WINTER IN CANADA.

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temporarily silenced by being put into words, he gives a most lively description of the setting in of winter, which he had much desired to see before leaving Canada-a wish which was gratified by means of various unforeseen ministerial changes which delayed Lord Elgin's departure. Describing these changes, and lamenting the disappointment to his eagerly expectant parents in consequence, he adds:

“Meantime I am revelling in the first burst of winter and its attendant novelty.

I would

not have missed it for the world. My office window looks upon the Place d'Armes, a large square. On the one side is the platform overlooking the river, forming the promenade in summer; on the other the main street, Parliament House, &c., opposite gardens. The day is mild and calm, and the snow half a foot deep. Not a wheeled vehicle is to be seen. Cabstands all sleighs, no two alike in shape. Round the Place sleighs with tandems or pairs, full of ladies muffled up in furs, with buffalo-robes streaming behind, dash about rapidly over the crisp snow, making a merry accompaniment to its crunching with their bells, the occupants looking prettier than ever. Single men dashing about in swell turn-outs, from which I

must say Bury with his blood horses bears the palm. They go round and round, cut out and in, and then dash away through the Fort gates into the snow-clad country. With a pleasant companion nothing could be more exhilarating. Some of the faster young ladies are picked up by the most insinuating young men and driven tête-à-tête, so snug and confiding. I had a charming muffin yesterday. She is engaged to be

married, so don't be alarmed.

By changing every day you are quite safe. It does not do to be particular; besides, as you may suppose, the nicest won't go even with their most particular friends unless there is a picnic or a sleighing party, though why it is more correct or less dangerous then, I cannot exactly say.

"From the platform the scene is extraordinary; the river full of floes of floating ice, which collects in the bays, and surges up into fantastic masses. People cross in canoes, and when they get to a floe, the boatmen jump on it and haul the canoe over, the occupants remaining still. I watch them from the platform. The most exciting part of sleighing is turning corners. Unless you

know the dodge you are sure to upset, but it is only into the snow, and no harm is done. I have not been upset yet, and always go like the wind."

HIS EXCELLENCY.

66

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One of the most pleasant things in these letters is the character-always wholly admired, not always comprehended-the remarkable figure of the chief, his Excellency, who is sometimes called, in puzzled familiarity, "a queer fish," but whose boundless ability, his skill, his command of every resource, his plans never fully expounded, gradually dawning by degrees on the young disciple's brilliant intelligence, his sympathy yet authority, come out before us in a hundred minute touches under the hand of the writer, all unconscious that he is making any such portrait in the letter he dashes off to his mother punctual as the post, before he touches his official work. It is, of course, imperfect, and in a manner accidental; but it is admirably vivid and true. I am not aware if any memoir of the late Lord Elgin has been given to the public; but if not, the letters I have quoted would afford much admirable material to assist in such a memorial.

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CHAPTER V.

THE CRIMEA.

LAURENCE returned home early in 1855, to find his parents awaiting him in London. His own prospects, however, were so unsettled-the engagement with Lord Elgin terminating on the withdrawal of the latter from office, though to be renewed at a later period—that no definite home was established in London; and the family, thus reunited, would seem to have contented themselves in lodgings, now in one street, now in another, not a very comfortable mode of life. And it is apparent that the Chief - Justice of Ceylon, accustomed to so full an existence and to occupy a very important position in his own sphere, felt himself considerably out of his element in London, where at first he had not even the comfort of a club where he could meet his old friends, these institutions being less necessities of life in those days than they are now.

And not unnaturally Laurence, after his brief but brilliant experience of public life, found it difficult to content himself without occupation and with the doubtful prospects before him. His mind returned with a bound to its former aspirations in respect to the Crimea, and to the plan he had conceived of making a diversion in the Caucasus, and thus drawing away the attention of Russia to a country which it was of so much importance to her to overawe and secure. He had declined an offer made to him to remain in Canada as secretary to Sir Edmund Head, the successor of Lord Elgin, in the spirit of his own axiom that a man who means to climb a ladder does not establish himself on the lowest step. I am told that he also declined a small governorship in the West Indies, probably, if this is true, for the same reason; but to remain inactive, waiting upon fortune, was impossible to him. The plan which he had reluctantly resigned in order to accompany Lord Elgin now came back to his mind with double force; and he soon found an opportunity to explain and press his views. "I proposed," he says, "to Lord Clarendon that I should undertake a mission to Schamyl, for the purpose, possible, of concocting some scheme with that chieftain by which combined operations could be

if