Henry Scadding

“ Here again we have a scene presenting a telling contrast to the same spot and its surroundings within the memory of living men: a considerable area covered with a labyrinth of trellis work, all overspread with hardy grapes in great variety and steadily productive. To this sight likewise we should introduce our timid, hesitating new comer, as also to the originator of the spectacle—Mr. Bevan, who after a forty years' sojourn in the vicinity of York and Toronto, continues as genuinely English in spirit and tone now as when he first left the quay of his native Bristol for his venture westward. ”

“ Once more imagining ourselves on the bridge, and looking obliquely to the north-west, we may still discern close by some remains of the short, shallow, winding ravine, by which in winter the sleighs used to ascend from the level of the river, and regain, through a grove of pines and hemlocks, the high road into the town. As soon as the steady cold set in, every year, the long reaches and grand sweeps of the river Don became peculiarly interesting. ”

“ Those feelings, too, which joyful fancy knew When learning's gems first opened to thy view, Bid you to thousands smooth the thorny road, Which leads to glorious Science's bright abode."
"The Anniversary of York and Montreal Colleges anticipated" is a kind of Pindaric Ode to Gratitude: especially it is therein set forth that offerings of thankfulness are due to benevolent souls in Britain:
"For often there in pensive mood They ponder deeply on the good They may on Canada bestow— And College Halls appear, and streams of learning flow!" ”

“ A burning shingle was seen to become entangled in the luffer-boards of the belfry, and slowly to ignite the woodwork there: from a very minute start at that point, a stream of fire soon began to rise—soon began to twine itself about the upper stages of the tower, and to climb nimbly up the steep slope of the spire, from the summit of which it then shot aloft into the air, speedily enveloping and overtopping the golden cross that was there. ”

“ Thronged at the point where it descends to the water's edge with steamers and other craft, great and small, lined on the right and left up to the far vanishing-point with handsome buildings, its pavements and central roadway everywhere astir with life, its appearance is agreeably exciting and even impressive. It looks to be, what in fact it is, the outlet of a great highway leading into the interior of a busy, populous country. ”

“ Our Sandhill here, which but as yesterday we beheld in its primeval condition, with no trace of human labour upon it except a few square yards cleared round a solitary Indian grave, to-day we see crowned along its crest for many a rood eastward and westward with comfortable villas and graceful pleasure-grounds. The history of this spot may serve to encourage all who at any time or anywhere are called in the way of duty to be the first to attack and rough-hew a forest-wild for the benefit of another generation. ”

“ The grand mediæval-looking structure of University College in the grounds at the head of the Avenue, continues to this day to be a surprise somewhat bewildering to the eye and mind, whenever it breaks upon our view. It looks so completely a thing of the old world and of an age long past away. To think that one has walked over its site before one stone was laid upon another thereon, seems almost like a mental hallucination. ”

“ Qualities, innate to himself, decisiveness of intellect, firmness, a quick insight into things and men, with a certain fertility of resource, conspired to win for him the position which he filled, and enabled him to retain it with ease; to sustain, with a graceful and unassuming dignity, all the augmentations which naturally accumulated round it, as the community, of which he was so vital a part, grew and widened and rose to a higher and higher level, on the swelling tide of the general civilization of the continent. ”

“ Every soldier in the regiment misses Colonel Dunn; he was a friend, and felt to be such, to every one of them. The regiment will never have so universally esteemed a commander again. We all feel that. For myself I feel that I have lost a brother who can never be replaced. I can scarcely yet realize that the dear fellow is really dead, and as I pass his tent every morning I involuntarily turn my head, expecting to hear his usual kind salutation, and to see the dear, handsome face that has never looked at me but with kindness. ”

“ Denison is associated with Petersfield, the homely cosiness of whose interior, often seen during its occupancy by him, lighted up by a rousing hospitable fire of great logs, piled high in one of the usual capacious and lofty fire-places of the time, made an indelible impression on the boyish fancy. The venerable Mrs. Sophia Denison, too, Mr. Denison's better half, was in like manner associated in our memory with the cheery interior of the ancient Petersfield farm-house—a fine old English matron and mother, of the antique, strongly-marked, vigorous, sterling type. ”

“ In the bell-turret was a bell of sufficient weight sensibly to jar the whole building at every one of its semi-revolutions.
In the interior, a central aisle, or open passage, led from the door to the southern end of the church, where, on the floor, was situated a pew of state for the Lieutenant-Governor: small square pillars at its four corners sustained a flat canopy over it, immediately under the ceiling of the gallery; and below this distinctive tester or covering, suspended against the wall, were the royal arms, emblazoned on a black tablet of board or canvas. ”

“ To the passer-by it now presents a refreshing bit of bowery meadow, out of which towers up one of the grand elm-trees of the country, with stem of great height and girth, and head of very graceful form, whose healthy and undecayed limbs and long trailing branchlets, clearly show that the human regard which has led to the preservation hitherto of this solitary survivor of the forest has not been thrown away. ”

“ It has made room for a broad promenade some two or three miles in length, not, indeed, of the far niente type, but with double and treble railway tracks abreast of itself, all open to the deep water of the harbour on one side, and flanked almost throughout the whole length on the other, by a series of warehouses, mills, factories and depôts, destined to increase every year in importance. The sights and sounds every day, along this combination of roadways and its surroundings, are unlike anything dreamt of by the framers of the old Patent of 1818. ”

“ When we were idlers with the loitering rills, The need of human love we little noted: Our love was nature; and the peace that floated On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills, To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills: One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted, That, wisely doating, asked not why it doated, And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills. ”

“ Detroit, we remember, had once a quaint, dilapidated, primæval quarter. It is the same with our own Toronto. He that would examine the vestiges of the original settlement, out of which the actual town has grown, must betake himself, in the first instance, to localities now deserted by fashion, and be content to contemplate objects that, to the indifferent eye, will seem commonplace and insignificant.
To invest such places and things with any degree of interest will appear difficult. An attempt in that direction may even be pronounced visionary. ”

“ If one year does not make Little York surrender to us, then we'll batter it for two; and should it still hold out, we have ammunition for a much longer siege. We shall raise the wind against it from Amherstburgh and Quebec—from Edinburgh, Dublin and London. It must be levelled to the very earth, and even its name be forgotten in Toronto. ”

“ We simply glance at the loopholed block-house on the one side, and the quarters of the men, the officers, and the commandant on the other; and we hurry across the gravelled area, recalling rapidly a series of spirit-stirring ordinal numbers—40th, 41st, 68th, 79th, 42nd, 15th, 32nd, 1st—each suggestive of a gallant assemblage at some time here; of a vigorous, finely disciplined, ready-aye-ready group, that, like the successive generations on the stage of human life, came and went just once, as it were—as the years rolled on, and the eye saw them again no more. ”

“ At a certain period in the history of Yonge Street, as indeed of all the leading thoroughfares of Upper Canada, about 1830-33, a frequent sign that property had changed hands, and that a second wave of population was rolling in, was the springing up, at intervals, of houses of an improved style, with surroundings, lawns, sheltering plantations, winding drives, well-constructed entrance-gates, and so on, indicating an appreciation of the elegant and the comfortable. ”

“ The minds of growing lads in the neighbourhood of York at that period had very vague ideas of what a University really was. It was a place where studies were carried on, but how or under what conditions, there was of necessity little conception. Curiosity, however, was naturally excited by the talk on the lips of every one that a University was one day to be established at York; and now suddenly we learned that actual beginnings were to be seen of the much-talked-of institution. On the morning of the fine spring day referred to, we accordingly undertook an exploration. ”

“ One of the things that ennoble the old cities of continental Europe and give them their own peculiar charm, is the existence of such objects in their streets and squares, at once works of art for the general eye, and memorials of departed worth and greatness. With what interest, for example, does the visitor gaze on the statue of Gutenberg at Mayence; and at Marseilles on that of the good Bishop Belzunce!—of whom we read, that he was at once "the founder of a college, and a magistrate, almoner, physician and priest to his people." ”

“ And when this shall unfortunately have been the case with the Upper Canada Almanac, let careful observers throw over the error the excess of that charity of which their generous souls are composed, and the all-importance of the subject requires; let them remember that the task, in all the variety and changes of climates and seasons, is arduous beyond that of reforming a vicious world, and not less than that of making a middle-sized new one. ”

“ Many are the shadowy forms that rise before us, as we proceed on our way; phantom-revisitings from the misty Past; the shapes and faces of enterprising and painstaking men, of whose fortunes King Street hereabout was the cradle. But it is not necessary in these reminiscences to enumerate all who, on the right hand and on the left, along the now comparatively deserted portions of the great thoroughfare, amassed wealth in the olden time by commerce and other honourable pursuits,—laying the foundation, in several instances, of opulent families. ”

“ And again, in winter, peculiarly fine pictures, characteristic of the season, are presented here when, after a plentiful fall of snow, the sleighs are on the move without number and in infinite variety; or when, on the contrary, each long white vista, east, west, north, and south, glistening, perhaps, under a clear December moon, is a scene almost wholly of still life—scarcely a man or beast abroad, so keen is the motionless air, the mercury having shrunk down some way below the zero-line of Fahrenheit. ”

“ For a century to come, there will be bits of this continent as unpromising, at the first glance, as the mouth of the Little Don, forty years ago, yet as capable of being reclaimed by the energy and ingenuity of man, and being put to divinely-intended and legitimate uses.—Returning now from the wind-mill, once more to the "road to Quebec," in common language, the Kingston road, we passed, at the corner, the abode of one of the many early settlers in these parts who bore German names—the tenement of Peter Ernst, or Ernest as the appellation afterwards became. ”

“ Hence it was denounced by the Weekly Register in language that now astonishes us, as a United States production; and as in the United States interest. "This paper of motley, unconnected, shake-bag periods" cried the Editor of the Weekly Register, "this unblushing, brazen-faced Advocate, affects to be a Queenston and Upper Canadian paper; whereas it is to all intents and purposes, and radically, a Lewiston and genu-wine Yankee paper. How can this man of truth, this pure and holy reformer and regenerator of the unhappy and prostrate Canada reconcile such barefaced and impudent deception?" ”

“ We have ourselves more than once, in former days, experienced the horrors of the middle passage between Niagara and York, having crossed and re-crossed, in very rough weather, in the Kingston Packet, or Brothers, and having been detained on the Lake for a whole night and a good portion of a day in the process. The schooners for Niagara and elsewhere used to announce the time of their departure from the wharf at York in primitive style, by repeated blasts from a long tin horn, so called, sounded at intervals previous to their casting loose, and at the moment of the start. ”

“ And a first step has, as we conceive, been taken towards generating for Toronto, for many of its streets and byways, for many of its nooks and corners, and its neighbourhood generally, a certain modicum of that charm which, springing from association and popular legend, so delightfully invests, to the prepared and sensitive mind, every square rood of the old lands beyond the sea. ”