CANADA. IN THE BODLEIAN. 407 



lines, and showing the Western hemisphere, across a goodly portion 

 of which is engraven, in characters of a considerable size, the word 

 Canada. From the moment, long ago, when I made the discovery of 

 this inscription, while in jest brushing off, " a la Niebuhr," from the 

 orb round which the arm of the King was thrown, some of the accumu- 

 lated dust of years, this statue — which to persons in general is not 

 especially attractive — became, to me, an object of peculiar interest; as, 

 I think, it will also prove to any other Anglo-Canadian, who, when 

 passing, through Cambridge, may, for the sake of seeing his country's 

 name in a situation so unique, step into the Senate-house and examine 

 the statue which it contains of George II. 



The Latin and Greek pieces, from which we have been giving extracts, 

 have rendered the idea of Canada in classic guise, and in the midst of 

 classic surroundings, familiar to us. It happened that, like Stadacona, 

 Hochelaga, Cacona, Kamouraska, Muskoka, and other now familiar 

 names, Canada, in the lips of the first immigrants, underwent little or 

 no change — none in the termination. In passing into Latin, it conse- 

 quently required no manipulation to make it conform to the laws of 

 that tongue. It became at once a feminine proper name of legitimate 

 form, and admitted of " declension," like any other name of a country 

 ending in a. 



In French, strangely, Canada is a masculine noun. We shall remem- 

 ber that it used to be " Bas Canada," " Haut Canada." Had the 

 word assumed, by some chance, a form resembling " Acadie," then it 

 would have been feminine in French, on the analogy of the numerous 

 feminine names of regions with that termination. And then in Latin 

 (as in English), it would have been Canadia, as from Acadie has come 

 the beautiful word Acadia ; and from Algerie, Algeria. (We have seen 

 that there was a poem published in 1760, entitled "Canadia.") 

 But entering the French language unchanged from the aboriginal 

 tongue, it remains masculine. We may suppose ''le pays" to be 

 understood before it; and that the full expression really is "the 

 Canada country," as we say, " the Lake Superior country," " tha 

 Hudson's Bay country." The French poetic imagination must have 

 suffered a certain degree of violence, when, as was recently the case, 

 the "two Canadas'^ were impersonated on the seal of the United 

 Province by two tall, comely females. By a rule of French grammar, 

 to this day " Quebec" and " Ontario" are both of them of the male: 



