In the main it is impartial and
accurate, but the style is heavy and sometimes slovenly. J.C. Dent's
(1841-1888) _Last Forty Years_ (1880) is practically a continuation of
Kingsford. Dent also wrote an interesting though one-sided account of
the rebellion of 1837. Histories of the maritime provinces have been
written by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Beamish Murdoch and James Hannay.
Haliburton's is much the best of the three. The brief but stirring
history of western Canada has been told by Alexander Begg (1840-1898);
and George Bryce (b. 1844) and Beckles Willson (b. 1869) have written
the story of the Hudson's Bay Company. Much scholarship and research
have been devoted to local and special historical subjects, a notable
example of which is Arthur Doughty's exhaustive work on the siege of
Quebec. J. McMullen (b. 1820), Charles Roberts (b. 1860) and Sir John
Bourinot (1837-1902) have written brief and popular histories, covering
the whole field of Canadian history more or less adequately. Alpheus
Todd's (1821-1884) _Parliamentary Government in England_ (1867-1869) and
_Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies_ (1880) are standard
works, as is also Bourinot's _Parliamentary Procedure and Practice_
(1884).

Biography has been devoted mainly to political subjects. The best of
these are Joseph Pope's _Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald_ (1894), W.D. le
Sueur's _Frontenac_ (1906), Sir John Bourinot's _Lord Elgin_ (1905),
Jean McIlwraith's _Sir Frederick Haldimand_ (1904), D.C. Scott's _John
Graves Simcoe_ (1905), A.D. de Celles' _Papineau and Cartier_ (1904),
Charles Lindsey's _William Lyon Mackenzie_ (1862), J.W. Longley's
_Joseph Howe_ (1905) and J.S. Willison's _Sir Wilfrid Laurier_ (1903).

In _belles lettres_ very little has been accomplished, unless we may
count Goldwin Smith (q.v.) as a Canadian. As a scholar, a thinker, and a
master of pure English he has exerted a marked influence upon Canadian
literature and Canadian life.

While mediocrity is the prevailing characteristic of most of what passes
for poetry in Canada, a few writers have risen to a higher level. The
conditions of Canadian life have not been favourable to the birth of
great poets, but within the limits of their song such men as Archibald
Lampman (1861-1891), William Wilfred Campbell (b. 1861), Charles
Roberts, Bliss Carman (b. 1861) and George Frederick Cameron have
written lines that are well worth remembering. Lampman's poetry is the
most fini