pened that the printer was smitten with the same ambition, and not liking the tunes, he substituted two of his own, which were printed in the work. "At the time," says Galt, "I was staying with a friend, and a copy of the book was left for me in the morning. On going down stairs I found it in the library, where we usually breakfasted; and as pleased at the sight as a hen with her egg, of which she cannot keckle enough to the world about, I lifted the volumes, and turned to the tunes. Courteous reader, sympathize! Instead of my fine airs, with an original inflection, that had been much admired by a competent judge, I beheld two that surely had been purchased at the easy charge of a half-penny a-piece from a street piper! I looked aghast, and almost fainted. There was a grand piano in the drawing room. I rushed, book in hand, upstairs in a whirlwind. It was of no use—the piano too was a particeps criminis, and would only pronounce the Highland coronachs which stand in the publication even to this day; and the worst of it was, my friend, instead of taking out his handkerchief and condoling becomingly, only gave vent to 'unextinguishable laughter,' and paid no attention to my pathetic appeals at the figure I must cut, being really no deacon among musicians, at the thought of having two such horrid frights affiliated to me."
A change once more occurred in the life of Galt, in which the active laborious author was to be transformed into the equally active and enterprising man of business. Besides being reckoned only inferior to Sir Walter Scott as a delineator of Scottish character and manners, his reputation stood high as one well acquainted with the principles and practice of commerce; and on this account the inhabitants of Canada commissioned him as their agent to prosecute their claims on the home government for the losses they had sustained during the occupation of the province by the army of the United States. During the negotiations which occurred in consequence, a proposal to sell Crown lands in Upper Canada for the indemnification of the sufferers was made by Mr. Galt, and adopted by government, and a Canada Company was incorporated in 1826, to purchase land and colonize it. During the previous year he had been employed in valuing the lands that were to be exposed to sale, after which he had returned to England; but in the autumn of 1826 he went back to Canada, where he was employed by the company as their superintendent. His able and active management soon secured the confidence of his constituents; new settlements were founded, a village was called by his name, and the township of Guelph was his entire creation. But unfortunately Galt's activity was not balanced by an equal amount of prudence, and in the ardour of his proceedings he managed to involve himself in quarrels with the colonial government, and with Sir Peregrine Maitland, who was at its head. Such is too often the folly and the fate of those who go forth as the reformers of our colonies; they enter their new sphere of action with their heads filled with Magna Charta and the rights of British citizenship, forgetful all the while of the distance of these colonies from the parent seat of government, and the necessity of a more stringent rule than would be tolerated in London or Edinburgh. This seems to have been the error of Galt; and in consequence of the complaints that were sent home against him, he was superseded by the directors of the company. But, whether in the bustle of action or the chagrin of disappointment, his pen could not lie idle; and during this period he produced the "Omen," a tale that was favourably reviewed in Blackwood's Magazine by Sir Walter Scott, and the "Last of the Lairds," a novel which he meant to be the continuation of a
