GEORGE FREDERICK CAMERON, the
author of the following poems, the eldest son
of James Grant Cameron, and Jessie Sutherland,
was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, September
24th, 1854. He received his preliminary education
at the High School of his native town, and had
read the greater part of Virgil and Cicero in
the original before his fourteenth year. Even
at this age he employed the most of his spare
time in poetry. Removing with his family to Boston
in the spring of 1869, he entered the Boston University
of Law, in 1872. After graduation, he entered
the law office of Dean, Butler and Abbot in the
same city. From this period until 1882 his attention
was mainly devoted to literature and he was a
frequent contributor to the Commercial Bulletin,
Traveller, Courier and Transcript
of the new Athens of America. In 1882 he entered
Queen’s University and was the prize poet
in 1883.
In March of the same year he
became Editor of the Kingston News, which
position he held until a few weeks before his
death. The latter event took place during a visit
to the country, where, on the 17th of September,
he expired of heart disease after a few hours
sickness. [Page xix] For the
last two years of his life he had been greatly
troubled with insomnia, getting not more than
from two to three hours sleep per night.
He married Ella, the eldest
daughter of Billings Amey, Esq., of Millhaven,
on the twenty-second of August, 1883. His wife
and an infant daughter survive him.
That the author did not bubble
over in his verse with loyalty to the throne and
all it represents was perhaps his infirmity. I
tried to persuade him of the advantages such a
course would offer to a poor poet like himself,
but, I regret to say, to no purpose. Whether the
reason of failure lay in the weakness of the cause
or in his want of faith in my sincerity is a moot
question with me to this day. [Page xx]
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