acts most absurdly; if probable, very imprudently; if only possible, not wisely."

Lord Byron is another instance of the union of unbelief and scepticism with a tincture of superstition and credulity; though in him these propensities were not nourished by fear, (an emotion of which he seems hardly to have been conscious,) but were connected with certain loose notions of fatality. He had faith in omens, and entertained, it is said, some respect for a fortune-teller, who informed him, when a boy, that there would be certain periods of his life, recurring within equal intervals, which would be marked with some calamitous event. If he had come into the world only a century earlier, he might perhaps have been as firm a believer in astrology, and as great a caster of nativities, as Dryden himself. Homer has an admirable line, proving how much he could rise superior to the gross superstitions of his age, where he tells us, that the most favourable omen for our country is the union of all hearts and hands in its defence.

Εις οιωνος αρισος, αμυνεσθαι περι

πάτρης.

How happy would it have been for the noble English poet, and his readers, had he improved upon this reflection of his great predecessor, and duly considered that the surest augury of happiness consists in early moral discipline, and religious selfdenial !

As I am on the subject of Lord Byron's infidelity, this paper may be not improperly concluded with a few remarks on his intimate friend and associate, the unhappy Shelley. Nothing could be more inconsistent than the opinions which Lord Byron expressed, at different times, respecting this author's poetry. At one moment, it was "baseness and bigotry not to admire his verses;" at another he speaks of him as one who could judge of poetry, but could not produce it. Shelley was not devoid of feeling and imagination;

but they were both buried under a heap of the vilest jargon of metaphysical impiety that ever offended the taste of a critic, or the seriousness of a Christian. He is happily, however, too unintelligible to attract many readers. The very best that can be said for him, as a man, is, that he was partially insane; and assuredly the youth, who could sit down to compose a formal treatise in favour of Atheism, and then circulate his pamphlet among the bishops, and propose to discuss the question with the examining masters at Oxford, must have made, to say the least, some approaches to derangement of intellect. Not that this supposition will wholly excuse him; for he may still have retained, generally, such a power of self-controul as to constitute him a responsible agent. And, even in the case of decided mental aberration, great guilt may be incurred by that original neglect of moral discipline which may have contributed to produce it; as the law renders men in some degree punishable for crimes committed during a state of intoxication. The catastrophe and obsequies of this wretched individual have about them an air of horror. It is well known that he was drowned on a pleasurable excursion, and that his body, having been recovered from the waves, was solemnly burnt by Lord Byron upon a funeral pile, in the presence of some other friends. The ceremony, as described by Captain Medwin, seems to have blended the rites of paganism in strange conjunction with the gloom of infidelity. No service was said no dirge was sung over the departed. The professed Atheist had "died, and made no sign." Leigh Hunt lay almost fainting in a carriage. In front of the pile stood Lord Byron, with a fixed but not unfeeling eye, marking the gradual consumption of the poor remains, and only breaking the solemn silence by a low-muttered remark, seeming to proceed from the idea that both body and spirit were alike re

duced to nothingness. Altogether it was a scene of sadness, apparently unrelieved by the feeblest ray of hope or consolation; a scene worthy of the muse of a Byron, or the pencil of a Fuseli.

(To be continued.)

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

I HAVE just been reading with renewed pleasure Mr. Hodgson's two interesting volumes of "Letters from North America," the substance of which first appeared in your pages. These volumes are represented by American writers generally as containing the most candid and impartial view of the state of society and manners in the United States which has yet appeared. They are therefore highly deserving of public attention. I have been particularly impressed with his truly graphic sketches of slavery; the misery, and impolicy, as well as the iniquity, of which he has most ably delineated. There is also a candour in his remarks on this afflicting subject, which gives the greater force to his statements. Warm and honourable as is his zeal in the cause of humanity and freedom, he is ever willing to give full prominence to whatever mitigation he can discover in the abhorrent system which he condemns, and to arrive at as hopeful a conclusion as possible amidst the most unpromising premises. It is, however, the singular fatality of the slave-system that nothing can be uttered either by hope or charity as the slightest fraction of compensation, but what, when re-considered, assumes other aspects so distressing and gloomy that the mind refuses to indulge the pleasure resulting from the alleged partial mitigation in the overwhelming painfulness of positive and present misery. Mr. Hodgson will allow me to adduce the following illustration. Speaking of the practice of letting out slaves on hire, or sending them out to find employment where they can; the master ex

pecting a certain proportion of their gains, or exacting a fixed sum per week, and allowing them the remainder, ifany; Mr.Hodgson remarks, that "the system of allowing the slaves to select their own work, and to look out for employment for themselves, notwithstanding the frequent hardship attending it, is a great step towards emancipation, and an admirable preparative for it; and may we not regard it as one of the avenues through which the African will ultimately emerge from his degraded condition?" "Surely," continues he, "the warmest advocates of perpe tual slavery, (if there be any, which I greatly doubt,) will not contend that a man who is capable of taking care of his family while compelled to pay his owner a premium for permis sion to do so, will become less com petent to manage his concerns when exonerated from the tax, or that he will relax in his efforts to improve his condition, because a stranger no longer divides with him the fruit of his toil." The truth of this inference is undeniable; and the mind is for a moment almost inclined to indulge some charity towards a system which is to produce such happy results; a system which teaches the slave those habits of diligence and forethought which it is the almost inevitable effect of his servile and dependent condition to eradicate, and which, while it thus prepares him for eman cipation, has the superadded merit of stopping the mouths of those who would deny his competency to make his labour when untaxed as valuable to himself as when subjected to a heavy impost. But miserable are even the compensations and mitigations of slavery. The natural way in which the system of letting out slaves may eventually issue in their freedom, is by accustoming them to feel their strength and self-dependence, which may, sooner or later, lead them to achieve their independence, amidst those horrors which Mr. Hodgson so feelingly deprecates, and which he wisely exhorts the masters to prevent by a timely emancipation be

neficial to both parties. But in the mean while how dreadful is such a system to the poor slaves! Mr. Hodgson, even in taking the most hopeful view of the case, tells us that "frequent hardships" attend it; that "in the Charleston and Savannah jails, besides numerous pirates, there were many slaves in confinement for not giving their masters the wages they had earned." But what proof is there that (in every case at least) they had earned these wages? The most diligent labourer may sometimes fail of meeting with work, and it is painful enough for him to lie down at night faint and famishing, without the misfortune of having to make up to an inexorable master a sum which he has not had it in his power to earn*. Mr. Hodgson incidentally throws some light on the practical working of this system when he says, will be surprised to learn that children who are thus situated generally prefer chimney sweeping, as they can earn more by this than by any other employment." I confess that I see nothing "surprising" in this selection. The child no doubt knows full well the miseries of chimney sweeping; but finding that it best enables him to meet the exactions of his employer, and preferring on the whole the lacerations and suffocation of this toilsome and unhealthy employment to the angry lash of his owner, or the severe inflictions of "the Charleston and Savannah jails,"

"You

A very respectable and humane WestIndia slave proprietor lately observed to the writer of these remarks; "The slaves are very happy, and some of them earn and lay by considerable sums. A slave of mine, a cooper, made a great deal; for persons were always glad to get him for their jobs; because free workmen expected regular wages, which are very high, whereas they could give this man just what they pleased, often a mere trifle, and if he was not satisfied, they had only to give him a box on the ear, and send him about his business." If the Savannah and Charleston slaves are paid in the same manner, no wonder they are often in confinement "for not giving their master the wages they had earned," [query, received?] not including I suppose a moiety of the gratuitous cuffs. And this is being "very happy!'

he adopts it as the less painful alternative. I will not waste a single line in arguing on the manifest cruelty and the injustice of this system; but will present to your readers, without note or comment, a passage from "Lieut. Shillibeer's Voyage to Pitcairn's Island, including a Sketch of the present State [anno 1817] of the Brazils and Spanish South-America." I by no means wish to adduce what I hope is a rare example, as a general specimen; but the incident shews at least what hardship may arise from the system in the hands of an unrighte ous master, and adds one proof more to the innumerable ones already on record of the manifold atrocities of slavery. Speaking of Rio de Janeiro, he relates the following affecting incident.

"A man possessing a few slaves may be considered of good property, particularly if he bought them when young and has brought them up to trades. With a man of this kind I am acquainted, who is as barbarous and remorseless a wretch as can be conceived. He has several slaves; and, as they have all been taught some trade or other, he sends them forth to earn, according to their occupations, certain sums and their food; which must be completed under a penalty (which is seldom remitted, even to the most industrious or lucky,) of a severe flogging. One of them was a barber, and for a considerable period shaved me every morning: he was a quiet man, and of great industry, and, as far as came under my observation, always on the alert for his master's interest. For several days I observed he bore a gloomy and melancholy appearance. I asked him the reason, and was informed he had been unsuccessful, and could not render to his master

the sum required; that he had little hopes of being able to raise it, and as little doubt of being punished. I gave him something towards it. When he came again, he informed me, that out of thirteen or fourteen, he alone had escaped the lash; but, if

he did not make up the deficiency, his would be of greater severity than had been inflicted on his companions. As the time approached when he must render to his master an account, he became greatly distressed, and despaired of accomplishing his promise. He went with tears in his eyes, tendered what he had gained, and assured him of having used every means to raise the specific sum, and implored a remission of punishment, or a suspension until the following Monday, which at length was granted him, but not without threats of many additional stripes in case of failure. The time fast approached, when he must return. He was still deficient. He reached the door of his master's house, when, in despair of being forgiven, and dreading the ordeal he had to undergo, he took from his pocket a razor, and with a desperate hand nearly severed his head from his body. I saw him several days after, lying in this mangled state near the place where he had perpetrated the act. This horrid deed had no other effect on the master, than to increase his severity towards the others, on whom he imposed heavier burdens, to recompense him for the loss he had so recently sustained."—Shillibeer's Voyage to Pitcairn's Island, pp. 16-18.

There is another passing remark of Mr. Hodgson's, to which, for the sake of the great cause which he has so ably advocated, I beg leave to add two partially counter-statements. He says, (vol. i. p. 310,) "The Black children, when very young, seem to mix almost indiscriminately with the White children, who however occasionally demonstrate their acknowledged superiority, though less frequently than I should have expected, at least as far as fell under my observation." What Mr. Hodgson "expected," may easily be supposed; for history and philosophy alike shew that nothing more certainly, or more early in life, ruins the character of a human being than the unchecked power of domineering; and it is

among the worst evils of slavery in all ages and countries, that it generates almost from infancy in the privileged classes those unjust, despotic, and often positively cruel dispositions and habits which are a curse alike to the individual, to the community, and to the unhappy victim of his unbridled caprices. It seems, however, that Mr. Hodgson's experience did not go to the full length of his philosophy on this subject; but then he intimates that his opportunities of forming a judgment were but partial; for he adds, "at least as far as fell under my observation," and, at all events, he saw and heard enough to convince him that the White children do

occasionally demonstrate their acknowledged superiority." It would be, so far as it extends, a mitigation of the evils of the system of slavery, if its direful effects either on the dominant or the oppressed party were postponed to the meridian of life, but I am persuaded that Mr. Hodgson did not intend to convey any such impression. Long before manhood, the habit either of enduring or inflicting wrong, must have stamped a corresponding and most baneful impress upon the character. To grow up under the system must almost inevitably be to become the victim of its injurious influence. If an authority of great weight, and on the very spot where Mr. Hodgson wrote this observation, be necessary to decide the point, I may refer to that shrewd and philosophical observer Mr. Jefferson, whom, in the next leaf to that in which the observation occurs, we find Mr. Hodgson visiting. speaks in the highest possible terms of the powerful conversation of that statesman, from whom he elicited much valuable and interesting information. Had he chanced to put to him the question, what effect has the system of slave-holding on the character of the younger and ultimately on the adult part of the community, the answer would have been 'decisive. Indeed, it happens that I

He

can supply Mr. Jefferson's answer, in his own words; for, in his Notes on Virginia, I find him thus strongly expressing himself:

"There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of the people, produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children learn this, and imitate it, for man is an imitative animal. The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the linea ments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of passions; and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities."-Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, pp. 270, 271, London edition.

Such is the opinion of this NorthAmerican statesman; to which I beg leave to add the following observations, from Stewart's "Present State of the West Indies."

"Wherever slavery exists, there must be many things attending it . unfavourable to the improvement of the minds and manners of a people: arbitrary habits are acquired, irritation and violent passions are engendered-partly, indeed, by the perverseness of the slaves,-and the feelings are gradually blunted by the constant exercise of a too unrestrained power, and the scenes to which it is continually giving birth. The very children, in some families, are so used to see or hear the Negro servants whipped for the offences they commit, that it becomes a sort of amusement to them. It unfortunately happens that the females, as well as the males, are too apt to contract domineering and harsh ideas with respect to their slaves-ideas ill suited to the native softness and humanity of the female heart,-so that the severe and arbitrary mistress will not unfrequently be combined with the affectionate wife, the CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 280.

tender mother, and agreeable companion;-such is the effect of early habits and accustomed prejudices, suffering qualities so anomalous to exist in the same breast. A young lady, while yet a child, has a little Negress of her own age pointed out to her as one destined to be her future waiting-maid; her infant mind cannot conceive the harm of a little vexatious tyranny over this sable being, who is her property; and thus are arbitrary ideas gradually engrafted in her nature. Such is the power of habit over the heart, that the woman accustomed to the exercise of severity soon loses all the natural softness of her sex. Nothing was more common formerly than for White mistresses not only to order their slaves to be punished, but personally to see that the punishment was duly inflicted."

66

In truth, looking at slavery in what aspect we may, it is one entire system of pure and uncompensated evil. I am glad to hear from Mr. Hodgson, that it has no warm advocates:" would that it had no practical upholders! and would that all who profess to believe its enormities would, heart and hand, unite for its extinction!

A. B. C.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. I AM a layman of the Church of England, resident for the most part in the country, and have been accustomed to great disappointment in the character of the music used in many of our churches, as well as in the selection of the words appropriated to the tunes. The venerable Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, with a view, I presume, to remedy the latter defect, circulates a selection of stanzas from the new version of the Psalms; and I beg to suggest for consideration the propriety of adding to its list of books, a corresponding selection of our best church-tunes. Such a selection would be of great utility in promoting a solemn and edifying 2 G