MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES. 419 



even in her degradation ;— to Dante, Petrarca, and Boc- 

 caccio: to Tasso, Ariosto, Metastasio, Alfieri ; to 

 Galileo, Gassendi, and Torricelli; to Machiavel, 

 Davila, Bentivoglio, and Guicciardini ; to Raphael, 

 Michael Angelo, and a whole host of others ? 



The prerogatives of the white races may be equally dis- 

 guished in the least advanced state of civilization. Com- 

 pare the ancient Germans^ as delineated by Tacitus and 

 CjESAR, with the savages of New Holland, with a horde of 

 Hottentots, with a tribe of American Indians ; compare the 

 ancient Spaniards, or Scandinavians, the Highland Scotch, 

 or any Celtic people, to the African, American, or Mongo- 

 lian tribes. 



A fair comparative experiment has been made of the 

 white and red races in North America; and no trial in natu- 

 ral philosophy has had a more unequivocal and convincing 

 result. The,^ copper-coloured natives, although in all 

 their original independence, have not advanced a single 

 step in three hundred years 5 neither example nor persuasion 

 has induced them, except in very small number, and few 

 instances, to exchange the precarious supplies of the hunting 

 and fishing state for agriculture and the other arts of settled 

 life. A little ingenuity is manifested in making clothes, 

 ornaments, arms ; and personal endurance of exertion, 

 fatigue, and the cruellest tortures is carried to a great height. 

 Even in war, in their eyes the first and most exalted of oc- 

 cupations, they shew few traces of generous or honourable 

 feelings. Bitter revenge and utter destruction are the mo- 

 tive and end. It is hardly necessary to draw the contrast. 

 No Englishman can be ignorant of the mighty empire 

 founded by a handful of his countrymen in the wilds of 

 America ; — of its gigantic strides from the state of an insig- 

 nificant colony, within forty short years of independence, to 

 the rank of a first-rate power. No friend of humanity can 

 be a stranger to the glorious prospect, to the energies of 

 freedom, which vivify this new country. No human being, 

 who is interested in the progress of his species, can refuse 

 his tribute of admiration to this new world, which has estab- 



ee2 



