We are apt to consider the description needlessly detailed, even commonplace and prosy. Ignorant souls that we are! Unconsciously, insensibly, are we prepared with infinite skill for the coming catastrophe. There must be first a picture of the perfect peace of that home settlementquiet but humble-the nest as God made it, moss-fashioned, softly lined with the loves that are in it. We must first have visited and looked into it, then we shall feel the tragedy of the hour when this sanctuary was ravished and violated by ruthless hands. In the very commonplaceness of Evangeline's first prospects, well-to-do on her father's farm, no bar of poverty, no obstacle to her heart's affection, everything holding out the likelihood of a life monotonous, but perfectly level with her desires, there is a dreadful preparation planned by contrast for the extraordinary fate that awaited her. The tame and unattractive landscape, too, of Nova Scotia, so dear to her heart by the loves of Gabriel and her old father-how does it contrast with the gorgeous scenery through which she is afterwards led-the pomp and prodigality of nature which was to mock her heart! How well does the poet sustain the picture of perfect peace and love happiness that reigned at Grand Pré up to the very last moment before the thunder-storm burst upon it !-The Religion of Our Literature, by GEORGE MCCRIE.

THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF THE POEM.

IN 1755 Nova Scotia-or Acadia-which for more than thirty years had been nominally a British province, was inhabited by some thousands of French colonists, who were exempt from military service under France, and were termed "French Neutrals." Their real sympathies lay with the land of their birth, not with the Government under whose half-contemptuous protection they lived. In Europe, commissioners had for some time been trying to settle a satisfactory boundary between New France and Nova Scotia, when matters were brought to a crisis by the

French in America, who erected two forts on a neck of land at the head of the Bay of Fundy. Massachusettsthis was before the Revolution, be it remembered-sent out three thousand men to capture these forts, and the thing was done. In the garrisons were found three hundred of the Neutrals, and therefore the Acadians were. held condemned as rebels against the English Crown. What was to be done with them? The Governor of Nova Scotia, the Chief Justice of the province, and two British Admirals, met in council in July, and resolved that the entire population must be cleared out of that part of the country, and this deportation was to be carried out in such a way as to disperse the captives among the English of the other provinces. Of course it was not easy to execute an edict like this upon a widely-scattered population; but stratagem prevailed with these simple people, who had lived peacefully for two hundred years in this land, feeding sheep and tilling the soil rudely. Governor Lawrence issued a proclamation ordering all the males of the colony, "both old and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age," to assemble at the church of Grand-Pré on a certain Friday, to learn His Majesty's pleasure, "on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels in default of real estate." On the Friday appointed, September 5, 1755, four hundred and eighteen unarmed men met within the church. The doors were closed upon them, and guarded by soldiers; and then this mandate was read to the snared farmers: "It is His Majesty's orders, and they are peremptory, that the whole French inhabitants of these districts be removed. Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the Crown, with all your other effects, saving your money and household goods; and you yourselves are to be removed from this province. I shall do everything in my power that your goods be secured to you, and that you are not molested in carrying them off ; also, that whole families shall go in the same vessel, and that this removal be made as easy as His Majesty's service

will admit. And I hope that, in whatever part of the world you may fall, you may be faithful subjects, a peaceful and happy people. Meanwhile you are the king's prisoners, and will remain in security under the inspection and direction of the troops I have the honor to command." Unbroken silence greeted this cruel edict, until after the lapse of a few minutes a moan broke from the stunned Acadians, and their cry of grief was echoed in bewilderment by the anxious women waiting with their children outside. On the 10th of September the inhabitants of Grand-Pré-nineteen hundred and twenty in number-were marched to the water's side at the point of the bayonet, and embarked in Government ships. In spite of some show of care on the part of the authorities many parents were separated from their families and driven into different vessels; husbands and wives lost each other, and maidens parted from their lovers forever. The vessels were not able to accommodate all the emigrants, so some of these remained till fresh transports carried them away from their homes in cheerless December, and then Acadia was left desolate, and the Acadians never gathered together again. Small knots of the wanderers settled, and have left descendants, at Clare, at Minudie, in parts of Prince Edward's Island, and on the north coast of New Brunswick: In these days we English hear much of the Crofter question; but we never spoiled humble folk of land as we did in 1755, by the help of Massachusetts guns.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (how pleasant it always is to come upon these two great American men of letters together!) one day dined at Craigie House, and brought with him a clergyman. The clergyman happened to remark that he had been vainly endeavoring to interest Hawthorne in a subject that he himself thought would do admirably for a story. He then related the history of a young Acadian girl who had been turned away with her people in that dire "55," thereafter became separated from her lover, wandered for many years in search of him, and finally found him

in a hospital, dying. And Hawthorne saw nothing in this! That Longfellow at once took to the lovely legend is not so striking a fact as that Hawthorne, true to the strange taste of his "miasmatic conscience," felt the want of a sin to study in the story, and so would have none of it. "Let me have it for a poem, then," said Longfellow, and he had the leave at once. He raked up historical material from Haliburton's "Nova Scotia," and other books, and soon was steadily building up that idyl that is his true Golden Legend. After he had wormed his way through the chronicles of that doomed land, he wrote to Hawthorne and suggested that the romancer should take up as a theme the early history and later wanderings of these Acadians; but with Acadia Hawthorne would have nothing to do on any terms. From ROBERTSON'S Life of Longfellow.

THE METER OF EVANGELINE.

THE selection of hexameter lines for "Evangeline" was of course a bold experiment. The great precedent Longfellow had in his mind when he resolved to try hexameters was Goethe's "Hermann and Dorothea;" and this was enough to justify his attempt to compromise between the exactions of classic scansion and the rhythmical license of English meters. His success was as wonderful as the attempt was bold. By employing a style of meter that carries the ear back to times in the world's history when grand simplicities were sung, the poet naturally was able to enhance the epic qualities of his work, and remove Acadia and its people to the necessary extent from touch with a part of the world in which human history's developments were raw and unattractive. And once persuaded that it was possible to avoid " sing-song" monotony in English hexameters, Longfellow was right in thinking that the rhythm he chose was well suited for the telling of a long story into which nothing abruptly dramatic was to enter, but which was to derive its chief interest from broadly-worked pictures.