-for it is always a vanishing scene-it furnishes an idea worth treasuring among the choicest appearances of nature. Mistiness alone, we have observed, occasions a confusion in objects which is often picturesque; but the glory of the vision depends on the glowing lights which are mingled with it. Landscape-painters, in general, pay too little attention to the discriminations of morning and evening. We are often at a loss to distinguish in pictures the rising from the setting sun, though their characters are very different both in the lights and shadows. The ruddy lights, indeed, of the evening are more easily distinguished, but it is not perhaps always sufficiently observed that the shadows of the evening are much less opaque than those of the morning. They may be brightened perhaps by the numberless rays floating in the atmosphere, which are incessantly reverberated in every direction, and may continue in action after the sun is set; whereas in the morning the rays of the preceding day having subsided, no object receives any light but from the immediate lustre of the sun. Whatever becomes of the theory, the fact I believe is well ascertained. The incidental beauties which the meridian sun exhibits are much fewer than those of the rising sun. In summer when he rides high at noon, and sheds his perpendicular ray, all is illumination; there is no shadow to balance such a glare of light, no contrast to oppose it. The judicious artist, therefore, rarely represents his objects under a vertical sun. And yet no species of landscape bears it so well as the scenes of the forest. The tuftings of the trees, the recesses among them, and the lighter foliage hanging over the darker, may all have an effect under a meridian sun. I speak chiefly, however, of the internal scenes of the forest, which bear such total brightness better than any other, as in them there is generally a natural gloom to balance it. The light obstructed by close intervening trees will rarely predominate; hence the effect is often fine. A strong sunshine striking a wood through some fortunate chasm, and reposing on the tuftings of a clump, just removed from the eye, and strengthened by the deep shadows of the trees behind, appears to great advantage; especially if some noble tree, standing on the foreground in deep shadow, flings athwart the sky its dark branches, here and there illumined with a splendid touch of light. becomes stronger. In an open country, the most fortunate circumstance that attends a meridian sun is cloudy weather, which occasions partial lights. Then it is that the distant forest scene is spread with lengthened gleams, while the other parts of the landscape are in shadow; the tuftings of trees are particularly adapted to catch this effect with advantage; there is a richness in them from the strong opposition of light and shade, which is wonderfully fine. A distant forest thus illumined wants only a foreground to make it highly picturesque. As the sun descends, the effect of its illumination It is a doubt whether the rising or the setting sun is more picturesque. The great beauty of both depends on the contrast between splendour and obscurity. But this contrast is produced by these different incidents in different ways. The grandest effects of the rising sun are produced by the vapours which envelop it-the setting sun rests its glory on the gloom which often accompanies its parting rays. A depth of shadow hanging over the eastern hemisphere gives the beams of the setting sun such powerful effect, that although in fact they are by no means equal to the splendour of a meridian sun, yet through force of contrast they appear superior. A distant forest scene under this brightened gloom is particularly rich, and glows with double splendour. The verdure of the summer leaf, and the varied tints of the autumnal one, are all lighted up with the most resplendent colours. The internal parts of the forest are not so happily disposed to catch the effects of a setting sun. The meridian ray, we have seen, may dart through the openings at the top, and produce a picture, but the flanks of the forest are generally too well guarded against its horizontal beams. Sometimes a recess fronting the west may receive a beautiful light, spreading in a lengthened gleam amidst the gloom of the woods which surround it; but this can only be had in the outskirts of the forest. Sometimes also we find in its internal parts, though hardly in its deep recesses, splendid lights here and there catching the foliage, which though in nature generally too scattered to produce an effect, yet, if judiciously collected, may be beautiful on canvas. We sometimes also see in a woody scene coruscations like a bright star, occasioned by a sunbeam darting through an eyelet-hole among the leaves. Many painters, and especially Rubens, have been fond of introducing this radiant spot in their landscapes. But in painting, it is one of those trifles which produces no effect, nor can this radiance be given. In poetry, indeed, it may produce a pleasing image. Shakspeare hath introduced it beautifully, where, speaking of the force of truth entering a guilty conscience, he compares it to the sun, which Fires the proud tops of the eastern pines, And darts his light through every guilty hole. It is one of those circumstances which poetry may offer to the imagination, but the pencil cannot well produce to the eye. The Essays on the Picturesque, by Sir Uvedale Price, were designed by their accomplished author to explain and enforce the reasons for studying the works of eminent landscape-painters, and the principles of their art, with a view to the improvement of real scenery, and to promote the cultivation of what has been termed landscape-gardening. He examined the leading features of modern gardening, in its more extended sense, on the general principles of painting, and shewed how much the character of the picturesque has been neglected, or sacrificed to a false idea of beauty. The best edition of these essays, improved by the author, is that of 1810; but Sir Thomas Dick Lauder has published editions of both Gilpin and Price-the latter a very handsome volume, 1842-with a great deal of additional matter. Besides his Essays on the Picturesque, Sir Uvedale has written essays on artificial water, on house decorations, architecture, and buildings-all branches of his original subject, and treated with the same taste and elegance. The theory of the author is, that the picturesque in nature has a character separate from the sublime and the beautiful; and in enforcing and maintaining this, he attacked the style of ornamental gardening which Mason the poet had recommended, and Kent and Brown, the great landscape improvers, had reduced to practice. Some of Price's positions have been overturned by Dugald Stewart in his Philosophical Essays; but the exquisite beauty of his descriptions must ever render his work interesting, independently altogether of its metaphysical or philosophical distinctions. His criticism of painters and paintings is equally able and discriminating; and by his works we consider Sir Uvedale Price has been highly instrumental in diffusing those just sentiments on matters of taste, and that improved style of landscape-gardening, which so eminently distinguish the English aristocracy of the present times. The REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON published in 1790 Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, designed to prove that material objects appear beautiful or sublime in consequence of their association with our moral feelings and affections. The objects presented to the eye generate trains of thought and pleasing emotion, and these constitute our sense of beauty. This theory, referring all our ideas of beauty to the law of association, has been disputed and condemned as untenable, but part of Mr Alison's reasoning is just, and his illustrations and language are particularly apposite and beautiful. For example, he thus traces the pleasures of the antiquary: [Memorials of the Past.] Even the peasant, whose knowledge of former times extends but to a few generations, has yet in his village some monuments of the deeds or virtues of his forefathers, and cherishes with a fond veneration the memorial of those good old times to which his imagination returns with delight, and of which he loves to recount the simple tales that tradition has brought him. And what is it that constitutes the emotion of sublime delight, which every man of common sensibility feels upon his first prospect of Rome? It is not the scene of destruction which is before him. It is not the Tiber, diminished in his imagination to a paltry stream, flowing amidst the ruins of that magnificence which it once adorned. It is not the triumph of superstition over the wreck of human greatness, and its monuments erected upon the very spot where the first honours of humanity have been gained. It is ancient Rome which fills his imagination. It is the country of Caesar, of Cicero, and Virgil, which is before him. It is the mistress of the world which he sees, and who seems to him to rise again from her tomb to give laws to the universe. All that the labours of his youth, or the studies of his maturer age, have acquired with regard to the history of this great people, open at once on his imagination, and present him with a field of high and solemn imagery which can never be exhausted. Take from him these associations-conceal from him that it is Rome that he sees, and how different would be his emotion! [The Effect of Sounds as modified by Association.] There is certainly no resemblance, as sounds, between the noise of thunder and the hissing of a serpentbetween the growling of a tiger and the explosion of gunpowder-between the scream of the eagle and the shouting of a multitude; yet all of these are sublime. In the same manner, there is as little resemblance between the tinkling of the sheep-fold bell and the murmuring of the breeze-between the hum of the beetle and the song of the lark-between the twitter of the swallow and the sound of the curfew; yet all these are beautiful. Mr Alison published also two volumes of Sermons, remarkable for elegance of composition. He was a prebendary of Salisbury and senior minister of the Episcopal Chapel, Edinburgh-a man of most amiable character and varied accomplishments. He died, at an advanced age, in 1839. BIOGRAPHERS. The French have cultivated biography with more diligence than the English; but much has been done of late years to remedy this defect in our national literature. Individual specimens of great value we have long possessed. The lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert, by Izaak Walton, are entitled to the highest praise for the fulness of their domestic details, no less than for the fine simplicity and originality of their style. The Lives of the Poets by Johnson, and the occasional memoirs by Goldsmith, Mallet, and other authors, are either too general or too critical to satisfy the reader as representations of the daily life, habits, and opinions of those whom we venerate or admire. Mason's life of Gray was a vast improvement on former biographies, as the interesting and characteristic correspondence of the poet and his literary diary and journals, bring him personally before us pursuing the silent course of his studies, or mingling occasionally as a retired scholar in the busy world around him. The success of Mason's bold and wise experiment prompted another and more complete work-the life of Dr Johnson by Boswell. JAMES The howl of the wolf is little distinguished from the BoSWELL (1740-1795) was by birth and education a howl of the dog, either in its tone or in its strength; but gentleman of rank and station-the son of a Scottish there is no comparison between their sublimity. There judge, and heir to an ancient family and estate. He are few, if any, of these sounds so loud as the most com- had studied for the bar, but being strongly impressed mon of all sounds, the lowing of a cow. Yet this is the with admiration of the writings and character of Dr very reverse of sublimity. Imagine this sound, on the contrary, expressive of fierceness or strength, and there Johnson, he attached himself to the rugged moralist, can be no doubt that it would become sublime. The soothed and flattered his irritability, submitted to hooting of the owl at midnight, or amid ruins, is strik- his literary despotism and caprice; and, sedulously ingly sublime; the same sound at noon, or during the cultivating his acquaintance and society whenday, is very far from being so. The scream of the eagle ever his engagements permitted, he took faithful is simply disagreeable when the bird is either tame or and copious notes of his conversation. In 1773 confined; it is sublime only when it is heard amid rocks he accompanied Johnson to the Hebrides, and and deserts, and when it is expressive to us of liberty after the death of the latter, he published, in and independence, and savage majesty. The neighing of 1785, his journal of the tour, being a record of a war-horse in the field of battle, or of a young untamed each day's occurrences, and of the more striking horse when at large among mountains, is powerfully parts of Johnson's conversation. The work was sublime. The same sound in a cart-horse, or a horse eminently successful; and in 1791 Boswell gave in the stable, is simply indifferent, if not disagreeable. to the world his full-length portrait of his friend, No sound is more absolutely mean than the grunting The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in two volumes of swine. The same sound in the wild boar-an animal quarto. A second edition was published in 1794, remarkable both for fierceness and strength-is sublime. and the author was engaged in preparing a third The low and feeble sounds of animals which are generally when he died. A great number of editions have considered the reverse of sublime, are rendered so by since been printed, the latest of which was edited association. The hissing of a goose, and the rattle of by Mr J. W. Croker. Anecdotes and recollections a child's plaything, are both contemptible sounds; but of Johnson were also published by Mrs Piozzi, Sir when the hissing comes from the mouth of a dangerous John Hawkins, Malone, Miss Reynolds, &c. Bosserpent, and the noise of the rattle is that of the rattle-well had awakened public curiosity, and shewn how snake, although they do not differ from the others in much wit, wisdom, and sagacity, joined to real intensity, they are both of them highly sublime. worth and benevolence, were concealed under the .... personal oddities and ungainly exterior of Johnson. Never was there so complete a portraiture of any single individual. The whole time spent by Boswell in the society of his illustrious friend did not amount to more than nine months, yet so diligent was he in writing and inquiring-so thoroughly did he devote himself to his subject, that, notwithstanding his limited opportunities, and his mediocre abilities, he was able to produce what all mankind have agreed in considering the best biography in existence. Though vain, shallow, and conceited, Boswell had taste enough to discern the racy vigour and richness of Johnson's conversation, and he was observant enough to trace the peculiarities of his character and temperament. He forced himself into society, and neglected his family and his profession, to meet his friend; and he was content to be ridiculed and slighted, so that he could thereby add one page to his journal, or one scrap of writing to his collection. He sometimes sat up three nights in a week to fulfil his task, and hence there is a freshness and truth in his notes and impressions which attest their fidelity. He must have possessed considerable dramatic power to have rendered his portraits and dialogues so animated and varied. His work introduces us to a great variety of living characters, who speak, walk, and think, as it were, in our presence; and besides furnishing us with useful, affecting, and ennobling lessons of morality, live over again the past for the delight and entertainment of countless generations of readers. Boswell's convivial habits hastened his death. In 1856 a volume of letters addressed by Boswell to his friend the Rev. Mr Temple, was published, and illustrated the weakness and vanity of his character. With a pardonable and engaging egotism, which forms an interesting feature in his character, the historian Gibbon had made several sketches of his own life and studies. From these materials, and embodying verbatim the most valuable portions, LORD SHEFFIELD compiled a memoir, which was published, with the miscellaneous works of Gibbon, in 1795. A number of the historian's letters were also included in this collection; but the most important and interesting part of the work is his journal and diary, giving an account of his literary occupations. The calm unshrinking perseverance and untiring energy of Gibbon form a noble example to all literary students; and where he writes of his own personal history and opinions, his lofty philosophical style never forsakes him. Thus he opens his slight memoir in the following strain: 'A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seemed to have lived in the persons of our forefathers: it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. Fifty or a hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we step forwards beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind.' Gibbon states, that before entering upon the perusal of a book, he wrote down or considered what he knew of the subject, and afterwards examined how much the author had added to his stock of knowledge. A severe test for some authors! From habits like this sprung the Decline and Fall. In 1800 DR JAMES CURRIE (1756-1805) published his edition of the works of Burns for the benefit of the poet's family, and enriched it with an excellent memoir, that has served for the groundwork of many subsequent lives of Burns. The candour and ability displayed by Currie have scarcely been sufficiently appreciated. Such a task was new to him, and was beset with difficulties. He believed that Burns's misfortunes arose chiefly from his errors-he lived at a time when this impression was strongly prevalentyet he touched on the subject of the poet's frailties with delicacy and tenderness. He estimated his genius highly as a great poet, without reference to his personal position, and thus in some measure anticipated the more unequivocal award of posterity. His remarks on Scottish poetry, and on the condition of the Scottish peasantry, appear now somewhat prolix and affected; but at the time they were written, they tended to interest and inform the English reader, and to forward the author's benevolent object in extending the sale of the poet's works. By his generous labours, Dr Currie realised for the family of Burns a sum of £1400. TRAVELLERS. MACARTNEY, STAUNTON, BRUCE, MUNGO PARK. The growing importance of our trade with China suggested a mission to the imperial court, in order to obtain some extension of the limits within which the traffic was confined. In 1792 an embassy was formed on a liberal scale, LORD MACARTNEY (1737-1806) being placed at its head, and SIR GEORGE L. STAUNTON (1737-1801) being secretary of legation or envoyextraordinary. These two able diplomatists and travellers had served together in India, Macartney as governor of Madras, and Staunton as his secretary. The latter negotiated the peace with Tippoo Saib in 1784, for which he was elevated to the baronetcy, and received from the East India Company a pension of £500 a year. The mission to China did not result in securing the commercial advantages anticipated, but the Journal published by Lord Macartney, and the Authentic Account of the Embassy by Sir George Staunton, added greatly to our knowledge of the empire and people of China. Sir George's work was in two volumes quarto, and formed one of the most interesting and novel books of travels in the language. It was read with great avidity, and translated into French and German. One of the most romantic and persevering of our travellers was JAMES BRUCE of Kinnaird, a Scottish gentleman of ancient family and property, who devoted several years to a journey into Abyssinia to discover the sources of the river Nile. The fountains of celebrated rivers have led to some of our most interesting exploratory expeditions. Superstition has hallowed the sources of the Nile and the Ganges, and the mysterious Niger long wooed our adventurous travellers into the sultry plains of Africa. The inhabitants of mountainous countries still look with veneration on their principal streams, and as they roll on before them, connect them in imagination with the ancient glories or traditional legends of their native land. Bruce partook largely of this feeling, and was a man of an ardent enthusiastic temperament. He was born at Kinnaird House, in the county of Stirling, on the 14th of December 1730, and was intended for the legal It was not until seventeen years after his return that Bruce published his travels. Parts had been made public, and were much ridiculed. Even Johnson doubted whether he had ever been in Abyssinia! The work appeared in 1790, in five large quarto volumes, with another volume of plates. The strangeness of the author's adventures at the court at Gondar, the somewhat inflated style of the narrative, and the undisguised vanity of the traveller, led to a disbelief of his statements, and numerous lampoons and satires, both in prose and profession. He was averse, however, to the study and dangers from the sand-floods and simoom of the law, and entered into business as a wine- of the desert, and his own physical sufferings and merchant in London. Being led to visit Spain and exhaustion. Portugal, he was struck with the architectural ruins and chivalrous tales of the Moorish dominion, and applied himself diligently to the study of Eastern antiquities and languages. On his return to England he became known to the government, and it was proposed that he should make a journey to Barbary, which had been partially explored by Dr Shaw. At the same time, the consulship of Algiers became vacant, and Bruce was appointed to the office. He left England, and arrived at Algiers in 1762. Above six years were spent by our traveller at Algiers and in various travels during which he surveyed and sketched the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec-and it was not till June 1768 that he reached Alexandria. From thence he proceeded to Cairo, and embarked on the Nile. He arrived at Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, and after some stay there, he set out for the sources of Bahr-el-Azrek, under an impression that this was the principal branch of the Nile. The spot was at length pointed out by his guide-a hillock of green sod in the middle of a watery plain. The guide counselled him to pull off his shoes, as the people were all pagans, and prayed to the river as if it were God. 'Half undressed as I was,' continues Bruce, 'by the loss of my sash, and throwing off my shoes, I ran down the hill towards the hillock of green sod, which was about two hundred yards distant; the whole side of the hill was thick grown with flowers, the large bulbous roots of which appearing above the surface of the ground, and their skins coming off on my treading upon them, occasioned me two very severe falls before I reached the brink of the marsh. I after this came to the altar of green turf, which was apparently the work of art, and I stood in rapture above the principal fountain, which rises in the middle of it. It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment-standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns for the course of near three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all. Fame, riches, and honour had been held out for a series of ages to every individual of those myriads these princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies! and every comparison was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vainglory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumph. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which Staircase at Kinnaird House, Stirlingshire-Scene of Bruce's Fatal Accident. verse, were directed against him. The really honourable and superior points of Bruce's character-such as his energy and daring, his various knowledge and acquirements, and his disinterested zeal in undertaking such a journey at his own expense-were overlooked in this petty war of the wits. Bruce felt their attacks keenly; but he was a proud-spirited man, and did not deign to reply to pasquinades impeaching his veracity. He survived his publication only four years. The foot which had trod without failing the deserts of Nubia, slipped one evening in his own staircase, while handing a lady to her carriage, and he died in 1794. A second edition of the Travels, edited by consequence of the injury then received, April 16, Dr Alexander Murray-an excellent Oriental scholar The style of Bruce is prolix and inelegant, though -was published in 1805, and a third in 1813. occasionally energetic. He seized upon the most prominent points, and coloured them highly. The general accuracy of his work has been confirmed from different quarters. MR HENRY SALT, the next European traveller in Abyssinia, twice penetrated After several adventures in Abyssinia, in the into the interior of the country-in 1805 and 1810 course of which he received high personal distinc--but without reaching so far as Bruce. This tions from the king, Bruce obtained leave to depart. gentleman confirms the historical parts of Bruce's He returned through the great deserts of Nubia narrative; and MR NATHANIEL PEARCE-who into Egypt, encountering the severest hardships resided many years in Abyssinia, and was engaged I would have overwhelmed me but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence: I was, however, but then half through my journey, and all those dangers through which I had already passed awaited me on my return; I found a despondency gaining ground fast, and blasting the crown of laurels which I had too rashly woven for myself.' by Salt verifies one of Bruce's most extraordinary heavy rain-and the wild beasts are so very numerous statements-the practice of the Abyssinians of eat-in the neighbourhood, that I should have been under ing raw meat cut out of a living cow! This was the necessity of climbing up the tree and resting long ridiculed and disbelieved, though in reality it amongst the branches. About sunset, however, as I is not much more barbarous than the custom of was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and the poor Highlanders in Scotland of bleeding their had turned my horse loose that he might graze at cattle in winter for food. Pearce witnessed the liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the operation: a cow was thrown down, and two pieces field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I of flesh, weighing about a pound, cut from the was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, buttock, after which the wounds were sewed up, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks and plastered over with cow-dung. Dr Clarke and of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, other travellers have borne testimony to the correct- and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into ness of Bruce's drawings and maps. The only her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the disingenuousness charged against our traveller is floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. his alleged concealment of the fact, that the Nile, Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would whose sources have been in all ages an object of procure me something to eat. She accordingly went curiosity, was the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, out, and returned in a short time with a very fine flowing from the west, and not the Bahr-el-Azrek, fish, which, having caused to be half broiled upon or Blue River, which descends from Abyssinia, and some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of which he explored. It seems also clear that Paez, distress, my worthy benefactress-pointing to the mat, hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in the Portuguese traveller, had long previously and telling me I might sleep there without apprehenstood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, sion-called to the female part of her family, who had to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk-no wife to grind his corn. Chorus. Let us pity the white man-no mother has he,' &c. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my waistcoat-the only recompense I could make her. visited the source of the Bahr-el-Azrek. Next in interest and novelty to the travels of Bruce are those of MUNGO PARK in Central Africa. Mr Park was born at Fowlshiels, near Selkirk, on the 10th of September 1771. He studied medicine, and performed a voyage to Bencoolen in the capacity of assistant-surgeon to an East Indiaman. The African Association, founded in 1778 for the purpose of promoting discovery in the interior of Africa, had sent out several travellers-John Ledyard, Lucas, and Major Houghton-all of whom had died. Park, however, undeterred by these examples, embraced the society's offer, and set sail in May 1795. On the 21st of June following he arrived at Jillifree, on the banks of the Gambia. He pursued his journey towards the kingdom of Bambarra, and saw the great object of his mission, the river Niger flowing towards the east. The sufferings of Park during his journey, the various incidents he encountered, his captivity among the Moors, and his description of the inhabitants, their manners, trade, and customs, constitute a narrative of the deepest interest. The traveller returned to England towards the latter end of the year 1797, when all hope of him had been abandoned, and in 1799 he published his travels. The style is simple and manly, and replete with a fine moral feeling. One of his adventures-which had the honour of being turned into verse by the Duchess of Devonshire is thus related. The traveller had reached the town of Sego, the capital of Bambarra, and wished to cross the river towards the residence of the king: I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity of crossing the river, during which time the people who had crossed carried information to Mansong, the king, that a white man was waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him. He immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that the king could not possibly see me until he knew what had brought me into his country; and that I must not presume to cross the river without the king's permission. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for the night, and said that in the morning he would give me further instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. However, as there was no remedy, I set off for the village, where I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable for the wind rose, and there was great appearance of a His fortitude under suffering, and the natural piety of his mind, are beautifully illustrated by an incident related after he had been robbed and stript of most of his clothes at a village near Kooma: After the robbers were gone, I sat for some time looking around me with amazement and terror. Whichever way I turned, nothing appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a vast wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone, surrounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. All these circumstances crowded at once on my recollection, and I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and perish. The influence of religion, however, aided and supported me. I reflected that no human prudence or foresight could possibly have averted my present sufferings. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land, yet I was still under the protecting eye of that Providence who has condescended to call himself the stranger's friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this to shew from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves, and capsula, without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small |