should have shown such weakness--or, shall we say, Christian
forbearance--in accepting, not long afterwards, a judgeship from the
same Government which he had always so violently opposed, and from which
he had suffered so much.

Whilst the _Canadien_, _Gazette_, and _Mercury_ were, in Lower Canada,
ably advocating their respective views on the questions of the day, the
Press of Upper Canada was also exhibiting evidences of new vigour. The
_Observer_ was established at York, in 1820, and the _Canadian freeman_
in 1825, the latter, an Opposition paper, well printed, and edited by
Francis Collins who had also suffered at the hands of the ruling powers.
An anecdote is related of the commencement of the journalistic career of
this newspaper man of old times, which is somewhat characteristic of the
feelings which animated the ruling powers of the day with respect to the
mass of people who were not within the sacred pale. When Dr. Home gave
up the publication of the _Gazette_, in whose office Collins had been
for some time a compositor, the latter applied for the position, and was
informed that 'the office would be given to none but a _gentleman_.'

This little incident recalls the quiet satire which Goldsmith levels in
'The Good-natured Man,' against just such absurd sensitiveness as
Collins had to submit to:--

FIRST FELLOW--The Squire has got spunk in him.

SECOND FELLOW--I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us
nothing that's low.

THIRD FELLOW--O, damn anything that's low; I cannot bear it.