Captivity, where he appear'd,

Her languid head with tranfport rear'd;

And gazing on her godlike guest,

Like thofe of old, whom Heaven's pure fervant bleft,
E'en by his fhadow feem'd of demons difpoffeft.

The allufion to Scripture in the laft line is remarkably beautiful, and gives us a favourable idea of the author's mind, which feems in this, and all his works, to be piously and religiously disposed; which the following lines, perhaps the best in the whole Ode, may tend to confirm.

Taught by that God, in Mercy's robe,

Who his cœleftial throne refign'd,

To free the prison of the globe

From vice, th' oppreffor of the mind!

For thee, of mifery's rights bereft,

For thee, Captivity! he left

Fair Fortune's lap, who, far from coy,
Bade him with fmiles his golden hours employ
In her delicious bower, the feftive fcene of joy!'

The poem ends thus:

In that bleft hour, when Seraphs fing
The triumphs gain'd in human ftrife;
And to their new affociates bring
The wreaths of everlasting life:

May't thou, in Glory's hallow'd blaze,
Approach the Eternal Fount of Praise,
With those who lead the angelic van,

Those pure adherents to their Saviour's plan,
Who liv'd but to relieve the Miseries of Man!'

It has been too often objected to fome of our best poets, that their own moral character was by no means of a piece with the leffons of inftruction which they held out to others. We have heard enough of Mr. Hayley from every quarter to know, that, diftinguished as he is by his productions, his private virtues are more than equal to his public pre-eminence; and his least merit is that of being the best poet of his age.

Effays on the Hiftory of Mankind in rude and uncultivated Ages. By James Dunbar, LL. D. 8vo. 6s. Cadell.

T HE author's intention in this work is, as he himself expreffes it, to folve some appearances in civil life, and, by an appeal to the annals of mankind, to vindicate the character of the fpecies from vulgar prejudices, and thofe of philofophical theory. In purfuance of this defign, he gives us a series of obfervations on the primeval form of fociety; on language, as an univerfal accomplishment; on the criterion of a polished tongue,

H 4

tongue, and the criterion of polifhed manners; on the rank of nations, and the revolutions of fortune; on the general influence of climate on national objects; on the tendency of local circumftances to affe&t the proceedings of nations; on the relation of man to the furrounding elements; on man as the arbiter of his own fortune; on fashions which predominate among various tribes of mankind; on the tendency of moral character to diverfify the human form; and on the hereditary genius of nations.

These are copious fubjects, which promise a variety of agreeable information, especially as the author poffeffes an ample share of learning, tafte, and difcernment; but, through an abftraded or a refined train of reafoning, thefe Effays will probably be thought lefs entertaining than the reader might have expected.

In treating of the criterion of a polished language, he makes, among others, the following obfervations:

• Words fluctuate with the modes of life. They are varied, or exterminated as harth and diffonant, upon the fame principle that any mode or fashion is varied or exterminated as rude and vulgar. And the prevalence of this principle ultimately tends to the establishment of a general diftinction. Hence the smoothness of the Ionic dialect, rather than the roughness of the Doric, recommends itfelf to a polished age.

Peter the Great confidered the German as a fmooth and harmonious tongue, and ordered it as fuch to be used at court. In proportion as the court of Peterburgh became more polished, the German was difcarded, and the French fubftituted in its room.

In general the fuperior refinement of the French established its currency in all the politer circles of the North of Europe; and upon the fame principle the Greek, which had no charms for the Romans in the ruder ages of the republic, ravished the ears of imperial Rome,

Hoc fermone pavent, hoc iram, gaudia, curas,

Hoc cuncta effundunt animi fecreta.

Juv. Sat. vi., In the production of the founds of language, climate is concerned, as well as the degrees of civilization. But this natural caufe operating upon manners alfo, and through that medium upon fpeech, its direct and fimple influence upon the organs ought not to be confounded with its reflex and more complicated operations.

Climate, in both ways, may favour or obftruct refinement in founds, or derive to them a peculiar character.

If the language of the Malais, a people barbarous and fierce, is however rightly celebrated as the fofteft in Afia, the climate, in fuch inftances, by an irrefiftible application to the organs, acts in oppofition to manners, and controuls their natural tendency. If the jargon of the Hottentots is, on the other hand,

the

the harsheft jargon in the world, it seems an effect rather charge-able on manners with which the climate is not immediately concerned.

In periods, however, of equal refinement, the articulation and accents of the North are, in our hemifphere, diftinguishable from the articulation and accents of the fouthern regions. Inarticulate found is governed by fimilar rules, and a different ftyle and compofition in mufic are found best accommodated to the genius of different nations.

6.

The French mufic accordingly, as well as the Italian, is univerfally exploded among the Turks; and whether from the texture of their organs, or from climate, or from certain habitudes of life, poffeffes no power to ravish their ears with harmony, or to intereft the paffions.

In general European mufic is difrelifhed or exploded in the Eaft. "Your mufic," faid a native of Egypt to M. Niebuhr, is a wild and offenfive noife, which a ferious man can hardly endure." Nor is this an anomalous example. When Ismenias, the greatest mafter in mufic at the court of Macedon, was commanded to perform before the king of Scythia, the king* having heard the performance, far from acquiefcing in the public admiration, fwore that to him the neighing of a horse was more agreeable: fo little acceptable to Scythian ears, and to a barbarous monarch, were the most admired compofitions of the Greeks.

Even among nations of equal refinement there is to each appropriated a style in mufic refulting from local circumftances, or from certain peculiarities of character; and national mufic, because more intelligible, will ever be more acceptable than foreign, to the inhabitants of every country. Thus the fame founds, though in fome refpects intelligible to all, excite perceptions which are merely relative, and therefore variable with the mechanism of our organs, with the affociations of fancy, and with the cultivation of taste. It is the fame with words. Words adopted into language, in the age of barbarifm, and whofe harfhness then is either not discernible, or not offensive, will of course be relinquished or abolished in a more discerning and cultivated period. And by confequence, fentences conftructed with fuch different materials, though the vehicle of the fame ideas to the understanding, will imprefs our organs with characteristical and diftinct perceptions.

It is a remark of Voltaire, in celebrating the illustrious founders of Helvetian liberty, that the difficulty of pronouncing fuch names had injured their fame with pofterity.

A fimilar remark might be formed with regard to certain fciences and arts, where technical terms abound, and a discouragement arifes from the coarfenefs of the language in which they are delivered. Not to mention the ufelefs jargon of the schools, grown fo juftly offenfive to the public ear, the barbarifm

Atheas king of Scythia. Plut. De Epicuri Decret. p. 1095.

of

of its scientific terms proves in the prefent age, at least in the fashionable world, rather unfriendly to the Linpean fyftem. This naturalifts confefs. The late Mr. Gray, whofe musical parts were fo delicate and correct, was fo ftruck with this deformity in a fyftem in other refpects fo worthy of admiration, as to have attempted to make the German Latin of Linnæus purely claffical: : a task which perhaps Gray alone was able to perform. But though this fpecies of deformity may be an object of regret, faftidious furely, or rather to the laft degree fantaftical, is the tafte which can be diverted, by fuch frivolous confideration, from the study of nature.

The fenfe of harmony in a well conftituted mind, difpenfes with its objects, in favour of more liberal and manly indulgence. And in the expreffion of found, in the intimation it brings, in the, fentiments and feelings which, independently of arbitrary appointment, it calls up in the human understanding, or impreffes on the human heart, confifts the chief importance of thofe modulations which prevail in different fyftems of language.

When the emperor Charles the Fifth fo pleasantly characterised the several languages of Europe, this general effect of found alone exhaufted the criticifm. Heinfinuated no other comparifon, nor enquired into their artificial fabric. The criterion, however, of a polifhed tongue feems principally to refide there.'

On the relation of man to the furrounding elements, the author fuggefts thefe ufeful remarks.

• There is no one country on the face of the earth which is declared, by general confent, to be the fittest refidence for man. That influence of the heavens feems to be relatively the best, which habit has rendered the most familiar; and to exchange of a fudden one climate for another, is always hazardous for any tribe or people. Yet the pofitive malignancy of no climate of the world can be inferred from the dangers which are so often confequent on the migrations of mankind. Our phyfical habits are established or diffolved by flow degrees; violent tranfitions feem repugnant to nature, and often threaten our conftitution with deftruction. But if it can refift the impetuofity of the shock, the body accommodates itself by degrees to its new condition. Things offenfive become indifferent, or even agreeable: things noxious, innocent or falutary, and in time perhaps fo effential, that no danger were more to be apprehended than a return to ancient habits. Emigrants can learn only from experience the peculiarities of other climates; and, in the courfe of that experience, they ftruggle with a series of calamity, from which the natives of thofe climates are exempt, and from which the pofterity of thofe emigrants will be exempt in all fucceeding generations, If we may judge then from the firft impreffions on our animal economy, the external conftitutions of nature, in the

Francefe ad un amico, Tudefco al fuo cavallo, Italiano alla sua gnora, Spanuolo a Dio, Inglefe a gli uccelli.

different climates of the earth, tends rather to discourage than to promote the diftant migrations of mankind.

• In fome climates of the world, the body arrives foon at maturity, and haftens to a diffolution with proportional celerity. In other climates a longer period is allowed both for its progrefs and decline. In the ages of antiquity, the Britons were remarkable for the longeft, the Egyptians for the leaft extended life; while the ordinary ftandard in other countries deviated, as was fuppofed, more or less from these oppofite extremes. Confiftently with the fame order of second causes, modern history informs us of a variety of people among whom the natural term of life exceeds not, or even falls below the ftandard of Egypt; and the Britons yield, perhaps, in longevity to the more northern nations. The balance of numbers, indeed, may not be affected by fuch diftinctions. If climates the most prolific are allo the most deftructive to the human fpecies, the rules of proportion are not broken; and the encrease of mankind in one country may be as effectually advanced by the prolongation of life, as in another by a more abundant progeny. But, whether the law of mortality be fo adjusted or not to the law of generation, the ftated period of life is fomewhat variable among nations. And, if the facts were doubtful or equivocal in general history, the influence in this refpect of local fituations, and of air of different temper, might be ascertained from the public registers of mortality in contiguous fettlements, and under the fame civil œconomy. The air of the Hague is reputed the best in Holland: the air of Amfterdam the most malignant: and the duration of life in those two places feems to correfpond with this natural caufe. To correct fuch influences, there is perhaps fome fovereign antidote, fome controuling regimen laid up, for future generations, in the ftores of philofophy. But from fact to poflibi. lity there lies no appeal; and in all ages of the world, the term of our existence, though dependent on a multiplicity of causes, feems to have had fome reference to climate; and in general to have increased with the latitude. Strength and vigour of body, till we arrive at the limit of the polar circle, are found to increase in a fimilar progreffion.

Stature and magnitude, on the other hand, are at least as confiderable in the warmer as in the colder regions. And the moft diminutive and dwarfish of the human race are perhaps the natives of the frigid zone.

The Patagonian ftature, after exercifing fo long the curiofity, the fcepticifm, the credulity of the public, is at laft fufficiently afcertained, and feems not to violate, in any marvellous degree, the ufual defcription of man. But, as a contraft to this, the world has been lately amufed with an account of a nation, in the island of Madagascar, where the ordinary ftature rifes not above three feet and a half. It is not, however, pretended that the Patagonians are eminent for intellectual abilities above other tribes of barbarians; and the little people of Madagascar seem