The Canadian boat songs are well known for their plaintive and soothing effect, and a very beautiful one was composed on the death of Major-General Brock.  The writer of this memoir, while sailing one evening in the straits of Canso, in British North America—­the beautiful and picturesque scenery of which greatly increased the effect of the words—­remembers to have heard it sung by a Canadian boatman, and he then thought that he had never listened to vocal sounds more truly descriptive of melancholy and regret.  Even the young in Canada invoked the Muse in expression of their sympathy, and the following lines were indited by Miss Ann Bruyeres, described as “an extraordinary child of thirteen years old,” the daughter of the general’s friend, Lieut.-Colonel.  Bruyeres, of the Royal Engineers, (see page 213,) and who died not long after him in consequence of disease contracted in the field: 

    As Fame alighted on the mountain’s[101] crest,
    She loudly blew her trumpet’s mighty blast;
    Ere she repeated Victory’s notes, she cast
    A look around, and stopped:  of power bereft,
    Her bosom heaved, her breath she drew with pain,
    Her favorite Brock lay slaughtered on the plain! 
    Glory threw on his grave a laurel wreath,
    And Fame proclaims “a hero sleeps beneath.”

As if to complete the double allusion to Fame in the preceding lines, singularly enough the mournful intelligence of Sir Isaac Brock’s death was brought from Quebec to Guernsey by the ship FAME, belonging to that island, on the 24th November, two days before it was known in London.

Sir Isaac Brock, after lying in state at the government house, where his body was bedewed with the tears of many affectionate friends, was interred on the 16th of October, with his provincial aide-de-camp, at Fort George.  His surviving aide-de-camp, Major Glegg, recollecting the decided aversion of the general to every thing that bore the appearance of ostentatious display, endeavoured to clothe the distressing ceremony with all his “native simplicity.”  But at the same time there were military honors that could not be avoided, and the following was the order of the mournful procession,[102] “of which,” wrote Major Glegg, “I enclose a plan; but no pen can describe the real scenes of that mournful day.  A more solemn and affecting spectacle was perhaps never witnessed.  As every arrangement connected with that afflicting ceremony fell to my lot, a second attack being hourly expected, and the minds of all being fully occupied with the duties of their respective stations, I anxiously endeavoured to perform this last tribute of affection in a manner corresponding with the elevated virtues of my departed patron.  Conceiving that an interment in every respect military would be the most appropriate to the character of our dear friend, I made choice of a cavalier bastion in Fort George, which his aspiring genius had lately suggested, and which had been just finished under his daily superintendence.”