Morning journal and courier., 1888-07-14

A LaM0 E&1ch 1n hOmaRce-ALs EaFlT
 HisIory-Struggles of the French and
 rIan or Poe:.
 PORTLAND, Maine, July 8. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 Longfellow never saw the Acadia of which he wrote. There is a letter in existence penned by the poet in which he declines visi- ting the romantic region of Grand Pre- because he feared to set eyes on the locality lest the real environs would dispel from his mind the tender limnings his own glowing fancy had created In this letter admission is also made that the material for the pathetic TO- nance of "Evsngeline," and the tragedy of Acadia around which it is woven, was chiefly furnished the Cambridge bard by Haw- thorne. There are other facts not related in the books, proving that the author of the "Scarlet Letter" contemplated prose TO- nance upon the subject-matter Of Longfel- lows melliduous measure, but that the very dolor of it all so depressed and disheartened him that the project was abandoned. As splendid a creation as was Longfellow's, it is deplorable that the wizard pen of Hawthorne was turned from this task. The poet directs the eye and heart to but one spot, incident and time. The surpassing poetical recital confines historic and literary interest too closely. Had the tragic tale been alone told, or also told in Hawthornes magic prose, how clear and bold all these noble moun- tains, wales, streams and shores, and these wraithful presences of Indian, Englshman. Frenchman, Puritan, actors in countless peaceful and bloody prologues to American independence and civilization, would have been graven upon the tablets of history and the minds of men. For the real Acadia that was, and for more than one hundred and if- ty years before liberty bell pealed at Phila delphia, was the vast and endless battle ground where the mightiest of European powers struggled for mastery over 8 new world
 AN INTERESTING REGION.
 There are no histories in which can be chronologically followed the discovery of, and the struggles and changes within, the marvelously interesting region. of old Aca- dia This little section, that single State, another secluded province, this sea beaten isle, that New England borough, all have their shistories" Brilliant adherents of the greatest two religious sects of Christendom have fought the battles anew, in type, with more than mortal rancor. Historical socie- ties have interchanged dreams of dreamers and sketehed and plodded in sumptuous per- siAage. But this whole northeast coast which, from Portland, where Longfellow first drew breath and earliest sang, to Cape Breton Islands Louisburg, where once, un- der the lilies of France, glowered the walls of the most massive fortress ever built on American soil, was for two hundred years the battle-ground of two empires and the real birthplace of America's to-day, is his- torically all but lost in the somnolence of tradition. Every river flowing to the sea, every cove sheltered by headland and embow- cred in plenty, every sunny isle of the coast wise thousands, is a mute, .unheeded shrine ! to that daring and sacrifice which make his tory and have made freemen. In these sum- mer days these summer shores are gay with half continents pleasure troopers who for the dearth of history are mindless of the | myriad wraiths of fallen, and 1istless of the hoarse voices of the sea, in every sound of which are the ghostly tones of legions call ! ing in vain to be heard. No so superlatively \ romantic and stirring field awaits the great | historian. No so barren one confronts the writer Of an hour. One must needs burroW long and deep in the olden manuscripts, the
 records of parliaments and cabinets, and the scattered chronicles of adventurers and com
 manders, to reach the mere entrance of these | splendid domains of historic quest. But when even that little is done, journeyings ir and reveries on, old Acadia are seasons ot l winsomeness and delight.
 ITS NAMES AND BOUNDARIES.
 Old Acadia was variously called "L'Aca
 dia," "Lacadia," ssAcadie,n "Accadia,
 "Acady" and Acadia. Its confines were ex pressly named by Henry ", of France, 1T
 his letters patent of November 3d, 1903, tC Sieure De Monts, whom he constituted lieu | tenant general over the Country. territory
 coasts and confines of Acadia, from the for l tieth to the forty-sixth degree" Thus th' original Acadia comprised the North Ameri
 can coast and "cireumjaeent territory ant
 islands, from the mouth of the then un
 known Hudson river to the eastern extremit.
 of Cape Breton Island, just northeast of tn