Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville. a book which, written apparently to prick the Nova Scotians into more enterprise, was for a long while the chief representative of Yankee smartness. Judge Haliburton's history was published in 1829. A later history, which takes advantage more freely of historical documents, is A History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, by Beamish Murdock, Esq., Q. C., Halifax, 1866. Still more recent is a smaller, well written work, entitled The History of Acadia from its First Discovery to its Surrender to England by the Treaty of Paris, by James Hannay, St. John, N. B., 1879. W. J. Anderson published a paper in the transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, New Series, part 7, 1870, entitled Evangeline and the Archives of Nova Scotia, in which he examines the poem by the light of the volume of Nova Scotia Archives, edited by T. B. Akins. The sketches of travellers in Nova Scotia, as Acadia, or a Month among the Blue Noses, by F. S. Cozzens, and Baddeck, by C. D. Warner, give the present appearance of the country and inhabitants. The measure of Evangeline is what is commonly known as English dactylic hexameter. The hexameter is the measure used by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by Virgil in the Eneid, but the difference between the English language and the Latin or Greek is so great, especially when we consider that in English poetry every word must be accented according to its customary pronunciation, while in scanning Greek and Latin verse accent follows the quantity of the vowels, that in applying this term of hexameter to Evangeline it must not be supposed by the reader that he is getting the effect of Greek hexameters. It is the Greek hexameter translated into English use, and some have maintained that the verse of the Iliad is better represented in the English by the trochaic measure of fifteen syllables, of which an excellent illustration is in Tennyson's Locksley Hall; others have compared the Greek hexameter to the ballad metre of fourteen syllables, used notably by Chapman in his translation of Homer's Iliad. The measure adopted by Mr. Longfellow has never become very popular in English poetry, but has repeatedly been attempted by other poets. The reader will find the subject of hexameters discussed by Matthew Arnold in his lectures On Translating Homer; by James Spedding in English Hexameters, in his recent volume, Reviews and Discussions, Literary, Political and Historical, not relating to Bacon; and by John Stuart Blackie in Remarks on English Hexameters, contained in his volume, Hora Hellenica. The measure lends itself easily to the lingering melancholy which marks the greater part of the poem, and the poet's fine sense of harmony between subject and form is rarely better shown than in this poem. The fall of the verse at the end of the line and the sharp recovery at the beginning of the next will be snares to the reader, who must beware of a jerking style of delivery. The voice naturally seeks a rest in the middle of the line, and this rest, or casural pause, should be carefully regarded; a little practice will enable one to acquire that habit of reading the hexameter, which we may liken, roughly, to the climbing of a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and then descending the other side. The charm in reading Evangeline aloud, after a clear understanding of the sense, which is the essential in all good reading, is found in this gentle labor of the former half of the line, and gentle acceleration of the latter half.] THIS is the forest primeval. pines and the hemlocks, The murmuring Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. 1. A primeval forest is, strictly speaking, one which has never been disturbed by the axe. 3. Druids were priests of the Celtic inhabitants of ancient Gaul and Britain. The name was probably of Celtic origin, but its form may have been determined by the Greek word drus, an oak, since their places of worship were consecrated groves of oak. Perhaps the choice of the image was governed by the analogy of a religion and tribe that were to disappear before a stronger power. 4. A poetical description of an ancient harper will be found ir the Introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Walter Scott. 5 Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the wood- Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of 10 Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven? Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed! Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean. 15 Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré. Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and en dures, and is patient, Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion, List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest; List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 3. Observe how the tragedy of the story is anticipated by this picture of the startled roe. 19. In the earliest records Acadie is called Cadie; it after PART THE FIRST. I. 20 IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand Pré Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward, Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number. Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant, wards was called Arcadia, Accadia or L'Acadie. The name it probably a French adaptation of a word common among the Micmac Indians living there, signifying place or region, and used as an aflix to other words as indicating the place where various things, as cranberries, eels, seals, were found in abundance. The French turned this Indian term into Cadie or Acadie; the English into Quoddy, in which form it remains when applied to the Quoddy Indians, to Quoddy Head, the last point of the United States next to Acadia, and in the compound Passamaquoddy, or Pollock-Ground. 21. Compare, for effect, the first line of Goldsmith's The Traveller. Grand-Pré will be found on the map as part of the township of Horton. 24. The people of Acadia are mainly the descendants of the colonists who were brought out to La Have and Port Royal by Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay between the years 1633 and 1638. These colonists came from Rochelle, Saintonge, and Poitou, so that they were drawn from a very limited area on the west coast of France, covered by the modern departments of Vendée and Charente Inférieure. This circumstance had some influence on their mode of setting the lands of Acadia, for they came from a country of marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial dikes, and they found in Acadia similar marshes, which they dealt with in the same way that they had been accustomed to practice in France. Hannay's History of Acadia, pp. 282 |