He said that “he had once been a great infidel and an evil liver, but now he was converted, and was as good as he formerly had been wicked; and be hoped that all his hearers would take example from him and do as he had done—­forsake the crooked paths and steadfastly follow the straight.”  After this autobiographical discourse was at length over, and a brother snip invited him to dinner, I was also honoured with an invitation, which my curiosity induced me to accept.

I found that the party consisted of a magistrate and his wife, from
E-----, the mad Doctor, and Mr. Y-----, one of the Company’s clerks. 
Our host-tailor, No. 1, took the head of the table; the preacher,
tailor No. 2, sat at the foot.  The dinner itself was quite a
professional spread, and consisted of a fine fat roast goose at the top,
and another at the bottom—­a large dish of cabbage in the centre, and a
plate of hard dumplings on each side.  Mr. Y-----, who sat opposite,
gave me such a comical look when the second goose made its appearance,
that I found it impossible to suppress my risibility, which,
unfortunately for me, exploded just as the preacher—­who, of course,
mentally consigned me to perdition—­commenced a long grace; but if the
Governor-General himself had been present, I do not think I could have
restrained my inclination to laugh.

The dinner was certainly excellent of its kind; and in a new settlement where nothing but salt pork and beef could be obtained, I might with truth say, that it was a great treat.  After the cloth was removed, it was proposed by the magistrate’s lady, that the company should sing a hymn, upon which the mad Doctor, who was considered the most pious, as well as the most scientific, singer of the company, sang like an owlingale, Pope’s celebrated lines:—­

  “Vital spark of heavenly flame,
   Quit, O quit; this mortal frame.

I am ashamed to say that I was obliged to stuff my handkerchief into my mouth to keep from laughing outright; and no wonder, for I never heard such an insane screeching in all my life.

In the course of the summer, Mr. Buchanan, the British Consul, visited Guelph, when the superintendent gave a public dinner at the Priory, to which I had the honour of an invitation.  Amongst other guests was John Brandt, the chief of the Mohawks, and son of the celebrated chief whom Campbell the poet, in his “Gertrude of Wyoming,” has stigmatized as—­

  “The monster, Brandt,
   With all his howling, desolating band.”

And again—­

  “Accursed Brandt! he left of all my tribe,
   Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth.”

It is said that John Brandt was very angry when these lines were pointed out to him.* [* Campbell subsequently made an apology to him.]

On his health being drunk, he acknowledged the courtesy in a short but eloquent speech.  He was not handsome, though rather a fine-looking man.  I believe he died of cholera in 1832.