1830.] Four Years in the West Indies. 319 



" You curse me !" said a young slave to a free African, "eh ! you 

 curse me ! you dam Guinea nigger ! you Willy-force congo !" suiting 

 the action to the word, " I make you sabe how for curse me !" 



Our limits will not admit of further illustrations of this subject at 

 present. 



We recommend Mr. Bayley's book, and Mr. Mackenzie's valuable 

 " Notes/' to the perusal of every person interested in the West India 

 question ; and who is there in this country that is not deeply interested ? 

 We have now several histories of Jamaica and St. Domingo; and 

 although Mr. Bayley's " Four Years' Residence/' cannot be considered 

 a history of the Leeward Islands, it nevertheless gives a good account of 

 many of them; and its geographical, geological, and chronological 

 appendix will be found equally useful and entertaining. 



We cannot conclude this article better than by an extract from the 

 work before us. " Oh ye, whose hearts are bent upon doing good, ye 

 whose motives are pure and unsophisticated, ye who would relieve real 

 misery, ye who would pour a balm to close the wounds of hearts that 

 have been crushed, and spirits broken by the curse of poverty and want; 

 ye who would have mothers bless, and children pray for you, turn not 

 your hearts to the emancipation of negroes, but look rather to the eman- 

 cipation from their woes of such of your own countrymen as are oppressed 

 with the horrors of poverty, or the miseries of disease ; of those who know 

 what it is to be poor in the midst of wealth, and famishing in the midst 

 of plenty. The slaves, although in a degraded state, are not yet suf- 

 ficiently capable of feeling their degradation ; as they are well treated, 

 they are for the most part happy and contented ; at any rate their 

 wants are supplied ; they have food for their bodies, and covering for 

 their heads. But there are Englishmen, free-born Englishmen, who 

 have starving wives and starving families, with no food but their 

 miseries, no bed but the cold earth, no covering but the canopy of 

 heaven ; first, then, look to such as these, and extend to them humanity 

 and relief: for what think ye of the charity of that man who would 

 snatch their last morsel from the mouths of his own children to bestow 

 it on the offspring of a stranger/' 



SONNET : ON SEEING ETON COLLEGE. 



WITH a familiar, but delighted awe, 



I first beheld thy Spires, time-tinted Pile ; 



And moved along thy worn and shadowy aisle 



In thoughtful joy ; yet not that there I saw 



Learning's fair fount the cradle of old Law 



The spring whence Science, like another Nile, 



Came glistening forth through many a dark defile 



Where Critics grew, whose eyes would find a flaw 



In perfect Nature: Not, that gentle day, 



On these my spirit's incense was bestowed : 



But on thy line and life, accomplished GRAY ! 



On thy true Elegy, and touching Ode. 



From thee, and from the music of thy lay, 



That filled the scene, its fine enchantment flowed. 



B. 



