While The Charivari is capable of standing alone as a work of poetry of its own period, much of its value for out time, as it was perhaps for the original readers, is in its picture of Montreal life, circa 1824. The Canadian-born author, returning briefly to his native land after military service in England and Europe, looked with worldly-wise eyes on the country and its inhabitants. His description, at once that of an insider and a visiting observer, is both an urbane comment on colonial life and a carefully detailed painting that captures for posterity the essence of a particular time and place.