only show it and take it away again; it will make the wine bitter, but wholesome.' P. 54. The last quotation which we shall subjoin, is one which we earnestly recommend to the attention of those of our youthful readers, who live but for the indulgence of their passions -whose thoughtless hours are swallowed up in the giddy vortex of fashionable vice: let them read and tremble. • For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 'At the day of judgment ent every man's fear shall be increased by his neighbours' shrieks; and the amazement that all the world shall be in, shall unite as the sparks of a raging furnace into a globe of fire, and roul upon its own principle, and increase by direct appearances, and intolerable reflections. He that stands in a churchyard in the time of a great plague, and hears the passing bell perpetually telling the sad stories of death, and sees crowds of infected bodies pressing to their graves, and others sick and tremulous, and death dressed up in all the images of sorrow round about him, is not supported in his spirit by the variety of his sorrow and at doomsday, when the terrors are universal, besides that it is in itself so much greater, because it can affright the whole world, it is also made greater by communication and a sorrowful influence; grief being then strongly infectious, when there is no variety of state but an entire kingdom of fear; and amazement is the king of all. our passions, and all the world its subjects: and that shriek must needs be terrible, when millions of men and women at the same instant shall fearfully cry out, and the noise shall mingle with the trumpet of the archangel, with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens, and the crack of the dissolving world, when the whole fabrick of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternal ashes. : • There men shall meet the partners of their sins, and them that drank the round when they crowned their heads with folly and forgetfulness, and their cups with wine and noises. There shall ye see that poor perishing soul, whom thou didst tempt to adul tery and wantonness, to drunkenness or perjury, to rebellion or an evil interest, by power or craft, by witty discourses or deep dissembling, by scandal or a snare, by evil example or pernicious counsel, by malice or unwariness. • That soul that cries to those rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy perpetual temptations, might have followed the lamb in a white robe; and that poor man, that is cloathed with sharue and flames of fire, would have shin'd in glory, but that thou didst force him to be a partner of thy baseness.' PP.235, 237. CRIT. REV. Vol. 4. February, 1805. M ART. VIII.-An Account of a Voyage to establish a Colony at Port Pbilip, in Bass's Strait, on the south Coast of New South Wales, in bis Majesty's Ship Calcutta, in the Years 1802-3-4By J. H. Tuckey, Esq. First Lieutenant of the Calcutta. 8vo. 55. Boards. Longman., 1805. THE sailor's life affords, as our author justly observes in his preface, few moments of learned ease: but it affords to this country its wealth and its defence; and if learning may be better cultivated in certain situations on land, the want of it will not be esteemed a blemish in the sailor's character, in which we find other qualities no less the objects of our admi ration and esteem. The public too will assuredly be indulgent towards his literary faults: 'it will not expect connected arrangement, logical deductions, nor a correct work, amidst the interruptions of active service, or the continual calls of subordinate duty. It will gladly receive a voyage round the world, whose pages are marked by a superfluity rather than a paucity of nautical observations; and it is by no means inclined to treat with contempt the log-book publications of recent navigators.' 1. 'The perusal of not many pages relieved us from sympathising with the author on his deficiency in literary attainments; and the proofs are too manifest in his work, that he would feel extreme mortification if we treated him with the indulgence due to a sailor, and supposed that his hardy employment had secluded him from courting and enjoying the company of the muses. He seems throughout to labour under the greatest anxiety to remove every impression that we might form from his connection with the sea; and to ima gine that his reader must necessarily feel a qualm at the mention of tar and of pitch. The work may be not unaptly compared to the cabin of a ship, fitted up like the boudoir of a Parisian fine lady: we are struck with surprise on entering it, but after a few moments would willingly exchange its tinsel ornaments for that strength and solidity which are to brave the fury of the tempest. • Every page is full of ornaments. Is the setting sun in a more southern latitude to be described ? The heavens are seen glowing with orange and purple, blended into the greatest 'variety of tints, and melting imperceptibly into the pure ether of light cerulean blue; in which, the first stars of evening shine with the most brilliant silvery lustre; but "Who can paint Like Nature? Can Imagination boast, Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, Is a shark, the hereditary foe of sailors,' in sight?-'grains, harpoons, and every missive weapon, are pointed at his devoted head, till the deluded victim is dragged on board; and after various operations, 'the carcase is again committed to the watery element.' In the black eyes of the Brasilian ladies is the mere expression of animal vivacity, untempered by the soft chastening power of tender sensibility.' But in a convent the silvery tones of a secluded damsel' captivate the heart of a true-born Englishman. We are terribly afraid for our poor countrymen, whose destiny leads them to Rio Janeiro for there the climate operates upon the fair sex more forcibly in proportion to their superior delicacy of organization, enervates the system, and induces a kind of restless indolence, to which is attached a boundless desire for variety, when it can be procured without much exertion: hence, while the mind is lulled into inactivity, and the eye of prudence sleeps, the bosom is tremblingly alive to the soft sensations of love, and the bulwarks of female innocence lie exposed and defenceless to the attacks of the watchful seducer." P. 71. 4 د A storm will naturally excite very powerful feelings; but when the sailors land after a gale, then they may exclaim • Now we tread the verdant turf, and breathe the balmy atmosphere of odoriferous flowers: while, as we approach the town, parties of equestrian ladies attract our eyes, attended by their beaux whose happiness we might envy, did not the call of honour, and the voice of patriotism, render us less vulnerable to the charms of beauty, or the blandishments of love. P. 130. In this flowery style the author carries us round the world. Every quarter of it excites matter for grave remark and sage philosophy. Prejudices of education, feudal governments, heraldic achievements, proportion between the sexes, propriety of polygamy, effect of slavery on the mind, and difference between the blacks and whites, give scope to his talents; while even Brookes's and Almack's are not forgotten, and his scholarship is proved not only by Latin quotations, but by remembrance of the luxuries of imperial Rome. We are in danger here of forgetting that we are accompanying a tar in his voyage round the world, and this a very extraordinary 'one; for it was performed in eleven months, from his depar ture from, to his arrival again at, Rio Janeiro. The first object of the voyage was to convey some convicts to Bass's Straits, and there to establish a colony. The account of theexpedition occupies two hundred and eleven pages: of which M 2 a hundred and thirteen contain the account of the voyage to, and a description of, the Brasils; while little more than fifty pages give the detail of events from the time of the ship's arrival at Port Philip to its departure from Port Jackson, to pursue its voyage home by Cape Horn. The Brasils, indeed, Afforded the pleasures of cultivated life: but they have been too often described for even the pen of this flowery writer to invest them with any additional charms; and the settlement of a new colony, and an accurate description of a new country, might have afforded matter much more interesting both to the author and the public. The place fixed upon for the settlement proved to be unsuitable; and after a stay of about two months, the ship left the place, and the convicts to be re-embarked on board the Ocean, its colleague. From the description given of the country near the shore, the determination to quit it was to be commended; yet it is not improbable that hereafter, within a few miles of the spot, may be found fertile fields and well peopled cities. Six pages suffice for the voyage from Port Philip to Rio Janeiro: during which the wind was, for the most part, between N. W. and S. W.; and the ship made, upon an average, a hundred and eighty miles a day for twenty-nine days. As a specimen of the author's style, and a complete refutation of the sentiment which he has advanced, that • We may as well affirm, that education would give to the cart horse the spirit of a courser, or to the cur the sagacity of the hound, as that it would give to the negro the talents and ambition of the European,' (r. 97.) the following narrative is subjoined: • Senor D. was a wealthy planter in the district of the mines, and among his numerous slaves was one named Hanno, who had been born on the estate, and whose ingenuity had increased his value much beyond that of his fellows. Scarce had Hanno arrived at that age when every zephyr seems the sigh of love, ere his fondest wishes centered on Zelida, a young female of his own age, and a slave to the same master; in her his partial eye perceived all that was beautiful in person, or amiable in mind; the passion was mutual, it had "grown with their growth, and strengthen'd with their strength;" but Hanno, though a slave, possessed the feelings of a man, and his generous soul revolted at the idea of entailing that slavery upon his children, which was the only birth-right he inherited from his fathers. His mind was energetic, and his resolutions immutable: while he fulfilled his daily task, and was distinguished for his diligence and fidelity, he was enabled, by extra labour and the utmost frugality, to lay by something, without defrauding his master of his time; and at the end of seven years, his savings amounted to the estimated value of a female slave. Time had not altered his passion for Zelida, and they were united by the simple and unartificial bonds of mutual love. The absence of Senor D. for two years prevented the accomplishment of Hanno's first wishes, the purchase of Zelida's freedom; and in that time she had presented him with a boy and a girl. Though slaves from their birth, Hanno was not chagrined, for he had now added to his hoard a sufficient sum to purchase their liberty likewise. On the return of Senor D. Hanno anxiously demanded a compliance with the law, but well aware of his master's sordid avarice, cautiously affirmed, that a kind friend was to advance him the mo ney. Senor D. agreed to receive the price, and a day was fixed to execute the deeds before a magistrate. On that day Hanno fled upon the wings of hope to his master's house, while it may be supposed the most heartfelt joy animated his bosom, on the pros pect of giving immediate liberty to those his soul doated on. He -tendered the gold-it was seized as the stolen property of Senor D.; and Hanno being unable to bring forward the supposed lender, was condemned, and the cruelty of his master was exhausted in superintending his punishment. Still bleeding from the scourge, he returned to his hut, which, though the residence of slavery, had till now been cheered by the benign influence of love and hope. He found his wife suckling her infant daughter, while his son, yet unable to walk, was amusing her with his playful gambols upon the bare earth. Without answering Zelida's anxious enquiries, he thus addressed her: "To procure your liberty, more dear to me than my own, I have, since the moment of our acquaintance, deprived myself of every comfort my state of bondage allows; for that purpose I have laboured during those permitted hours of relaxation, which my fellows have employed in amuseInents; I have curtailed my scanty meal of cassada, I have sold my morsel of tobacco*, and I have gone naked amidst the burning heats of summer, and the pinching colds of wintert. I had accomplished the object of all my cares, and all my deprivations, and this morning I tendered to your owner the price of your liberty, and that of your children; but when the deed was to be ratified before the magistrate, magistrate, he seized it as his own, and accusing me of robbery, inflicted the punishment of a crime my soul detests. My efforts to procure your liberty are abortive; the fruits of my industry, like the labours of the silk-worm, are gone to feed the luxury of our tyrant; the blossoms of hope are for ever blighted, and the wretched Hanno's cup of misery is full. Yet, a way, a sure but dreadful way remains, to free you, my wife, from the scourge of tyranny, or the violation of lust; and to rescue you, my children, from the hands of an unfeeling monster, and from a life of unceasing wretchedness." Then seizing a • Tobacco is esteemed the greatest luxury next to rum by the negroes." + The province of Brasil rises from the sea till it reaches the summits of the Cordilleras, and the cold necessarily increases in proportion to the ascent. The district of the mines produces European fruits, and is subject to frost." |