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 than Papineau, who possessed an eloquence of tongue and a grace of demeanour which were not the attributes of the little peppery, undignified Scotchman who, for a few years, played so important a part in the English-speaking province.  With his disinterestedness and unselfishness, with his hatred of political injustice and oppression, Canadians who remember the history of the constitutional struggles of England will always sympathise.  Revolt against absolutism and tyranny is permissible in the opinion of men who love political freedom, but the conditions of Upper Canada were hardly such as justified the rash insurrection into which he led his deluded followers, many to misery and some to death.  Mackenzie lived long enough to regret these sad mistakes of a reckless period of his life, and to admit that “the success of the rebellion would have deeply injured the people of Canada,” whom he believed he was then serving, and that it was the interest of the Canadian people to strengthen in every way the connection with England.  Like Papineau, he returned to Canada in 1849 to find himself entirely unequal to the new conditions of political life, where a large constitutional knowledge, a spirit of moderation and a statesmanlike conduct could alone give a man influence in the councils of his country.  One historian has attempted to elevate Dr. Rolph at his expense, but a careful study of the career of those two actors will lead fair-minded readers to the conclusion that even the reckless course followed at the last by Mackenzie was preferable to the double-dealing of his more astute colleague.  Dr. Rolph came again into prominence as one of the founders of the Clear Grits, who formed in 1849 an extreme branch of