" In
visiting any of the noteworthy resting-places of the illustrious dead,
either in the old world or the new, we are not seldom astonished upon
reading the sculptured testimony of the survivors, to find that "'tis still
the best that leave us." One may well wonder, with the Arch-Cynic, where
the bones of all the _sinners_ are deposited. In the case of Governor
Simcoe, however, there is much to be said in the way of just commendation,
and the inscription is not so nauseously fulsome us to excite disgust.
Toronto's citizens, especially, should take pleasure in doing honour to
his memory. But for him, the capital of the Province would not have been
established here, and the site of the city might long have remained the
primitive swamp which it was when his eyes first beheld it on the morning
of the 4th of May, 1793.
His life, from the cradle to the grave, was one of almost uninterrupted
activity. He was born at Cotterstock, Northamptonshire. sometime in the
year 1752, and was a soldier by right of inheritance. His father, Captain
John Simcoe, after a life spent in his country's service, died in the St.
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