As To The
Literary Merit Of The Novel, This Much We Will Venture To Assert, That
Setting Aside The Charm Of Association, We Doubt That Emily
Montague If Republished At Present, Would Make The Fortune Of Her
Publisher.
Novel writing, like other things, has considerably changed
since 1766, and however much the florid Richardson style may have
Pleased the great grandfathers of the present generation, it would
scarcely chime in with the taste of readers in our sensational times.
In Mrs. Brooke's day Quebecers appear to have amused themselves pretty
much as they do now, a century later. In the summer, riding, driving
boating, pic-nics at Lake St. Charles, the Falls of Montmorenci, &c.
In winter tandems, sleigh drives, toboganing at the ice cone, tomycod
fishing on the St. Charles, Chateau balls; the formation of a
pont or ice-bridge and its breaking up in the spring - two events of
paramount importance. The military, later on, the promoters of
conviviality, sport and social amusements; in return obtaining the
entree to the houses of the chief citizens; toying with every
English rosebud or Gallic-lily, which might strew their path in spite
of paternal and maternal admonitions from the other side of the
Atlantic; occasionally leading to the hymeneal altar a Canadian bride,
and next introducing her to their horror-stricken London relatives,
astounded to find out that our Canadian belles, were neither the
colour of copper, nor of ebony; in education and accomplishments,
their equals - sometimes their superiors when class is compared to
class. Would you like a few extracts from this curious old Sillery
novel? Bella Fermor, one of Emily Montague's familiars, and a most
ingrained coquette, thus writes from Sillery in favour of a
military protege on the 16th September, 1766, to the "divine" Emily,
who had just been packed oft to Montreal to recover from a love fit.
"Sir George is handsome as an Adonis ... you allow him to be of an
amiable character; he is rich, young, well-born, and he loves you..."
All in vain thus to plead Sir. George's cause, a dashing Col. Rivers
(meant, we were told, by the Hon. W. Sheppard, to personify Col. Henry
Caldwell, of Belmont) had won the heart of Emily, who preferred true
love to a coronet. Let us treasure up a few more sentences fallen from
Emily's light-hearted confidante. A postscript to a letter runs thus -
"Adieu, Emily, I am going to ramble in the woods and pick berries with
a little smiling civil captain [we can just fancy we see some of our
fair acquaintances' mouths water at such a prospect], who is enamoured
of me. A pretty rural amusement for lovers." Decidedly; all this in
the romantic woodlands of Sillery, a sad place it must be confessed,
when even boarding school misses, were they to ramble thus, could
scarcely escape contracting the scarlet fever. Here goes another
extract: -
(BELLA FERMOR TO MISS RIVERS. LONDON)
"Sillery, Sept. 20th, (1766) - 10 o'clock.
"Ah! we are vastly to be pitied; no beaux at all at the general's,
only about six to one; a pretty proportion, and what I hope always to
see.
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