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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 M^cLACHLAN—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.