Lectures and Essays

Produced by Tonya Allen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.
These papers have been reprinted for friends who sometimes ask for the back numbers of periodicals in which they appeared. The great public is sick of reprints, and with good reason.
The volume might almost have been called Contributions to Canadian Literature, for of the papers not originally published in Canada several were reproduced in Canadian journals. Political subjects have been excluded both to keep a volume intended for friends free from anything of a party character and because the writer looks forward to putting the thoughts scattered over his political essays and reviews into a more connected form.
The papers on 'The Early Years of the Conqueror of Quebec,' 'A Wirepuller of Kings,' 'A True Captain of Industry' and 'Early Years of Abraham Lincoln' can hardly pretend to be more than accounts of books to which they relate, but they interested some of their readers at the time and there are probably not many copies of the books in Canada. All the papers have been revised, so that they do not appear here exactly as they were in the periodicals from which they are reprinted.
TORONTO, Feb. 16, 1881
THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS ( Contemporary Review )
THE GREATNESS OF ENGLAND ( Contemporary Review. )
THE GREAT DUEL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ( Canadian Monthly )
THE LAMPS OF FICTION ( A Speech on the Centenary of the Birth of Sir Walter Scott )
THE ASCENT OF MAN ( Macmillan's Magazine. )