1826. From 1826 to 1830 he was director of St. James Grand Seminary at

Montreal; from 1830 to 1840, director of the seminary at St. Hyacinthe, and from whence he was called to Montreal by Right Rev. Bishop Bourget, to share with him the burden of the administration of his vast and important diocese. He was appointed canon of the Cathedral of Montreal on January 21st, 1841. On July 5th, 1844, he was appointed coadjutor to the bishop of Montreal and bishop of Martyropolis, and on July 25th, 1845, was consecrated. In 1851 he was deputed by the bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Quebec to carry to Rome the decrees of the first Council of Quebec. On the 8th June, 1852, whilst in Rome, he was appointed by Pope Pius IX. bishop of the newly erected see of St. Hyacinthe, of which he took possession on the 3rd of November of the same year. In 1841 he founded a review, the _Mélanges Religieuse_, and remained its chief editor for ten years. He also founded a convent of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, in Kingston. Having ruled the diocese of St. Hyacinthe with remarkable zeal and prudence for eight years, during which he established the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary for the education of young ladies; the Gray Nuns’ Hospital; established twenty parishes, and built the present magnificent episcopal residence in St. Hyacinthe. He died on the 5th of May, 1860, aged fifty-six years. His remains now repose in the vault of the cathedral. * * * * * =Blake, Hon. Edward=, P.C., Q.C., Toronto, M.P. for West Durham, Ontario, is by birth a Canadian, but by race an Irishman.[9] His father, the Hon. William Hume Blake, was a Blake of Galway, and the son of a rector of the Church of England in Ireland, Rev. Dominick Edward Blake of Kiltegan. On the mother’s side he is descended from William Hume of Wicklow, a representative of that county in parliament, who lost his life as a loyalist in the Irish rising of 1798. “The descendant of an Irishman myself,” Mr. Blake said in a notable speech upon a motion made in the House of Commons, in 1882, for an address to the Queen on the subject of Irish affairs, “my grandfather on the father’s side a rector of the church to which I have referred, and sleeping in his parish churchyard, and my ancestor on my mother’s side slain in conflict with insurgents; while it might have been my misfortune, had I been born and bred in the old land, to adopt, from prejudice, views very different from those I have expressed this night; yet, it being my good fortune to have been born and bred in the free air of Canada; and to have learned those better, those wiser, those more Christian and just notions which here prevail upon the subject of civil and religious liberty, class legislation and home rule itself, I have always entertained, ever since I have had an opportunity of thinking on this subject, the sentiments to which I have given utterance this evening. I believe that these are the sentiments native to our own sense of freedom and justice, and that we wish to deal on this subject, as the hon. gentleman said who moved it, in that spirit which says, ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.’” Mr. Blake’s pride of ancestry, so often evinced in references to his father, may have led him, in the extract quoted, to attach too great weight to the influence of environment upon his character and opinions. Speaking on a recent occasion, he said: “I have always discouraged and discountenanced, so far as I could, any appeal to considerations of race or creed. My earnest desire has ever been that we should mingle, irrespective of our origins, irrespective of our creeds, as Canadian brethren, as Canadian fellow citizens, whether we be English or French, Scotch, Irish or German, whether we be Protestant, Catholic or Jew, sinking all these distinctions in the political arena, and uniting and dividing, not upon questions of origin, not upon questions of religion, but rather upon honest differences of opinion with reference to the current politics of the country.” It is doubtful if, under any circumstances or conditions, a man constituted as Mr. Blake is, with a mind of large grasp and sensitive to jealousy of his honor, could be ought else than the fair and liberal man he is known to be. But, whatever views may have been held on state or church affairs by his more remote ancestors, no one who knows the story of the life of William Hume Blake can have reason to suspect that the son was subject to prejudiced or narrowing influences. The elder Blake was a man of strong but well matured convictions, and he uttered his thoughts with a clearness and force which rarely, if ever, allowed of his being understood in a double sense. He was also a man of tender and generous sympathies, and by the members of his own family his memory is greatly and deservedly revered. Indeed it may be said that Edward Blake never strikes a merciless blow—and he has the skill and power to strike a tremendous blow—excepting in the case of one who may speak offensively, rudely or disrespectfully of his father. It ought not to be a matter of surprise, perhaps, that politicians who came into collision with the father in the stirring political times of forty years ago should retain some of the feelings of those times; but the few who have revived the old issues with a display of the old temper, in the presence of the son, are not likely to reflect on the consequence to themselves with any degree of pleasure. One of these occasions will be readily recalled by frequenters of the House of Commons of thirteen or fourteen years ago, when the house was kept at a white heat throughout a whole night’s sitting. But when he has himself been the object of attack the disposition to strike back has been carefully curbed. “Whatever I am,” he said, in one of that remarkable series of speeches delivered in the election campaign of 1886-7, “I stick by my friends, and that, too, even after they have left me.” And, referring in particular to two gentlemen whom he had befriended, who afterwards changed their views and attacked him very bitterly and with great frequency, he said: “I have never replied to them or retorted on them. I have preferred to remember the old times when we worked together. I have preferred to remember, too, that they were my fellow-countrymen, and I have borne in silence their unjust attacks rather than retaliate. I have chosen to recollect their acts of friendship and co-operation rather than those of hostility and animosity. I have hoped that the day might come when they, or, if not they, at any rate my fellow-countrymen of their race and creed, would do me justice, and I wished to put no obstacle whatever in the way of a reconciliation, in which I have nothing to withdraw, nothing to apologise for, nothing to excuse.”—Edward Blake was born in the woods of Middlesex in 1833, a year after his father and mother had left Ireland. After two or three years’ experience of pioneer life the family removed to Toronto, and the father began preparation for the profession of law, upon which he entered in 1838, and in which he acquired great distinction—for eleven years as a practising barrister, and afterwards for thirteen years as chancellor or chief justice of the Court of Equity. Edward’s education was looked after by his father and by private tutors until he was old enough to enter Upper Canada College, and in that school he was prepared for Toronto University. In the last year of his course there (1854), his father was appointed chancellor of the university, and had the gratification in that capacity of conferring the B.A. degree upon his gifted son, who took first-class honors in classics and was winner of a silver medal. This, however, was not with Edward Blake as it has been with many graduates the closing event of his connection with the university. He proceeded to the Master’s degree in 1858, and in 1873 he was elected chancellor by the graduates for a term of three years, an honor which has now been bestowed on him five times in succession. Some of Mr. Blake’s best speeches have been delivered in his capacity as chancellor of the university. At the close of his university career he commenced the study of the law, and in 1856 he began practice in the Equity court. He worked hard, and, although there were a number of excellent lawyers in the Chancery court at that time, he attained the foremost place amongst them in less than ten years. He was created a Q.C. in 1864, was elected a bencher of the Law Society in 1871, and was appointed treasurer of the society upon the death of the Hon. John Hilyard Cameron, in 1879. The offer of the chancellorship of the province by Sir John Macdonald in 1869, and the offer of the chief justiceship of the Supreme Court of the Dominion by Mr. Mackenzie in 1875, were both declined.—Mr. Blake entered upon parliamentary life in the confederation year, in a dual capacity, as member for West Durham in the House of Commons, and member for South Bruce in the Ontario legislature. In both bodies he ranked high as a debater from the first; and although political subjects were new to him in a sense, he speedily gained such familiarity with them that the leadership of the party became his by right of pre-eminence. In the Ontario legislature, where Mr. McKellar was leader during the first session, the place was forced upon Mr. Blake (Mr. McKellar himself being the most urgent of the Liberals in pressing for the change), but in the Commons he resolutely refused to hold any position excepting in the ranks. The premier of Ontario was an astute politician, and had many good qualities as a public man; he was also an old Liberal and had a respectable following of his party, although a majority of his supporters both in the house and in the country were Conservatives. Mr. Blake had a difficult task in hand, as leader of the Opposition, against a veteran politician like John Sandfield Macdonald; but his forces were always marshalled with consummate skill, and by the discussion of affairs and the formulating of a well defined policy, in the line of the historic principles of the Liberal party, the electors had clear issues placed before them when the appeal was made in 1871, at the close of the first parliamentary term after confederation. The actual result was in doubt until the new legislature met in December, and a motion of want of confidence in the government was keenly and brilliantly debated. But the Liberals prevailed in the end; Mr. Blake was called upon to form a government, and in the first session effect was given to the principles which had won for the party the confidence of the people. From that time until now the same principles have been maintained by the Liberals of Ontario, with such expansion and development as circumstances have shown to be desirable; and, measured by all the results, it may confidently be affirmed that no other portion of America has in the same period been governed so wisely or well. Owing to the abolition of dual representation in 1872, both in the Provincial legislature and in the Dominion parliament, Mr. Blake resigned the premiership so that he might occupy the larger sphere at Ottawa, and upon his advice the office of first minister of the province was committed to the Hon. Oliver Mowat. Mr. Blake was re-elected to the Commons by acclamation for West Durham, and was also returned for South Bruce, at the general election in 1872; he sat in the house, however, as representative of the latter constituency. The part he took in the overthrow of the Macdonald government in 1873, both in the country and the house, secured for him the highest position yet attained by a political leader and orator in Canada. His career since that event, in office and out of it, is so well-known that space need not be taken up with the recounting of it. It has been largely the political history of the country, for on every important question his voice has been heard, uttering the sentiments of his party. He accepted the leadership in 1880, much against his own will, and in discharging the duties of that office throughout the whole time he held it he acted up to the full measure of his conviction, that no abilities are too good to be given, and no effort too great to be spent, for Canada.—Mr. Blake is not only the foremost of Canadian parliamentary orators, but, had his lot been cast in the larger sphere of Imperial or Republican politics, he would without doubt have attained a place in the front rank of those great orators who have shed lustre on the Anglo-Saxon race and helped to immortalize the English tongue. When he was comparatively young in public life, a well-known Canadian writer, who was by his previous experience exceptionally well qualified to compare him with the greatest of English contemporary orators, thus recorded the results of such a comparison after hearing Mr. Blake for the first time, shortly after the writer’s arrival in Canada.—“The present writer has often seen in the British House of Commons a debate degenerate into a squabble, in which small passions and petty aims made the moral atmosphere foul and fetid. Then Mr. Gladstone has risen up, and immediately one felt raised into a high moral plane, with a wider horizon and more pleasing intellectual prospect; the mere tone of his voice—firm, sincere, truthful in its ring—acting as a spell to lay the evil spirits which up to that time had it all their own way. Precisely a similar effect was produced by Mr. Blake. Here was a sincere man who ‘dared not lie,’ who had principles to maintain, who was not a prey to anxiety lest he might lose place and power, who was not driven like a leaf in the fall wind by his own passions. His intellectual and moral superiority was crushingly apparent. . . . Mr. Blake as an orator is something of the same style as Lord Selborne (Sir Roundell Palmer), with a dash of Sir J. D. Coleridge’s honeyed satire and Mr. Gladstone’s earnestness of purpose.” A distinguished Canadian judge in a conversation with the writer of this sketch gave an opinion of Mr. Blake’s rank among the great English orators of the day; and, as it has never been published before, it is perhaps worth quoting in the same connection. When the eminent American statesman, Mr. Evarts, was in Toronto a few years ago he was publicly welcomed by the Law Society of Ontario at Osgoode Hall, and by members of the senate and faculty of Toronto University, Mr. Blake being the principal officer to receive and welcome him on both occasions. The late Chief Justice Moss, who was also present, was afterwards asked how in his opinion Mr. Blake compared as a speaker with Mr. Evarts, and his reply was that, so far as could be judged by the opportunities afforded at these gatherings the Canadian was unmistakably the superior of the American. He added that he had been in the habit for a number of years of spending his holidays in England; that while there he had met and heard many of the leading statesmen and lawyers of that country; and his firm conviction was that in Mr. Blake, Canada possessed a man who was intellectually and oratorically the equal of any one of them and the superior of almost all. Perhaps no two English-speaking public men of this generation have been so frequently compared with each other in their style of oratory as Mr. Blake and his great English prototype, Mr. Gladstone. It may be thought that the resemblance said to exist between them is more fanciful than real; that such comparisons have their origin in the pride—patriotic or partisan—which Canadians feel in those of their countrymen who have attained distinction; that Sir John Macdonald, for example, has often been said to bear a close likeness to Mr. Gladstone’s old antagonist, Earl Beaconsfield. In the case, however, of the two great Conservative chieftains the likeness was supposed to be less discernible in their oratory than in their personal appearance, and in the methods they pursued as party leaders. But the more closely we study the speeches and the public life of the two great Liberal leaders the more clearly will it be seen that the resemblance between them has a far more substantial foundation than any mere Canadian pride in a distinguished son of Canada, although Canadians were well pleased to think that, side by side with some of Britain’s greatest men, before a critical and cultured Edinburgh audience a few years ago, Canada saw “her bairn respected like the lave.” Wherein, then, does the resemblance consist, if such resemblance there be? Does it lie in the similarity of their methods as rhetoricians, or in qualities less superficial and less minutely definable? The writer above quoted describes in a single phrase the strong underlying points of resemblance between the Englishman and the Canadian. The true secret of their power as orators lies in their intellectual and moral superiority. Perhaps it lies even more in the moral element than in the intellectual, though the fibres of mind and character are so closely interwoven in the texture of their speeches that it is difficult to decide in which quality lies their greatest strength. True it is that the gifts and graces of rhetoric have been bountifully bestowed upon both. Some of these they hold in common, and in others each has been specially endowed. But to say that the possession of these merely rhetorical accomplishments is what makes each the greatest living orator of his country is to assign a wholly inadequate cause for so large an effect. The fact that intellectually they are giants, and that morally they are believed to be sincere, high-minded, _sans peur et sans reproche_, is what largely gives them their power as orators. Mr. Blake’s firm and comprehensive grasp of any subject with which he grapples, the almost phenomenal way in which he masters and then marshals all its facts, are qualities in which we doubt if he is excelled by any living statesman. Not merely are the broad outlines drawn with a strong hand, but, when necessary for his purpose, the minutest details are filled in with the fidelity of a photograph. In fact so thoroughly does he exhaust the details of his subject in some of his more elaborate parliamentary speeches that the effect is to mar the whole performance, viewed simply as an oratorical effect. Perhaps no one knows this better than Mr. Blake himself, and the fact that he is thus content to risk his reputation as an orator from the same high sense of duty which has kept him in uncongenial public life for many years, against his personal wishes and to the serious impairment of his health and income, should be sufficient to secure him the indulgence of the severest critic, for it is a failing which surely leans to virtue’s side. His manner in speaking is earnest and forcible, such a manner as befits an orator who seeks to convince his hearers through the medium of their reason, and he never indulges in _ad captandum_ appeals. His sentences, like his whole treatment of his subject, though they may be somewhat involved, are always thoroughly in hand; he never loses himself in a maze, seldom hesitates for the right word, and always appears to have the whole plan of his speech before his mind’s eye. His language unites the copiousness and variety of the accomplished scholar with the clear cut precision of the lawyer; and the wealth of illustration with which he adorns his best speeches, drawn as it is from every conceivable source in life and literature, would in itself be regarded as wonderful if it were not associated with intellectual powers which are all on an equally high plane. He is perhaps at his best in the _rôle_ of satirist, and herein he displays qualities in which he far excels the great English statesman to whom it is no derogation to compare him. Earnest and argumentative like Mr. Gladstone he habitually is, but when engaged in thrust and parry with an opponent, wit and humor lend their aid, and often with such merciless effect that they defeat the speaker’s purpose by creating sympathy for his antagonist. The best specimen of Mr. Blake’s style of oratory will be found in his shorter extemporaneous speeches in parliament. In many of his longer speeches his best qualities as an orator have been suppressed by too much elaborateness of preparation. Able as they are as examples of clear consecutive reasoning, they partake too much of the character of essays; wanting spontaneity, they lack the fire and vim of his shorter speeches. As an illustration of this view, take the short speech in which Mr. Blake replied to the leader of the government in 1882, on the motion for the second reading of the Redistribution Bill—better known as the Gerrymander Bill. All the leading features of that measure were seized and a complete criticism of them pronounced in the course of a twenty minutes’ speech, with such telling force that no one on the ministerial side dared offer a reply. It was as perfect a criticism of a large subject as the far more elaborate speech on the bill in committee of the whole a few days later, saving in matters of detail, and the verdict of those who listened to both speeches doubtless was that the shorter one was by large odds weightier and more convincing than the longer and heavier one. There was material enough in the latter for half-a-dozen first-class speeches, but it erred in leaving nothing for any other member to say. Another of Mr. Blake’s speeches which showed his skill in stating and discussing subjects tersely and vigorously is his speech at London in January, 1886, in which he dealt with the execution of Riel and presented a general review of the political situation. Such massing of facts and arraying of reasons, conjoined with such judicial fairness in balancing the weights of evidence, are rarely to be met with in the records of political eloquence. “Though the skies be dark,” he said in closing that speech, “yet trust we in the Supreme goodness. We believe our cause is just and true. We believe that truth and justice shall in God’s good time prevail. It may be soon; it may be late. His ways are not our ways, and His unfathomable purposes we may not gauge. But this we know, that in our efforts we are in the line of duty. We hope, indeed, to make our cause prevail. But, win or lose to-day, we know that we shall receive for the faithful discharge of duty an exceeding great reward—the only reward which is worth attaining, the only reward which is sure to last.”—Mr. Blake’s thorough honesty of purpose is one of his most conspicuous qualities. Many proofs of this quality might be given from his speeches, but one will suffice. In closing his speech on the execution of Riel, in the House of Commons in March, 1886, he said: “I know the atmosphere of prejudice and passion which surrounds this case. I know how difficult it will be for years to come to penetrate that dense atmosphere. I know how many people of my own race and of my own creed entertain sentiments and feelings hostile to the conclusion to which I have been driven. I know that many whom I esteem and in whose judgment I have confidence, after examination of this case, have been unable to reach my own conclusion. I blame no one. Each has the right and duty to judge for himself. But cries have been raised on both sides which are potent, most potent in preventing the public from coming to a just conclusion; yet we must not by any such cries be deterred from doing our duty. I have been threatened more than once by hon. gentlemen opposite during this debate with political annihilation in consequence of the attitude of the Liberal party which they projected on this question; and I so far agree with them as to admit that the vote I am about to give is an inexpedient vote, and that, if politics were a game, I should be making a false move. I should be glad to be able to reach a conclusion different from that which is said by hon. gentlemen opposite to be likely to weaken my influence and imperil my position. But it can be said of none of us, least of all of the humble individual who now addresses you, that his continued possession of a share of public confidence, of the lead of a party, or of a seat in parliament, is essential or even highly important to the public interest; while for all of us what is needful is not that we should retain, but that we should deserve the public confidence; not that we should keep, but that while we do keep we should honestly use our seats in parliament. To act otherwise would be to grasp at the shadow and to lose the substance; _propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_. We may be wrong; we must be true. We should be ready to close, but resolved to keep unstained our public careers. I am unable honestly to differ from the view that it is deeply to be regretted that this execution should have been allowed to take place, and therefore in favor of that view I must record my vote.” This view of the exalted duties of a representative of the people must commend itself to every man who esteems truth, honor and country; and it is the knowledge of the holding of this and like views by Mr. Blake, not less than his intellectual qualities, which secures for him the esteem of the best men of all classes. “We are all proud of Edward Blake,” Principal Grant of Queen’s University exclaimed when presenting him to address a Queen’s convocation a few years ago. “Mr. Blake is a distinguished man, a credit to any country from his ability and eloquence and devotion to public matters,” Sir John Macdonald said when referring to his absence from the house and country at the opening of the 1888 session of parliament.—Many speeches delivered in the House of Commons and out of it during the last twenty years attest Mr. Blake’s ability and eloquence, but one extract will serve for illustration. It is taken from the report of a speech delivered at Lindsay in 1887, on the administration of the North-West. After sketching the principal events leading up to the Half-breed rebellion down to the summer of 1884, he said: “The time, if ever there was a time, for conditions of non-alienation passed away; the state of things changed, the discontent grew, the demand became fixed and formulated for like treatment as the Half-breeds of Manitoba, and its concession in this form was pressed on the government by everyone in the North-West, including the council. But all in vain! The government was deaf; the government was blind; the government was dumb; indeed for all they did in this matter the government might as well have been dead! Nay, better! for had they been dead I do not believe another baker’s dozen of Tories could have been found to succeed them who could have been as deaf, and dumb, and blind, and dead as they; and Canada might have been saved the blow, the dreadful blow, which they caused, if they did not actually inflict upon their country! At length, in June, 1884, after five years of total, of absolute inaction in this pressing matter, occurred an event so-marked that it might have made the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the blind to see, nay, might almost have waked the dead,—for then it happened that these poor people, despairing at last of reaching otherwise the ears of their rulers at Ottawa, sent a deputation on foot to tramp the prairies, cross the rivers and penetrate the forests, seven hundred long miles into Montana, to find and to counsel with their old chief and leader, Louis Riel. They reached him; they invited his help; he agreed to return in their company, to lead his people in an agitation for the rights which they had so long asked in vain; he returned on this demand, on this errand, in those relations to his kinsmen; and he was triumphantly and enthusiastically received by a large assembly of the Half-breeds on the banks of the Saskatchewan; and all these ominous and portentous facts were known to the government! Now what at this juncture was the relation of Louis Riel to the disturbed populations of the North-West? That is a most important question to be answered when you are measuring the situation and awarding its due responsibility to the government. For I ask you, having asked that question, to decide, as I believe you will unhesitatingly decide, I ask not you Liberals only, but the most compassionate, the most faithful Tory, the blindest, the most party-ridden Tory here, to decide,—even if he can find, what I cannot find, in the loving kindness of his nature, in the softness of his heart, some, I will not say justification, I will not say excuse, but some palliation for that five long years of inaction,—yet I ask you all, with absolute confidence, to agree with me that for the inaction after June, 1884, there is, under heaven, no palliation whatever. What was the relation of Riel to those amongst whom he came? I will not give you my own comparisons; I will give you those of the first minister himself, used in reply to me in parliament. He said that Riel was the El Mahdi of the Metis! The El Mahdi—you know him—the Arabian priest, and prophet, and usurping chief, who excited in the breasts of the wild tribes of the desert such a convinced belief in his supernatural powers, such a devoted and fanatic affection to his person, such a desperate fidelity to his cause, that at his bidding, ill-armed and undisciplined as they were, they flung their naked bodies in ferocious fight against the better drilled and more numerous forces of their lawful sovereign, the Khedive; nay, they hurled those naked bodies once and again against the serried ranks of the British battalions; and boldly encountered at once all the old British valor, and all the modern dreadful appliances of war; and the sands of Africa were wet with brave English blood, and English wives and mothers wept bitter tears for the deeds done under these influences by the wild followers of El Mahdi. He said that Riel was the La Rochejacquelin of the Metis! La Rochejacquelin, the young French noble who, when all France almost beside had submitted to the republic, raised again the white flag of the legitimate monarchy, roused the peaceful peasantry of remote La Vendée, led them in successful attack against strong places held by the forces of the republic, and by virtue of the spirit he infused, the confidence they reposed, the affection and fealty they bore towards their feudal chief, kept at bay for a while the great enemies of the state. He said he was the Charles Stuart, the Pretender, the leader of the lost cause of the Half-breeds! ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie, the king of the Hieland hearts,’ who, after the lowlands of Scotland, after all England, after all Ireland had submitted to the new rule, yet raised the clans; marched into Edinburgh; held court at Holyrood; made a descent on England itself; and, when pressed back into the north, fought with his irregular and ill-equipped liegemen in unequal, but obstinate and glorious, and sometimes successful conflict with the disciplined troops of the new dynasty! The Stuart, who found and proved for the hundredth time the stern valor and the enthusiastic love of his Highland followers; who found and proved it, not only in the fleeting hour of victory, but in the dark season of distress; when, with broken fortunes and a lost cause, with thirty thousand pounds offered for his head, and death assigned as the penalty for his harborer, he was safely guarded, and loved, and cherished, and sheltered by his clansmen in the caves and glens and bothies of the Highlands, as safe as if he had been in command in the centre of a British square! Yes! They scorned the base reward; they contemned the dreadful penalty; they kept him safe, and at length helped him to escape to other climes, to wait for the better days that never came. Such were the men to whom the first minister compared Riel, in his relation to the Metis. And, such being his relation, I ask you was not his coming an ominous and portentous event? He came, with all that power and influence over that ill-educated, half-civilized, impulsive, yet proud and sensitive people, living their lonely lives in that far land; he came amongst them at their request; he who had led the Half-breeds of the east in ’69, and had achieved for them a treaty and the recognition of their rights; he came to lead his kinsmen of the west in the path by which they were, as they hoped, to obtain their rights as well! Had the government been diligent before, they should have been roused by this to further zeal. But he came after five years of absolute lethargy on the part of the government, when they knew that they had not been diligent, and when, therefore, they had a double duty to repair, in the time God gave them still, the consequences of their sloth. Surely, surely such a coming should have made the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the dumb to speak; surely it might almost have waked the dead!” This extract will compare with the best effort of any modern parliamentary or platform speaker, and the whole speech is probably the best specimen of moving eloquence ever uttered by a public man in America.—The heavy and prolonged strain of the election campaign of 1886-7 had a serious effect on Mr. Blake’s health, and resulted in a nervous collapse which made a holding of the position of leader of a parliamentary party no longer possible to one of his sense of duty. He accordingly resigned the leadership of the Liberals in the session of 1887, to the sincere regret of his followers in the house and, it may be said, to the regret of the whole country besides. ----- [9] Mr. Blake’s great-grandfather was Andrew Blake, a gentleman of good estate in the county of Galway. By his first marriage he had two sons—Andrew, who inherited Castlegrove, and Netterville, who succeeded to another estate close to Tuam. The latter had twenty-one children, thirteen of whom were sons. The second wife of Andrew Blake was a daughter of Sir Joseph Hoare, of Annabel, county Cork, by a daughter of Sir Marcus Somerville. By this marriage he had four sons—Dominick Edward, Joseph, Samuel and William. Dominick Edward was born at Castlegrove in 1771; educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took the degree of M.A.; presented to the livings of Kiltegan and Loughbrickland, and appointed rural dean. He married Anne Margaret, daughter of William Hume, M.P., who was shot by the rebels in 1798, and they had for issue two sons and three daughters. His death occurred in 1823, and a tablet erected to his memory in Kiltegan church records that during a period of nineteen years he was the beloved and venerated rector of that parish: “His affectionate and afflicted parishioners have erected this monument as a testimony of their deep sense of his worth and of their grief at his loss.” The elder of the sons was Rev. Dominick Edward Blake, for some time rector of Thornhill, north of Toronto, and the younger was William Hume Blake, the chancellor. William Hume, M.P., mentioned above, left two sons—William Hoare Hume, who succeeded his father in the representation of Wicklow in the Irish parliament, and after the Union sat until his death in the Imperial parliament, and Joseph Samuel Hume, who married Eliza, daughter of Rev. Charles Smyth, of Smythfield and Charles Park, county Limerick. Being a younger son he inherited only a small property in Wicklow; he died at an early age, immediately after having received a government appointment in the castle of Dublin. He left one son and three daughters, the eldest of the daughters, Catharine, becoming the wife of Chancellor Blake, and the youngest the wife of Justice George Skeffington Connor. * * * * * =Morison, Lewis Francis=, Advocate, St. Hyacinthe, was born in that city, on the 30th January, 1842. His father, Donald George Morison, was born at Sorel, P.Q., and was many years a notary. His grandfather, Allan Morison, was born on Lewis Island, west coast of Scotland, and came to Canada about 1770, settling in the district of Montreal. Mr. Morison’s mother was Marie A. Rosalie Papineau, daughter of the Hon. D. B. Papineau, and niece of the late Hon. Louis Joseph Papineau. Mr. Morison, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the College of St. Hyacinthe, and studied law with the late Hon. M. Laframboise and the Hon. Auguste C. Papineau, now on the bench of the Superior Court of the province of Quebec. He was admitted to the bar on the 2nd of February, 1863, and has been in practice at St. Hyacinthe since that date. He does business in all the courts, civil and criminal, and has a remunerative practice. Mr. Morison served two years as councilman in the municipality of the city of St. Hyacinthe, and in January, 1880, was elected, without opposition, mayor, which office he held for two years. Being a native of the city, and having grown with it, he naturally takes a pride in witnessing its progress. Mr. Morison is president of the Granite Mill Company, which he started in 1882, and which now turns out the finest quality of knitting in Canada, and employs about six hundred hands. He was also one of the original promoters, and is now a director, of the St. Hyacinthe, Manufacturing Company. This concern only manufactures fine flannel, which is in great demand, and is kept running full time all the year. He constructed the first macadamized road in this section of the county. The first section of five miles of this road connected St. Hyacinthe with quarries, lime-kilns, and sand pits, greatly helping building operations, and created a new source of wealth for its citizens. He is also proprietor of two of the toll bridges built at St. Hyacinthe across the Yamaska river, and has a large interest in the third one. These bridges are built under private charters, and give more easy access to the city. Mr. Morison is what may be called a live citizen, and he loses no opportunity to advance the prosperity of his native place. In politics, he is a Liberal, and in religion, a member of the Roman Catholic church. He is a close student, and growing in reputation as a lawyer who will add to the prestige of the profession of which he is such a good representative. * * * * * =Fulton, Dr. John=, Toronto. The late Dr. Fulton was born in the township of Southwold, Elgin county, Ontario, on the 12th February, 1837, and died at Toronto on the 15th June, 1887. The illness which ended his useful life was the result of a severe cold, taken in the course of ordinary professional duties. His father was a highly respectable farmer of Irish origin. His mother’s family had originally come from Scotland, and their son John very early showed all the quickness of the one race and the shrewdness and perseverance of the other. He began his early education when very young, and continued for several years at school, always one of the best behaved and most advanced of the scholars. He continued at home on the farm till he was eighteen years of age, when his health, never robust, although as a rule good, was such as to warrant him in seeking a less laborious and more congenial occupation. He became a school teacher, having obtained successively several certificates, and was, as usual, not very long before reaching the highest grade. As a teacher he was, wherever he taught, most successful—seeing clearly himself every point he desired to teach others, he had the somewhat rare but invaluable power of making it clear and simple to every pupil—a power which characterized him all through life in his subsequent career as a prominent professor of various branches of medical science. He began his medical studies under the supervision of Dr. J. H. Wilson, of St. Thomas, a highly respected medical man, still engaged actively in his profession. From the moment of his entrance on his professional studies he was characterized by unremitting zeal—never being idle, doing as much work in the way of study in a week as would take most young men a month to master. In due course he entered the medical school so long and so successfully carried on by by the late Dr. Rolph; and here he at once ranked as one of the best men of his year. He was ever most ambitious, and was not content with matriculating as usual in medicine alone, but also matriculated in arts at the University of Toronto, taking a high position in this examination. After completing his course he graduated at Victoria University, of which at that time Dr. Rolph’s school was the medical department. He also went up for his examination and graduated in medicine at the University of Toronto. He had hardly taken his degree in Canada, when he went to New York and spent some time attending, with his customary regularity, Bellevue Hospital, in that city, and very shortly left for England, where he spent all the time at his disposal in the hospital wards and at his studies. He successfully went up before the Royal College of Physicians of London, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and obtained the license of the one and the membership of the other. He then visited Paris and Berlin for a brief space, and as usual was found following the great masters of these capitals around the hospitals, never losing sight of his great aim—the increasing of his already large store of professional knowledge. Shortly after his return to Canada he was married, January, 1864, to Isabella Campbell, of Yarmouth, Ontario, whose premature decease, in October, 1884, all but crushed his heart, and who was deservedly loved and respected by all who knew her. Dr. Fulton settled in Fingal, Ontario, for the practice of his profession, and had not been there long before he was tendered by the late Dr. Rolph and accepted the professorship in anatomy, in the medical school of which he had so recently been a distinguished student. His duties as a professor were begun with enthusiasm, and as a medical teacher he was a success from the very first. Not content, as most men of his early age would have been, with the high position he had already reached, he attended University College classes in arts, with the intention of graduating in arts at the provincial university. This intention, owing to constantly increasing duties, he had most reluctantly to abandon; for he greatly disliked to give up any plan on which he had deliberately set his heart. In addition to his professional and professorial duties, in 1867 he began and shortly completed his work on “Physiology,” which was for years highly prized by successive classes of students, as giving a clear and succinct epitome of that subject in the briefest possible compass, and which he subsequently re-wrote and enlarged for a second edition. In 1869-70 he lectured on physiology and botany with the same acceptance as had characterized his lectures on anatomy. In 1870 he busied himself, in addition to other duties, in writing a work on Materia Medica which, however, from stress of other labors, was never completed. This year he sent in his resignation of his chair in the college, owing to difficulties which had arisen, and in consequence of which Drs. Rolph, Geikie, and Fulton resigned together. Dr. Fulton consented, however, on being requested to do so, to withdraw his letter of resignation. In August, 1870, he bought from its then proprietor the _Dominion Medical Journal_, which had been carried on for a short time, and into which Dr. Fulton at once infused life and vigor. He changed its name to the _Canada Lancet_, under which title it appeared for the first time in September, 1870, and under Dr. Fulton’s indefatigable editorship has been continued ever since; the _Lancet_ having in that time risen from having hardly any influence and a very small circulation, to the position it now holds, of being the most influential and widely-circulated medical journal in the Dominion of Canada, a change effected by its proprietor’s amazing and continuous industry, aided by his great business tact. In March, 1871, Dr. Fulton finally resigned his chair in Victoria College Medical School, and was offered and accepted the professorship of physiology in Trinity Medical College. This he continued to hold, and to discharge its duties with distinguished ability and satisfaction to all concerned, until a few years ago, when he succeeded his colleague, Dr. Bethune, on that gentleman retiring from the chair of surgery. This chair he filled ably and well till his death, and in connection with it, he was also one of the surgeons to the Toronto General Hospital, which institution has in his death sustained a severe loss. As an editor of a medical journal, Dr. Fulton was earnest, painstaking, and thorough in an unusual degree. The same, too, may be said of him as a medical teacher, and indeed in every other relation in life where he had duties to perform. He was for nearly twenty years before his death a member of Knox Church, Toronto, and one of the trustees of that church. Here his advice and clear-headedness will be much missed. His memory will be long cherished, and his example it is to be hoped will be followed by not a few of our young medical men. For as Dr. Fulton made himself what he was, by his persevering efforts, for he was essentially a self-made man, they too, by doing and working as he did, may come to occupy the highest positions in public and professional influence and respect. He left behind him a son and three daughters. * * * * * =Binney, Right Rev. Hibbert=, D.D., Bishop of Nova Scotia. The late Bishop Binney was born at Sydney, Cape Breton, on the 12th August, 1819. His father, the Rev. Hibbert Binney, D.C.L., was for some time rector of Sydney, and afterwards removing to England, he became rector of Newbury, Bucks. The future bishop was educated at King’s College, London, and in due time proceeded to Worcester College, Oxford. He took his degree of B.A. in 1842, and was elected fellow of his college, holding for some years in addition the position of tutor and bursar. His career at Oxford was a highly honorable one, he having taken a first-class in mathematical honors, and a second-class in classical honors, thus very nearly attaining the very high distinction of a double first. On the bishopric of Nova Scotia becoming vacant by the death of Dr. John Inglis, third occupant of that see, the Rev. Mr. Binney was appointed by the Crown, at the unusually early age of thirty-one. It is said that while the question of the appointment was engaging the attention of the crown officers, there being several names mentioned for the vacant see, the Hon. Joseph Howe, then in London, was consulted as to the probable wishes of the diocese, when he at once said: “Give it to the Nova Scotian”—which decided the matter. Mr. Binney received the degree of D.D. from his _alma mater_, and was consecrated in Lambeth Chapel, March 25th, 1851. On his arrival in Nova Scotia, he found things not as satisfactory as he desired; but he set to work with characteristic vigor, and in a few years had more than doubled the number of clergy and stations occupied by the Church of England. His greatest efforts were directed towards the establishment of a synod or legislative body of clergy and laity, which he finally accomplished in the face of much opposition, and the wisdom of his action has been since amply justified. As visitor of King’s College, the Church University at Windsor, he ever took a deep interest in its welfare, giving ungrudging attention to all meetings of the board of governors of which he was president. The difficulties of his arduous post became in his later years too great for even his iron frame and will, and after gradually failing for a few months, he died quite suddenly in New York, where he had gone for medical advice, on April 30, 1887, in the thirty-seventh year of his episcopal, and the sixty-eighth of his age. The bishop was a very strong-minded man, his views were high church, and during his long episcopate he had moulded most of his clergy to his own ideas. He married in 1854, Mary, daughter of the Hon. William B. Bliss, judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. * * * * * =Tooke, Benjamin=, Manufacturer, Montreal, was born in Montreal, on the 12th November, 1848. His father, Thomas Tooke, was a well-known citizen, and for forty years occupied a responsible position in the Bank of Montreal. Benjamin, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the High School of his native city, and secured a classical and commercial education. Shortly after leaving school he entered the establishment of Gault Brothers, wholesale dry goods merchants, as a junior clerk, and gradually worked his way up until he became the confidential clerk and had the fixing of the prices of all the goods coming into the establishment. After a period of ten years with Gault Brothers, he found himself master of all the details of business, and otherwise fully equipped to face the world of commerce. Therefore, in 1871, he severed his connection with the above firm, and commenced the manufacture of shirts and collars, conducting his operations under the name of the Mount Royal Manufacturing Company. Business prospered, and in 1873 had grown to such an extent, that he found himself unable to attend to all its details, and took in as a working partner Leslie Skelton. In the fall of 1878, Mr. Skelton having retired from the firm, Mr. Tooke entered into a partnership with his brother, R. J. Tooke, who up to this time had been carrying on a retail trade in gentlemen’s furnishing goods. This partnership lasted for four years,—R. J. Tooke retiring to take up his old trade,—and since then he has conducted his business alone. In 1884, finding his already extensive premises in Montreal too cramped for his steadily increasing business, he selected a building site in St. Laurent, a few miles from the city, erected a factory sixty-five feet by forty feet, three stories high, and put into it the most improved machinery. This factory has proved a great success, produces excellent goods, and finds employment for about eight hundred and fifty hands. Mr. Tooke is highly respected by his numerous workpeople, and the utmost harmony and good feeling pervades his establishment. In politics he is a Conservative, and in religion belongs to the Episcopal church. On the 5th December, 1872, he was married to Elizabeth Eastty, daughter of W. E. Eastty, of London, England. * * * * * =Scott, Captain Peter Astle=, R.N., Commander of the Squadron employed for the Protection of the Fisheries, and Chairman of the Board of Examiners of Masters and Mates of Canada, was born on the 25th of February, 1816, at Gillingham, Kent, England. His father, James Scott, a paymaster in the Royal navy, was born in Virginia, and left it with his father, a captain of the Royal army during the Revolution. Captain Scott received his education at the Rochester and Chatham Classical and Mathematical School, at Rochester, county of Kent. He joined the navy as a volunteer of the first class, on board the _Basilisk_ cutter, ten guns, at the Nore, on the 14th of February, 1829; removed to the _Prince Regent_, 120 guns, in August, 1830, spent part of his time in the Channel with the flag of Rear Admiral Sir William Parker, and also on the _Scout_, eighteen guns, in the North Sea. He then joined the _Thunderer_, eighty-four guns, and passed his examination for lieutenant, 1st September, 1835. While returning to England in November of that year in a merchantman, she capsized while crossing the Bay of Biscay, but righting again, her crew were fortunate enough to get her safely into Bristol with the loss of bulwarks, boats, and a few spars. He next joined the _Asia_, eighty-four guns, in 1836, and proceeded to the Mediterranean, and after serving a short time in the _Blazer_ steam vessel, returned to England in the _Barham_, fifty guns, and was paid off at Sheerness in January, 1839. In April, 1839, he joined the _Terror_, under Captain F. R. M. Crozier, her consort, the _Erebus_, being under the charge of Captain James Clark Ross. After spending a winter at Desolation Island (Kerguelans Land), these vessels reached Hobartown, Van Diemen’s Land, in August, 1840. It being necessary to have magnetic observations taken at that place in connection with those established by the various foreign governments all over the world, an observatory was erected at the expense of the Admiralty, and Lieutenant Jos. Kay was placed in charge, Captain Scott being first assistant, and placed under the orders of Sir John Franklin, who was then lieutenant-governor of Tasmania. Captain Scott, having some knowledge of naval architecture, built a yacht for the lieutenant-governor, of about 180 tons, and two gunboats of about 100 tons each, for the defence of the colony. He was relieved at the observatory by Lieutenant Smith in the autumn of 1844, and returned to England in May, 1845, only a few days too late to join the _Erebus_, of the Arctic expedition, as second lieutenant, under the command of his old friend, Sir John Franklin. In August, 1845, he was appointed to the _Columbia_ steam vessel, Captain W. Owen, who was then surveying the Bay of Fundy. In 1848 the _Columbia_ was paid off at Chatham, Kent, England. Captain Scott then joined the coast guard for six months, and in May, 1849, was reappointed to the _Columbia_, under Commander Shortland, R.N., as assistant surveyor, to continue the North American survey. In 1857 the _Columbia_ was condemned and sold out of the service, and the survey was continued in hired vessels. In January, 1862, Mr. Scott was promoted to the rank of commander, and in 1865, on Captain Shortland retiring from the command, he assumed the charge of the survey, and returned to England in May,