mate. Our days, though short, give me ample time for study, recreation, and exercise; but my joy and delight proceed from the surprising health and spirits of Anna Maria, who joins me in affectionate remembrance to Lady Ashburton. As to you, my dear Lord, we consider you as the spring and fountain of our happiness, as the author and parent, (a Roman would have added, what the coldness of our northern language will hardly admit) the god of our fortunes. It is possible indeed, that by incessant labour and irksome attendance at the bar, I might in due time have attained all that my very limited ambition could aspire to; but in no other station than that which I owe to your friendship, could I have gratified at once my boundless curiosity concerning the people of the East, continued the exercise of my profession, in which I sincerely delight, and enjoyed at the same time the comforts comforts of domestic life. The grand jury of Denbighshire, have found, I understand, the bill against the Dean of St. Asaph, for publishing my dialogue; but as an indictment for a theoretical essay on government was I believe never before known, I have no apprehension for the consequences. As to the doctrines in the tract, though I shall certainly not preach them to the Indians, who must and will be governed by absolute power, yet I shall go through life with a persuasion, that they are just and rational, that substantial freedom is both the daughter and parent of virtue, and that virtue is the only source of public and private felicity. Farewell. * In the course of the voyage he stopped at Madeira, and, in ten additional weeks of prosperous sailing from the rugged islands of Cape Verd, arrived at Hinzuan ΟΙ or Joanna. Of this island, where he remained a few days only, he has published an interesting and amusing description. He expatiates with rapture on his approach to it, delineates with the skill of an artist the beauties of the scenery, and sketches with the discriminating pen of a philosopher, the characters and manners of the unpolished but hospitable natives. The novelty of the scene was attractive, and its impression upon his mind is strongly marked by the following just and elegant reflection, which in substance is more than once repeated in his writings:- "If life 66 66 ---- were not too short for the complete dis charge of all our respective duties, pub"lic and private, and for the acquisition even of necessary knowledge in any degree of perfection, with how much pleasure and improvement might a great part "of it be spent in admiring the beauties of "this wonderful orb, and contemplating "the nature of man in all its varieties !"* But it would be injustice to his memory, to pass over without particular notice, the sensible and dignified rebuke, with which he repelled the rude attack of Mussulman bigotry on the divinity of our Saviour. During a visit which he made to a native of the island, a Coran was produced for his inspection, and his attention was pointedly directed to a passage in a commentary accusing the Christians of blasphemy, in calling our Saviour the Son of God. "The "commentator (he replied) was much to "blame for passing so indiscriminate and "hasty a censure; the title which gave ແ your legislator, and which gives you such "offence, was often applied in Judea by "a bold figure, agreeably to the Hebrew idiom, though unusual in Arabic, to an * Sir William Jones's Works, vol. iv. p. 488. "gels, "gels, to holy men, and even to all mankind, "who are commanded to call God their "father; and in this large sense, the "Apostle to the Romans calls the elect the "children of God, and the Messiah the "first born among many brethren; but the "words only begotten are applied transcen dantly and incomparably to him alone; "and as for me, who believe the Scriptures "which you also profess to believe, though you assert without proof that we have "altered them, I cannot refuse him an appellation, though far surpassing our 66 reason, by which he is distinguished in "the Gospel; and the believers in Mo"hammed, who expressly names him the "Messiah, and pronounces him to have "been born of a virgin (which alone might "fully justify the phrase condemned by "this author) are themselves condemn કંદ "able, for cavilling at words, when they 66 cannot |