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• Whenever we meet with a name or term, which seems to signify a passion that can serve for no good purpose, we may be assured, and or strict examination we shall discover, that it does not really mean any genuine passion, but a wrong direction, or extravagant stretch of a passion. It will not be amiss to observe here that all the passions and affections of the human mind may be trained to subjection by a constant check, or strengthened and rendered almost ungovernable by continued indulgence: therefore Reason, like a good centinel, should be always awake and alert upon his post.

The passions then are the springs of virtue, and they are in their nature and origin good, and intended for the benefit of mankind; but it is the channels into which they diverge that render them pernicious, and form them also into the springs of vice. Even envy and avarice, the most odious of our emotions, are to be traced up to untainted sources; the former in general, arising from the desire of excellence,' and the latter from the wish of estimation. Secure the stream where it first threatens deviation, teach it to flow within the bounds originally prescribed by nature, it will then run with a clear and smooth current, and bear along with it both pleasure and virtue.'

Of what importance is it, then, to give a right direction to these movers of the mind, and to have them under proper controul! Moral philosophy should form a part in the system of education. To put the rising generation on their guard against the errors and excesses of the passions, they should be assisted in contemplating their nature and combinations; which would not only prepare them for what is called a Knowlege of the World, but would help to secure them from many of the follies and vices with which this knowlege makes them familiar. It would assist them in ascertaining what may be termed the moral capabilities of our nature, and would prevent their falling into those absurd and misanthropic conclusions which those persons are apt to draw, who have never been instructed to distinguish between the use and abuse of the passions. We cannot too often nor too warmly recommend this study, so essential to self knowlege.

The chapter on Self-command, with which this work closes, includes many valuable remarks. As a specimen, we extract a passage in which the two vices of pride and vanity are ably delineated, and their characteristic differences well defined. After having observed that these vices, though bearing a near resemblance, as being modifications of excessive self-estimation, are yet in many respects very different from each other, the author thus proceeds:

The proud man is sincere, and in the bottom of his heart, is convinced of his own superiority; though it may sometimes be difficult.

to guess upon what that conviction is founded. He wishes you to view him in no other light than that in which, when he places himself in your situation, he really views himself. He demands no more of you than what he thinks justice. If you appear not to respect him as he respects himself, he is more offended than mortified, and feels the same indignant resentment as if he had suffered a real injury. He does not even then, however, deign to explain the grounds of his own pretensions. He disdains to court your esteem. He affects even to despise it, and endeavours to maintain his assumed station, not so much by making you sensible of his superiority, as of your own meanness. He seems to wish, not so much to excite your esteem for bimself, as to mortify that for yourself.

The vain man is not sincere, and in the bottom of his heart, is very seldom convinced of that superiority which he wishes you to ascribe to him. He wishes you to view him in much more splendid colours than those in which when he places himself in your situation, and supposes you to know all that he knows, he can really view himself. When you appear to view him, therefore, in different colours, perhaps in his proper colours, he is much more mortified than offended. The grounds of his claim to that character which he wishes you to ascribe to him, he takes every opportunity of displaying, both by the most ostentatious and unnecessary exhibition of the good qualities and accomplishments which he possesses in some degree, and sometimes even by false pretensions to those which he either possesses in no degree, or in so very slender a degree that he may well enough be said to possess them in no degree. Far from despising your esteem, he courts it with the most anxious assiduity. Far from wishing to mortify your self-estimation, he is happy to cherish it, in hopes that in return you will cherish his own. He flatters in order to be flattered. He studies to please, and endeavours to bribe you into a good opinion of him by politeness and complaisance, and sometimes even by real and essential good offices, though often displayed, perhaps, with unnecessary ostentation.

The vain man sees the respect which is paid to rank and fortune, and wishes to usurp this respect, as well as that for talents and virtues. His dress, his equipage, his way of living, accordingly, all announce both a higher rank and a greater fortune than really belong to him; and in order to support this foolish imposition for a few years in the beginning of his life, he often reduces himse to poverty and distress long before the end of it. As long as he can continue his expence, however, his vanity is delighted with viewing himself, not in the light in which you would view him if you knew all that he knows; but in that in which, he imagines, he has by his own address, induced you actually to view him. Of the illusions of vanity this is, perhaps the most common. Obscure strangers who visit foreign countries, or who from a remote province, come to visit, for a short time, the capital of their own country, most frequently attempt to practise it. The folly of the attempt, though always very great and most unworthy of a man of sense, may not be altogether so great upon such as upon most other occasions. If their stay is short, they may escape any disgraceful detection ; and, after indulging their vanity for a few months, or a

few

few years, they may return to their own homes, and repair, by future parsimony, the waste of their profusion.

The proud man can very seldom be accused of this folly. His sense of his own dignity renders him careful to preserve his independence, and,, when his fortune happens not to be large, though he wishes to be decent, he studies to be frugal and attentive in all expences. The ostentatious expence of the vain man is highly offensive to him. It outshines, perhaps, his own. It provokes his indignation as an insolent assumption of a rank which is by no means due; and he never talks of it without loading it with the harshest and severest reproaches

The proud man does not always feel himself at his ease in the company of his equals, and still less in that of his superiors. He cannot lay down his lofty pretensions, and the countenance and conversation of such company overawe him so much that he dares not display them. He has recourse to humbler company, for which he has little respect, which he would not willingly chuse, and which is by no means agreeable to him; that of his inferiors, his flatterers, and dependants. He seldom visits his superiors, or if he does, it is rather to show that he is entitled to live in such company, than for any real satisfaction that he enjoys in it. It is, as Lord Clarendon says of the Earl of Arundel, that he sometimes went to court, because he could there only find a greater man than himself; but that he went very seldom, because he found there a greater man than himself.

It is quite otherwise with the vain man. He courts the company of his superiors as much as the proud mans shuns it. Their splendour, he seems to think, reflects splendour upon those who are much about them. He haunts the courts of kings and the levees of ministers, and gives himself the air of being a candidate for fortune and preferment, when in reality he possesses the much more precious happiness, if he knew how to enjoy it, of not being one. He is fond of being admitted to the tables of the great, and still more fond of magnifying to other people the familiarity with which he is honoured there. He associates himself, as much as he can, with fashionable people, with those who are supposed to direct, the public opinion, with the witty, with the learned, with the popular; he shuns the company of his best friends whenever the very uncertain current of public favour happens to run in any respect against them. With the people to whom he wishes to recommend himself, he is not always very delicate about the means which he employs for that purpose; unnecessary ostentation, groundless pretensions, constant assentation, frequent flattery, for the most part a pleasant and a sprightly flattery, and very seldom the gross and folsome flattery of a parasite. The proud man, on the contrary, never flatters, and is frequently scarcely civil to any body.

Notwithstanding all its groundless pretensions, however, vanity is almost always a sprightly and a gay, and very often a good natured passion. Pride is always a grave, a sullen, and a severe one. Even the falsehoods of the vain man are all innocent falsehoods, meant to raise himself, not to lower other people. To do the proud man justice, he very seldom stopps to the baseness of falsehood. When he

does,

does, however, his falsehoods are by no means so innocent. They are all mischievous, and meant to lower other people. He is full of indignation at the unjust superiority, as he thinks it, which is given to them. He views them with malignity and envy, and, in talking of them, often endeavours, as much as he can, to extenuate and lessen whatever are the grounds upon which their superiority is supposed to be founded. Whatever tales are circulated to their disadvantage, though he seldom forges them himself. yet he often takes pleasure in believing them, is by no means unwilling to repeat them, and even sometimes with some degree of exaggeration. The worst falsehoods of vanity are all what we call white lies: those of pride, whenever it condescends to falsehood, are all of the opposite complexion.'

As in the present age both Pride and Vanity are extremely prevalent, especially the latter, we regard these pictures as meriting a careful study.

ART. VIII. Practical Rules for the Management and Medical Treatment of Negroe Slaves, in the Sugar Colonies. By a Professional Planter. 8vo. pp. 470. 8s. Boards. Vernor and Hood.

NOT

OT only the feelings of humanity, but the still more powerful incitement of interest, must forcibly direct our attention to the topics treated in this volume. The situation in which the West Indian slaves are placed, as well as the natural peculiarities in their physical constitution, point them out as requiring a mode of management, both in health and in sickness, different from that which is applicable to Europeans; yet, among the numerous publications that have appeared on the climate and diseases of the West Indies, no author of much eminence or respectability, as far as we recollect, has expressly devoted his attention to this subject. We will not assert that the book now before us in every respect supplies this deficiency, but we can safely say that it contains a body of useful information, on a variety of important topics connected with the management of negroes, that, we believe, has not before been given to the public in so convenient and, accessible a form.

The work is arranged in two parts, the first of which suggests rules for the management of negroes in health, the second for their treatment in sickness.' Part I. is divided into nine chapters, in which the following subjects are respectively discussed: general observations on negroe slaves, on the sea soning of negroes, on their diet, clothing, lodging, breeding, labour, discipline, and religion. In the first chapter, the au thor takes some pains to prove that it would be impossible to cultivate the West Indies by white men, at least by such as

5,

were

were free. He grounds his opinion partly on the unhealthiness. of the climate, and partly on the consideration that it would be impossible to hold out to any man a sufficient inducement to engage voluntarily in the kind and degree of labour which are necessary to be endured. The fact may probably be as it is here stated: but, granting it to be the case, justice and humanity would certainly draw from it a very different conclusion from that to which this author resorts. We shall not, however, enter on a discussion respecting the merits of the slave trade; we have nothing new to urge on the subject; and it is not the object of the work now under our consideration. The evil is to be regarded as existing, and we are only anxious to use every means in our power to obviate particular effects that may be derived from it, without attempting to throw down the whole system.

Among these evils, one of the most enormous is the mortality of the slaves during what is called their seasoning. It is allowed by the present author, who does not appear disposed to magnify the grievance, that, on the most moderate calcula tion, not fewer than one-fourth of the slaves die within three or four years after their arrival in the West Indies. This murderous system, he conceives, may be in a great measure remedied by bestowing more care on the health and comforts of these unfortunate beings; and, as he remarks, so great a waste of the species, for a purpose merely commercial, though perhaps justifiable enough on those principles which usually govern in matters of national concern, is certainly not very reconcileable to humanity.' The circumstances, to which he particularly recommends the attention to be directed, are the diseases produced by the passage, by change of climate and diet, by labour, by severity, and suicide. On each of these points, he offers remarks which are judicious, and, as we conceive, very likely to produce the desired effect.

Much in the same strain are the observations contained in the chapters on diet, lodging, and clothing. We clearly discover from them to what an excessive extent the privations of the negroes had been carried; while they strongly indicate that not only humanity but interest requires the adoption of a very different system. It is indeed to this latter motive that the author generally appeals; not so much, we imagine, from being himself deficient in feeling, but from a conviction that considerations of this nature would be entirely lost on those to whom this work is more immediately addressed.

The chapter which treats on the breeding of negroes is particularly deserving of notice, in every point of view. We may conclude from it, that, by a moderate degree of attention REV. Nov. 1805.

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