I lived from 1789-1863.
I was from Canada, and am in the English category.
George Jehoshaphat Mountain, [born at Thwaite Hall, Norfolk, England, 27 July, 1789 - died at Bardfield, Quebec, on 6 Jan. 1863], was the Anglican Lord Bishop of Montreal, Canada. He was the first principal of McGill University (1824-1835) and the founder of the Bishops University in Quebec. He is remembered not only as a preacher, but also as a poet. He only published one book of poetry, which is of historical interest,-- 'Songs of the Wilderness: Being a Collection of Poems, Written in Some Different Parts of the Territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, and in the Wilds of Canada, On the Route to That Territory, in the Spring and Summer of 1844.'
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From the Preface, "The objects of the visit to Prince Rupert's Land, which furnished occasion to these poems, with some particulars of the journey, and some descriptive sketches, as well as some details of information respecting the country, the moral and religious condition of its inhabitants, and the Missions of the Church established for their benefit, appear in three letters from the Author to the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, recently published by that body under the title of a Journal [Journal of the Bishop of Montreal, during a visit to the Church Missionary Society's North-west America Mission. Hatchard, London], of which they form a kind of abstract. If the poems should in any quarter excite sufficient interest to prompt a desire for information which can throw fuller light upon the various scenes and incidents to which they refer, those letters will precisely form the proper accompaniment to the present publication. ...........
I have seen it interspersed in some collection of poetry for the use of schools, as a detraction from the merit of Sir Walter Scott's poetry, that he probably never wrote a line (I do not remember the words, but they were to the effect here stated) which was not upon the first inspection fully intelligible. If it be a recommendation of poetry to flatter the reader by demands upon his sagacity, and his powers of thought to penetrate the lurking enigmas of the writer, I believe that he may lay this book down; for not only can I promise him no such entertainment, but in some few instances where I have thought a verse or two to be obscure, I have, for that very reason, altered them, and made them simple and perspicuous. ..............
The history of the present volume is this. I entered the Hudson's Bay territory without one thought of writing verses. But in travelling, weeks after weeks, in a canoe through the wilderness, it is not easy to fill up the whole summer's day by reading, conversation, roughly noting the incidents of the way, or simply gazing about upon the scenery through which you pass: and the perfect wilderness of your life for the time, together with the character of the objects which surround you, cannot do otherwise tha suggest many contemplations of a poetic cast. While, then, I was thus musing, the fire kindled, and at the last I spake with my tongue in the accents which follow. With the exception of five stanzas in the Lost Child, and some verbal alterations here and there, much too few and too slight to be worth mentioning, the poems were all composed upon the journey; now lounging in the canoe; now lying awake, for some short portion of the night, under my tent; now sitting upon a stone or a fallen tree, while the people were carrying their loads across a portage; and first drawing, perhaps, my veil round my neck, to protect my face and ears from the mosquitoes,-- in such a situation specially apt to be annoying."
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