EXPLANATORY NOTES
The primary purpose of these
Explanatory Notes is threefold: to explain and identify words and phrases that might be
obscure to modem readers of Acadia; to call attention to words, phrases, and
passages in Howes poem that allude to, or, as the case may be, derive from, the
works of other writers; and to elucidate, where possible, the historical and biographical
background of the work. In these last two categories, the notes are intended to
complement the Introduction, where emphasis is placed less on local verbal and phrasal
echoes and historical and biographical background than on the large patterns and
assumptions that link Acadia with other works in the British literary tradition and
Canadian continuity. Quotations form Shakespeare, Pope, Thomson, and Goldsmith
the English writers most frequently echoed in the diction and texture of Acadia
are taken from the Riverside Shakespeare edited by G. Blackmore Evans (Boston:
Houghton Muffin, 1974); the Twickenham edition of Alexander Pope, Pastoral Poetry and
an Essay on Criticism, edited by E. Audra and Aubrey Williams (London: Methuen; New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1961); James Sambrooks edition of James Thomson, The
Seasons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); and Arthur Friedmans edition of The
Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966).
Quotations from Thomas Chandler Haliburton, the native prose-writer of whom Howe makes the
greatest use, are from the first edition of that writers An Historical and
Statistical Account of Nova Scotia (Halifax: Joseph Howe, 1929), 2 vols. Quotations
from Howes other writings are primarily from Western and Eastern Rambles: Travel
Sketches of Nova Scotia, ed. M.G. Parks (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973)
and My Dear Susan Ann: Letters of Joseph Howe to His Wife, 18291836,
ed. M.G. Parks (St. Johns: Jesperson Press, 1985). Frequent references are
also made to the following modem studies, which have been especially useful for the
historical background of Acadia: Robert M. Leavitt, The Micmacs (Toronto:
Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1974), L.F.S. Upton, Micmacs
and Colonists: Indian-White Relations in the Maritimes, 17131867 (Vancouver:
University of British Columbia Press, 1979), Wilson D. Wallis and Ruth Sawtell Wallis, The
Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1955),
and Naomi Griffiths, The Acadians: Creation of a People (Totonto: McGraw-Hill
Ryerson, 1973). Other quotations in the notes are from standard or definitive
editions of their authors works. When a critic is cited, a full reference is
given in the first instance and an abbreviated form (name, shortened title, and page
number) is used in subsequent citations.
In
compiling these notes, extensive use has been made of the Oxford English Dictionary and
of numerous reference books, most notably Sir Paul Harveys Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1937), Donald
Creightons Dominion of the North (1944), the Dictionary of National
Biography, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Several specialized works on
eighteenth-century British literature have also been useful, especially the following:
John Arthos, The Language of Natural Description in Eighteenth-Century Poetry (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1949), R.A. Aubin, Topographical Poetry in
XVIII-Century England (New York: The Modem Language Association of America, 1936), and
Benjamin Bissell, The American Indian in
English Literature of the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca: Yale University Press, 1925).
The Title
Acadia The term Acadia was originally applied by
the French to all of what is now Nova Scotia
and to parts of present-day New Brunswick and Maine. Howe uses the name, however, as a synonym for Nova Scotia only. |
The Poem
142 Where does the Sun . . . twine for thee
Howes long introductory passage on home and country was probably suggested to him by
an even longer passage in James Montgomerys topographical poem The West Indies (1809).
Montgomerys Argument to Part III of his poem begins with The Love
of Country, and of Home, the same in all Ages and among all Nations. The whole
passage is appended below as a useful illustration of Howes indebtedness to earlier
poets and the manner of his imitation. Occasionally Howe echoes Montgomerys
actual words: a spot of earth supremely blest (Montgomery), on what
blest spot (Howe); oer rude Kamschatkas plains (Montgomery),
evn Laplands rude, untutored child (Howe); on
Euphrates brink (Montgomery), by Euphrates side (Howe);
Canaans glories (Montgomery), Canaans verdant groves
(Howe). Even more striking, however, is Howes borrowing of ideas and
subject-matter from Montgomerys poem. Elsewhere Howe reveals his acquaintance
with Montgomerys poetry when he quotes from the poem Night in his
Western Rambles (Western and Eastern Rambles, p. 79). It is
likely that Howe had been introduced to Montgomerys poetry by his father, John Howe,
who would have been very much in sympathy with Montgomerys Christian piety and
social conscience. |
THE WEST INDIES
PART III
ARGUMENT
The Love of Country, and of Home, the same in all Ages among all Nations The
Negros Home and Country Mungo Park Progress of the Slave Trade
The Middle Passage The Negro in the West Indies The Guinea Captain
The Creole Planter The Moors of Barbary Buccaneers Maroons St.
Domingo Hurricanes The Yellow Fever. |
THERE is a land, of every land the
pride,
Beloved by Heaven oer all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth, |
5 |
Time-tutord age, and
love-exalted youth;
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air; |
10 |
In every clime the magnet of his
soul,
Touchd by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of Heavens peculiar grace,
The heritage of natures noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest, |
15 |
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the
rest,
Where man, creations tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softend looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend: |
20 |
Here woman reigns; the mother,
daughter, wife,
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life;
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet, |
25 |
And fire-side pleasures gambol at
her feet.
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man? a patriot? look
around;
Oh, thou shalt find, howeer thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home! |
30 |
On Greenlands rocks, oer
rude Kamschatkas plains,
In pale Siberias desolate domains;
When the wild hunter takes his lonely way,
Tracks through tempestuous snows his savage prey,
The reindeers spoil, the ermines treasure shares, |
35 |
And feasts his famine on the fat of
bears;
Or, wrestling with the might of raging seas,
Where round the pole the eternal billows freeze,
Plucks from their jaws the stricken whale, in vain
Plunging down headlong through the whirling main; |
40 |
His wastes of ice are
lovelier in his eye
Than all the flowery vales beneath the sky;
And dearer far than Cćsar s palace-dome,
His cavern-shelter, and his cottage-home.
Oer Chinas garden-fields and peopled floods; |
45 |
In Californias pathless world
of woods;
Round Andes heights, where Winter, from his throne,
Looks down in scorn upon the summer zone;
By the gay borders of Bermudas isles,
Where spring with everlasting verdue smiles; |
50 |
On pure Maderia s vine-robed
hills of health;
In Javas swamps of pestilence and wealth;
Where Babel stood, where wolves and jackals drink,
Midst weeping willows, on Euphrates brink
On Carmels crest; by Jordans reverend stream, |
55 |
Where Canaans glories
vanishd like a dream;
Where Greece, a spectre, haunts her heroes graves,
And Romes vast ruins darken Tibers waves;
Where broken-hearted Switzerland bewails
Her subject mountains and dishonourd vales; |
60 |
There Albions rocks exult
amidst the sea,
Around the beauteous isle of liberty;
Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride, |
65 |
Beloved by Heaven oer all the
world beside;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. |
|
6 |
rill
A small stream or brook. |
|
|
9 |
our
household Gods The Lares and Penates, household deities or spirits
of Roman mythology. |
|
|
11 |
ashes
of our Sires Howe use ashes figuratively to mean the
residue of the fires of life, echoing earlier poets. See, for example,
Een in our ashes live their wonted fires (Thomas Gray, Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard, 92). |
|
|
19 |
Foscari
The reference is to Jacopo Foscari (13731457), the son of Francisco Foscari,
doge of Venice. Jacopo Foscari was accused in 1444 of accepting presents from citizens and
foreign princes in return for favours from the Venetian republic and was sentenced to
exile to Nauplia by the Council of Ten. In 1446 his sentence was commuted to banishment at
Treviso. Six years later he was accused of complicity in the assassination of a
Venetian councillor and was banished to Candia for the rest of his life. Finally, he
was accused of treason in 1456, imprisoned for a year, and sent back to his place of
exile, where he died in 1457. It is uncertain whether Jacopo was actually guilty of
these charges, and therefore whether he was treated leniently by his judges or was the
innocent victim of political machination. Whatever the truth may have been, his
pathetic life was later romanticized, and he was commonly regarded in Howes time as
a victim of gross injustice. Lord Byrons tragedy, The Two Foscari (1821),
is built upon this interpretation of the younger Foscaris life and presents Jacopo
as a man with an undying love of his own country, one who would rather be a prisoner at
home than a free man in exile. Samuel Rogers poem Italy (1822) also
follows the same line, as does Howe in ascribing Jacopos death to the heartbreak of
banishment from home. |
|
|
20 |
the
Hebrew, by Euphrates side The Babylonian Captivity of the
Israelites is here used as an example of exile from a beloved homeland, the Euphrates
being the great river flowing through Babylonia. Howe is probably thinking of Psalm
137, which begins By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we
remembered Zion. |
|
|
22 |
Canaans
verdant groves The name Canaan was originally applied to
the whole area from the Tauras Mountains in the north to the region south of Gaza, and
from the Mediterranean to the valleys of the Jordan and Orontes rivers. By 1200 B.C.
the Israelites were settled in the central highlands of Canaan, and southern Canaan came
under their rule after Davids victory over the Philistines (see II Samuel 5.
1725). To the Israelites who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses, Canaan
was the land promised them by God and the goal of their wanderings, a land flowing
with milk and honey (Exodus 3.8). |
|
|
25 |
The
wandring Swiss This is a reference to the many Swiss who were
forced to leave Switzerland after the French subjugation of their country in 1798; their
plight was often cited as typical of patriots exiled from their homeland. A poem on
the subject that Howe would have known is James Montgomerys The Wanderer of
Switzerland, in which the wanderer relates the sorrows and sufferings of his
Country, during the Invasion and Conquest of it by the French (Part II, headnote).
|
|
|
27 |
Laplands
rude, untutored child The Laplanders, living in northern Norway,
Sweden, and Finland, were commonly regarded as typical of home-lovers whose homes are
seemingly most inhospitable. Thus James Thomson writes that the sons of
Lapland . . . love their mountains and enjoy their storms and extols their natural
way of life in a long passage of The Seasons (Winter,
843886). Oliver Goldsmith expresses the same general idea in The Traveller,
6566: The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone / Boldly proclaims
that happiest spot his own. . . . |
|
|
33 |
when
Nelson fell Horatio Nelson (17581805), the English admiral and
naval hero, was killed in action at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 when his fleet
defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets. He was fatally wounded by a musket-shot
fired from the mizzen-top of the French ship Redoubtable and died three hours
later. Nelson had lost the sight of his right eye in 1794 when struck by sand and gravel
thrown up by the impact of a shot fired from the besieged town of Calvi in Corsica. The
unwary reader might therefore conclude that, in writing illumed his eye, Howe
is being painfully literal. Eye should be read, however, as the usual
eighteenth-century poeticism for the plural eyes, the part standing for the
whole. |
|
|
34 |
The
unerring shaft of Tell The legendary Swiss hero William Tell was
said to have been forced to shoot an apple off his sons head in punishment for
refusing homage to Gessler, the Austrian bailiff ruling Tells canton of Switzerland;
later, as the story goes, he shot Gessler in revenge and set off a revolt that ousted the
Austrian bailiffs in 1308. Tell probably never existed, and the stories about him
are probably distortions of the actual events of 1291, when three Swiss cantons joined in
a defensive alliance against their Hapsburg overlords and began the process of
confederation. It was not, however, until well into the nineteenth century that
Swiss historians established that Tell and his feats were legendary rather than
historically true. Howe, writing in the 1830s, would naturally have thought of Tell as an
historical figure. |
|
|
36 |
Burns
Howe is thinking of the poetry of Robert Burns that gave the dignity of literature to
Scottish folk-songs and celebrated Scottish common life in a language close to Bums
native Scots. Burns was an excellent example of the poet who fondly tries / To
mix the patriots with the poets flame (Thomson, Autumn, 22).
|
|
|
38 |
Moores
seraphic lyre Thomas Moore (17791852) was one of Howes
favourite poets. Here Howe is thinking in particular of the songs and lyrical poems
of Moores Irish Melodies as celebrating the poets native land. |
|
|
43 |
Pearl
of the West An application of the biblical pearl of great
price (Matthew 13.46) to suggest the quality of Howes most dear
province. |
|
|
46 |
mead
A poetic shortening of meadow. Cf. Pope, Windsor-Forest,
136: Where cooling vapours breathe along the mead. |
|
|
48 |
trace
To tread or traverse. Cf. Pope, Windsor-Forest, 170:
Virgins tracd the Dewy Lawn. |
|
|
51 |
varied
scene See Thomson, The varied scene of quick-compounded
thought (Autumn, 1363) and . . . oer the varied landscape
restless rove (Summer, 779). |
|
|
53 |
in
riper years Howe was twenty-eight years of age in 1832, when this
part of his poem was written. |
|
|
63 |
meed
In early use, something given in return for labour or service, or in
consideration of good or bad deserts. |
|
|
70 |
no
fell disease Here fell means deadly. |
|
|
73 |
No
withring plague Howe is thinking especially of the prevalence
of epidemic diseases in hot climates. Cf. T.C. Haliburton, An Historical and
Statistical Account, II, 352353: To say that the climate of Nova-Scotia is
not unfriendly to the human constitution, would be conveying but an inadequate idea of
it. It is remarkably salubrious, and conduces to health and longevity. . . .
The air of the forest, notwithstanding the density of the wood, is far from being
noxious. The infinite number of streams, the aromatic effluvia of balsamic trees,
the invigorating north west wind, and the varied surface of the country, all conspire to
render it pure and wholesome. Howe may have actually had this passage in mind, for
Haliburton goes on to observe that The absence of intermittent fevers, the bilious
remittent, and yellow fevers, gives this country a decided superiority over most
others (335). |
|
|
73 |
thy
smiling plains The same epithet is found in Goldsmiths The
Deserted Village, 40. When applied to the physical features of landscape,
smiling means appearing bright and cheerful, agreeable to the sight. |
|
|
77 |
No
parching Simooms . . . breath The simoom is the
suffocating sand-laden wind of the deserts of Arabia and North Africa. See Byron, Manfred,
II, i, 128: like the wind, the red hot breath of the lone Simoom that dwells but
in the desert. |
|
|
99 |
Mayflower
The Trailing Arbutus, a low and trailing plant with fragrant
flowers varying from white to deep rose in colour; it is common in Nova Scotia, where it
is found in pastures, barrens, and open woodlands. It is now the floral emblem of the
province. |
|
|
105 |
the
wanton air Howe means sportive, frolicsome,
and perhaps also having free play. |
|
|
115 |
The
Maples purple blossoms Purple
here arouses the suspicion that Howe may have suffered from a touch of colour-blindness,
for the common red maple (Acer rubrum) bears red flowers and other provincial
varieties yellowish flowers. |
|
|
116 |
verdant Of
a green hue or green with vegetation. |
|
|
119 |
spreading
Beech Cf. Thomson, Summer, 1363: And on the
spreading beech, that oer the stream / Incumbent hung. |
|
|
123 |
The
bending Sumach Howe probably means the staghorn sumach (Rhus
typhina), a native tree or shrub with a distinctive shape. The extreme length of
the large compound leaves creates the drooping effect. |
|
|
123 |
the
downy Palm True palms do not grow in Nova Scotia; even the most
hardy species do not appear north of North Carolina. Howe may be using a local term
no longer current for some other plant that has a palm-like habit of growth.
Otherwise, he must be accused of inventing a plant merely to rhyme with charm.
|
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|
126 |
The
Laurel . . . flowers of death The reference is to the sheep laurel
or lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia), a common shrub in Nova Scotia. The flowers
are showy, but it is the leaves that are poisonous to grazing animals. Howe appears
to mean that the flowers attract animals to graze on the foliage. |
|
|
127 |
the
leafy Withe The common osier (Salix viminalis) or white
willow (Salix alba); the pliant twigs of both were used for basket-making. |
|
|
129 |
the
sweet Fern Possibly Howe attributes sweetness to the plant because
some ferns are edible. The Indians considered the fern a source of food and
medicine. |
|
|
133 |
The
milk-white Stars These are star-flowers (Trientalis borealis),
a common woodland plant in Nova Scotia. |
|
|
137 |
cerulean
dye The adjective occurs several times in Thomsons Seasons,
and dye is a favourite eighteenth-century poeticism for colour. |
|
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143 |
beetling
rock Projecting or overhanging, as in
Thomsons beetling cliff (Spring, 454). See also Hamlet,
I, iv, 7071. |
|
|
147 |
buoyant
flowers The water-lily (Nymphaea odorata), common in ponds
and lake margins in Nova Scotia. The large white flowers float on the surface of the
water. |
|
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154 |
sleeping
Beautys lip This conventional personification. has been given
a curious reading in an article on the poem. S.G. Zenchuk (A Reading of Joseph
Howes Acadia, Canadian Poetry, 9 [Fall/Winter, 1981], p. 64 and
n. 19) interprets it as an allusion to the tale of Rosebud or Sleeping Beauty
and develops this identification into an interpretation of Rosebud as Acadia being
awakened from sleep by her prince, the science, art, and
culture of Howes next verse-paragraph. Such an interpretation
seems unwarranted for two reasons: (1) Howe capitalizes nouns so liberally in his two
manuscript versions of Acadia that the omission here, and in the manuscripts, of
the crucial capital 5 for sleeping, when it would be essential if
he were in fact alluding to the fairy tale, makes such an intention highly unlikely; (2)
the personification Beauty is conventional to the point of triteness in
eighteenth-century verse and is often preceded by an appropriate adjective, as in Thomas
Campbells line Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears . . . (The
Pleasures of Hope, II, 96). In Howes lines, the image is that of
wildflower buds floating on the surface of a rill, dipping in the waves of the
slow current as gently as kisses fall on sleeping Beautys
lip a nicely decorative simile and use of personification, Howe would have
thought. |
|
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157158 |
Soft
impress . . . had adorned the land It should be noted that
Howe praises both the untouched natural beauty of the province and the adornment bestowed
upon it by Improvement, which is said to leave a soft impress and
to grace the wild beauties of the land. Thus to suggest that
Howes discomfort with science and culture is
most clearly shown in the uneasy passages of the twelfth verse-paragraph
(155162) and to aver that these lines have a wistful and elegiac tone
(Zenchuk, A Reading, p. 58) seems to be a serious distortion of both the
denotation and connotation of Howes diction. In Acadia, as in his
prose, Howe was a staunch supporter of progress and Improvements
hand. A subsequent declaration in the same article (p. 58) that another
passage in the poem (827838) describes the advance of civilization into the
wilderness in terms of the defilement of a woman also strains Howes meaning;
the beauty of Lake Lochaber is untouched by the settlers axe, which in this context
of unspoiled beauty would seem profane, a tool of irreverence. Howe
makes no other connection between his image of Lochaber as a bashful Beauty
and the settlers felling of trees. A passage from T.C. Haliburtons
description of the effects of settlement upon natural beauty helps to dissipate any notion
that Howes use of profane axe contradicts his approval of natures
wild beauties . . . by culture graced: The process by which the
wilderness is converted into a fruitful country, although necessarily slow is uniform. . .
. Far from embellishing, their [the settlers] first operations deform the
beauty of the landscape. The graceful forest is prostrated, and the blackened
remains of the half burned wood and the unsightly stumps still remain. In process of
time the appearance of the country is again changed. Every year pours forth, in an
increased ratio, new laborers, until their scattered clearings approximate on every side,
and the rudely constructed log huts are succeeded by well built houses. Time, that
crumbles into dust the exquisite monuments of art, cherishes and fosters their
improvements, until at length hills, vales, groves, streams and rivers, previously
concealed by the interminable forest, delight the eye of the beholder in their diversified
succession (An Historical and Statistical Account, II, 126). This is
much like Howes attitude: the beauty of untouched nature is violated and demolished
by the processes of settlement, but a new and picturesque beauty eventually emerges from
the ruins to delight the eye of the beholder. |
|
|
171 |
No
treacherous steel . . . stems of pride This image has been
read as evidence for believing that Howe views civilization as a potential
encroachment on ideal freedom (Zenchuck, A Reading, p. 58).
Without doubting for a moment that Howe shared the common realization that civilization
brings with it order, and that order may threaten individual liberty, one may reasonably
conclude that the word threatening has no such particular weight in this
line. To the trees of the virgin forest, the settlers axe naturally poses a
threat. Howes muse was nodding here anyway, for treacherous
implies the betrayal of trust, a condition that would not have existed between tree and
axe, nature and settler. |
|
|
174 |
The
Cariboo The caribou was common in Nova Scotia before the coming of
the white man and even at the time Howe was writing this poem. By the latter part of
the nineteenth century it was near extinction. |
|
|
175 |
the
gay Moose . . . springs This unfortunate line, with its
ludicrous depiction of the solemn-visaged and ungainly moose as cavorting in jocund
gambol, was a little less inane in Howes first manuscript version of Acadia,
where we find the grey moose Nevertheless, Howe was sufficiently taken by his notion
of a frolicking moose to intensify the picture by substituting gay for
grey, for the change appears in his second manuscript version and is therefore
not a compositors error. Haliburton mention that the mooses colour
is a light grey, mixed with a dark red (An Historical and Statistical Account,
11, 392). |
|
|
176 |
Nature
round him flings Cf. Thomson, Spring, 230231:
With such a liberal hand has Nature flung / Their seeds abroad . . . . |
|
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182 |
The
Micmac The Micmacs occupied a territory of over fifty thousand
square miles covering, in present-day terms, the whole of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward
Island, most of New Brunswick outside the St. John River Valley, and the southern Gaspé
Peninsula of the province of Quebec (Upton, Micmacs and Colonists, p. 1). |
|
|
186 |
With
slender spear . . . provides The reference is to spearing
fish or eels from a canoe in shallow water. |
|
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213214 |
the
amrous Moor . . . Venetias maid Howe refers to
Othello and Desdemona of Shakespeares Othello, which is set in Venice and
Cyprus. The reference is probably decorative and will not bear the symbolic meaning
applied to it by S.G. Zenchuk, A Reading, p. 65. Howe simply means that
the Micmacs love of his homeland and his pride of possession (tis all
his own) are like Othellos passionate and possessive regard for Desdemona
a comparison that is not particularly apt when subjected to critical analysis.
|
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|
220 |
his
devious way Devious is here used in its original sense of
circuitous or roundabout without any suggestion of deceit or
guile. See Susan Gingell-Beckmann, Joseph Howes Acadia: Document of a
Divided Sensibility, Canadian Poetry, 10 (Spring/Summer, 1982), p. 30, n. 6.
A comparable usage is found in Thomsons Summer, 7880: . . .
when every muse / And every blooming pleasure wait without / To bless the wildly devious
morning-walk? |
|
|
225 |
negligently
dressed Negligently is not used pejoratively here; it
simply signifies the casualness of Nature as opposed to the order and pattern of art, a
common eighteenth-century idea associated with the cult of primitivism. In line 246
(negligently tied) the same contrast between the natural and the artificial is
suggested and is one of the many contrasts Howe makes between the stately homes formed by
art and the simple homes of the Indians. |
|
|
229 |
Patriarch
hands A reference to the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
and the sons of Jacob as representative of early mankind after the expulsion of Adam and
Eve from Eden and the loss of the state of innocence. |
|
|
237 |
sedulously
Diligently or attentively. |
|
|
239241 |
some
slender poles . . . rude frames The Micmac wigwam was a
conical structure built of four inwardly slanting poles about fourteen feet long and with
several smaller poles between them, over which birch bark was placed in overlapping layers
after the poles had been interlaced with spruce root or other fibers. The strips of
birch bark were sewn together with spruce root. More temporary shelters were covered
with evergreen boughs. See Leavitt, The Micmacs, pp. 2021, and Wallis and
Wallis, The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada, p. 57. |
|
|
248 |
so
proud a dome Although Latin domus does mean
house, Howes use of the word here can hardly be defended on that
account, for so proud denies any intention to adhere to the original
meaning. Howe is using dome in the poetic sense of a stately
edifice. The clumsy irony was probably un intentional, the word being unwisely
forced into service to rhyme with home. |
|
|
250 |
the
motley inmates scatterd careless round Motley need
not be taken pejoratively here, as Howe is probably using it to mean simply
varied. Neither is careless used pejoratively but, rather,
in the same manner as negligently (see note to 225 above), perhaps meaning
haphazardly in contrast to a regimented order. |
|
|
253 |
the
box of bark By the 1790s the Micmacs were relying on the sale of
artifacts for much of their support. In summer, Micmac families would camp
near a white village to sell the goods the women made, such as baskets, quill boxes, and
brooms. . . . The Micmacs were proud of their handiwork, particularly the quill
boxes (Upton, Micmacs and Colonists, p. 19). As seventeenth-century accounts
of Indian crafts, however, do not mention these birch-bark boxes adorned with quills, Howe
was probably mistaken in thinking that they were being made before the coming of
Europeans. See Wallis and Wallis, The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada, p.
89. |
|
|
254 |
the
fretful porcupine Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, v,
1920: And each particular hair to stand on end / Like quills upon the fretful
porpentine. Porpentine was an Elizabethan form of the word
porcupine. |
|
|
267 |
The
aged Chiefs By no means all Micmac chiefs would have been
aged, although experience and maturity would have been important
qualifications in a system of authority in which decisions affecting a whole group
were made by persuasion, and the man with the most persuasive ways was the
leader (Upton, Micmacs and Colonists, p. 7). |
|
|
269 |
to
the green advance This is one of Howes most careless
transpositions from English poetry; the grassy expanse of the English village common
naturally had no close counterpart in Micmac life. |
|
|
281 |
on
some dried bark The Micmac drum was a birch-bark box struck with the
knuckles. See Leavitt, The Micmacs, p. 191. |
|
|
283 |
The
dance begins Howes depiction of Micmac dancing appears to be
accurate. See Wallis and Wallis, The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada, pp.
191192. |
|
|
313 |
the
adventurous Briton steerd Howe is referring generally to the
first British settlers but probably is also thinking of the initial discovery of the
mainland of North America by John Cabot in 1497 as giving the British a formal claim to
the Maritime region. As T.C. Haliburton explains, The claim of the English [to Nova
Scotia] was founded on discovery (An Historical and Statistical Account, I,
2), for it appears that Cabot, in the name, and under the conunission of Henry the
VII, actually discovered the continent of North America, before Columbus had visited any
part of the main land . . . (I, 4). The discovery of Cabot, the formal
possession taken by Sir Humphrey [Gilbert], and the actual residence of Sir John Gilbert
[in Maine], are considered, by the English, as the foundations of the right and title of
the crown of England, not only to the territory of Newfoundland, and the Fishery on its
banks, but to the whole of its possessions in North America (I, 8). |
|
|
317 |
the
Micmacs eye discerned the sail No doubt Howe had read accounts
of the first encounters of Europeans and North American Indians, for lines 317340
have an authentic ring. One account of such a meeting, recorded as from the
mouth of an intelligent Delaware Indian describing the first arrival of the Dutch at
New York island in the early seventeeth century, reveals similar attitudes: A great
many years ago, when men with a white skin had never yet been seen in the land, some
Indians who were out-a-fishing at a place where the sea widens, espied at a great distance
something remarkably large floating on the water, and such as they had never seen
before. These Indians immediately returning to the shore, apprized their countrymen
of what they had observed, and pressed them to go out with them and discover what it might
be. They hurried out together, and saw with astonishment the phenomenon which now
appeared to their sight, but could not agree upon what it was; some believed it to be an
uncommonly large fish or animal, while others were of opinion it must be a very big house
floating on the sea. At length the spectators concluded that this wonderful object
was moving towards the land . . . it would therefore be proper to inform all the Indians
on the inhabited islands of what they had seen, and put them on their guard. . . .
These arriving in numbers, and having themselves viewed the strange appearance . . .
concluded it to be a remarkably large house in which the Mannitto (the Great or Supreme
Being) himself was present, and that he probably was coming to visit them (James
Buchanan, Sketches of the History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians [1824],
pp. 1112). The Europeans first encountered by the Micmacs were, of course, the
fishermen from France, the Basque region, and Portugal who began their summer visits to
the coasts of what are now the Atlantic Provinces as early as the first quarter of the
sixteenth century, after the voyages of the Cabots had become known in western Europe. See
Upton, Micmacs and Colonists, pp. 1718. |
|
|
326 |
the
red Hunter Howe probably means the sun, which was associated with
Micmac religious beliefs. In addition to human and animal spirits, there were
totally supernatural beings possessed of a mystical power of unspecified potential.
Different spirits held this power in different quantities; the principal one was the Great
Spirit, possibly identified with the sun. A simple ceremony observed by missionaries
was the greeting of the rising sun with a bow and a request that it guard the mans
family, vanquish his foes, and bring him a good hunt (Upton, Micmacs and
Colonists, p. 13). |
|
|
337338 |
the
stones . . . his parents bones The Micmacs were
accustomed to burying their dead in a common burial ground near to, but not part of, the
summer camp site (Upton, p. 14). |
|
|
343344 |
When
oer his feeble land . . . Barbarians roved This refers
to the early history of Britain, specifically to the successive invasions by Celts, Danes,
Norwegians, Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. |
|
|
352 |
Whose
arch . . . from clime to clime Although the British Empire
was not at its height until the late nineteenth century, even by the 1830s numerous
British colonies spanned the globe. |
|
|
353354 |
Whose
pillars . . . on the land Howe has in mind Revelation 10. 12:
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a
rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of
fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea,
and his left foot on the earth. . . . Howes image is that of the
punitory and world-wide power of the hope the guide the glory of a
world, British civilization. It does not bear the meaning given to it by S.G.
Zenchuk, A Reading, p. 66, where the reference to the dreadful
angel is read as a warning to the European settlers of Nova Scotia, whose
failure to show empathy for their fellow inhabitants of Acadia will have dire
consequences for them. It is rather the power of Britain that is like
the dreadful angel. |
|
|
361 |
fervid
Glowing; impassioned. |
|
|
363364 |
like
the fire . . . led the way Howe is alluding to the exodus of
the Israelites from Egypt. See Exodus 13.21: And the Lord went before them by
day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to
give them light; to go by night and day. |
|
|
365 |
pile
A lofty building such as a castle, tower, or stronghold. |
|
|
374 |
Where
the forefathers of our Hamlets sleep The near-quotations
is from Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 1516:
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, / The rude forefathers of the hamlet
sleep. |
|
|
383 |
glad
To make glad; to cause to rejoice. |
|
|
385386 |
They
felled . . . with sturdy stroke . . . culture broke
Cf. Gray, Elegy, 28: How bowd the woods beneath their sturdy
stroke. Contrary to the view of S.G. Zenchuk (A Reading, p. 60 and n.
15), Howes diction in line 386 (The virgin soil, with gentle culture
broke) does not suggest a deflowering of nature; it is entirely positive
and approving, as gentle suggests. See the note to 157158, above,
for a similar use of diction. |
|
|
388 |
Ceres
lured . . . sylvan scene Both Ceres (the Roman
goddess of agriculture) and sylvan are terms that Howe borrows from English
pastoral and topographical poetry without questioning their appropriateness for the early
stages of farming in Nova Scotia. See Susan Gingell-Beckmanns valid
observation on this line (Joseph Howes Acadia, p. 31, n. 13);
also note Thomsons Autumn, 10431044: Not Persian Cyrus on
Ionias shore / Eer saw such sylvan scenes. |
|
|
389 |
the
Log House The first settlers in Nova Scotia naturally used for
building materials what was readily at hand, so their first houses were made of logs and
were constructed in the manner Howe describes in the succeeding lines. The twisted
withe (392), willow or osier twigs twisted together to make door hinges, is another
example of pioneering resourcefulness. |
|
|
394 |
hissing
green wood The settlers firewood was green
(undried) because he would have no opportunity to store up a sufficient supply of dry wood
in his first year of settlement; its high moisture content accounts for the
hissing. |
|
|
399 |
cleats
Pieces of wood driven into or between the logs of the cabin and projecting to serve as
supports. |
|
|
405 |
cleansed
the balsam from his palm The settlers hands were coated with
resin from the spruce and fir trees with which he was working. |
|
|
408 |
floweret
A small flower. |
|
|
409ff. |
a
fathers transports Cf. a similar passage in Thomsons
Autumn, 13391344:
The touch of kindred, too, and love he feels
The modest eye whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine, the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twined around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul.
|
|
|
422 |
filial
Pertaining to a childs regard for a parent. |
|
|
439 |
absent
friends This is a phrase from Shakespeares Alls
Well That Ends Well, II, iii, 180182: The solemn feast / Shall more attend
upon the coming space, / Expecting absent friends. |
|
|
453 |
Anon
Straightway, forthwith. |
|
|
496 |
to
strew its poppies there An allusion to the narcotic effects of the
poppy plant, a source of opium. |
|
|
523 |
weary moil
Drudgery. |
|
|
534 |
the
hours beguiled Beguiled here means passed
pleasantly, not deluded or deceived by guile. |
|
|
537 |
cottar
Howe is using the word loosely to mean cottager, not in its original sense of
a peasant occupying a cottage belonging to a farm for which he has to perform labour when
required. |
|
|
550 |
cribs
Here possibly bins for storing food. |
|
|
552 |
the
howling crew Crew is here the common poeticism for
company. Cf. Miltons horrid crew (Paradise Lost, I,
51). |
|
|
556 |
welkin
The sky or firmament, conceived as an arch or vault overhead.
|
|
|
567 |
reeking
Here permeated with warm blood. |
|
|
572 |
brand
Usually the blade of a sword and, by extension, the sword itself; here it is a household
knife. |
|
|
589590 |
Like
Montezuma . . . but a perfumed rose Howe appears to be thinking of
an episode of Indian heroism attributed not to Montezuma but to the emperor or king
Guatamozin (Guatemoc): When the Spaniards under Cortes were torturing him in order
to extort more gold, [he] saw one of his companions about to succumb, [and] said to him,
Do you think I lie on a bed of roses? (Benjamin Bissell, The American
Indian in English Literature of the Eighteenth Century, p. 16). This episode of
torture by thrusting the victims feet into fire is mentioned in several of the
Spanish accounts of the conquest of Mexico, though the sufferers alleged comment may
be more legend than fact (see Salvador de Madariaga, Herman Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico
[Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1942], pp. 399400). John Dryden
made use of the incident in his heroic play The Indian Emperor, V, ii, giving his
character Montezuma these lines: Thinkst thou that I lie on beds of roses
here, / Or in a wanton bath stretched at my ease? Howe may have derived his
notion of the incident from Dryden. |
|
|
599 |
around
the cot Cot is a poeticism for cottage; see
Thomson, Spring, 683: In some lone cot amid the distant woods . .
. |
|
|
609 |
timid
rabbits Cf. Thomson, Autumn, 401: Poor is the
triumph oer the timid hare! |
|
|
616 |
feat
herd tribe A stock epithet for birds in
eighteenth-century poetry. The adjective varied, as in Thomsons aerial
tribes (Summer, 1121) and weak tribes (Autumn,
986). Note also Howes featherd favrites (613). |
|
|
626 |
Oriflamme
of France The red banner of St. Denis was carried before the early
kings of France as a military ensign. |
|
|
629 |
Port
Royals . . . wall The original Port Royal Habitation,
seven miles from the present town of Annapolis Royal, was the first permanent French
settlement in Canada, established by De Monts, Champlain, and Pontgravé in 1605.
Howe is referring, however, to the second Port Royal on the other side of the Annapolis
Basin, a fortified settlement that retained its French name until it was captured by the
British in 1710 and renamed Annapolis Royal. The first fort was built around 1635 by
DAulnay de Charnisay. For the next seventy-five years it changed hands several
times, being captured and recaptured during the intermittent conflicts of the French and
British for supremacy in the area. |
|
|
630631 |
the
valiant Gaul . . . divided sway The British government
regarded Nova Scotia as a British possession, basing the claim on John Cabots
discovery of 1497 (See the note to 313314, above). The claim was not
recognized by France. |
|
|
641 |
The
alternate conquest Sovereignty over Nova Scotia changed hands
repeatedly throughout the seventeenth century, and even though the Treaty of Utrecht in
1713 ceded the mainland to Britain, Cape Breton Island remained a French possession.
There the French built the fortress of Louisbourg, which was not finally captured by the
British until 1758; it was not until 1763, by the Treaty of Paris, that France surrendered
her possessions in what is now Canada. |
|
|
645656 |
fair
La Tour . . . neck so fair Charles de Menou, Sieur
dAulnay Chamisay, the rival of Charles de Saint-Etienne de La Tour, in 1645 attacked
La Tours fort at the mouth of the Saint John River when its commander was
absent. Madame La Tour, with only a handful of men, kept him at bay for three
days. On the fourth day Charnisay proposed a capitulation, which Madame La Tour
accepted in order to save the lives of her men. Charnisay, however, once inside the fort
and seeing that it was so poorly defended, changed his mind, pretending that he had been
deceived when he proposed capitulation. He hanged several of the survivors and
forced Madame La Tour to witness the hangings with a rope around her own neck. As
Haliburton writes, in order to degrade a spirit he could not subdue, and to give her
the appearance of a reprieved criminal, he forced her to appear at the gallows with a
halter round her neck (An Historical and Statistical Account, I, 59). |
|
|
655 |
ignominious
Shameful, disgraceful. |
|
|
657 |
gallant
dAnvilles fate In 1746 a large fleet sailed from France
under the command of the Duc dAnville with orders to retake and dismantle the
fortress of Louisbourg, which was in the hands of the British, then to capture and
garrison Annapolis Royal, and finally to take Boston. DAnville finally reached
Chebucto harbour (Halifax) with less than half his fleet, the remainder having been
disabled, scattered, or lost in a storm off the Azores and further reduced by another
storm off the Nova Scotian coast. According to Haliburton, his health was so much
affected that he died suddenly on the fourth day after his arrival; the French say of
apoplexy, the English of poison (Historical and Statistical Account, I,
127). At Chebucto hundreds of the French soldiers and sailors died of the
pestilence; Haliburton writes that the French buried 1130 of their comrades there. |
|
|
665666 |
their
shatterd ships . . . Bedfords placid wave Some of
dAnvilles ships were sunk in Bedford Basin, the inner harbour of Halifax.
Before the remnants of the fleet left the harbour, according to Haliburton, one of
the ships of the line, which had been so much injured as to be unfit for service, together
with several fishing vessels, a snow from Carolina, and a vessel from Antigua, were either
scuttled or burned (An Historical and Statistical Account, I, 129). |
|
|
673 |
the
Bard of Auburns . . . strain Oliver Goldsmiths The
Deserted Village, which laments the sad fate of the village of Auburn. |
|
|
675676 |
that
fatal day . . . torn away Howes long passage on the
expulsion of the French Acadians in 1755 describes one of the most tragic events in
provincial history. By that fatal day he probably means September 10,
1755, when one of the main deportations occurred in the Minas Basin region, although the
expulsion took place over a period of several weeks. On July 25 of that year the
Governor and Council of Nova Scotia decided to expel the Acadians from the province and
transport them to several of the other English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.
The refusal of the Acadians to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown, and
various other factors, led the government to view the Acadians as a threat to the safety
and stability of the province, especially because they greatly outnumbered the small
British population. The expulsion and resettlement of the Acadians has naturally
been the subject of much historical controversy. As Naomi Griffiths observes,
Many of the works which have appeared about the Acadian deportation are informed
with a driving demand to assign guilt and innocence in the matter. Yet the reality is much
more complex and much more human than such explanations would suggest. What happened
in 1755 was the result as much of immediate individual choices and of personal action as
it was of past traditions and of the concatenation of official government policies and
international pressures (The Acadians: Creation of a People, p. 50). |
|
|
681 |
southern
vales The Acadians were despatched to Massachusetts, New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut, but also to some southern states, primarily the
Carolinas and Georgia (see Griffiths, The Acadians, p. 65, and Haliburton, An
Historical and Statistical Account, I, 183). The phrase a southern
clime actually occurs in the Acadian petition quoted by Haliburton (I, 195).
Howes emotionally charged rendering of the expulsion is in agreement with the
general tenor of Haliburtons discussion: Upon an impartial review of the
transactions of this period, it must be admitted, that the transportation of the Acadians
to distant colonies, with all the marks of ignominy and guilt peculiar to convicts, was
cruel; and although such a conclusion could not then be drawn, yet subsequent events have
disclosed that their expulsion was unnecessary. It seems totally irreconcilable with
the idea, as at this day entertained of justice, that those who are not involved in the
guilt shall participate in the punishment; or that a whole community shall suffer for the
misconduct of a part (I, 196). |
|
|
711 |
aged
temples . . . are bowd This line might possibly be read
as referring to churches being razed, but Howe is thinking of the foreheads of aged
Acadians bowed to the ground in grief and perhaps in prayer. |
|
|
715 |
waft
Express as though sending through the air. |
|
|
729732 |
While
far and wide . . . loved to play Many Acadian villages were
burned by order of Governor Lawrence, in the belief that the Acadians must be deprived of
anything that could afford them shelter; they would thus be forced to board the awaiting
ships in order to survive. According to Haliburton, In the District of Minas
alone, there were destroyed two hundred and fifty-five houses, two hundred and seventy-six
barns, one hundred and fifty-five out-houses, eleven mills, and one church . . . (An
Historical and Statistical Account, I, 178). Haliburtons description of
the scene after the fires had destroyed the houses, especially the detail of the abandoned
dogs, was clearly in Howes mind: The volumes of smoke which the half expiring
embers emitted, while they marked the site of the peasants humble cottage, bore
testimony to the extent of the work of destruction. For several successive evenings the
cattle assembled round the smouldering ruins, as if in anxious expectation of the return
of their masters; while all night long the faithful watch dogs of the Neutrals howled over
the scene of desolation, and mourned alike the hand that had fed, and the house that had
sheltered them (I, 180181). |
|
|
734 |
essays
Attempts, with the idea of tentativeness. |
|
|
748 |
verdure
Green vegetation. |
|
|
764 |
mothers
shriek . . . piercing cries Cf. The virgins
shriek, and infants trembling cry (Thomson, Autumn, 1283). |
|
|
772 |
flag
of Britain . . . waved The capture of Louisbourg in 1758 and
Quebec in 1759, followed by the surrender of Montreal in 1760, brought the French regime
to an end. By the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years War, the
French ceded Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, and Canada to the British Crown. |
|
|
783 |
Erins
Irelands. |
|
|
785788 |
He
toils . . . seasons yield These lines paint an idyllic picture of
freedom for Irish immigrants in Howes Nova Scotia but nevertheless bear some
relation to reality. The province had no official Established Church, and Irish
Catholics were free to worship without facing the imposition of tithes. Unlike
Haliburton, who lamented the fact that the Church of England was not the state church in
Nova Scotia, Howe thoroughly approved on principle of the diversity of religious
communions. As Donald Creighton observes, The retreat of the Church of England
before these rival communions was symbolic of the decline of English class distinctions
and cultural standards amid the incurable diversity of Nova Scotian life (Dominion
of the North, p. 208). |
|
|
789 |
strand
Here used vaguely for coast or shore. |
|
|
797 |
that
devoted band Howe refers to the Loyalists who left the American
colonies at the conclusion of the American Revolution to settle in Nova Scotia.
About twenty thousand arrived, most of them in 1783 and 1784. In a single year the
population of the province was doubled. Howes own attitude to the American
Revolution (its impious hand) and to the Loyalists (that devoted
band) is natural; his own father, John Howe, was a Loyalist from Boston, and he
himself was an ardent admirer of Britain and its institutions and culture. Of
course, by no means all of the Loyalists who came to Nova Scotia were as
devoted as Howe suggests or had actually fought neath [the]
folds of the British flag. For a modern historians conclusions about the
varied motives and attitudes of the Loyalists, see Neil MacKinnon, This Unfriendly
Soil: The Loyalist Experience in Nova Scotia, 17831791 (Kingston and
Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1986), especially Chapter 6. |
|
|
819 |
Lochaber,
Sydneys sylvan pride Lochaber Lake is a long and narrow body
of water in Antigonish County. In the 1830s it was in the County of Sydney, which
included the whole eastern part of the mainland of Nova Scotia, the area now comprising
Antigonish County and the eastern two-thirds of Guysborough County. |
|
|
823824 |
as
I stood . . . ancient wood In June, 1830, Howe had seen
Lochaber Lake for the first time when on a journey from Pictou to Guysborough.
He does not describe the lake in his letters of that year to his wife, but in a letter of
1833 mentions the earlier trip (See My Dear Susan Ann, pp. 131, 133). In his
Eastern Rambles he describes his impressions of the lake in 1830, calling it
one of the finest scenes that Nova Scotia can present to a Travellers
eye. He adds that The Loehaber Lake owes nothing to the labors of
industry and art; its beauties are its own; the scene is essentially the same that it was
a hundred, or perhaps a thousand years ago . . . (Western and Eastern Rambles,
p. 190). |
|
|
823 |
tranced
Entranced. |
|
|
828 |
chaste
Diana might her beauties lave Cf. In her chaste current oft
the Goddess laves (Pope, Windsor-Forest, 209); lave is a common
poeticism for wash or bathe. |
|
|
836 |
No
axe profane . . . a single bough You may remember that I was
in love with the sylvan appearance of the Lochaber or College Lake when in this country
last. Then the ancient woods were scarcely broken upon on either margin, and the
whole scene was as beautifully wild as it had been a thousand years before (My
Dear Susan Ann, p. 133; letter of September 24, 1833). Howe adds that
Now every lot has been taken up clearings are making and log houses are
building in every direction and in a few years more there will scarcely be a tree
to be seen. |
|
|
839840 |
Far
down the ancient trees . . . fairy tracery Cf. this passage
in the Rambles: Both sides of the Lake are inclosed by long ranges of hills,
running parallel with it; sometimes thrown back from its shores with a gentle slope, at
others, jutting out into the waters, and casting the reflection of the stately and
unbroken forest of hardwood trees far down into its bosom, on the glassy and unruffled
surface of which the sunbeams of a summer noon are quietly reposing (Western and
Eastern Rambles, p. 191). |
|
|
843848 |
Such
is the scene . . . his doings deem Cf. Let him [the
reader] fancy such a scene as this spread out before him, with nothing above, below or
around, to remind him of the bustling, busy world, save and except his own unworthy person
. . . (Western and Eastern Rambles, p. 191). The reference to
Canaans height in this passage of natural description might seem to
suggest that Howe is using the actual name, either as recorded on maps or as in local use,
of the range of hills along the lake, but no such name appears on maps of the area, old or
new. Therefore, he may simply be thinking of the lake region as, like the biblical
Canaan, a land of promise, in this case for poor but industrious immigrants such as the
settler he was to meet again on his later visit in 1833 (see My Dear Susan Ann, pp.
131133). |
|
|
849 |
rifled
Split, cleft, cloven. |
|
|
870 |
For
God . . . upon the waves Cast thy bread upon the
waters: for thou shalt find it after many days (Ecclesiastes 11.1). |
|
|
874 |
In
patient hope . . . bends& Cf. The patient Fisher takes his
silent stand (Pope, Windsor-Forest, 137). |
|
|
887908 |
But
see . . . longed for goal Thomsons tale of a shepherd
lost in a snowstorm and tortured by thoughts of his wife and children awaiting his return
was almost certainly in Howes mind when he wrote this account of the
fishermans nearly fatal experience. See Winter, 276321.
|
|
|
909910 |
tis
hard . . . in the eye These lines are based upon a boyhood
experience of Howes near his home on the Northwest Arm in Halifax: On one
occasion his new prowess [as a swimmer] almost cost the young Howe his life. One
evening, while swimming in the Arm, he got a cramp and felt he would never reach the
shore. But in the words of his son Sydenham, happening to glance upward his eye
caught the gleam of the firelight through the window of the old cottage and the thought of
the sorrow his death would cause . . . nerved him to greater effort and he struggled on
till at last he regained the beach (J. Murray Beck, Joseph Howe, Vol.
I: Conservative Reformer, 18041848 [Kingston and Montreal:
McGill-Queens University Press, 1982], 16). |
|
|
919932 |
Lulld
on the lap . . . never can return Howes indebtedness to
Thomsons Seasons is further demonstrated by the resemblance between these
lines and the passage in Winter (321329) that immediately follows the
death of Thomsons shepherd:
Ah! little think the gay, licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste
Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death
And all the sad variety of pain;
How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame. . . .
Moreover, Howe picks up bits of
Thomsons phrasing from these lines (5254) in Spring: Nor, ye
who live / In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride, / Think these lost themes unworthy of
your ear . . . Howes lines How many weeping wives . . . never can return
(931932) also recall Thomson: his pining wife / And plaintive children his
return await, / In wild conjecture lost . . . (Autumn, 11571158).
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929 |
waste
Literally a wild and desolate region; here applied rhetorically to the ocean. See
Goldsmith, The Traveller, 6. |
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933 |
inured
Accustomed. |
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979 |
fraught
Furnished, filled. |
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985988 |
Led
by that ceaseless restlessness . . . all he loved Cf. the
following passage from Goldsmiths The Traveller, 2528:
Impelld, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies . . .
S.G. Zenchuk, in A
Reading, pp. 6869, associates Howes wandering son with the biblical
prodigal son (Luke 15.1124), a man given to greed and waste [who] is forgiven
his excesses and resolves to lead a better life, and she therefore concludes that
The poem has now moved from an Old Testament view of bloodshed and vengeance to a
New Testament one of love, tolerance and forgiveness. See also p. 52 of the
same article. Such a reading disregards the crucial point that the son in Acadia has
not been given to greed and waste and has no need to be forgiven his
excesses or to resolve to lead a better life. This son deserves no
moral censure; he has simply been Led by that ceaseless restlessness of soul, /
Which still points onwards to some brighter goal. He has been
wandering but has not been prodigal. |
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