account Livingstone gives of the Fish-hawk, and the Pelican, on the banks of the Zouga. 'Soaring overhead,' he fays, and feeing this Travels, p. 241. large, ftupid bird fishing beneath, it watches till a fine fish is fafe in the Pelican's pouch; then descending, not very quickly, but with confiderable noife of wing, the Pelican looks up to see what is the matter, and, as the hawk comes near, he supposes that he is about to be killed and roars out "murder!" The opening of his mouth enables the hawk to whisk the fish out of his pouch, upon which the Pelican does not fly away, but commences fishing again; the fright having probably made him forget he ever had any thing in his purse.' Such is ignorance and ftupidity combined! And who has not noted fuch things in everyday life?" At this moment my Old Friend was called off,-but, before he went he pointed out to me this paffage from Bishop Berkeley's Difcourfe addreffed to "Magiftrates and those in Authority, occafioned by the enormous Licence and Irreligion of the Times." "Man is an animal, formidable both from Vol. iii. p. 88. his paffions and his reafon; his paffions often urging him to great evils, and his reason furnishing means to achieve them. To tame this animal, and make him amenable to order, to inure him to a fenfe of juftice and virtue, to withhold him from ill courfes by fear, and encourage him in his duty by hopes; in fhort, to fashion and model him for fociety, hath been the aim of civil and religious inftitutions; and in all times the endeavour of good and wife men. THE APTEST METHOD FOR OBTAINING THIS END HATH ALWAY BEEN JUDGED A PROPER EDUCATION." "Undoubtedly, he is perfectly educated who is taught all the will of God concerning him, and enabled, through life, to execute it. And he is not well educated, who does not know the will of God, or knowing it, has received no help in his education towards being inclined and enabled to do it." "Nulla ætas ad perdifcendum fera eft. Erubefcat fenectus, quæ emendare fe non poteft. Non annorum canities eft laudata, fed morum nullus pudor eft ad meliora tranfire." "No man can attayne perfect cunnyng But by long ftudy and diligent learnyng." HE following curious paffage is from Frederika Bremer's Homes Skelton, The Arnold's Sermon on Deut. xi. 19. Vol. iii. 178. S. Ambr. Epift. ii. ad Valent. Tom. i. 834. Hawes, Paftime and Pleasure. of the New World, "The Indians, See Vol. ii. like the Greenlanders, look down P. 311. See Vol. ii. upon the white race with proud contempt, at the same time that they fear them; and their legend of what happened at the creation of the various races, proves naïvely how they drew the relationship between them. The firft man which Manitou baked,' fay they, was not thoroughly done, and he came white out of the oven; the fecond was overdone, was burned in the baking, and he was black. Manitou now tried a third time, and with much better fuccefs; this third man was thoroughly baked, and came out of the oven a fine red brown-this was the Indian!"" Take another rich paffage from a Refidence in China by Peter Dobell. "A Chinese, who was accustomed when he walked, to take a book for his amusement, went once fome distance into the woods, where he stopped to read and to rest himself. Finding himself fatigued, he put the book down on the ground, and placed a ftone on it, whilft he went home, but forgot the book. It remained there for several years, until every part was decayed, except twenty-four characters covered by the stone. These a monkey afterwards found, and, not being able to read them, he presented them to the Europeans, who formed their language with them." Stat. Thebaid. The obfervant Reader, who has jotted them off from time to time, will have laid by plenty of inftances like these. Fabulous or fuperftitious it matters not, they fimply show the tendency of uncultivated minds, ftill admitting the advantages of knowledge, even when they might seem the more to dero- «Pugna eft de gate from it, in profeffing their own Igno- paupere regno." rance. We may, in fact, look throughout i. 151. the whole world, and we shall find, pretty generally, that those who fit at the receipt of Ignorance disclaim it perfonally. However small their knowledge they can point to those who are worse informed than themselves,-at leaft, as they think. An argument of no fmall force is to be raised on such a conceffion. Then again, the Power of Education, as well as its Progrefs, is to be well watched. No one knew this better than "Rare Ben," as notable in his day as his great namefake (never mind an odd letter or the weight of a fyllable!) when he rolled down Fleet Street from the Mermaid. Only obferve the words he puts into the mouth of the fecond Allobrogian Ambaffador, ftruck by the eloquence What a characVIII. is Shakfpeare's exprefrepresents him teriftic of Hen. fion which as hulling in." |