ABBOTT, Rev. JOSEPH, M. A. A Can. missionary. B. in Cumberland, Eng., 1789. D. at Montreal, Jany., 1863. Ed. partly at Bampton Sch. and completed at Marischal Coll., Aberdeen. Soon after graduating he was ordained as a Min. of the Ch. of Eng. and appointed to a curacy in a large and populous parish near Norwich, the entire duties of which fell upon him for some time in consequence of the suspension of the Rector. But he had heard and read of Am., and the ideas he had been led to form of that distant country resulted in a longing for the more extended sphere of action which he hoped to find there. In 1818 he was afforded an opportunity of gratifying his wishes by the offer by the S. P. G. F. P. of an appointment as missionary to St. Andrews, L. C., which he accepted. In the same year he arrived at the scene of his future labours. He remained in that district, first at St. Andrews and secondly at Grenville, with the exception of a short time in which he was engaged in the same high and holy office in Yamaska having effected a transfer with his brother at Abbotsford, L. C., until 1847, in which year he was allowed to retire upon a pension. Of his arduous but successful labours as a missionary too much could not be said in his favour. Let

it suffice for us to state that he surmounted and overcame all the many and great difficulties which the pioneer of the Gospel invariably encounters; and that to his energetic efforts is largely due, not only the moral elevation and improvement of the people but the material advancement of the interesting portion of the Ottawa district in which he lived and wrought.

During his long residence in Can.,

A.

Mr. A. always found a certain portion. of time to devote to any subject apart from his profession, which could benefit his adopted country. In agriculture he took a warm interest-and his personal advocacy and that of his pen, were never wanting for any movement towards its improvement. A soc. having been founded at Quebec, in 1827, for the encouragement of arts and sciences in L. C., he contributed to it in 1828 an essay on Agriculture for which he was awarded the silver medal of the soc.;-and in his own parish he never ceased to inculcate among his neighbours, both by precept and example, the knowledge he had acquired in Eng. of the improvements in agriculture, and in the breeding of cattle, which were progressing there when he left.

But his most active exertions, in matters secular, were devoted to the subject of emigration. He never ceased to urge upon the country and the govt., the advantages of a rational and practical system for the encouragement of emigration; and the periodical literature of his day exhibits numerous contributions from his pen. It occurred to him also, that a plain unvarnished exposition of the actual life, trials, failures and successes of an emigrant to Can., would afford a fair, and as he believed, a not unfavorable view of emigration to this country. With this idea he prepared what he styled The Emigrant to North America, from Memoranda of a Settler in Canada, which embodied his conceptions of the kind of information that would be useful to the emigrant-and which was in fact a simple and unadorned description of the every day life, duties, and labors of the emigrant farmer. First published

in a series of papers in the Mercury (Que.) in 1842, The Emigrant met with a most flattering reception was republished in many leading. Can. papersin several Eng., journals, among which was the Emigration Gazette (Lon.)-and in pamphlet form in Eng. by the Agent for Emigration. The intention of the alior to publish it in Can. becoming known, he received orders in advance of its appearance, and in a few weeks, for more than a thousand copies, and a large edition was soon exhausted. In 1843, a second edition issued from the press of Mr. Lovell-and was rapidly disposed of.

Encouraged by the success of the Memoranda, which chiefly consisted of extracts from the record of his own experience in Can. Mr. A. decided to publish that record in a more extended form-and submitted it for that purpose to Mr. John Murray who at once accepted it and undertook its publication as one of his series, intitled

The Home and Colonial Library", under the title of Philip Musgrave, or the Adventures of a Missionary in Canada. The success of this little book, was complete, beyond the most sanguine expectations of both author and publisher. The leading literary authorities of the mother country spoke of it in the highest terms of praise.-Its truthfulness, which the simplicity of the narrative-and the minuteness of its graphic details, were alone suffi cient to establish-the perspicuity of its descriptions-and the spirit of rational and earnest devotion which pervaded it were themes of praise in many of those periodicals whose praise is fame. And the private testimony to its usefulness-and to the gratification which it afforded to thousands of enquirers was not less complete, nor less pleasing to its author.

A more extended work, the nature of which is not fully known, but upon which Mr. A. spent his leisure time for several years, was lost in manuscript, in the course of transmission to Messrs. Blackwood & Son for publication. In addition to these more arduous labors, he was a frequent contributor to the lighter periodical literature of this country, of tales in which his imagination loved to revert

to the wild scenes and legends of his native North.

ABBOTT, Hon J. J. C., B. C. L., Q. C. A Can. lawyer and legislator. Eldest son of the preceding. B. at St. Andrews, L. C., 12 March, 1821. Called to the Bar, L. C., 1847. Is Dean of the Faculty of Law Univ. McGill Coll. Has sat in the Leg. Assem. Can. since 1857. Was Solicitor Genl., L. C., from May 1862 to May 1863. Originated and carried through the legislature the Insol vent Act of 1864.

I. The Insolvent Act of 1864, with notes, together with the rules of practice and the tariff of fees for Lower Canada. Quebec, 1864.

"The reputation of the author, both in the Legislature and at the Bar in Lower Canada, is of itself sufficient to secure for his book a passport wherever his name is known."-U. C. Law Journ.

ABRAHAM, ROBERT, a Can. journ. Was a native of Cumberland, Eng. D. at Montreal 10 Nov. 1854. He was ed. for the medical profession, graduating in the Univ. of Edinburgh, but his literary tastes soon induced him to devote his talents to journalism. During many years he served on the provincial press of Eng., first in his native county, and afterwards as Ed. of a leading Liverpool journal. About 1843, he came to Can., where he became the prop. and ed. of the Gazette (Mont.) His connection with that journal continued until Dec. 1848, when he disposed of the paper to Mr. Ferres, and retired from its management. The principles which guided his conduct of the Gazette may be gathered from the following extract from his valedictory upon retiring from that journal:

"Six years! It is a large gap in the life of man. But still it is not unworthily filled, if all those multitudinous beatings of the heart, and contractions of the voluntary muscles, and impulses of the brain, which go to the composition of an intellectual being, are compatible with the moral principle. That we may have been misled by passion; or by personal hostilities (and of these we believe no man has fewer) ;-or by excessive zeal for our friends or for our party,—we freely admit; and we would be more than man, or less, were we not incident to such weaknesses. But this we can say, that, amid all the exciting topics of exciting time, never did we impugn any man's private character,