To
ttttiiied, had \m
ical circle, must
ot unlikely that
freatest literary
less genial and
»nal advantagetj
it the outset of
wrote forcibly,
ached passages
I attractions of
es a little slip-
3 admired as a
5r, perhaps, as
I nature. H«j
y the idiosyn-
fe intuitively
■"ved the cur-
me and their
•Id some im-
i others that
I what strike
a small ratio
is exuberant
the general
lover ignoro
that might
leur he was
^
.f '.
1^
r^""^"
S*
X
o
(A
o
X
^.
c
OS
c
c
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
BY JOHN PARKER ANDERSON.
I
X
H
X
O
is
O
X
o
c
OS
o
c
ad
as
WORKS.
A General Description of Nova Scotia. Illustrated by a new and
correct map. Printed at the Royal Acadian School :
Halifax, N.S., 1823, 8vo.
A new edition. Printed at the Royal Acadian School.
Reprinted for and nold by Clement H. Belcher:
Halifax, 1825, Pvo.
[This work is wrongly ascribed to Halibarton in Morgan's
Bibliotheca Canadensis, where it is also assigned its real
author — Walter Broniley, Master of the Royal Acadian
School, Halifax, N.S. Thu book was published anony-
mously, but bears marked internal evidence of its
authorship. — A. B. de M.]
An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia. In two
volumes. Illustrated by a map of the Province, and
several engravings. 2 vols. Joseph Howe: Halifax,
1829, 8vo.
Another edition. 2 vols. Stuno : London, 1839, 8vo.
Kentucky. A tale. London, 1834, 8vo.
This work is wrongly ascribed to Haliburton in the
English Catalogue, Morgan's Bibliotheca Canadensis,
Halkett and Laing, and by other authorities. It is a
London edition with a different title page of "The
Harpe's Head, a Legend of Kentucky," Philadelphia,
1833, by James Hall, Judge in the Circuit Court of
lUmois.
The Clockmaker ; or, The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of
Slickville. Series I. Halifax, 1837, 12mo. Joseph
Howe. Appeared originally in The Nova Scotian in
1836-6.
107
J
i
First series. Richard Bentley : London, 1837, 12mo.
Second series, Richard Bentley: London, 1838, 12mo.
Another edition. First and second series. Richard
Bentley: London, 1838, 12mo.
Third series. Richard Bentley: London, 1840, 12mo.
"The Duke of Kent's Lodge," "Too Knowing by
Half," " Behind the Scenes," and " Facing a Woman "
in the third series were printed in Bentley's Miscellany
before appearing in book-form.
Reprinted. 3 vols. London, 1838-43, 8vo.
First series. Lea and BlancJuird : Philadelphia, 1837,
12mo.
Other editions : William WlUte, Concord, 1838, 12mo.
Israel S. Boyd, Concord, 1839, 18mo ; Philadelphia,
1838, 12mo, in 2 vols. ; Paris, 1841, 8vo. W. H. Colyer,
New York, 1841, 12mo ; London, 1846, 8vo. Richard
Bentley, London, 1848, 8vo. T. B. Peterson, Phila-
delphia, 1867, 12mo. Dick tt Fitzgerald, New York,
1858, 12mo. George Routledge, London, 1862, 8vo;
London, 1870, 12mo. Hard d- Houghtmi, New York,
1872, 18m<>. George Routledge, London, 1878, 8vo;
London, 1884, 8vo ; New York, 1889, 8vo. "The
Clockmaker" was translated into German and published
at Braunschweig in 1840-42.
The Bubbles of Canada. By the author of "The Clockmaker."
Richard Bentley : London, 1839, 8vo.
The dedication addressed to James Haliburton, Esq.,
is signed S. S., and bears date 24th December, 1838.
Second edition. Richard Bentley : London, 1839, 8vo.
Another edition. Lea d- Blanchard: Philadelphia,
1839, 8vo.
A Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham. By a Colonist.
Richard Bentley : London, 1839, 8vo.
Consists of seven letters which originally appeared in
the Times newspaper.
Another edition. Halifax, 1839, 8vo.
The Letter-Bag of the Great Western ; or, Life in a Steamer.
By the author of " The Sayings and Doings of Samuel
Slick." Richard Bentley: London, 1840, 8vo.
108
17, 12ino.
838, 12mo.
I. Richard
.840, 12mo.
jiowing by
a Woman "
Miscellany
Iphia, 1837,
1838, 12mo.
hiladelphia,
. U. Colyer,
3. liicliard
•son, Philii-
New York,
1862, 8vo;
New York,
1878, 8vo;
Jvo. "The
id published
lockmaker."
[rton, Esq.,
sr, 1838.
1839, 8vo.
liladelphia,
Colonist,
ppeared in
Steamer.
}f Samuel
Other editions : Joseph Howe : Halifax, 1840, 8vo ;
Philadelphia, 1840, 8vo ; New York, 1840, 8vo ; Lon-
don, 1843, 8vo ; New York, 1847, 12mo ; London, 1858,
8vo. Rontledfie: London, 1862, 12mo; do. London, 1865,
8vo ; do. London, 1873, 12mo ; do. London, 1894, 8vo.
The Attache ; or, Sam Slick in England. By the author of "The
Clockmaker ; or, Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick,"
etc., etc. 2 series. 4 vols. Richard Bentley : Lon-
don, 1843-4, 12mo.
Other editions : London, 1849, 8vo ; New York,
1856, 8vo ; Routkdge : London, 1862, 12mo ; do.
London, 1871, 12mo.
The Old Judge ; or. Life in a Colony. By the author of " Sam
Slick, the Clookmaker," "The Attache," etc., 2 vols.
Henry Colhurn, 1849, 8vo.
"The Old Judge '' appeared originally in Fraser's Mag-
azine, February, 1847, pp. 141-147 ; March, pp. 308-
321 ; April, pp. 429-446 ; May, pp. 611-528 ; Juno,
pp. 700-713 ; July, pp. 76-87 ; August, pp. 204-212 ;
September, pp. 324-334 ; Octtiber, pp. 447-461 ;
November, pp. 576-587 ; December, pp. 696-710.
Other editions : Stringer cfc Toxonsend, New York,
1849, 8vo. mimt <t- Blackctt, London, 1860, 8vo.
Dicfc tf; Fitzgerald, New York, 1862, 8vo. Mimro,
New York, 1880, 4to.
" The Old Judge " was translated into German in
1849-50, and published in 3 vols.
Le Vieux Juge, ou, esfjuisses de la vie dans une Colonie.
A French translation of portions of " The Old Judge "
in the Bihliothcqnc Unirerselle de Geneve, Tom. X.,
1849, pp. 459-494.
The English in America. 2 vols. Colbnrn d; Co.: London, 1851,
12mo.
Rule and Misrule of the English in America. By the author of
"Sam Slick, the Clockmaker," "Tl>e Letter-Bag,"
"Attache," "Old Judge," etc. Harper cfc Brothers:
New York, 1851, 8vo.
In consequence of a work having previously appeared
under the name of "The Phiglish in America," the
words "Rule and Misrule of" were added to the title
of the English and of the American edition. — R. G. H.
109
'pf
;• ' i
Traits of American Humour, by Native authors. Edited and
adapted by the author of "Sam Slick," "The Old
Judge," "The English in America," etc. 3 vols.
Colhiirn <fc Co. : London, 1852, 8vo.
The first edition of this work is generally supposed to
have been published in 1843, but no trace of such an
edition can be found in the London catalogues.
Another edition.
8vo.
Another edition.
8vo.
Hnrat <fc Blackett : London, 1866,
Hurst tt Blackett : London, 1873,
Sam Slick's Wise Saws and Modem Instances ; or, What he Said,
Did, or Invented. 2 vols. Hurst & Blackett : London,
1853, 8vo.
Other editions. Blanchard <fc Lea: Philadelphia,
1853, 12mo. Hurst tfc Blackett : London, 1839, 8vo.
The Americans at Home ; or, Byeways, Backwoods and Prairies.
Edited by the author of "Sam Slick." 3 vols. Hurst
dk Blackett : London, 1854, 8vo.
The first edition of this work is generally stated to
have been published in 1843. No trace, however, of
any such edition can be discovered in the London
catalogues.
Another edition.
8vo.
Hurst dc Blackett: London, 1873,
Nature and Human Nature. By the author of " Sam Slick, the
Clockmaker." 2 vols. Hurst <fc Blackett: London,
1855, 8vo.
Another edition. Stringer <fc Tovmsen,d: New York,
1855, 12mo.
Another edition. Hurst <£• Blackett: London, 1859,
Svo.
An Address on the Present Condition, Resources and Prospects
of British North America, delivered by special request
at the City Hall, Glasgow, on the 25th March, 1857.
Hurst d: Blackett : London, 1857, 8vo.
110
*.,.
Edited and
"The Old
x. 3 vols,
supposed to
of such an
les.
idon, 1866,
idon, 1873,
lat he Said,
t: London,
hiladelphia,
i59, 8vo.
ad Prairies,
ols. Hurst
' stated to
iiowever, of
he London
idon, 1873,
Another edition. Montreal, 1857, 8vo.
Speech of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, M.P., in the House
of Commons, on Tuesday, the aist of April, 1860, on
the Repeal of the differential duties on Foreign and
Colonial Wood. Edxmrd Stanford : London, 1860, 8vo
The date of the speech on the title page is wrong, and
should be Friday, April 20. The speech was also on
the Repeal of the duties on wood, not, as it is invariably
printed, wool.
The Season Ticket. Riclmrd Bentley : London, 1860, 8vo.
A series of articles reprinted from the Dublin Univer-
sity Magazine from April, 1859, to March, 1860.
New edition. Richard Bentley : London, 1861, 8vo.
New edition. Richard Bentley : London, 1866, 8vo.
Another edition. Wa/rne .- London, 1872, 12mo.
PIRATED COMPILATIONS.
Yankee Stories. Philadelphia, 1846, 12mo.
Yankee Stories With illustrations. Lindsay & Blakiston:
Philadelphia, 1852, 12mo.
Yankee Yarns and Yankee Letters. T. B. Peterson : PhUadelphia
1852, 12mo. ^ '
. Slick, the
.• London,
New York,
don, 1859,
I Prospects
;ial request
:arch, 1857.
Ill
APPENDIX
BIOGRAPHY AND CRITIC3SM, ETC
AUibone, S. Austin. — A Critical Dictionary of English Literature.
Philadelphia, 1859, 8vo. T. C. Haliburton, vol. i., pp.
769, 760.
Bibaud, Maximilian. — Le Panthe'on Canadien. Montreal, 1891,
8vo. T. C. Haliburton, p. 114.
Biographie Gene'rale. — NouvelleBiographieGenerale. Paris, 1858,
8vo. Article on Haliburton, signed W. in vol. xxiii., pp.
147, 148.
Boase, G. C. — Thomas Chandler Haliburton. (Memoir in the
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxiv., pp. 43-45.)
London, 1890, 8vo.
Bourinot, John George. — The Intellectual Development of the
Canadian People. Toronto, 1881, 8vo. Notice of Hali-
burton, pp. 104, 105.
Bryce, George. — A Short History of the Canadian People. Lon-
don, 1887, 8vo. Judge Haliburton, pp. 476, 477.
Calnefc- Savary. — History of the County of Annapolis. Toronto,
1897, 8vo. Biographical Memoir of T. C. Haliburton, pp.
418-426, with portrait.
Campbell, Duncan. — Nova Scotia in its Historical, Mercantile and
Industrial Relations. Montreal, 1873, 8vo. References to
Judge Haliburton, pp. 117, 183, 257, 328 ; biography of,
pp. 334, 335.
Chambers, Robert. — Chambers's Cyclopa3dia of Engli: 'i Literature.
2 vols. London, 1876, 8vo. T. C. HalibuAt i, vol. ii.,
pp. 697, 698.
Chambers, William and Robert. — Chambers's Encyclopedia.
Revised edition. London, 1874, 8vo. T. C. Haliburton,
vol. v., p. 197.
112
h Literature,
vol. i., pp.
ntreal, 1891,
Paris, 1858,
)1. xxiii., pp.
;moir in the
., pp. 43-45.)
(inent of the
bice of Hali-
'eople. Lon-
77.
[is. Toronto,
liburton, pp.
lercantile and
Leferences to
)iography of,
|i Literature.
1, vol. ii.,
icyclopsedia.
I Haliburton,
Chasles, Philarfeto. — EtudoH sur la litt(?rature et les Moeurs dcB
Anglo-Americains an XIXo sicclo. Paris, 1862, Syo.
"Sam Slick," pp. .'589-419; appeared originally in tho
Revue dos Doux MondoH, 15, Ap., 1841.
Anglo-American Literature and Manners; from the French
of P. Chasles. Now York, 1852, Svn. Chap. VII L, " Sam
Slick, the Clockmaker," pp. 222-248.
Crofton, F. Blake. — Proceedings oi the Haliburtrm Club of tho
University of King's College. No. 1. Halil)urton : Tho
Man and the Writer. (A Study. With a I'ortrait.)
Windsor, 1889, 8vo.
Cyclopjedias. — Tho English Cyclopredia. Biography, vol. iii.
London, 1856, 4to. T. C. Haliburton, pp. 257, 258.
The National Cyclopiedia of American Biography. New
York, 1894, 8vo. T. C. Haliburton (with portrait), vol. v.,
pp. 353, 354.
Encycloptedia Britannica. — The Encyclopaedia Britinnica, ninth
edition. Edinburgh, 1880, 4to. T. C. Haliburton, vol. xi.,
p. 383.
Morgan, Henry J. — Bibliotheca Canadensis ; or, a Manual of
Canadian Literature. Ottawa, 1867, 8vo. Hon. Thomas
Chandler Haliburton, pp. 166-171.
Murdoch, Beamish. — A History of Nova Scotia. 3 vols. Halifax,
1865-67, 8vo. Numerous references to Haliburton.
Portraits. — Portraits of Public Characters. 2 vols. London,
1841, 8vo. Judge Haliburton, vol. i., pp. 291-304.
Roberts, Charles G. D. — A History of Canada. Boston, 1897, 8vo.
Notice of Haliburton, pp. 423, 424.
Rose, George Maclean. — A Cyclopedia of Canadian Biography.
Toronto, 1888, 8vo. T. C. Haliburton, pp. 443, 444.
Sabin, Joseph. — A Dictionary of Books Relating to America.
New York, 1875, 8vo. List of Haliburton's works, vol.
vii., pp. 556-558.
Sanders, L. C. — Celebrities of the Century. London, 1890, 8vo.
T. C. Haliburton, p. 528.
Slick, Sara. — Sam Slick, the Yankee Pedler. (A song.) London,
1860, 8. sh. 4to.
11.3
Stiitcsinon. — Tho StatoHmen of England ; comprising fifty por-
tmitH, with l)iogrHphical Hkctches. London, 18(52, fol. Con-
tains tho Hon. Mr. Justice Hiiliburton, with portrait.
Tallis, John.— Tallis's Drawing Room Portrait Gallery. London,
18(50, 4to. .Judge llaliburton, with portrait. Third series.
Walford, Edward. — Men of the Time, cto. London, 18G2, 8vo.
T. C. Haliburton, p. 353.
Waller, .lohn Francis. — The Imperial Dictionary of Univorsiil
Biography. 3 vols. London, 1857-63, 8vo. T. C. Hali-
burton, vol. ii., J). 778.
Ward, Thomas H. — IMen of tho Reign, a Biographical Dictionary.
London, 1885, 8vo. T. C. Halil)urton, p. 385.
Wilson, James Grant, and Fisko, John. — Appleton's Cyclopsedia of
American Biography. New York, 1887, 8vo. T. C. Hali-
burton, vol. iii., p. 36.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES, ETC.
Haliburton, Thomas Chandler. — Illustrated London News, July
15, 1843, p. 37, with a portrait, and September 9,
1866, p. 245, with portrait. The Critic, with portrait,
February 5, 1859, p. 126. Atlantic Monthly, March,
1892, pp. 355-363, by F. Blake Crofton.
Americans id Home. New Quarterly Review, vol. iii.,
1854, p. 261. British Quarterly Review, vol. xxi.,
1855, pp. 00-78.
Attai-he. Athenicum, July 8, 1843, pp. 622, 623 ; July
15, 1843, pp. 048-550 ; same article, Littoll's Living
Age, vol. iv., 1845, pp. 155-161. Monthly Review,
vol. ii., 1843, pp. 475-483, vol. iii., 1844, pp. 558-564.
Spectator, July 15, 1843, pp. 664, 665 ; November 9,
1844, p. 1073. Literary Gazette, July 8, 1843, pp.
441-445 ; November 2, 1844, pp. 699-701 ; November
9, pp. 716-718 ; November 16, pp. 735, 736. Cham-
bers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. xii., 1844, pp. 251, 253,
279. North American Review, vol. Iviii., 1844, pp.
211-227, by C. C. Felton.
Bubbles of Canada. Literary Gazette, January 5,
1839, pp. 3-5. Monthly Review, vol. i., 1839, pp. 300,
301. Spectator, January 19, 1839, p. 64.
114
h .'
g fifty por-
i, fol. C.m-
wtrnit.
•y. London,
Third Heries.
I, 1862, 8vo.
of Univorsjil
T. C. Hrtli-
A Dictionary.
yycloptediiv of
T. C. Uali-
i News, July
September 9,
with portrait,
nthly, March,
new, vol. iii.,
vol. xxi.,
2, 023 ; July
toll's Living
hly Review,
pp. 558-564.
overaber 9,
i, 1843, pp.
November
r36. Cham-
)p. 251, 263,
1844, pp.
January 5,
39, pp. 300,
The Cliu-kmahr. Athuniuum, April 15, 1837, pp. 262,
263; July 7, 1838, pp. 471-473; July 14, IH.'W,
pj). 488-490 ; November 14, 1840, pp. JM)2-9()4 ;
November 21, 1840, pp. 922-924. Literary Gazette,
Apri 1, 1837, pp. 204, 2U5 ; July 7, 1838, pp.
417-''a9; November 7, 1840, pp. 713-716; Novem-
ber 14, pp. 735-7; !7 ; November 21, pp. 750, 751. The
Mirror, April 22, 1837, pp. 251-256. Spectator, April
1, 1837, pp. 306, 307 ; November 7, 1840, pp. 1073,
1074. Monthly Review, vol. ii., 1837, pp. 105 107 ;
vol. iii., 1838, i)p. 8-12 ; vol. iii., 1840, pp. 497-504.
New York Mirror, September 8, 1838, p|i. 85, 86.
Times, October 22, 18.38 (2J. cols.) ; November 1, 1838
(3 cols.) ; Novoirber 27, 1840, (lU'oLs.) ; December 12,
1840 (2 cols.). Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol.
vi., 1838, pp. 92, 93.
Eiujlish in Anifricn. Irish Quarterly Revie\,, Decem-
ber, 1851, pp. 623-548. Quarterly Review, vol. xciv.,
1854, p. 566, etc.
Ililihrth and the. Norlli Anuricitu lii'rieir. American
Church Review, vol. iv, i». 523.
llidovij of Nora SvUia. North Ameiican Review, \-ol.
XXX., 1830, p]). 121-135, by C. W. Upliam.
llii, Hiimorlsfi: AiKjlii-Atiu'rirtiin. Revue des Deux
Mondes, by Einile Montegut, I'V'bruary 15, 1850, |ip.
731-748.
Letter-tSuij of llie Ihcdt ]Feslern. Monthly Review,
vol. i., 1840, pp. 306-314. Literary World, vol. ii.,
1840, pp. 250-254, 265-267. Spectator, January 18,
1840, pp. 66, 66. Athenieum, January 11, 1840, pp.
31-33. Bentley's Miscellany, vol. vii., 1840, pp. 11-16.
Lord Dnrham'ii Jirport. (Quarterly Review, vol. Ixiii.,
1839, pp. 521, 522.
Natnre, and HiniuDi, Noturr. Literary (lazette, June
2, 1855, pp. 342-344. Athenaaim, March 10, 1855,
pp. 286, 287.
Notions of Sum SUil; (with a portrait). Bentley's
Miscellany, vol. xiv., 1843, pp. 81 -9 1.
11.-.
Obititarij, Notice af. Tlio Uoador, Sopteiiihcr 2, 18(55,
j». iifWl. London Iluvicw, Soptoinbcr 2, 18(i6, p. 2«l.
Guiirdian, August 30, 18(55. IlluHtnitod TimcH, Sei)-
tunibur U, 18(55, p. 157. Ciuntlunian'H Miiga/inu,
Docunibor, 18(55, j)p. 787, 788. Annual Register, 18G5,
pp. 195, V.m. Standard, August 30, 1805. Morning
Post, August 29, 1806 (loador). Athenftiuui, Scp-
toniber 2, 18(5.-|, pp. 309, 310.
Tlut Old Jmlijc. Hogg's Instructor, vol. iii., N.S.,
1849, pp. :{-0, 29-32.
iiavx Slirk. Ruvuo dos Deux Mondos, by P. Chaslea,
Ai)ril 15, 1841, pp. 300-325 ; reprinted in Eludes aur
la Litterature, 1852.
lS(im Slick un the War Qitestiun. Letter, signed Sam
Slick, in Times, September 24, 1840.
Sam Slick'n Wise Saws and Modem, Instances. Cham-
bers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. xix., 1853, pp. 394-390.
New (Quarterly Review, vol, ii., 1853, pp. 391-394.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.
' Historical and Statistical account of Nova Scotia 1829
• The Clockmaker 1837-40
. The Bubbles of Canada 1839
• Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham 1839
The Letter-Bag of the Great Western 1840
• The Attach^ ; or, Sam Slick in England 1843-4
• The Old Judge ; or. Life in a Colony 1849
• Rule and Misrule of the English in America 1851
• Traits of American Humour 1852
. Sam Slick's Wise Saws and Modem Instances 1853
. The Americans at Home 1854
• Nature and Human Nature 1855
Address at Glasgow on the Condition, Resources and Pros-
pects of British North America 1867
Speech in House of Commons on the Repeal of Duties on
Foreign and Colonial Wood 1860
- The Season Ticket 1860
116
nil)er2, 1805,
lH<i6, p. 261.
TimeH, Sep-
i'h Mdgazino,
legiHter, 1865,
35, Morning
BnjDum, Sep-
j1. iii., N.S,,
y P. Chaslos,
n Etudes anr
, signed Sam
nces. Cham-
pp. 394-390.
391-394.
1829
... 1837-40
1839
1839
1840
. ... 1843-4
.... 1849
.... 1851
.... 1852
.... 1853
1854
. . . . 1855
*ros-
. . . . 1857
s on
. . . . 1860
. . . . 1860