The Poetical Works | Page 2

Mullins was one of his leading contributors. She continued to write for
that
excellent magazine until lack of financial success compelled its
enterprising proprietor to suspend its publication. It was some time
before another such opportunity was given to the Canadian votaries of
the muses of reaching the cultivated public. In the meanwhile, however,
the subject of our sketch--who had, in 1851, become the wife of Dr. J.
L. Leprohon, a member of one of the most distinguished Canadian
families--was far from being idle. Some of her productions she sent to
the Boston Pilot, the faithful representative in the United States of the
land and the creed to which Mrs. Leprohon was proud to belong. She
was also a frequent and welcome contributor to several of the Montreal

journals. It is a pleasing evidence of her gentle thoughtfulness for a
class which many persons in her position regard with indifference that
she wrote, year after year, the "News-boy's Address" for the _True
Witness_, the Daily News and other newspapers. One of her most
pathetic poems, "The Death of the Pauper Child" may also be
mentioned as a striking instance of that sweet charity which
comprehended in its sisterly range the poor, the desolate and the
suffering. The Journal of Education, edited by the Hon. P. J. O.
Chauveau, himself an honor to Canadian Literature; the _Canadian
Illustrated News_, edited by Mr. John Lesperance, distinguished both
as a poet and a novelist; the Saturday Reader, the
Hearthstone, and
other periodicals, both in Canada and
elsewhere, were always glad to
number Mrs. Leprohon's productions among their most attractive
features. She had always a ready pen, the result of a full heart and
far-reaching sympathies, and, therefore, was frequently asked to write
on subjects of current interest. Among her "occasional" poems; several
of which are in this volume, may be mentioned the touching stanzas on
the
"Monument to the Irish Emigrants," those on the "Old Towers" at
the "Priest's Farm," those on the renewal of her vows by the Lady
Abbess of the Congregation of Notre Dame, the poem on the

"Recollect Church," and the address "To the Soldiers of Pius The
Ninth." One of her most important efforts of this kind was her
translation of the Cantata composed by M. Sempé on the occasion of
the visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada in 1860.
We have attempted such a classification of the poems as we thought
would best show the range of Mrs. Leprohon's powers. Under every
one of the headings which we have adopted the reader will find
something to profit and delight. The lover of nature will find himself
carried in fancy to the fairest or grandest of Canadian scenes; he who
loves to indulge in reveries of the past can with her stand with Jacques
Cartier on Mount Royal three centuries ago and survey the mighty
expanse of forest, destined one day to be the home of a thriving people;
those whose pleasure it is to read of heroic deeds will hear her sing of
ennobling courage and fortitude that blenched not at death. But by
many, we think, Mrs. Leprohon will be most cherished as she tells in
sweet and simple rhyme of the tenderness of a mother's love, of a wife's

devotion, a husband's loyal trust, of the pious offices of the domestic
altar, of the parting by the death-bed that is not without hope, of the
loved and lost that yet are "not lost but only gone
before." To
illustrate these varied characteristics by quotation would demand far
more, than our allotted space. We can, therefore, only refer the reader
to the book itself, confident that in its pages he will find all that we
have indicated and much more.
Just a word as to Mrs. Leprohon's prose writings. Though in this sketch
we have dwelt upon her work as a poet, it is as a writer of fiction that
she has won her most marked popular successes, that she has reached
the hearts of the two great communities of which this province is
composed. For no less than four of her most elaborate tales have been
translated into French; these are, _Ida Beresford_, the _Manor House of
Villerati, Antoinette de
Mirecourt,_ and Armand Durand. Besides
these, she has written Florence FitzHarding, Eva Huntingdon,
Clarence FitzClarence and Eveleen O'Donnell_. In the _Manor House
of Villerai she has described with a skilful pen the manners and
customs of the forefathers of the French Canadian people, such as they
were at the period of the great contest which changed the destinies of
Canada. In Armand Durand we have a courageous struggle with
adverse fortune, which is at last crowned with success. The sad
consequences of secret marriage, unblessed by parental consent, are
unfolded in Antoinette de Mirecourt, one of the finest of Mrs.
Leprohon's novels,