530 
portion. of the American population. At- 
tempts have been made by private societies 
to remove them, and between 3 and 400 a 
year, it seems, have been induced to with- 
draw to Africa and Hayti; but the course 
of nature re-produces between 30 and 
40,000. The author doubts if it would be 
desirable to remove so large a portion of the 
working classes (if it could be done peace- 
ably and quietly)—“‘they are,’’ he says, 
© industrious and usefal labourers, and the 
southern states would suffer not a little. 
All that can be done,” he adds, “is to 
make them as happy as we can in their 
present condition, and then employ such 
means as may be expedient for raising them 
by a slow and gradual progress to a higher 
one.” ‘One of these means is, it seems, to 
discourage in every possible shape, the idea 
that any thing can be effected immediately, 
and at once; and the Colonization Society 
are sharply censured, because they keep up 
an impression that something may be done 
at once. This is just the way the Anti- 
Slavery people are treated among ourselves 
—but none of them suppose the business 
accomplishable at once; they wish, indeed, 
to be Leginning ; and if the question be not 
kept alive by discussion, and by making a 
beginning, and going on—we may be quite 
sure nothing eyer will be done. The in- 
terested parties never yet did any thing 
spontaneously, and we may be certain never 
In the meanwhile, however, to screen and 
mystify, by seeming to talk about the ne- 
groes, the question of their capacity is dis- 
cussed very learnedly ; and the writer, with 
extraordinary liberality, expresses his con- 
viction, that no sufficient ground exists for 
any supposition of essential inferiority. If 
such a prejudice exists, he thinks it is rare. 
The whites have now the upper hand, and 
so had once the negroes. The authors of 
‘European civilization were all negroes—the 
Egyptians were all negroes—the founders 
of Grecian colonies were negroes—the 
Canaanites—the Tyrians— the Carthagi- 
nians. He has been reading Dr. Pritchard, 
apparently :— 
Even now, according to Colonel Denham, in the 
heart of Africa, the high intellectual spirit that 
once flashed out so finely in those sun-burnt cli- 
mates is not yet quenched. He has presented us 
with several specimens of contemporary (with 
David?) African poetry, which are hardly inferior 
to the’sweet and lofty strains of the ancient 
monarch minstrel. The dirge of the Furrancers 
in honour of their chief, Bookhaloom, will bear a 
comparison with the lamentation of David over 
Saul and Jonathan. Give him songs! give him 
music! What words can equal his praise? His 
beart was as large as the desert. The overflow- 
ings of his coffers were like streams from the ud- 
der of the camel, bringing health and refreshment 
to all about him. An extempore love song unites 
the tenderness and purity of the Canticles, with 
something of the deicacy of imagery that distin- 
yuishes the poetry of Moore. The triumphal ode 
of the Sheik of Bornou, written by himself, is still 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Nov. 
more remarkable, and may fairly be considered 
as poetry of the first order. If such a thing were 
to be produced by one of the reigning sovereigns 
of Europe of the present day, we should not hear 
the last of it for 20 years, &c. : 
Notwithstanding, we take it the more en- 
lightened impression is that there ts an 
essential inferiority. The poor and miser- 
able are every where treated with contempt 
enough, no doubt ; but the treatment of the 
poor and the fool is different, and the ne- 
gro is commonly, and certainly in America, 
treated as a child, or a natural. Nothing 
but crossing with the white will mend him ™ 
probably. 
The Life and Administration of Lord 
Burghley. Ato. By Dr. Nares; 1828.— 
Dr. Nares is professor of modern history in 
the University of Oxford, and though no 
novice in literature, has never tried his hand 
at any thing historical before. The task 
was suggested to him by his relation, Arch- 
deacon Nares, as one which it became the 
“¢ professor’ to undertake, partly because 
Lord Burghley’s life had never, it seems, 
been competently written, and partly be- 
cause the original papers of the great states- 
man were still carefully preserved, and, 
through the courtesy of the noble possessors, 
perfectly accessible. Once determined, Dr. 
Nares set to with the method of age and 
vigour of youth. More than 59,000 pages 
of previous close reading did not appal him. 
He began to put pen to paper in March 
1825, and in March 1828 was a first volume 
of 800 pages committed to the press, and. 
another of the same vast magnificence ac- 
tually ready—oblita modi millesima pagina. 
surgit. Circumstances rendered it expe- 
dient to put off the publication of the second 
to a more convenient season. ; 
The life is written carefully in the model 
of Archdeacon Coxe’s performances, and, 
like -them, is neither one thing nor the 
other—too comprehensive by half for the 
life of an individual, and too incomplete for 
the story of the times. We cannot for the 
life of us see the propriety, and certainly not 
the necessity for going into the wide field of 
historical events, to illustrate the particular 
actions of one, who, though he might be in-. 
timately mixed up with many of them, yet 
had no very influential share in the produc- 
tion of others, and with some had obviously 
nothing whatever to do. The general cha- 
racter of the times—the common facts and 
incidents should be gathered from general 
story, and might have been so gathered 
from a thousand sources. But then a large 
book—a justwm volumen—could not be 
be made; and, in the case before us, Dr. 
Nares would have lost, what no professional 
man could bear to lose, the opportunity of 
discussing again the Reformation, and de- 
tecting new merits in the reformers. ' 
But the chief fault of the book—a book 
which we shall readily allow possesses very 
considerable merits—is the perpetual strains 
ing of the author to make his hero a man 
~ 
