Frederick George Scott, an Anglican priest and a lesser member of the Confederation group of poets, was celebrated by his contemporaries for his nature lyrics, his hymns of empire, and his celebration of the young Canadian soldier at the front during World War I. His regional Laurentian lyrics were important precursors of some modern Canadian poetry--especially the"Old Song" and"Laurentian Shield"of his son Francis Reginald Scott (born in 1899). The elder Scott's religious verse and fiction offer a more explicit rendering of the Victorian pessimism underlying the poetry of his more important contemporaries Charles G. D. Roberts and Archibald Lampman.

Scott was born in Montreal in April 1861. When only six he heard the bells of parliament ring out for confederation; he became a staunch Canadian, one whose poetic nationalism was rooted in the Laurentian landscape. The second strain in his poetry, the religious, also began in early...