1799: | 
few trifling notes or illuftrations. already 
mentioned. But it foon began,to appear 
that he had a Jarge work in view; and, 
‘when the project was matured, no confi- 
deration could induce him to relinquifh it. 
Had I refufed to proceed, he would have 
called to his aid fome perfon, perhaps 
more obfequious to_his will, and lefs foli- 
citous about the contents of the work, not 
to fay lefs acquainted with the fubject, 
than one who had obferved the character 
and treatment of the Negroes, for above 
13 years, in the Weft-Indies, and who 
had juft rifen from a laborious application 
to every branch of their caule, for fix 
years, in this country. And thus the 
work might have tended to injure that very 
caufe which, it is certain, Mr. Wad{trom 
ardently wifhed to promote. It would 
probably have been a fort of text-book for 
the Slave-merchants, as Mr. Long’s Hif- 
tory of Jamaica is for the Abolitionifts ; 
but with this difference, that Mr. Wad- 
ftrom’s might have furnifhed topics for 
fuch wits as Lord A—ng—n and Alder- 
man N—n—m ; whereas Mr. Long’s va- 
luable work affords folid grounds for the 
irrefragable ftatements and arguments of 
Lord Grenville, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Fox. 
At beft it is no eafy thing to be the 
“¢ fancy’s midwife’ to any man. But 
there were circumftances which rendered 
that office, to Mr. Wadftrom’s fancy, 
peculiarly difficult. The nature of the 
faculty itfelf prefented no fmall obftacle. 
Without pretending to defcribe what I 
never could underfiand, I may venture to 
obferve, that Mr. Wadftrom’s fancy ap- 
_ peared to me, creative without being 
poetical, great without fublimity, and, 
I had almott faid, fyftematical without  co- 
herence—for it aflumed the name, though 
it fcorned the ordinary rules, of reafon. 
Stilf «¢ there was method in it’’—a won- 
derful power of framing fyftems, for prac- 
tical ufe, out of the abftract relations of 
things, which it fondly purfued toa re- 
gion (beyond Utopia; I ufed to call it 
Wadpromia) whither ‘* Entity and quid- 
dity—the ghofts of defunct bodies fly%.”” 
Brooding there, under the qvarzm influence 
of the Genius Loci, it would incontinently 
‘< body forth the forms of things un- 
known ;”’ but, perhaps, the pen of Shake- 
{peare.himfelf could not have given ** the 
airy nothings a local habitation and a 
name.’’—We pofleffed ho common. lan- 
guage but French and Englith. I did not 
underftand the former, nor he the latter, 
fo well as to difcriminate accurately, all 

* Hudibras. 
Stridtures on Mis Williams’ s Memoirs of Wadftrom. 
865 
the delicate fhades of meaning, and to in- 
veft abftract mental images with phrafes 
capable of preventing confufion amidft a 
variety of fimilar, though diftinét, com- 
binations of ideas—if, indeed, any lan- 
guage could have exprefled fome of the 
combinations of Mr. Wadftrom’s mind, 
or any logic could have juftified his mode 
of inference and arrangement.—When I 
firt knew him, he grouped together all 
his fingularities of matter and manner, 
with a happy. impropriety, under the ge- 
neral name of his *¢ Own Peculiar.” But 
he afterwards affected to call the curious 
collection of oddities his ** Syfem.”’ 
What has been faid may {uffice to con- 
vey a general idea of the difficulties which 
attended this piece of literary obftetrics, 
As far as Mr. Wadftrom’s ‘* own pecu- 
liar’? ‘was concerned, it was a perpetual 
firuggle on his part to introduce, and on 
mine to exclude, his reveries; and all his 
more extravagant reveries were effectually 
excluded from the Effay on Colonization. 
Hence. that part of the work which claims 
him as its parent, was to me by far the 
moft laborious; and, though I wrote the 
greater part of it four times over, by far 
the worft executed. But, after all my 
pains, it is probable that the crofs-grained 
footerkin would never have feen the light 
in this fubluxary world, if a certain wor- 
thy and fenfible-gentleman (Mr. T—k), 
who underftood Mr. Wadttrom’s meaning 
better than I, had not affifted in reducing 
it to fomething of a form which ordinary 
minds could furvey, without doing violence 
to all the rules of thinking to which they 
had been accultomed. On the other hand, 
I inferted {ome whole chapters, and many 
fhorter articles, without any material ob- 
jeCtion, fometimes without a fingle obfer- 
vation, on the part of Mr. Wadftrom. 
But I have almoft loft fight of the paf- 
fage I propofed to confider. What our 
elegant writer ftates, refpecting Buona- 
parte’s application to Mr. Wadftrom, is 
no doubt correét. But, perhaps, it would 
puzzle all the philofophers in his train to 
affign a rational motive for his withing 
“¢ to obtain a copy of the work;”’ unlefs 
it was to fire his imagination by contem- 
plating the exploits of Benyowfky, a kin- 
dred genius, and, in fome refpects, highly 
worthy of his imitation*. For, perhaps, 
* See in the Eflay on Colonization, Parti. 
Pp: 159, et fegg. an epitome of the Count’s 
tranfa¢tions in Madagafcar, which I drew up 
from his life, in 2 vols. gto. by the learned 
and ingenious Mr. Nicholfon. See alfo Sir 
_ Sidney Smith’s Letters to Lord Nelfon, inthe 
London Gazette of September 10, 1799. 
the 

