tion of the emperor Vespasian, in his inquiry into the origin of an Ægyptian God*. Moses acted a wiser part: he stopped where all inquiries should cease; -for all beyond is inscrutable-" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

re

We should be probably charged with trifling, should we say with the same Scaliger,-though with spect to what he intends, acute and grave sounds, it is true that "children sing as soon as they are born;" we perhaps, however, may be allowed to say with him, that "the power of numbers is coeval with human nature itself:" for poetry is the language of the passions; and all rhythmical movements, music, dancing, and poetry, are predominant in countries which are deemed in the most infantile state of society, those called barbarous, and the least civilized.

Governor Hunter, in his Observations on Port Jackson, giving an account of the natives of Botany Bay, describes one of their common exhibitions, which combined the general properties of rhythm, as incident alike to music, dance, and song †. Monsieur Lafitau, in describing the manners of the North American Indians, relates similar exercitations, as practised among them; the poetical parts of which, if they were not composed with all the perfection of numbers, were at least delivered with all the enthusiasm of poetic feeling; and these rhythmical

Hist. lib. iv. 82, 83.

+ Hunter's Observations on Port Jackson, ch. vii.

Pendant que l'assemblée se forme, celui qui fait le festin, ou

representations, too, he notices not as peculiar to particuLar tribes or nations of these savages, but as common to all the barbarous nations of America: and a gentleman, wiho was among the first discoverers in the Missionaries' voyage in the South Seas, assured me that one of the first things done by the natives on their arrival was to exhibit the persons and manners of himself and company, their new visitors, in a dramatic representation, such as is de

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bien celui au nom de qui on le fait, chant seul. C'est comme pour evatretenir la compagnie de choses qui conviennent au sujet qui les asssemble. La plupart de ces chansons roulent sur les fables du temps, sur les faits héroiques de la nation; et elles sont en vieux style; mais si vieux, qu'ils y disent souvent bien des choses qu'ils n' entendent et ne comprennent point. Ce chantre a souvent uin assesseur, qui le releve lorsqu'il est fatigué, car ils chayntent de toutes leurs forces.

-Dans leurs chansons ils louent non seulement leurs dieux et leurs héros, mais ils se louent encore eux-mêmes, ne s'épargnant pas les louanges, et les prodiguant à ceux des assistans. qu'ils croyent les mériter. Celui qui est ainsi loué, repond par un cri de remerciement, dès qu'il s'entend nommer.

-Quoique dans cet article je n'aie parlé proprement que des nations Iroquois et Huronnes, je puis dire néanmoins que j'ai dépeint en même temps toutes les autres nations barbares de l'Amérique, quant à ce qu'il y a d' essentiel et de principal.

Pour eux, ils aiment ces sortes des fêtes à la fureur; ils les font durer des journées, et dans nuits entiers; et leurs hé hé fait tant de bruit, qu'ils font trembler tout le village. Mœurs des Sau vages, tom. i.

The above I quote so freely, as very pertinent to the present work. The quotation is made from a work, to which I shall have occasion to refer more than once hereafter.

scribed by Lafitau as the pantomime of the North Americans. Among these nations, then, their poets, their bards, or jonglers, or whatever we choose to call them, could not have been few.

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With respect to the old inhabitants of the north of Europe, every one knows they were not more distinaguished for ferocity and valour, than for love of liberty and poetry. They are described by Tacitus, and not as characterizing one nation of the Germans, but aill*. The Islandic scalds, the inhabitants of Sweden, Nor way, and Denmark, were numerous to a proverb; and their kings, no less than their attendants, were usually posets:for on their minstrels were the first honours bestowed ;indeed, in Ireland there was a time when the minstrels made a distinct and highly honourable order in the state †: and if we follow the Nordymra, a book to wihich I shall have more occasions than one to refer, it will appear that they used to mix poetry with their ordinary prose. So wide, so general, was the range of poetry! on the one hand, honoured and brought forward into public consideration; on the other, domiciliated as it were, and intermingling in the concerns of private life! If we contemplate the eastern nations, we shall find that among them poetry loses nothing either in quality or quantity. For to the East we are to look as the nursery

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of the arts and sciences. There we are told they were first cradled, if not brought to completeness of beauty, and perfection of strength. In these regions the inhabitants pass the greater part of their time in the most delicious fields, enlivening gardens, and near refreshing streams: gales refreshing and cool, groves retired and overshadowing, invite to poetic dreams; and while the mind borrows at once serenity and warmth from glowing suns and cloudless skies, the imagination is elevated by the luxuriant boldness of the surrounding scenery. The very face of the country is poetical! every thing awakens love and delight! and accordingly the votaries of song are most luxuriant of fancy, and almost infinite in number!

Herbelot (I follow Sir William Jones) enumerates nearly thirty authors who have written on the lives and writings of the Arabian poets, among whom are reckoned a prince Ebn Al Motezz Al Abassi, and Almansar a king of Hama, whose work embraced nearly ten volumes*. Sir William Jones has gone much at large into the character of the Arabian and Persian poets, though he has but lightly touched that of the other eastern nations. But from two modern writers, who seem to have gone profoundly into these inquiries, it appears that the Hindoos and Indo-Chinese nations t abound in poets.

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As to the ancient Hebrews, it has been repeatedly shown that their prophets were often poets: and the prophecies in the Jewish scriptures are often poetry, both as to expression and metre*: formerly the Jews had schools where prophecy, poetry, and the literature favourable to those pursuits, were regularly taught, as are the sciences in our Universities. Rabbi Moses Maiimonides, the great oracle on these matters, divides prophecy into eleven orders, of which one embraced such exercitations as fall under the regular department of poetry; and, probably, that, from the nature of the schools, and the prepossessions, of the Jews, (for their poetry seems to have been devoted to religious and national subjects,) that was, probably, a very prolific, widely extended race.

We may be sure that, with respect to poetry, Greece

* Lowth de Sac. Poes. Hebr. præl. xiv.

† As Maiimonides is deemed a curious author, and what is alluded to is closely connected with the present subject, I quote the following passage from his מורה נכונים Ductor Perplexorum.

Secundus gradus est, cum homo in se sentit rem vel facultatem quampiam exoriri et super se quiescere, quæ eum impellit ad lo quendum; ita ut loquatur vel de scientiis et artibus, vel Psalmos et Hymnos, vel utilia et salutaria recte vivendi præcepta, vel res politicas et civiles, vel denique divinas; et quidem inter vigilandum, et in vigore sensuum ordinario. Cap. xlv. De undecim distinctis Prophetiæ Gradibus. And under this head he speaks, further on, of the authors of the Proverbs, of Ecclesiastes, of Daniel, of the books of Psalms, of Ruth, and of Esther, as, in general, Prophets.