Having given fome idea of his poetical pretenfions, we proceed to felect a very brief fpecimen of his fuccefs as a critic. In his effay on Gray's elegy, we have the fubfequent stric tures. * poets un The Beetle was introduced in poetry by Shakespeare, but that circumftance is no proof of imitation in Gray; both doubtedly transferred immediately from nature, an image fo very common. Shakespeare has made the most of his defcription; in deed, far too much, confidering the occafion: -To black Hecate's fummons The fhard-born beetle with his drowsey hum, Macbeath, who had committed one murder in perfon, who intend ed to commit another by proxy, and was about to acquaint his wife with his intention, could not be very likely to talk of Hecate fummoning the beetle With his drowsy bum to ring night's yawning peal; nor to recollect that fuch beetle had its place of nativity: under a tile fhard. The imagination must be indeed fertile, which could produce this ill placed exuberance of imagery. The Poet, when compofing this paffage, must have had in his mind all the remote ideas of Hecate, a heathen goddess, of a beetle, of night of a peal of bells, and of that action of the mufcles, commonly called a gape or yawn. Dr. Hill, in his Natural History of Animals, has objected to the caufe affigned by Gray, for the hollowing of the owl the voice of that bird, he thinks, is not the voice of complaint, but rather of joy or exultation. Perhaps we are not fufficiently acquainted with the economy of nocturnal fowls, to decide pofitively what is the real occafion of their clamour. That it is produced by moleftation, we have no reason to believe, because they are feldom molested, and often clamorous; that it is produced by pleafure, we have no certainty, nor are we more certain that it proceeds from hunger. Owls have been noticed to be more vociferous in the fame places, in fome years, and in fome feasons of the year, than in others. During the breeding time, when the feathered race, in general are most noify, it is remarkable that this genus is uncommonly filent: two of these animals often feem to answer each other's voices; and a fingle one has fometimes feemed to chufe a fituation, wherein its own voice might be returned by an echo. The paffage in queftion, however, * The name of beetle points out the genus, not the species of infect. That here intended is the large black one, fo common in autumnal and mild wintry evenings, as often to fly with confiderable force against the faces of perfons walking abroad. This has been confounded with a fummer beetle, viz. the common tree cockchafer. +Shakespeare was remarkably fond of defcriptive minutenefs: his beetle is hard-born, his bat is cloyfter'd, with many other inftances of the fame kind, introduced with more or less propriety, Y 3 is truly poetical; and though it may affign a wrong caufe, in a matter where we cannot align a right one, few perfons perhaps will with it had been omitted. Since Mr. Scott has defcended to the minutenefs of natural history, we would with all diffidence fuggeft, whether he might not have been misled in the circumftance of the converfation of the two owls, and the owl and its echo, by the resemblance of his own poetry to the note of that melodious animal.There is nothing in which our critic more delights than in emendations and new arrangements of the poetry he examines. Thus the ftanza of Gray, Oft did the harvest to their fickle yield, Their furrow oft the ftubborn glebe has broke: is tranfpofed in the following manner. Oft jocund did they drive their team á-field, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe had broke : How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy ftroke! After a little modeft exultation however, in the happiness of his improvement, Mr. Scott at length defcends from his fancied eminence, and allows that it may be questioned, whether the exclamatory bow," has not more pathos, when applied to the mental hilarity of the carter, than when applied to the corporeal energy, or agility, of the reaper." 66 Such are the criticisms of our author: we are not vain enough to imagine, that by any fpecimens we could felect, we could affuage the voracioufnefs of our reader, or detain him from the performance we have thus fuggefted to his attention. Swift let him fly; he will not find a paffage throughout the whole volume inferior to the admirable ones we have extracted. And furely that man is a fkilful epicure, who for five fhillings and three-pence purchases a mine of entertainment, which, as he will never be able fully to comprehend, he will certainly never exhauft, ART. III. A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, towards the Antartic Polar Circle, and round the World: but chiefly into the Country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the Year 1772, to 1779. By Andrew Sparrman, M. D. Profeffor of Phyfic at Stockholm, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden, and Infpector of its Cabinet of Natural Hiftory. Tranflated from the Swedish Original. With Plates, 2 vols. 4to 11. 11s, 6d. Robinson. R. Sparrman is undoubtedly a man of education and learning; and is poffeffed, at the fame time, with no common zeal for the propagation of feience. His paffion for DR. discovery *difcovery and truth carried him to the wilds of Africa; and while he was collecting the materials for the volumes before us, he was uniformly expofed to dangers and inconveniencies of every kind. It is not as an hiftorian that Dr. Sparrman is ambitious to diftinguish himself. He appears to more advantage in the characters of phyfician, naturalift, and philofopher. He indeed defires his reader not to expect from him a full and complete hiftory of the Cape of Good Hope, but merely such relations concerning every thing remarkable, as he had been able to collect, and to obferve with refpect to this part of the world. a He has a talent for defcription. His landfcapes are picturefque. He is a curious and difcerning botanist; and he pourtrays animals with a minute and happy precifion. He unfolds many new particulars in nature; and he corrects many mistakes and mifreprefentations which deform the writings of celebrated authors. Nor has he neglected to inquire into the civil inftitutions, the rural economy, and the manners of the Hottentots. To exhibit an analys of a work fo various in its nature as the prefent, would very much exceed the bounds we prefcribe to ourselves, But it is proper that we lay fome fpecimens of it before our readers. Dr. Sparrman gives the following account of the Hot tentots. With regard to their perfons, they are as tall as most Europeans; and as for their being in general more flender, this proceeds from their being more ftinted and curtailed in their food, and dikewife from their not using themselves to hard labour. But that they have fmall hands and feet compared with the other parts of their bodies, has been remarked by no one before, and may, perhaps, be looked upon as a characteristic mark of this nation. The root of the nofe is moftly very low, by which means the diftance of the eyes from each other is greater than in Europeans. In like manner, the tip of the nofcis pretty flat. The iris is fcarcely ever of a light colour, but has generally a dark brown caft, fometimes approaching to black. Their fkin is of a yellowish brown hue, which fomething refembles that of an European who has the jaundice in a high degree; at the fame, time, however, this colour is not in the least obfervable in the whites of the eyes. One does not find fuch thick lips among the Hottentots as among their neighbours the Negroes, the Caffres, and the Mozambiques. In fine, their mouths.are of a middling fize, and almost always furnished with a set of the finest teeth that can be feen; and taken together wwith the reft of their features, as well as their fhape, carriage, and every motion; in fhort, their gent enfemble indicates health and delight, or at least an Y 4 air air of fans fouci. This carelefs mien, however, difcovers marks at the fame time both of alacrity and resolution; qualities which the Hottentots, in fact, can fhow upon occasion. • The head would appear to be covered with a black, though not very close, frizzled kind of wool, if the natural harfhness of it did not fhow, that it was hair, if poffible, more woolly than that of the negroes. If in other refpects there fhould, by great chance, be obferved any traces of a beard, or of hair in any other parts of the body, fuch as are feen on the Europeans, they are, however, very trifling, and generally of the fame kind as that on the head. Notwithstanding the refpect I bear to the more delicate part of my readers, the notoriety of the fact prevents me from pafling over in this place thofe parts of the body, which our more fcrupulous but lefs natural manners forbid me to defcribe, any other ways than by the means of circumlocution, Latin terms, or other uncouth, and to most readers, unintelligible denominations and expedients. But thofe who affect this kind of referve must pardon me, if I cannot wrap up matters with the nicety their modefty requires; as my duty obliges me to fhow how much the world has been mifled, and the Hottentot nation been mifreprefented! inafmuch as the Hottentot women have been deferibed, and believed to be, in respect to their fexual parts, monsters by nature; and that the men were made fuch by a barbarous cuftom. It has been thought, for example, that thefe latter were, at the age of ten years, by a kind of caftration, deprived of one of thote organs, which nature gives to every male, as being abfolutely neceffary for the propagation of his fpecies; and that the former, or the women, have before their privy parts a natural veil or covering, a circumstance unheard of in the females of any other part of the globe. Deferring to a farther opportunity the arguments which are deducible from the abfurdity of the thing itself, and the little dependence to be had on the testimony of the relater, I fhall only in this place prefent the reader with what I am in a condition to relate with abfolute certainty, being the refult of the enquiries, which out of a due regard to truth, and in refpect to the importance of the fub'ject, I thought myself obliged to make. The men are at prefent by no means monorchides, though, perhaps, the time has been when they were fo; fome other time, however, I fhall make a stricter enquiry into the matter, and thus give my readers an opportunity of judging for themfelves. 'The women have no parts uncommon to the rest of their sex ; -but the clitoris and nympha, particularly of those who are past their youth, are in general pretty much elongated! a peculiarity which undoubtedly has got footing in this nation, in confequence of the relaxation neceffarily produced by the method they have of befmearing their bodies, their flothfulness, and the warmth of the climate. In order to finish the picture I have here given of the Hottentots, the next thing I have to defcribe is their drefs, and method of painting themfelves. This latter, (if painting it may be called) confifts in befmearing their bodies all over moft copiously with fat, te in which there is mixed up a little foot, This is never wiped off; on the contrary, I never faw them ufe any thing to clean their skins, excepting that when, in greafing the wheels of their waggons, their se hands were befmeared with tar and pitch, they used to get it off Every easily with cow-dung, at the fame time rubbing their arms into the bargain up to the fhoulders with this cofmetic: fo that as the duft and other filth, together with their footy ointment, and the fweat of their bodies, muft neceffarily, notwithstanding it is continually wearing off, in some measure adhere to the skin, it contributes not a little to conceal the natural hue of the latter, and the fame time to change it from a bright umber-brown to a brownish-yellow colour obfcured with filth and naftiness. • What has enabled me to determine the natural complexion of the Hottentots to be of an umber-yellow colour, was merely the fcrupulous nicety of fome few farmers wives, who made one or two of their Hottentot girls fcower their skins, that they might not be too filthy to look after their children, or to do any other bufiness that required cleanliness. It is afferted by many of the colonists, that by this fcowering and washing the Hottentots looks are not at all improved. They feem to think, that their natural yellow-brown hue was to the full as difagreeable as that which is produced by their befmearing themfelves; and that a befmeared Hottentot looks lefs naked, as it were, and more complete, than one in his natural state; and that the fkin of a Hottentot ungreafed feems to exhibit fome defect in drefs, like fhoes that want blacking, &c. Whether this fancy is most founded in custom or in the nature of things, I fhall leave to others to determine. Befides the pleasure the Hottentots enjoy in befmearing their bodies from head to foot, they likewife perfume them with a powder of herbs, with which they powder both their heads and bodies, rubbing it in all over them when they befmear themselves... The odour of it is at the fame time rank and aromatic narcotico feu papaverino fpirans, and feems to come nearest to that of the poppy mixed with fpices. The plants ufed for this purpose are various fpecies of the diofma, called by the Hottentots, bucku, and confidered by them as poffefling great virtues in curing diforders. Some of thefe fpecies are very common round about the Cape; but one particular fort, which I am told grows about Goud's-river, is faid to be fo valuable, that no more than a thimble full of it is given in exchange for a lamb. 'The Hottentots, with their skins dreffed up with grease and foot, and bucku-powder, are by this means in a great measure defended from, the influence of the air, and may in a manner reckon themselves full dreffed. In other refpects, both men and women are wont to appear quite undreffed; indeed, I may say naked, except a trifling covering, with which they always conceal certain parts of their bodies. With the men this covering confifts of a bag or flap, made of skin, hanging quite open, the hollow part of which feems defigned to receive that which with us modefty requires to be concealed; but |