36-1904).

A. Gerin-Lajoie was a mere lad when the exile of some compatriots
inspired _Le Canadien errant_, which immediately became a universal
folk-song. Many years later he wrote discriminatingly about those _Dix
ans au Canada_ (1888) that saw the establishment of responsible
government. But his fame rests on _Jean Rivard_ (1874), the prose
bucolic of the _habitant_. The hero, left at the head of a fatherless
family of twelve when nearly through college, turns from the glut of
graduates swarming round the prospects of professional city-bred
careers, steadfastly wrests a home from the wilderness, helps his
brothers and sisters, marries a _habitante_ fit for the wife of a
pioneer, brings up a large family, and founds a settlement which grows
into several parishes and finally becomes the centre of the electoral
district of "Rivardville," which returns him to parliament. These simple
and earnest _Scenes de la vie reelle_ are an appealing revelation of
that eternal secret of the soil which every people wishing to have a
country of its own must early lay to heart; and _Jean Rivard, le
defricheur_, will always remain the eponym of the new _colons_ of the
19th century.

Philippe de Gaspe's historical novel, _Les Anciens Canadiens_ (1863), is
the complement of Garneau and Gerin-Lajoie. Everything about the
author's life helped him to write this book. Born in 1784, and brought
up among reminiscent eye-witnesses of the old regime, he was an eager
listener, with a wonderful memory and whole-hearted pride in the glories
of his race and family, a kindly _seigneur_, who loved and was loved by
all his _censitaires_, a keen observer of many changing systems, down to
the final Confederation of 1867, and a man who had felt both extremes of
fortune (_Memoires_, 1866). The story rambles rather far from its
well-worn plot. But these very digressions give the book its intimate
and abiding charm; for they keep the reader in close personal touch with
every side of Canadian life, with songs and tales and homely forms of
speech, with the best features of seigniorial times and the strong
guidance of an ardent church, with _voyageurs, coureurs de bois_,
Indians, soldiers, sailors and all the strenuous adventurers of a wild,
new, giant world. The poet of this little band of authors was Octave
Cremazie, a Quebec bookseller, who failed in business and spent his last
years as a penniless exile in France. He is usually rather too
derivative, he lac