MA PATRIE

Page 89. The love of country has been a subject of inspiration for the writers of every land. After what one owes to God, nothing should be more dear or more sacred than the love and respect one owes to his country. It is, as historians assert, from the habit that men acquire of identifying themselves with their country's fortunes, in the past as in the présent, and looking forward anxiously to its future destinies, that ail civic virtue and ail patriotic selfsacrifice hâve sprung.

Page 90. I. Henri: Klopstock probably refers to Henry the Fowler, who was the first of the Saxon line of Kings of Germany and Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.

18, 19. The Rhône and the Thames (Tamise) are rivers respectively of France and England. Of the Rhône Longfellow has written:

" A king among the rivers ! on thy way A hundred towns await and welcome thee; Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch, Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay. And fleets attend thy progress to the sea ! "

Sir John Denham (1642), the prototype of Pope, calls the Thames

"The most loved of ail the ocean's sons."

23. Les Gaulois s'appelaient Francs, etc. : an allusion to the origin of both the French and the English.