Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness / A Short Historical and Critical Review of Literature, Art and Education in Canada

by John George Bourinot

JOSEPH BOUCHETTE.

[21] Page 12.—The works of this eminent Canadian surveyor and hydrographer appeared under the following titles:

1. "A Topographical Description of the Province of Lower Canada, with remarks upon Upper Canada and on the relative connection of both Provinces with the United States of America." London, 1815, royal 8vo., with plates. Also an edition in French.

2. "The British Dominions in North America, or a Topographical and Statistical Description of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward and Cape Breton, including considerations on land-granting and emigration, and a topographical dictionary of Lower Canada; to which is annexed the statistical tables and tables of distances, published with the author's maps of Lower Canada, in consequence of a vote of the Provincial Legislature. Embellished with vignettes, views, landscapes, plans of towns, harbours, etc.; containing also a copious appendix." London, 1831, three volumes, 4to., generally bound in two.

MICHEL BIBAUD'S HISTORICAL WORKS.

[22] Page 12.—"Histoire du Canada sous la Domination Française." Montreal, 1837, 8vo. Do., 1843, 12mo.

"Histoire du Canada sous la Domination Anglaise." Do., 1844. The third volume of the series appeared after the author's death, and was published by his son, J. G. Bibaud, at Montreal, 1878, 12mo.

THOMPSON'S BOOK ON THE WAR OF 1812.

[23] Page 12.—"History of the Late War between Great Britain and the United States of America, with a retrospective view of the causes from which it originated, collected from the most authentic sources; to which is added an appendix containing public documents, etc., relating to the subject." By David Thompson, late of the Royal Scots. Niagara, U. C. Printed by T. Sewell, printer, bookbinder and stationer, Market Square, 1832, 12mo., pp. 300. This was for some time believed to be the first book printed in Upper Canada, but Dr. Kingsford, F.R.S.C., in "The Early Bibliography of the Province of Ontario" (Toronto and Montreal, 1892), enumerates a list of some thirty-three publications that antedated it, and Mr. Charles Lindsey, a bibliophilist and littérateur of Toronto, adds a number of others. See Toronto 'Week,' Dec. 9, 1892, Dr. Kingsford's rejoinder, ib., Dec. 30, and another article on same subject by Mr. Lindsey, ib., Jan. 13, 1893. All these bibliographical notes are interesting, and show how insignificant in point of intellectual and original ability was the literature of Ontario for fifty years previous to 1841.