BELKNAP'S HISTORY.
[24] Page 13.—Mr. Jeremy Belknap's "History of New Hampshire" was published in Philadelphia and Boston in 1784–92, three volumes. See Bourinot's "Cape Breton," in 'Trans. Roy. Soc. Can.,' vol. ix., p. 315, and p. 147 in the separate volume (Montreal, 1892).
THE POET CRÉMAZIE.
[25] Page 17.—Octave Crémazie was one of the vrai sang of French Canada, and a bookseller without the least aptitude for business. He left Quebec after his failure, and lived under an assumed name in France, where he died in poverty. His life was most unfortunate, and in the gloomy days of his later French career he never realized the expectations which his literary efforts in Canada raised among his ardent friends. His poems appeared at first in the 'Soirées Canadiennes' and French Canadian journals, but his works were published in full at Montreal, in 1882, under the patronage of the Institut Canadien of Quebec, of which he was one of the founders. The Abbé Casgrain has given the introduction for this edition, and added some of the letters written to him by Crémazie from Paris. Crémazie, and indeed many of his friends, considered the "Trois Morts" as the best effort of his poetic genius; but the Abbé truly says: "Crémazie has never really been original except in his patriotic poems; in them must be sought the secret of his popularity and his strongest claim to fame." And he goes on to say: "The old mother-country has so far given a warm welcome to only one of our poets. She has acknowledged Fréchette as the most emphatically French of our poetic aspirants; but the time is not far distant when she will recognize in Crémazie the most thoroughly Canadian of them all. His verses have not the exquisite workmanship that is so much admired in Fréchette, but it is full of a patriotic inspiration that is not so often found in the author of 'Fleurs Boréales.' Despite his inequalities and imperfections, Crémazie must live among us as the father of our national poetry." The patriotic poem which has touched most deeply the hearts of his countrymen is "Le Drapeau de Carillon," in which he recalls the military achievements of the days of Lévis and Montcalm—
"Les jours de Carillon,
Où, sur le drapeau blanc attachant la victoire,
Nos pères se couvraient d'un immortel renom
Et traçaient de leur glaive une héroïque histoire.
"O radieux débris d'une grande épopée!
Héroïque bannière au naufrage échappée!