[404] Private correspondence.
[405] We here beg particularly to recommend the perusal of the Memoirs of Mrs. Hannah More. They are replete with peculiar interest, not only in detailing the history of her own life, and the incidents connected with her numerous and valuable productions, but as elucidating the character of the times in which she lived, and exhibiting a lively portrait of the distinguished literary persons with whom she associated. The Blue Stocking Club, or "Bas bleu," is minutely described—we are present at its coteries, introduced to its personages, and familiar with its manners and habits. The Montagus, the Boscawens, the Veseys, the Carters, and the Pepyses, all pass in review before us; and prove how conversation might be made subservient to the improvement of the intellect, and the enlargement of the heart, if both were cultivated to answer these exalted ends.
[406] See Poem on Charity.
[407] These verses were set to a popular tune, for the purpose of general circulation, and to aid the efforts then making for the abolition of the slave-trade.
[408] The slave trade was abolished in the year 1807; declared to be felony, in 1811; and to be piracy, in 1824.
[409] The following lines from Goldsmith's "Traveller," have always been justly admired, and are so much in unison with the verses of Cowper, quoted above, that we feel persuaded we shall consult the taste of the reader by inserting them.
"Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide!
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind.
Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye;
I see the Lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagined right, above control;
While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man."
The celebrated Dr. Johnson once quoted these lines, with so much personal feeling and interest, that the tears are said to have started into his eyes.—See Boswell's Life of Johnson.
[410] "In the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty." Deut. xv. 12, 13.
[411] It is computed that there are two millions of slaves belonging to the United States of America; a similar number in the Brazils; and that the remainder are under the control of other governments.