Showing posts with label Wicksteed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wicksteed. Show all posts

06 September 2014

George-Étienne Cartier at 200



Such a young country. I'm still kind of a kid – really – and yet I remember Canada's centennial celebrations. So, it makes no sense – not really – that today, 6 September 1919, should mark the 200th birthday of George-Étienne Cartier. Yet it does.


A son of Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, one hundred years after his birth, one hundred years ago today, saw the dedication of the most glorious monument in the Dominion.


The program for the unveiling, a two-hour affair, includes Benjamin Sulte's "La Statue de Cartier" and "The Statue of Cartier" by Gustavus William Wicksteed, both dating back to the 1885 installation of the statue on Parliament Hill. I think William-Athanse Baker's tribute to Cartier would've been more appropriate.

from George-Étienne Cartier
Benjamin Sulte
Montreal: G. Ducharme, 1919
Two hours. Imagine. Charles Joseph Doherty, Robert Borden's Minister of Justice spoke. What can we expect today from Peter Mackay?


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19 May 2014

A Civil Servant's Awful Victoria Day Poem



To be honest, I really dislike this year's verse to Victoria, choosing it only as an excuse to post this wonderful photograph of the poet's wife done up as Britannia. The Grand Fancy Ball was the occasion, held 23 February 1876 at Rideau Hall by Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, 3rd Governor General of Canada.

Historians tell us that the evening it was a glorious success. The Library and Archives website informs that his lordship's was for two decades "the standard by which similar balls were measured."

I don't doubt it. Few balls near the size of Dufferin's.

(cliquez pour agrandir)
Careful study finds Britannia near the front of the crowd. I wonder, is that the poet standing next to her?


As is so often the case with fancy dress, the women steal the show. I find Miss M. Skead, seen above and below with Diana's bow, particularly attractive.


For obvious reasons, I have a bit of a thing for Miss Richards, en costume as "The Spirit of the Press".


But the woman who has my heart is Mme Margaret de Saint-Denis Le Moine as "The Dominion of Canada".


The 24 February 1876 Ottawa Free Press, reports that Mme St-Denis Le Moine wore "a while satin skirt, gold tunic, arms of the Dominion, embroidered on its tablier, surrounded with a wreath of maple leaves; flag of the Dominion, worn as a scarf, festooned on one shoulder, with a gold beaver; cornet of gold, small British flag in the hair, earrings and ornaments."

Be still my heart.

And so I arrive, at long last, at the poem. What I dislike most about this piece of untitled verse, found in The Canadian Birthday Book, is its very Britishness. Nothing Canadian about it. Gather round ye French and Irish, let us sing the praises of Victoria and the true hearts warmed by British blood. I make some allowances for the fact that our poet, Gustavus William Wicksteed (1799-1898), was born and bred a Liverpudlian. At the time of the Governor General's Grand Fancy Ball he was serving as a law clerk in the House of Commons.

Enjoy… or don't. At times I prefer photographs to words.

From The Canadian Birthday Book
Seranus [pseud. S. Frances Harrison]
Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1887

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