fincere endeavour to fulfil his laws; to connect thefe, Grotius de Veritate Religionis Chriftianæ, Leland on Revelation, vol. II. and Clarke on the Attributes, particularly the Second Part, will be very ufeful; and on the knowledge of the Deity, Maclaurin's First Chapter of the View of Sir Ifaac Newton's Philofophy, and Abernethy on the Attributes, which will be eafier than Clarke's First Part. Thus the foundation will be laid in a juft fense of the nature of God and man, of creation, providence, and redemption, and the heart and understanding will be formed upon found and ftrong principles. Without entering into the ology the Bible may be read, and when it is read there fhould be fome Comment at hand. Patrick and Lowth on the Old, and Whitby or Hammond on the New Teftament, feem to me the best to be confulted occafionally, though there is no commentator with out his faults. In reading the Scriptures a young man may start at difficulties; how they may arife you will fee in Bishop At terbury's, and Bishop Conybeare's Sermons on that fubject. Lowth's fhort Tract fhews you the profitable reading of Scripture; for one principle ought to be laid down, and kept in your mind throughout all reading relative to religion; that is, that the gracious defigns of God towards mankind are all conditional, never fuperfeding, but always exciting and cooperating with the endeavours of men as free and rational agents *. The study of mathematics and natural philofophy is ufeful, but the pur fuit muft depend upon the turn of ge! nius and difpofition. With regard to compofition and ftile, the best poets are entertainment for tafte and imagination; and the elegant Orations of Tully pro Arch. 2 Ligari. Mar. Marcello, and others, may be read and tranflated: and alfo particular parts; as the end of the First Book de Legibus; Catiline's Character in the Oration pro M. Calio; Preface to the Orator; fome of the Epiftles; but the Orator and de Oratore fhould be read through. English file is better gotten by a few books than by variety, as the changes of our language have been great, and may deceive one who is unexperienced. Sherlock's Sermons, as well as others that have a great deal of oratory as well as matter; some of the prose writings of Addifon and Dryden; and the nervous letters and fpeeches of Statefmen fince Henry the Firft's time (excepting the pedantic writers) will introduce right language t. But the real formation of tile (which is to exprefs with method, propriety, and ftrength, what you underftand clearly and correctly) will be beft made by writing frequently compofitions on hiftorical and popular fubjects. This will be your own ftile; and if it is attended to, when ever occafion calls, with a fenfible elocution adapted to the fubject and the audience, your public appearances will be honourable and fuccefsful, This fhould be your ambition. The largest line of ambition in political knowledge belongs to Hiftory. Boffuet's Univerfal Hiftory, and Slei E e 2 dan * Beattie on Truth; Wilkins on Natural Religion; Whole Duty of Man ; Scot's Chriftian Life; Pearfon on the Creed; Rotherham on Faith; Nicholson on the Liturgy. +Homer, Hefiod, Theocritus, Sophocles, Euripides, Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, Ovid, Terence, Juvenal, &c. Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, &c. Shakespeare, Spencer, Milton, Waller, Cowley, Prior, &c. Barrow, Tillotfon, Sharp, Clarke, Caftrell, Rogers, Addifon, Dryden, Middleton's Life of Tully, Original Letters Parliamentary Hiftory. Vide the French tranflation by Ablancourt; Stillingfleet's Origines Sacræ ; Prideaux's Connection of Old and New Testament; Potter's Gr. Antiquities; Kennet's Roman Hiftory; Vertot's Revolutions. dan de Quatuor Monarchiis will fhew the great outlines. The Grecian hiftory is beft found by reading the whole, and selecting and tranflating the ftriking parts of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; but for want of the Greek language, it may be learned from parts of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, Rollin, and the late Hiftory of Greece printed at Edinburgh, which is the abridgement of Rollin. The Roman History may be found in Rollin; but Livy, Salluft, and Tacitus fhould not be omitted, and others fhould be read occafionally. The Connection of Ancient and Modern Hiftory, from the diffolution of the Roman Empire to the rife of the Modern Monarchies, may be feen in the first volume of Robertfon's Hif tory of Charles V. which is more fuccinct than that able performance of Giannoni's Hiftory of Naples, and more faithful and useful than Voltaire. The Hiftory of Britain will be interefting, but not of confequence, as to particulars, till the time of Henry VII. Rapin's Abridgement, with his Differtation on the Laws of the Anglo-Saxons, Lord Littleton's Henry II. and Blackstone's Commentaries, will fhew all that is neceffary till Henry VII*. Then perfons and things may be more accurately confidered, and the ftate of the Conftitution may be explored. Foreign Hiftory is alfo ne ceffary, and thofe parts which engage the attention will be more fully purfued in every part of History, and indeed in every part of reading whatever, This method of reading History will fhew the general events, changes, and fyftems of Government, with their pro perty and force at the respective timess In this courfe the motives of Legifla tion will appear, and the study of the different parts of the Roman, Civil, or Feudal Laws, will be more useful, by feeing their origin, their progrefs, and the different tinges and colours that they gave to the municipal laws of the different countries of Europe, under the prefent fyftem. Thefe laws and ftudies may be pursued in their proper courfe, as time, views, and inclinations may ferve. That mind is the most happily formed, that is free from all narrow, contracted, and partial views; and thinks of men and things in a benevolent, impartial, and great light ; and after fuch a purfuit of study with this extenfive contemplation and reflection, the causes and effects of the different forts of policy; the powers and manners of different nations in different ages; the check, progrefs, and revival of liberty; the ftate of Arts, Science, Commerce, Population, Colonies, &c. will be deduced in the different æras. The memory will be methodised by the help of plain Chronology and Geo graphy; the imagination will be fired with perfons and actions; and the mind will be empowered to fee through the whole fyftem of ages and nations, and to judge upon great lines. Candour, modefty, and caution, will be the refult of fair inquiry, if attended with fair temper; and after a due infight into the prefent fcene, a proper ambition will be animated, and directed with penetration, coolness, and vigour; and the man will be brought into ac tion * Mably on the Rife and Fall of the Romans, Caefar, Paterculus, Suetonius, Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch, Polybius, Hortus R. Hift. Puffendorf's Introduction a l'Hiftoire d'Europe, Campbell's View of the Powers of Europe, Rapin's Hiftory and Continuation, Buchanan Chron, Hift. France Mezerai, Henault's Abridgment, Abridgment of Spain, Portugal, and Italy, Necker fur le Corps Germaniques, Sir W. Temple, Burnet, Woollafton and Locke, Bacon, Puffendorf, Montefquieu, Grotius, Duck de Jure Civili, Gravin. de Ortu et Progreffu, Inftitutes, Pandects, Vinnius, Heineccius, Huber, Hoppius, Voet, Zauk, &c. Erfkine's Inftitutes of Scottish Law, Craig on the Feudal Law, Geographical Charts, Talent's Tables of Chronology, Maps ancient and modern, with a Syftem of Geography. tion fully cultivated by knowledge and powers for the real fervice of his experience of men and things, and country. will be enabled to make ufe of his An Argument ufed by fome Writers in Defence of the Legality of the Slave Trade, viz. the Mixture of an Owrang-Outang with a Female African, by which they think a Race of Animals may be produced, partaking of the Nature of each, refuted *. AT T this time, when there appears a general endeavour a mong the firec-born, inhabitants of Great Britain to abolish that infernal commerce carried on betwixt the West-Indies and the coast of Africa, which fets a price on the head of Man, and converts him into a beast of burthen; permit me, through the medium of your publication, to throw my mite into the treafury of Humanity. My intention is to fet in a proper point of view a circumstance on which fome writers in defence of the Slave-trade have founded much of its legality †, (viz.) the mixture of an Owran-Outang with a female African; by which they think a race of animals may be produced, partaking of the nature of each. One of thefe writers fays, "May it not be fairly conjectured, that the female negroes who live wandering in the wilds of Africa, are, there, frequently furprized and deflowered by the Owran-Outang, or other fuch brutes; that from thence they become reconciled, as other women who are more civilized eafily are, to fimilar attacks, and continue to cohabit with them? If this be granted, the colonists of the Weft-Indies are instrumental in humanizing the def'cendants of the offspring of brutes ⚫ (for a generation or two will change their nature, as much as a negro is changed to a mulatto, muftee, or quadroon, by the intercourfe of blacks Europ Mag. and whites)' to the honour of the human fpecies, and to the glory of the Divine Being." So many able naturalifts are of opinion that fuch an intercourfe with brutes fometimes takes place, that I cannot but believe it: I likewife believe, that the female may be impregnated by fuch a prostitution; but the production of fuch an unnatural commerce will be, as in the cafe of a mare and afs, a mule, an animal incapable of propagation. If the writer above quoted had allowed himself a mo ment's reflection on the subject, he would have feen, that if a creature had been produced by the connection of the African woman with the OwranOutang, and vice verfa, capable of procreation, the harmony of the animal fyftem must have been ruined. The new animal, neither brute nor human, might poffibly again mix with an ani mal not of its own fpecies; the con fequence of which would be, the production of another new creature, partaking of the nature of both its par ents, but differing effentially from one and the other; and fo on ad infinitum. Thus might this promifcuous inter courfe proceed, till the whole order of animals would be in the utmost confufion. But the all-wife Creator of the Univerfe, foreseeing that fuch unnatural propenfities would fometimes take place, has guarded against their effects by raifing an infurmountable barrier, + By the legality of the Slave-trade I mean that power delegated to man. of enflaving the animals lower in the fcale than himself, and which thofe writers would extend to the native of Africa, from an idea that he has a mixture of brute-blood in his body. barrier, which is no other than render- Monf. de Buffon defcribes two kinds ing the offspring of fuch an intercourfe fterile. So that it is impoffible a new race of animals fhould be produced by the mixture of a male and female of different fpecies, as in the female African and Owran-Outang. From this, I prefume, it appears that no fuch change can be effected in the animal defcended from the human and brute fpecies, if any are brought to the West-Indies, as thefe writers fpeak of. That a generation or two will change their nature as much as the negro is changed to a mulatto, &c. by the intercourfe of the whites and blacks, cannot be. The negro of Africa is a branch of the fame ftock with the European, whether English or French, a Spaniard or a Portuguefe: the difference in the colour of his fkin, perhaps, is the effect of climate; the poorncis of his intellectual faculties may rife from the fame caufe; but ftill he is as much a human creature as the most refined European. And the ftrongeft argument to prove this affertion is, that the product of an European and an African is an animal fruitful as its parents. The animals thefe writers fpeak of (if fuch there are) as being humanized in a few generations, exift but in them felves; and if my reafoning is admitted, they have no procreative powers; fo that the fpecies, if I may be allowed to give it that appellation, begins and ends in the fame individual animal; and the profpect of a change taking place in fuch monfters, for moniters they certainly are, fimilar to that effected by a mixture of European and African blood, is merely ideal. But left it may be fuppofed that the affinity between the negro and the Owran-Outang is nearer than I imagine, I fhall endeavour to bring fomé authorities to prove that the chalm betwixt the two is fo large as to render them of diftinct fpecies. Owran-Ou tang is the name by which this animal is known in the Eaft-Indies. of them, which he looks upon as a variety in the fame fpecies; the largeft he calls Pongo, and the fmall one Focko. Linnæus is fuppofed to defcribe one of them under the name of Nocturnal Man. But the fize of the animal he defcribes does not agree with the Pongo; and the Jocko, tho' it is of the fame fize as the Nocturnal Man, differs from it, fays Buffon, in every other character. I can affirm, adds the fame author, from having feveral times feen it, that it not only does not exprefs itfelf by fpeaking or whiftling, but even that it did not do a fingle thing but what a well-inftructed dog could do. This celebrated naturalift (Buffon) even doubts the existence of the Nocturnal Man, an animal which in defcription comes very near human nature. Thofe, therefore, who have formed their notions of the Owran-Outang from Linnæus's defcription, it should feem have been mifled; the travellers from whom he has his authorities having in all pro bability imperfectly defcribed a white Negro, or Chacrelas. The Pongo, or, as it is called in Guinea, the Barris, is probably the creature which is fuppofed fometimes to cohabit with the women of the country. He is defcribed by Battel, as being of a gigantic ftature, and of aftonishing ftrength; his body, externally, fcarce differing from that of man, except that he has no calves to his legs. He lives upon fruits, and is no ways carnivorous. The want of the muscles which form the calves of the legs, conftitutes an effential difference from the human fpecies; as well as his living only on vegetables: for man is by nature a carnivorous animal, as may be demonftrated by the ftructure of his teeth and digeftive or gans. The Pongo, from this writer's account of him, does not appear to have any thing like a language, as in the animal defcribed by Linnæus, but is to all intents a brute, endowed with fomewhat fomewhat a greater degree of inftinct than his fellow-brutes. Tyfon, who has given an accurate anatomical defcription of the Pigmie (Jocko), demonftrates a great difference between the internal ftructure of that animal and man, fufficient, I think, to prove them of diftinct fpecies. And Profellor Camper, by a diffection of the larinx, &c. of the Owran-Outang, and feveral other fpecies of monkeys, has clearly demonftrated the impoflibility of their fpeaking. If we take the obfervations I have cited collectively, they amount to a pofitive proof of the Owran-Outang being very far removed from the human fpecies. In the first place, Buffon afferts that it is not capable of doing more than a well-taught dog; fecondly, it univerfally wants the gaf trocnemii mufcles, a ftriking character in the human frame; and its teeth and organs of digeftion are fuch as the granivorous animals are known alone to poffefs; and, thirdly, the demonftrations of Camper (a competent judge), which prove, that the organs in the human frame deftined to the purpofes of articulation, are in this brute fo formed as to render it totally incapable of fpeech: I repeat, if thefe obfervations are taken collectively, they abundantly prove this animal nearer allied to brutes than to man. Though the Owran-Outang is not in my opinion fufficiently allied to man to produce an intermediate- fpecies, yet I believe he may be the link which connects the rational creature to the brute. From the united authority of able naturalifts, there is not a doubt. but man and the Owran-Outang are of diftinct and widely-feparated fpecies.. Therefore, the few folitary animals. produced by this unnatural mixture, faid to have been brought to the WestIndies, and which I believe are incapable of procreation, afford no argument in favour of a commerce fraught, with the blackeft acts of treachery,, and teeming with practices the bare relation of which makes human nature. fhudder. Three autographical Letters. The first from the Wife of Dryden, the other two from that great Poet himfelf; addreffed to the famous Dr Bulby. I Afcention-day [1682]. in confidirafion both of his health and Honnard Sir, your humble fervant, HONNOURED SIR, HOPE I need ufe noe other argument to you in excufe of my fonn for not coming to church to Weftminfter then this, that he now lies at home, and therefore cannot efiilly goe foe farr backwards and forwards. His father and I will take care that he shall ducly goe to church heare, both on holydayes and Sundays, till he comes to be more nearly under your care in the college. In the mean time, will you pleas to give me leave to accufe have, with much ado, recovered my younger fonn, who came home extreamly fick of a violent cold, and, as he thinks himselfe, a chine cough. The truth is, his conftitution is very tender; yet his defire of learn you of forgetting your promis conferning my eldest fonn, who, as you once affured me, was to have one night in a weeke alowed him to lie at home, Wednesday Morning. HONNOURD Sir, WE [1682.] ing, |