14 



Tede Pahai de parow-a 

 Ha maru no mina. 



£ pahah Tayo malama tal ya 



No Tebane tonaton whannomy ya. 



E Turaj eat terara patee whennui toai 

 Ino o maio Pretane to whennuaii no tute." 



Cooie'j Voyagct. 



Thefe couplets are undoubtedly rhythm ; though like the Hebrew, 

 we can neither meafure their quantities, nor give them their proper ca- 

 dence. We are obliged, however, to Mr. Banks for his care and accu- 

 racy, in preferving the rhimes : but, I cannot help being of opinion, that 

 the fame fate, which attended Lafitau, attended this gentleman when he 

 put down the laft pchay, that prefents us, as he has written it, with two 

 blank lines. Diffonant and unfamiiar as the Otaheitean verfe mufl have 

 been to his ear, it is more than probable he was unable to catch or fol- 

 low its rhime. Yet he enjoyed one advantage, that no Hebrew fcholar 

 can again obtain. Mr. Banks had the natives them/elves, and authors (f 

 iheir own poetry, to pronounce and repeat the pehays, till he Jinuld under- 

 Jland them, at leaft fufficiently to pen them according to his own ear. 

 And yet, he might have no better fortune than other travellers, who, 

 with the very fame difpofition to accuracy, differ alraoft always in their 

 pronunciation of the fame words ; thofe travellers efpecially who vifit 

 Arabia, the tribes of which nation are at as perpetual variance in their 

 dialefts, as themfelves are in unceafing motion : and perhaps it were as 

 eafy to preferve the form of their letters committed to their own fands, 

 as to retain their founds among fuch a floating multitude. Hence it has 

 happened, that the Arabian traveller hath not always been able to 

 convey with due precifion the legitimate found of the word he would 

 write down for European ufe ; particularly the vocal words, or thofe in 

 which the vowels predominate. The inftances are innumerable. But 

 if with fuch peculiar advantages, Mr. Banks found himfelf unequal to 

 communicate the jull metre of the Otaheitean poetry, by what rule or 



ftandard 



