The first genuine Nativistic Literature of Canada was created in Nova Scotia—in the Satiric Comedy or Humor of Haliburton, in the Sketches, Essays, Legislative Reviews, Speeches and Public Letters and the Poetry of Joseph Howe, and in the Poetry of Oliver Goldsmith, 2nd, a great-nephew of the author of The Deserted Village. Still, this pre-eminence given to Nova Scotia is, in a way, based on a half-truth. It is true that, to put it colloquially, Nova Scotia had her creative literary ‘innings’ early in the game. It lasted from the publication of Joseph Howe’s Western Rambles, in 1828, or from the publication of Haliburton’s Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, in 1829, to Haliburton’s last volume, The Season Ticket, published anonymously in 1859—that is, a period of thirty years.
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were again to have an ‘innings’ when Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Marshall Saunders, of the Systematic School of native poets and prose writers, began publishing in the late ‘eighties’ of the 19th century. The Maritime Provinces, as a whole, by the addition of Lucy M. Montgomery to the native prose writers and William E. Marshall and Robert Norwood to the native poets, had a still further short ‘innings.’ But, it must be recalled, contemporaneously with Haliburton and Howe in Nova Scotia, certain writers in Ontario and Quebec, namely, first, John Richardson, Rosanna Mullins, and William Kirby, produced historical romances, or a ‘nativistic’ literature in prose, and, later, through the poetry of Sangster and Mair, Ontario produced Nativistic Literature in verse. Since the rise of the Systematic School, the centre of literary creation in Canada has shifted from Nova Scotia to Ontario and Western Canada.
CHAPTER II
Incidental Pioneer Literature
THE INCIDENTAL PRE-CONFEDERATION LITERATURE OF CANADA—ALEXANDER HENRY’S TRAVELS—MRS. BROOKE’S NOVELS—MRS. JAMESON’S NATURE-STUDIES—THE ÉMIGRÉ PRE-CONFEDERATION LITERATURE OF CANADA—MRS. SUSANNA MOODIE—ADAM KIDD—JOHN READE—GEORGE MURRAY—ALEXANDER McLACHLAN—WILLIAM WYE SMITH—ISABELLA V. CRAWFORD.
Broadly taken, the Incidental Pioneer Literature of Canada was produced by the wits and bon vivants amongst the officers of the British army and navy during or after the taking of Louisburg and Quebec, and by certain ‘birds of passage,’ British-born men and women, who were sojourning in the Canadas. It was considerable in quantity, embracing verse, narratives, social and nature studies and sketches, and even fiction. But it did not affect the life and ideals of the people. It was simply literature produced in the Canadas—incidentally.
From Louisburg to Quebec and Montreal the poets in the British navy and army exhibited a special preoccupation with a species of war poetry. In 1759, for instance, when the British frigate’s guns were breaching the walls of the French stronghold, Louisburg, Valentine Neville penned his poem The Reduction of Louisburgh. In 1760, George Cockings produced another war poem for the delight of London—The Conquest of Canada, or The Siege of Quebec: A Tragedy. In this species of literature, the most remarkable performance was Henry Murphy’s The Conquest of Quebec: An Epic Poem in Eight Books. It was published at Dublin in 1790 and runs to the amazing length of eight thousand lines. Quantity, not literary quality, was the only distinguishing mark of these early Canadian poems of heroism in war.
A really remarkable book, with genuine literary quality was the elder Alexander Henry’s narrative of his experience as a traveller and explorer, published in 1809 under the title Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories. In point of publication it was anticipated by narratives dating as early as 1736, when John Gyles wrote his memoirs of Odd Adventures, an account of his experience while exploring the region through which runs the St. John River. There were many volumes of narratives, but the most of them lacked literary style and are of interest chiefly to the antiquarian.
Two women, however, deserve special notice as contributors to the Incidental Literature of Canada. These were Mrs. Frances Brooke, who was the wife of a chaplain of the forces at Quebec in the last quarter of the 18th century; and Mrs. Anna Brownell Jameson. While a resident of the Province of Quebec, Mrs. Brooke wrote what has been called ‘the first Canadian novel,’ The History of Emily Montague. Published in 1769, it ran into several editions. Mrs. Jameson possessed a rare pictorial sense of beauty in nature; and while visiting the Canadas she wrote Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. Published in three volumes at London in 1838, this work remains to this day the finest example of ‘color writing’ in the whole range of Canadian Literature.
With the exception of Mrs. Brooke and Mrs. Jameson, the writers of the Incidental Pioneer Literature of Canada merely took a passing view of what had interested them and put it into literary form decent enough for publication. It was the substance of what they wrote, not the style or literary art in their books, that interested their public in the Canadas, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The only faculty these books satisfied or delighted was the faculty of curiosity; and the only delights they really gave readers were vicarious thrills of adventure and wonder.