Mr. Charles Lindsey, the author of
The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie,
which is republished in this volume in a considerably condensed
form, with some additional matter supplied by the editor, died in
Toronto, April 12th, 1908, at an advanced age. Sketches of his
career as a veteran journalist and publicist, which appeared in the
Toronto newspapers, contain references to this biography which bear
out his own modest statement of the impartiality of the narrative.
"The task of doing justice to the leader of a defeated movement,
while the ashes of the conflagration were still hot, was not," said
the Globe,
"an easy one for a biographer who had no
personal sympathy with the resort to physical force, but Mr. Lindsey
accomplished it with such consummate skill that
The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie
is still one of the most readable of Canadian biographies, and one
of the most instructive of Canadian historical monographs." The
Mail and
Empire spoke of the book as
"authoritative," and as "dealing with the origin of issues that
continued to vex politics and journalism long after the Family
Compact was disposed of." The
World said, "The work is an exceedingly
interesting and valuable contribution to the history of Canada,
covering as it does a period of critical transition in our national
life. The author and the subject of his biography differed widely in
their political views, but their personal and private relations were
necessarily intimate. The biographer has truly said that Mackenzie
'never concealed his hand' from him. One of the highest compliments
paid the work was by an eminent critic and historical authority, who
praised its impartiality, and said that it was impossible from its
perusal to detect the politics of its author." Sir Francis Hincks,
in his
Reminiscences of his Public Life, said he
had "no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the account, given
in Lindsey's
Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie,
of the circumstances preceding the actual outbreak, and he adopted
the account as strictly reliable. The Mackenzie
Life still holds its place as an
authoritative narrative of the events which it describes; it has
never been supplanted by any other narrative historical or
otherwise." The
News spoke of the book as having "reserve
and balance and absolutely nothing of the angry controversial
temper. It is history written, perhaps, too close to the events with
which it deals, and therefore all the more remarkable for its
revelation of the true historical spirit."
The additional matter, supplied in the present
volume, consists of a review, historical and political, of what may
be called the Mackenzie period, and of Mackenzie's place in Canadian
history as a constitutional Reformer and public man. Some prominence
is given in this connection to the commentaries of Lord Durham in
his splendid Report on the affairs of Canada, and to the testimony
of public opinion since the publication of the Lindsey biography.
These constitute, to say the least, an important contribution to the
later literature on the subject. The work has been done by Mr. G. G.
S. Lindsey, K.C., with care and judgment, and with the advantage of
access to a large body of original material. Mr. Lindsey is a son of
the author, and a grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie.
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