ceived doctrine. On their plan it may be said that the narrative seems to be written for the reflections; and on that of Mr. Southey, that we have facts with scarcely any reflections interspersed. A similar remark was made by us (Vol. Ixiv. p. 465.) on the writer, whoever he be, of the "Memoirs of Prince Eugene."-Mr. Southey's plan is confirmed in great measure by the authority of the ancients, and among ourselves by the recent example of Mr. Fox. Without entering into any general discussion of the best mode of writing history, we must say that Mr. Southey has gone greatly too far into particular detail for the taste of the present generation; which expects something more than a succession of objects and occurrences, clearly and specifically described, but not brought together so as to produce effect by combination. The reader who turns over Mr. Southey's pages, in quest of dazzling description, will experience nearly such a disappointment as the ardent admirer of war would find on exchanging the flattering picture of a campaign drawn by a writer who lets loose imagination, for the plain unadorned journal of a professional eye-witness,

We differ, however, from the prevailing taste, and are disposed to look with favourable prepossession on the writer who avoids painting, and brings truth and reality in the plainest garb before the eyes of his readers. Yet, while we admire the plan, and regard its successful execution as the true pro⚫ vince of taste and genius, we are not prepared to say that Mr. Southey's performance is in complete correspondence with, the dignity of his conception. The magnitude of the volume, and the variety of its details, naturally suggest the charge of prolixity: a charge which appears to be better founded with respect to multiplicity of circumstances, than to their lengthened description. Few writers are more remote from danger of trespassing by the use of unmeaning epithets; on this score, therefore, Mr. Southey may be called a concise writer: but, in looking to prolixity in another sense-we mean an accumulation of circumstances a very different conclusion must be drawn. True it is, that, from the pen of so diligent an investigator, we may safely rely on the fidelity of the enumerated particulars; and it is equally true that all of them may be considered as conducing, in some degree, to the illustration of the history and manners of the people whom he describes: but the mass is too large its parts are too multiform. If the extent of the historian's research ought to be such as to know no other limit than the range of authentic materials, the exposition of his stores to the public is to be guided by a very different rule. The majority of readers expect a writer to judge as well as to investigate for them;

and they will be satisfied to find collateral details subjoined in the notes, or cited in the margin, while in the text they look only for such a selection of circumstances as may suffice to give them a clear conception of leading facts and character. istics.

To these observations, we add an extract of a few lines from Mr. Southey's work, which contain a remark very useful in itself, and calculated to serve as a specimen of those general views which we should have been glad to have seen more frequently introduced. Speaking of the fabulous miracles which disfigure the records of Catholic missionaries, he adds, with reference to the authorities for American annals >

"There is this wide difference between civil and ecclesiastical historians; the former narrate those events most fully which have passed in their own times, and later writers always have to con dense the materials left them by their predecessors: the latter enlarge as they go on, and the last writer is uniformly the most copious, because every one adds his lie to the heap."

The river Amazons, or, to adopt Mr. Southey's name, the Orellana, is an object of such magnitude, and a voyage down its course presented such extended views of Indian manners, that we turn by preference to those passages in the book which are appropriated to this topic :

"From the sea to the Rio Negro, the depth in the main channel is nowhere less than thirty fathom; higher up, it varies from twenty to twelve, and even near to its source, according to Acuna, it is not less than eight. The islands which it forms are too many ever to have been numbered, and of all sizes, very many of four or five leagues in circumference, not a few of ten and twenty, and the great island of the Tupinambas exceeding a hundred. Many of the smaller islands were cultivated by those who inhabited the nearest large ones; and being sometimes inundated, they are remarkably fertile.

"Maize and mandioc were the principal vegetable food of the inhabitants; this latter they secured against the regular floods, by burying it in deep pits, so well covered as to keep out the water. The same root supplied them with their liquor; they formed the flour into thin biscuits, which they kept in the highest part of their dwellings, to be as far from the damp as possible; these they boiled in water, and left to ferment, using it as beverage on all occasions. There was a drinking bout at sowing or setting time, another at harvest; when a guest arrived, this was his welcome; if they rejoiced, they got drunk; and they got drunk if they were sorrowful. Other fermented liquors they made of various wild fruits, and kept them in earthen jars of great capacity, or in wood hollowed into vessels, or in large baskets, knit so closely of fine

materials, and calked so well with gum, as to be effectually watertight."

"Acuna's was indeed a delightful voyage; the natives on the way had been previously conciliated, and the force with him was sufficient to remove all fear or apprehension whatever. If one boat was injured or upset, there were others at hand to render assistance. His course also was with the stream. Had he written of the voyage up, he would have had to speak of labyrinthine channels, of strong currents, and of a plague of insects, from which there is no respite, neither by night nor day. In descending the stream, the evil is escaped; boats keep the mid current, and these insects do not venture far from the shore.

"The common weapon of the savages was the throwing-stick, called estolica, which was used by the Peruvians. It is described as flat, between four and five feet long, and three fingers broad; at the end a bone rest was fixed; against this, they took such certain aim, that if a tortoise put forth his head, they could instantly transfix it. The bow and arrow, however, were more formidable arms. Some used shields of closely plaited cane. Their canoes were of cedar, and the river saved them all trouble of felling timber for them. Torn up by the floods, these huge trees came floating down the stream, and the Indian had only to cast a hook upon one, as it was drifting along, and fasten it to his hut, till the waters abated, and left it dry. Tortoise-shell served for hatchets the strongest part of the shell, which is what may be described as being between the shoulders, was used as the blade; a jaw bone of the manatee served for handle, and with such tools as these they made tables, seats, and other things, as well as if they had employed the best iron instruments, though not as easily. Some tribes had stone axes, which did the work more expeditiously. The teeth and tusks of animals served them for chisels, plancs, and wimbles."

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Everywhere they had their conjurors: there is no stage of society in which some persons are not found artful enough to prey upon the credulity of others. In general, the tribes upon the Orellana were less dark of complexion than the Brazilian nations. They were well made and of good stature, of quick understanding, docile, and disposed to receive any instruction from their guests, and render them any assistance."

Similar descriptions are given, at great length, of the savages of the Tupi race, inhabiting the central part of Brazil. The following circumstances belong to the favourable part of the picture:

says De Lery, roThere are few lame

"They are a stronger race than we,' buster, healthier, and less liable to diseases. persons among them, few that are one-eyed, scarcely any who are deformed; and though there are many who live to six score years of age, (for they keep account by moons,) yet few become gray. This shows the temperature of that region, which is neither afflict

ed with cold nor with heat, and hath its trees and herbage always green; and they themselves, being free from all care, seem as if they had dipt their lips in the fountain of youth.' In this account of the longevity to which they often attain, and the green and vigorous old age which they enjoy, all testimonies, ancient and modern, accord. Living almost, like animals, in a state of nature, their senses had that acuteness which the habits of civilized life destroy. If a Tupinamba were lost in the woods, he laid down and snuffed for fire, which it is said they could scent half a mile off, then climbed the highest tree to look for smoke, which they could perceive at a distance where it was invisible to the keenest European eye. But where they had once been before, they knew their path again by a sort of dog-like faculty."

Though considerably elevated above the rude barbarism of the lower tribes of the American continent, the Tupinambas evidently belonged to the class of savages for they were unfeeling in their treatment of the sick, and addicted to the horrid custom of cannibalism. It was to them that the reforming efforts of the Jesuits were first directed:

"They began by winning the affections of the children, giving them store of trifling presents; by this sort of intercourse they acquired some use of the language themselves, and soon qualified these little ones for interpreters. They visited the sick, and while they believed that every one whom they sprinkled at the hour of death was a soul rescued from the devil, the charitable services which accompanied such conversions were not lost upon the living.

"These missionaries were every way qualified for their office. They were zealous for the salvation of souls; they had disengaged themselves from all the ties which attach us to life, and were therefore not merely fearless of martyrdom, but ambitious of it; nor can it be doubted that they sometimes worked miracles upon the sick; for when they believed that the patient might be miraculously cured, and he himself expected that he should be so, faith would supply the virtue in which it trusted.

"Nobrega and his companions began their work with those hordes who were sojourning in the vicinity of St. Salvador; they persuaded them to live in peace, they reconciled old enemies, they succeeded in preventing drunkenness, and in making them promise to be contented with one wife; but the cannibalism was more difficult to overcome: the delight of feasting upon the flesh of their enemies was too great to be relinquished. One of the Jesuits succeeded in abolishing it among some clans by going through them and flogging himself before their doors till he was covered with blood, telling them he thus tormented himself to avert the punishment which God would otherwise inflict upon them for this crying sin. They could not bear this, confessed what they had done was wrong, and enacted heavy punishments against any person who should again be guilty. With other hordes the fathers

thought themselves fortunate in obtaining permission to visit the prisoners and instruct them in the saving faith, before they were put to death."

Unfortunately, the conduct of the Portuguese settlers was not such as to favour the benevolent efforts of the Jesuits. Not only was a part of the transatlantic population of Portugal composed of criminals, but the colonists, who were originally of good character, had been perverted by the temptations of their situation, and by an almost total absence of clerical admonition. The colonization of Brazil had been left, during half a century, to chance, and the colonists were almost without law and without religion. It had become an established practice to enslave the natives; and all the power of the Catholic religion, directed as it was by the Jesuits against this system of oppression, failed to have more than a partial effect.

We close our extracts by a passage from the notes, which impeaches, we believe, with too much foundation, the character for research of a very popular historian. After having mentioned the mode of enumeration practised by several American tribes, and one in particular which counted by units, fives, and twenties, Mr. Southey says:

"When Pauw reasoned upon the ignorance of the Americans in numbers, did he suppress this remarkable fact-or was he ignorant of it? The same question is applicable to Dr. Robertson, who, on this, and many other subjects, in what he calls his History of America, is guilty of such omissions, and consequent misrepresentations, as to make it certain, either that he had not read some of the most important documents to which he refers, or that he did not choose to notice the facts which are to be found there, because they were not in conformity to his own preconceived opinions. A remarkable example occurs respecting a circulating medium; when he mentions the cocoa nuts, which were used as money in Mexico, and says, 'this seems to be the utmost length which the Americans had advanced towards the discovery of any expedient for supplying the use of money.' Now it is said by Cortes himself, that when he was about to make cannon, he had copper enough, but wanted tin-and having bought up all the plates and pots which he could find among the soldiers, he began to inquire among the natives. He then found that in the province of Tachco, little pieces of tin, like thin coin, were used for money there and in other places.

"The reputation of this author must rest upon his History of Scotland-it that can support it. His other works are grievously deficient."