Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk 108.-THE MOSKITO INDIAN OF JUAN FERNANDEZ. DAMPIER. [DAMPIER, one of those intrepid English navigators who voyaged and fought in the old buccaneering spirit, was born in 1652. His early-life was spent in the roving life of those lawless adventurers who were a terror to every flag. He was subsequently employed in the Royal Navy, and went upon a voyage of discovery to the South Sea. His voyages were pub lished from time to time, between 1697 and 1709, and thus form three volumes in 8vo.] March the 22nd, 1684. We came in sight of the island, and the next day got in and anchored in a bay at the south end of the island, in twenty-five fathom water, not two cables' lengths from the shore. We presently got out our canoe, and went ashore to see for a Moskito Indian, whom we left here, when we were chased hence by three Spanish ships in the year 1681, a little before we went to Arrica ; Captain Watlin being then our commander, after Captain Sharpe was turned out. This Indian lived here alone above two years, and although he was several times sought after by the Spaniards, who knew he was left on the island, yet they could never find him. He was in the woods hunting for goats when Captain Watlin drew off his men, and the ship was under sail before he came back to shore. He had with him his gun and a knife, with a small horn of powder, and a few shot; which being spent, he contrived a way by notching his knife to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces, wherewith he made harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife; heating the pieces first in the fire, which he struck with his gun-flint and a piece of the barrel of his gun which he hardened, having learnt to do that among the English. The hot pieces of iron he would hammer out and bend as he pleased with stones, and saw them with his jagged knife, or grind them to an edge by long labour, and harden them to a good temper, as there was occasion. All this may seem strange to those who are not acquainted with the sagacity of the Indians; but it is no more than these Moskito men are accustomed to in their own country; where they make their own fishing and striking instruments, without either forge or anvil; though they spend a great deal of time about them. Other wild Indians who have not the use of iron, which the Moskito men have from the English, make hatchets of a very hard stone, with which they will cut down trees (the cotton tree especially, which is a soft tender wood,) to build their houses or make canoes; and though in working their canoes hollow they cannot dig them so neat and thin, yet they make them fit for their service. This, their digging or hatchet work, they help out by fire; whether for the felling of the trees, or for the making the inside of their canoes hollow. These contrivances are used particularly by the savage Indians of Blewfield's River, whose canoes and stone hatchets I have seen. These stone hatchets are about ten inches long, four broad, and three inches thick in the middle. They are ground away flat and sharp at both ends; right in the midst, and clear round it they make a notch, so wide and deep that a man might place his finger along it, and taking a stick or withe about four feet long, they bind it round the hatchet-head, in that notch, and so twisting it hard, use it as a handle or helve; the head being held by it very fast. Nor are other wild Indians less ingenious. Those of Patagonia, particularly, head their arrows with flint cut or ground, which I have seen and admired. But to return to our Moskito man on the Isle of Juan Fernandez. With such instruments as he made in that manner, he got such provision as the island afforded; either goats or fish. He told us that at first he was forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary meat, before he had made hooks: but afterwards he never killed any seals but to make lines, cutting their skins into thongs. He had a little house or hut half a mile from the sea, which was lined with goats' skins; his couch or barbecu of sticks, lying along about two feet distant from the ground, was spread with the same, and was all his bedding. He had no clothes left, having worn out those he brought from Watlin's ship, but only a skin about his waist. He saw our ship the day before we came to an anchor, and did believe we were English, and therefore killed three goats in the morning, before we came to an anchor, and drest them with cabbage, to treat us when we came ashore. He came then to the sea-side to congratulate our safe arrival. And when we landed, a Moskito Indian named Robin, first leapt ashore, and running to his brother Moskito man, threw himself flat on his face at his feet; who helping him up and embracing him, fell flat with his face on the ground at Robin's feet, and was by him taken up also. We stood with pleasure to behold the surprise, and tenderness, and solemnity of this interview, which was exceedingly affectionate on both sides; and when their ceremonies of civility were over, we also that stood gazing at them drew near, each of us embracing him we had found here, who was overjoyed to see so many of his old friends come hither, as he thought, purposely to fetch him. He was named Will, as the other was Robin. These were names given them by the English, for they have no names among themselves; and they take it as a great favour to be named by any of us; and will complain for want of it if we do not appoint them some name when they are with us: saying of themselves they are poor men, and have no name. [The Editor of 'Half-Hours,' in a little work which he wrote some years ago, entitled 'The Results of Machinery,' gave the substance of this curious story; and he added the following remarks, which may not be out of place in connection with the above extract: Here, indeed, is a material alteration in the wealth of a man left on an uninhabited island. He had a regular supply of goats and fish; he had the means of cooking his food; he had a house lined with goats' skins, and bedding of the same; his body was clothed with skins; he had provisions in abundance to offer, properly cooked, when his old companions came to him after a three years' absence. What gave him this power to labour profitably?-to maintain existence in tolerable comfort? Simply, the gun, the knife, and the flint, which he accidentally had with him when the ship sailed away. The flint, and the bit of steel which he hardened out of the gun-barrel, gave him the means of procuring fire; the gun became the material for making harpoons, lances, and hooks, with which he could obtain fish and flesh. Till he had made these tools he was compelled to eat seals' flesh. The instant he possessed the tools, he could make a selection of whatever was most agreeable to his taste. It is almost impossible to imagine a human being with less accumulation about him. His small stock of powder and shot was soon spent, and he had only an iron gun-barrel and a knife left, with the means of changing the form of the gun-barrel by fire. Yet this simple accumulation enabled him to direct his labour, as all labour is directed even in its highest employment, to the change of form and change of place of the natural supplies by which he was surrounded. He created nothing; he only gave his natural supplies a value by his labour. Until he laboured the things about him had no value, as far as he was concerned; when he did obtain them by labour, they instantly acquired a value. He brought the wild goat from the mountain to his hut in the valley-he changed its place; he converted its flesh into cooked food, and its skin into a lining for his bed-he changed its form. Change of form and change of place are the beginning and end of all human labour; and the Moskito Indian only employed the same principle, for the supply of his wants, which directs the labour of all the producers of civilized life into the channels of manufactures or commerce.] 109.-THE GREAT AUTHOR OF CIVILIZATION. RAY. [JOHN RAY, who takes the most eminent rank amongst naturalists as the "founder of true principles of classification in the animal and vegetable kingdoms," was born in 1627, near Braintree, in Essex. He was one of that numerous body of eminent men who owe every thing to the old Grammar Schools. His father was a blacksmith; but he received a good classical education at the Grammar School at Braintree, which eventually enabled him to become a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1649. He was appointed Greek Lecturer, and afterwards Mathematical Tutor at his college; but a severe illness drove him to seek relaxation in out-door exercise, and from that time his taste for natural history was formed, and his subsequent life was devoted to its scientific pursuit. This is not the place in which to give an account of his systems of classification in botany and zoology. They are the results of accurate observation and deep reflection. He had to originate everything; other systematic naturalists are improvers. The volume from which our extract is given was once highly popular, and led the way to Derham's 'Physico-Theology,' and Paley's Natural Theology.' It is entitled the Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation."] Methinks by all the provision which he has made for the use and service of man, the Almighty interpretatively speaks to him in this manner. I have now placed thee in a spacious and well furnished world, I have endued thee with an ability of understanding what is beautiful and proportionable, and have made that which is so agreeable and delightful to thee; I have provided thee with materials whereon to exercise and employ thy heart and strength; I have given thee an excellent instrument, the hand, accommodated to make use of them all; I have distinguished the earth into hills and valleys, and plains, and meadows, and woods; all these parts capable of culture and improvement by thy industry; I have committed to thee for thy assistance in the labours of ploughing and carrying, and drawing, and travel, the laborious ox, the patient ass, and the strong and serviceable horse; I have created a multitude of seeds for thee to make choice out of them of what is most pleasant to thy taste, and of most wholesome and plentiful nourishment; I have also made great variety of trees, bearing fruit both for food and physic, those, too, capable of being meliorated and improved by transportation, stercoration, incision, pruning, watering, and other arts and devices. Till and manure thy fields, sow them with thy seeds, extirpate noxious and unprofitable herbs, guard them from the invasions and spoils of beasts, clear and fence in thy meadows and pastures; dress and prune thy vines, and so rank and dispose them as is most suitable to the climate; plant thee orchards, with all sorts of fruit trees, in such order as may be most beautiful to the eye, and most comprehensive of plants; gardens for culinary herbs, and all kinds of salading; for delectable flowers to gratify the eye with their agreeable colours and figures, and thy scent with their fragrant odours; for odoriferous and evergreen shrubs and suffrutices; for exotic and medicinal plants of all sorts, and dispose them in their comely order, as may be both pleasant to behold, and commodious for access. I have furnished thee with all materials for building, as stone, and timber, and slate, and lime, and clay, and earth, whereof to make bricks and tiles. Deck and bespangle the country with houses and villages convenient for thy habitation, provided with outhouses and stables for the harbouring and shelter of thy cattle, with barns and granaries for the reception and custody, and storing up thy corn and fruits. I have made thee a sociable creature, Z Todanxov, for the improvement of thy understanding by conference, and communication of observations and experiments; for mutual help, and assistance, and defence; build thee large towns and cities, with straight and well paved streets, and elegant rows of houses, adorned with magnificent temples for thy honour and worship, with beautiful palaces for thy princes and grandees, with stately halls for public meetings of the citizens and their several companies, and the sessions of the courts of judicature, besides public porticos and aqueducts. I have implanted in thy nature a desire of seeing strange and foreign and finding out unknown countries, for the improvement and advance of thy knowledge in geography, by observing the bays, and creeks, and havens, and promontories, the outlets of rivers, the situation of the maritime towns and cities, the longitude and latitude, &c., of those places: in politics, by noting their government, their manners, laws, and customs, their diet and medicine, their trade and manufactures, their houses and buildings, their exercises and sports, &c. In physiology, or natural history, by searching out their natural rarities, the productions both of land and water, what species of animals, plants, and minerals, of fruits and drugs are to be found there, what commodities for bartering and permutation, whereby thou mayest be enabled to make large additions to natural history, to advance those other sciences, and to benefit and enrich thy country by increase of its trade and merchandise. I have given thee timber and iron to build the hulls of ships; tall trees for masts, flax and hemp for sails, cables and cordage for rigging. I have armed thee with courage and hardness to attempt the seas, and traverse the spacious plains of that liquid element; I have assisted thee with a compass to direct thy course when thou shalt be out of all view of land, and have nothing in view but sky and water. Go thither for the purposes forementioned, and bring home what may be useful and beneficial to thy country in general, or thyself in particular. I persuade myself that the bountiful and gracious Author of man's being and faculties, and all things else, delights in the beauty of his creation, and is well pleased with the industry of man in adorning the earth with beautiful cities and castles, with pleasant villages and country houses; with regular gardens and orchards, and plantations of all sorts of shrubs, and herbs, and fruits for meat, medicine, or moderate delight with shady woods and groves, and walks set with rows of elegant trees; with pastures clothed with flocks, and valleys covered over with corn, and meadows burdened with grass, and whatever else differenceth a civil and well cultivated region from a barren and desolate wilderness. If a country thus planted and adorned, thus polished and civilized, thus improved to the height by all manner of culture for the support and sustenance and convenient entertainment of innumerable multitudes of people, be not to be preferred before a barbarous and inhospitable Scythia, without houses, without plantations, without corn fields or vineyards, where the roving hordes of the savage and truculent inhabitants transfer themselves from place to place in waggons, as they can find pasture and forage for their cattle, and live upon milk, and flesh roasted in the sun at the pommels of their saddles; or a rude and unpolished America, peopled with slothful and naked Indians, instead of well built houses living in pitiful huts and cabins, made of poles set endwise; then surely the brute beast's condition and manner of living, to which what we have mentioned doth nearly approach, is to be esteemed better than man's, and wit and reason was in vain bestowed on him. 110. THE MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON. CHARLES LAMB, who speaks of this play with a warmth of admiration which is probably carried a little too far, and which, indeed, may in some degree be attributed to his familiarity with the quiet rural scenery of Enfield, Waltham, Cheshunt, and Edmonton, in which places the story is laid, says, "I wish it could be ascertained that Michael Drayton was the author of this piece: it would add a worthy appendage to the renown of that panegyrist of my native earth; who has gone over her soil (in his Polyolbion) with the fidelity of a herald, and the painful love of a son; who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) without honourable mention; and has animated hills and streams with life and passion above the dreams of old mythology." Some have attributed this play to Shakspere. The Merry Devil' was undoubtedly a play of great popularity. We find, from the account-books of the Revels at court, that it was acted before the king in the same year, 1818, with Twelfth Night' and 'Winter's Tale.' In 1616, Ben Jonson, in his prologue to 'The Devil is an Ass,' thus addresses his audience: If you'll come To see new plays, pray you afford us room, And show this but the same face you have done Your dear delight, the Devil of Edmonton.' Its popularity seems to have lasted much longer; for it is mentioned by Edmund Gayton, in 1654, in his Notes on Don Quixote.' The belief that the play was Shakspere's has never taken any root in England. Some of the recent German critics, however, adopt it as his without any hesitation. Fuller, in his Worthies,' thus records the merits of Peter Fabel, the hero of this play:-"I shall probably offend the gravity of some to insert, and certainly the curiosity of others to omit, him. Some make him a friar, others a lay gentleman, all a conceited person, who, with his merry devices, deceived the devil, who by grace may be resisted, not deceived by wit. If a grave bishop in his sermon, speaking of Brute's coming into this land, said it was but a bruit, I hope I may say without offence that this Fabel was but a fable, supposed to live in the reign of King Henry the Sixth." His fame is more confidingly recorded in the prologue to 'The Merry Devil: "Tis Peter Fabel, a renowned scholar, Whose fame hath still been hitherto forgot By all the writers of this latter age. In Middlesex his birth and his abode, Not full seven miles from this great famous city; In Edmonton, yet fresh unto this day, His memory yet in the mouths of men, That whilst he lived he could deceive the devil. The prologue goes on to suppose him at Cambridge at the hour when the term of his compact with the fiend is run out. We are not here to look for the terrible solemnity of the similar scene in Marlowe's 'Faustus;' but, nevertheless, that before us is written with great poetical power. Coreb, the spirit, thus addresses the magician: Coreb. Why, scholar, this is the hour my date expires; I must depart, and come to claim my due. Fabel. Hah! what is thy due? Coreb. Fabel, thyself. Fabel. O let not darkness hear thee speak that word, Lest that with force it hurry hence amain, And leave the world to look upon my woe: Yet overwhelm me with this globe of earth, And let a little sparrow with her bill That, every day thus losing of my load, I may again, in time, yet hope to rise." While the fiend sits down in the necromantic chair, Fabel thus soliloquizes: Fabel. O that this soul, that cost so dear a price As the dear precious blood of her Redeemer, Inspir'd by knowledge, should by that alone, |