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interest of their native country would not hesitate to submit to the trifling ceremony of circumcision, or boggle at the repetition of the words "la illa el allah --Mahomet rassoul Allah" (there is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.) Until such individuals can be found or employed, I expect as little from the Protegis of the association, as I would from those missionaries so laudably and successfully employed in foreign parts to preach the gospel among the heathens. Such men as I have described, might I think penetrate into any part of Northern Africa without much difficulty, and without much danger either to their life or religion. Much too of the Southern Continent might be explored, either from the Cape or the Portuguese settlements on the Indian Ocean. But until such men be found, the discoveries in the interior of Asia, can only be partial, rare, and defective.

To induce individuals to engage in such arduous attempts, (I mean those who would not hesitate to make the petty sacrifices already mentioned), might not the African society, make their recompense adequate to the importance of the discoveries effected by them, by a remuneration, the amount of which might be fixed by the ratio of their utility or success? Were, for example, a certain sum to be raised or subscribed, and to be held out as the reward of the successful adventurer who might penetrate from Tombuctoo to Cairo; other and smaller sums for inferior or less successful adventurers; somewhat similar to the reward offered by parliament for navigating to or nigh to the Pole;-were an annuity or annuities to be granted either to the successful adventurer, or, in the event of his death or captivity, to those of his relations whom he might prefer; together with a fixed allowance for his own subsistence during the expedition ;-were, Í say, these or similar measures to be resorted to by the society, I should entertain no doubt of a successful issue, Note 4. The partial success which has already attended some British adventurers has excited the jealousy, and will stimulate to greater exertions the enterprises of the French, who deem it a gross injury to the character of the great nation, to be outdone by one so inferior as they deem the English to be. In a competition of this, or indeed any other kiud, that nation will not be restrained by any principle of justice or honour. The merits of Park require no eulogist: his discovery of the Joliba is most complete and decisive. Notwithstanding the decided opinion of all informed men, indeed of every one who

has read his work, respecting the sources and directions of that river and the Senegal, a French author, of no mean reputation in his own country, who had resided many years on the Senegal, I mean Golberry, has the andacity to say, that the discovery of Park is not decisive, that it is not yet ascertained that the Joliba and Senegal are different rivers. He even hints an opinion that the enterprise of Park was an improper interference in an attempt, exclusively the province of his own countrymen, and that of course his partial success is an object of regret. He comforts himself, however, with the reflection that Park's information is still defective; that still the Senegal may be the Joliba-and that it remains for some future adventurer (of his own nation) to prove decisively, that they are different streams. His object is plain; should ever a Frenchman penetrate to the Joliba, then the discovery of the Niger will be announced in the most pompous terms; the enterprise of the Great Nation be extolled to the skies, and a thousand invidious comparisons made, as derogatory to the British as flattering to the vanity of Frenchmen. I know not if this contemptible representative of the most gasconading, vainglorious nation in the universe, has yet received and merited literary chastisement for his malicious attempt to bear from his brow, the laurels of our modest countryman, Mungo Park.-He certainly merits it.

These desultory notes, or hints, may perhaps at a future period be resumed.

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL EDUCATION.

On the subject of natural and artificial education, Dr. Franklin used to tell the following anecdote:

On the conclusion of some treaty between a party of Indians with the Council of Pennsylvania, the latter offered to the foriner to educate some of their young men according to the modes of civilized life. The Indians, after duly considering the proposal, declined the offer; asking at the same time, "What can we get by the exchange of education? You cannot walk so fast, nor so well, as we can. You cannot fight so well, nor are you such good marksmen. Our wants are fewer, our distinctions less without jealousy, ambition, &c. But as you mean to live friendly with us, we are ready to communicate these blessings to you, by educating, from time to time, a number of the young men of your nation.'

SIR JOHN BARNARD.

THIS excellent citizen of London was no less distin guished as a magistrate than as a senator; in each situa tion he did his duty with the minutest scrupulosity. A young woman, decently drest, was late at night brought to him at the Mansion House by a watchman, as a pros titute, she having been found alone in the streets at midnight. She requested to be heard in her defence. Circumstances were, however, so much against her, that Sir John asked her, if she could produce any person to her character? She said, that her relations lived a great way off, as far as Whitechapel; and that it would be inconvenient to him to wait till they could be produced. He said, as a magistrate his time was that of the public, and their convenience his; and that he would willingly sit up till her friends could come, and prevent her being sent to prison *. The girl sent to Whitechapel for some of her friends, who gave her an exceedingly good character, and corroborated the reasons she gave for being out so late. This excellent magistrate said, that he had never felt more sincere pleasure in his life; and, after advising her to be more cautious in future, dismissed her.

Sir Robert Walpole, whom Sir John frequently oppos ed when he thought his measures improper, paid him one day a great compliment: They were riding out in two different parties in a narrow lane, and one of Sir Robert's companions, hearing Sir John's voice before he came up to them, asked Sir Robert, whose voice that was. "Do not you know?" replied the minister, "It is one that I shall never forget: I have often felt its power." When they met together at the end of the lane, Sir Robert, saluting Sir John with that fascinating courtesy which he eminently possessed, told him what had hap pened.

⚫ Our modern magistrates are not sufficiently cautious with respect to sending persons to prison on very trivial suspicions, nor in keeping them there by way of punishment for petty crimes; confining them in those places of wickedness and despair, where, as Dr. Johnson says very well," the lewd inflame the lewd, the wicked encourage the wicked; and where a criminal is taught to do that with more cunning which he had been used to do with less."

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Sir John Barnard, when he quitted the persuasion of the Quakers, did not lay aside the simplicity of his manners, and the integrity of his conduct. When Sir Robert Walpole, then prime minister, was one day whispering to the Speaker of the House of Commons, who leaned towards him over the arm of his chair, at the time that Sir John was speaking, he exclaimed," Mr. Speaker, I address myself to you, and not to your chair; I will be heard; I call that gentleman to order." The speaker immediately turned about, dismissed Sir Robert, begged Sir John's pardon, and requested him to proceed. The late Mr. Robert Dingley used to say, that Sir John refused to accept of the post of chancellor of the exchequer, when it was offered to him, in 1746.

During the time that Lord Granville was secretary of state, when any applications were made to Administration by the merchants and commercial gentlemen of the city, he always asked, "What does Sir John Barnard say to this? What is his opinion ?"

Lord Chatham (then Mr. Pitt), a man not particularly liberal in his praises, gave Sir John the dignified appellation of the Great Commoner;" an appellation which with equal propriety was afterwards retorted upon himself.

When, by the death of Sir James Thompson, he became the first on the list of the court of aldermen, the title of "Father of the City" (a title always given to an Alderman in that situation) devolved upon him; and that honourable title, given long since to that firm and upright patriot Cato the Younger, merely reverberated by succession that distinction to which, by his virtues, he had ever a claim. This appears to have been confirmed in the most forcible manner by the erection of a statue to him during his life-time in the Royal Exchange; after which circumstance, however, Sir John never made his appearance within that fabric, but transacted his business in the front of it.

ECCENTRICITIES AND CAPRICES OF IMAGINATION.

A certain writer, apologizing for the irregularities of great genii, delivers himself thus. "The gifts of imagination bring the heaviest task upon the vigilance of rea

son; and to bear those faculties with unerring rectitude or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend the higher gifts of the mind. Yet, difficult as nature herself seems to have reduced the task of regularity to genius, it is the supreme consolation of dullness to seize upon those excesses, which are the overflowings of faculties they never enjoyed *."-Are not the gifts of imagination here mistaken for the strength of passions? Doubtless, where strong passions accompany great parts, as perhaps they often do, there imagination may increase their force and activity: but, where passions are calm and gentle, imagination of itself should seem to have no conflict but speculatively with reason. There indeed it wages an eternal war; and, if not controuled aud strictly regulated, will carry the patient into endless extravagancies. I use with propriety the term patient : because men, under the influence of imagination, are most truly distempered. The degree of this distemper will be in proportion to the prevalence of imagination over reason, and, according to this proportion, amount to more or less of the whimsical; but, when reason shall become as it were extinct, and imagination govern alone, then the distemper will be madness under the wildest and most fantastic modes, Thus one of these invalids, perhaps, shall be all sorrow for having been most unjustly deprived of the crown; though his vocation, poor man! be that of a schoolmaster. Another is all joy, like Horace's madman; and it may seem even cruelty to cure him. A third all fear; and dare's not make water, lest he should cause a deluge,

The operations and caprices of imagination are various and endless; and, as they cannot be reduced to regularity or system, so it is highly improbable that any certain method of cure should ever be found out for them. It hath generally been thought, that matter of fact might most successfully be opposed to the delusions of imagination, as being proof to the senses, and carrying conviction unavoidably to the understanding: but I suspect, that the understanding, or reasoning faculty, hath little to do in all these cases: at least so it should seem from the two following, which are very remarkable, and well attested.

* Langhorne's Life of Wm. Collins.

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