Introduction

Introduction That a volume of the poetry of Alexander McLachlan should be given a foremost place in the Literature of Canada: Poetry and Prose in Reprint series cannot be questioned. Douglas Lochhead in his introduction to one of the volumes of this series - Dewart's anthology, Selections from Canadian Poets - has focussed atten- tion on the argument of Edward Hartley Dewart that 'a national literature is an essential element in the formation of national character.' If the statement was important in 1864 when the Canadian nation struggling to be born was composed of largely homogeneous ethnic groups, it is of even greater significance today, when so many of the Dominion's population are recent immigrants from many nations, who have only a very limited notion of what the Canadian 'national character' is, or of the identity they are seeking when they take out Canadian citizen- ship. Even many Canadians of the second or third generation have an equally vague notion of what Canada is all about. While background studies in history, politics, and sociology make a good attempt to overcome deficient knowledge of the past, these alone are not enough. They need to be supplemented with studies in the early literature of Canada; and foremost in any literature stands the work of the poets. Dewart ranks Alexander McLachlan as a major early Canadian poet second only in importance to Charles Sangster. While much of his poetry may appear imitative and of a highly derivative nature, seen in its proper historic perspective it is more than just a pale reflection of the intellectual ideas permeating the thought of nineteenth-century British writers. Much of it is distinctly Canadian, and no more graphic picture of the pioneer experience can be found than in McLachlan's poetry. One could argue that there is no shortage of accounts of pioneer life in Canada. An abundance of letters, journals, and diaries of many early writers, such as Susanna Moodie and Anna Jameson, have authenticated and illuminated the struggles of the first settlers in the great forest-covered wilderness of Ontario. The poet, however, does more than record the hardships of the pioneer; he objectifies the struggle and invests it with a dimension beyond mere factual accounts. Despite the many imperfections in the verse of McLachlan, the reader finds this ontological factor. The spontaneity and sincerity with which he depicts the heroic struggles of the settlers in the new land cannot but stir a response even from the sophisticated modern reader. Poetry should ennoble the reader. Dewart in his time chal- lenged poets to aim for the very loftiest goal: Poetry fires the soul with noble and holy purpose. It expands and quickens. It refines the taste. It opens to us the treasures of the universe, and brings us into closer sympathy with all that is beautiful, and grand, and true. It sheds a new charm around common objects; because it unveils their spiritual rela- tions, and higher and deeper typical meanings. And it educates the mind to a quicker perception of the harmony, grandeur, and truth disclosed in the works of the Creator. 1 McLachlan took Dewart's challenge very seriously. His motiva- tions for writing poetry were of the highest and yet the humblest. In line with the thinking of his times, he sought to do what Dewart required of the poet: he strove to ennoble and elevate the minds of that uneducated class of struggling men - the class to Vlll which he himself belonged - the mechanics, weavers, farmers, and labourers, who, seeing no hope of ever getting out from under the 'tyrant's yoke' in Scotland, left their beloved land of 'green glens' and 'Highlan' hills' to try, at least, to hew out in the Canadian wilds a better society for man. Such a high purpose is not likely to be achieved with every poem a poet writes. Certainly McLachlan in a good many of his songs and ballads fails to inspire the reader. No great degree of critical acumen is required to disparage much of the poetry of McLachlan, which is marked by obvious imperfections of style. His predilection for end rhymes - many of them forced - becomes tedious and leaves him open to the charge of writing doggerel. His failure to vary from the iambic foot creates a further sense of monotony. Almost the only modification he practises is alternation between tetrameter and trimeter lines - a standard device he no doubt learned from the old hymn tunes and the Scottish psalter. The poet's innate sense of metaphor, however, does tend to compensate for the weaknesses of prosody. The simple lyric 'Curling Song' is much more than a jingle about the joys experienced in the 'roaring rink,' whether in Scot- land or in Canada. McLachlan was firm in his belief that man could move forward from a state of slaves and masters to form a new democratic brotherhood; and when he states that ...on the rink distinctions sink, An' caste aside is laid; Whate'er ye be, the stane and tee Will test what stuff ye're made, he has expressed a noble ideal through metaphor, in a manner which compares not unfavourably with that of Burns. Indeed it IX was commonplace amongst the contemporaries of McLachlan to refer to him as the 'Burns of Canada.' Such praise the academicians of today would find extravagant. Obviously McLachlan lacked both the poetic talent and the vision of a Burns. Nothing of the 'Seer' or 'Prophet' characterizes him. He was neither a profound nor an original thinker and many of his poems seem but poor imitations of the poetry of the great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British poets. In many lyrics, such as 'Man,' 'Who Knows,' 'God,' 'Infinite,' 'Awful Spirit,' 'Mystery,' and 'Stars,' McLachlan poses the great questions of ultimate meaning in life, and struggles with the concepts of deism and pantheism. Pope, Wordsworth, and Shelley had already dealt with these concepts, and so much more effectively that one might well ask, 'Why reprint or even bother to read McLachlan?' The answer to this question can be found in Edward Hartley Dewart's introduction to this volume. When in 1900 Dewart and his fellow editors published this original edition of McLachlan's selected works they recognized what Emerson and Whitman had been writing about fifty to seventy years earlier in the United States: that if a nation is to survive politically and culturally it must be supported by a national literature. McLachlan 's poetry begins such a national literature and whatever ineffectualities of style or content we find in his poetry, no one can deny that in many poems he does achieve that ontological sense - that extra dimension - which lifts the poem above mere sentimentality or banality. Further, throughout his poetry there is evidence of his possessing, as the Guelph Evening Mercury of 21 March 1896 stated in its obituary notice, 'a true streak of the poetic fire about him.' Alexander McLachlan is completely representative of the waves of Scottish emigrants who, from the 1830s on, opened up X and settled many of the western counties of Upper Canada - Canada West, as it was called from 1840 to 1867. These were the settlers who bent their political efforts towards creating a just and free democratic society, and who worked for the creation of a new nation - the Dominion of Canada. Tempting though it is to detail the poet's background and life, no need exists, for the biographical sketch included by the original editors of this volume in 1900 remains the best single source of information. The Reform Bill of 1832 was a political triumph, but it did not end the economic disasters which were plaguing Britain. The working classes still had no alternative but to starve to death under miserable conditions in factory, mine, or farm, or to leave the country. Many chose to leave. McLachlan 's father emigrated from Scotland to Canada in the 1830s and cleared a homestead in Peel County, but he died before he was able to bring his family to join him. Alexander, his only son, came in 1840, at the age of twenty-two, to claim his father's farm. Having received in Scot- land only a limited formal education, he had worked as a weaver and been trained in tailoring. He knew first-hand the lack of opportunity in the old country and he could sing wholeheartedly with the other emigrants on board ship, 'Old England is Eaten with Knaves.' Yet in spite of the limited opportunities for ad- vancement in his homeland his poetry records no bitterness, and poems such as 'Britannia' and 'The Anglo-Saxon' express only intense loyalty, and the hope that the wrongs will eventually be righted. Ironically, conditions in Canada at that time were not such as to inspire fresh loyalty or optimism for the new land. Neverthe- less, in 'The Genius of Canada,' 'The Men of the New Dominion,' 'Young Canada; or Jack's as Good's His Master,' and 'Hurrah for the New Dominion,' he makes clear his belief in and hope for his XI new country. He successfully works out a dual sense of loyalty and patriotism to the old and new lands. As the crown stood for nothing less than the decent and respectable public ideals of a democratic society, divided allegiance was not a problem in Cana- da in either the colonial or the early confederation periods. While singing the praises of a strong and independent Canadian nation, McLachlan would have that nation remain loyal to the British crown. 'Song' - a poem written especially for the Scottish Gathering in the Crystal Palace grounds, Toronto, 14 September 1859, but published also in The Emigrant and Other Poems - praises the simple, honest man of Scotland, 'A Highland Host in Canada' who must be ready at any time to rush to the support of 'brither Scots owre a' the earth,' and who must ever be 'faithfu' still to kirk and Queen.' This type of set piece indicates that McLachlan eventually came to see himself as a kind of poet laure- ate for Canada.

Load more