representative institutions. Around the figure of Louis Joseph Papineau
there has always been a sort of glamour which has helped to conceal his
vanity, his rashness and his want of political sagacity, which would,
under any circumstances, have prevented his success as a safe statesman,
capable of guiding a people through a trying ordeal. His eloquence was
fervid and had much influence over his impulsive countrymen, his
sincerity was undoubted, and in all likelihood his very indiscretions
made more palpable the defects of the political system against which he
so persistently and so often justly declaimed. He lived to see his
countrymen enjoy power and influence under the very union which they
resented, and to find himself no longer a leader among men, but isolated
from a great majority of his own people, and representing a past whose
methods were antagonistic to the new regime that had grown up since
1838. It would have been well for his reputation had he remained in
obscurity on his return from exile in 1847, when he and other rebels of
1837 were wisely pardoned, and had he never stood again on the floor of
the parliament of Canada, as he did from 1848 until 1854, since he could
only prove, in those later times, that he had never understood the true
working of responsible government. While the Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry
were in power, he revived an agitation for an elective legislative
council and declared himself utterly hostile to responsible government;
but his influence was at an end in the country, and he could make little
impression on the assembly. The days of reckless agitation had passed,
and the time for astute and calm statesmanship had come. Lafontaine and
Morin were now safer political guides for his countrymen. He soon
disappeared entirely from public view, and in the solitude of his
picturesque chateau, amid the groves that overhang the Ottawa River,
only visited from time to time by a few staunch friends, or by curious
tourists who found their way to that quiet spot, he passed the remainder
of his days with a tranquillity in wondrous contrast to the stormy and
eventful drama of his life. The writer often saw his noble, dignified
figure--erect even in age--passing unnoticed on the streets of Ottawa,
when perhaps at the same time there were strangers, walking through the
lobbies of the parliament house, asking for his portrait.

William Lyon Mackenzie is a far less picturesque figure in Canadian
history th