portant events which had happened to their nation. He requested that the Hottentots who had muskets should accompany some of his people to the plain that lay to the eastward of the town, to assist them in hunting elephants; to which we started no objection, though we were not pleased with the proposal." Vol. I. P. 254. The king of Maribowhey also was glad to hear the word, but said its dispensers "must shoot flesh for him." A doctrine to which Pelangye their guide cordially assented, to the no small scandal of the interpreter. "Sedras, the Bootshuana interpreter at this time, told the king and twenty others who were sitting in the tent, that though Pelangye had travelled with us all the journey up the country, and heard the word of God every day; yet here he had interrupted the conversation by talking about flesh: adding that he was a man who was never happy but when he saw a potful of flesh boiling before him." Vol. II. P. 4. At Lattakoo again we hear that "every thing connected with the improvement of the mind they lightly esteem, or view with indifference, if not with disgust. This frivolity renders it extremely difficult to interest or affect their minds with religious truth," Vol. II. P. 65. The XXVIIth Report assures us, that the Matchappees, in consequence of the Missionary preaching, have abandoned their commandoes or plundering expeditions. With how good a grace this has been done we may learn from a speech made by a distinguished captain, at the peetso in which this resolution was passed. "Seemeeno, who opposed the motion, said, if they relinquished going upon commandoes, the young men would have no way left of distinguishing themselves by killing people, and rather than that they should not be renowned in this way, as formerly, he recom mended that they should kill their mothers." Vol. II. P. 157. After preaching to a kraal of Koranas, and inquiring whether they would receive a missionary, Mr. Campbell was asked by their spokesman to give him a handkerchief; "and the whole party appeared as indifferent about the information I brought them as if it had not excited one thought." "No nation," he continues, "in Africa has been found by the Missionaries more indifferent to all kinds of information than the Corannas. If a Missionary visits a kraal they will attend to his address;—if he chooses he may remain; if he goes away they manifest no wish to detain him. They are equally indifferent to his coming, remaining, or departing; they feel indisposed to any effort of mind or body." Vol. II. P. 274. A Kooranacaptain, on another occasion, remarked of the word of God, that it was good, "but this," observes the preacher, "was uttered in such a manner as indicated very little concern about the matter." "I spoke to him (Keewel, a Bushman captain,) of God, and his soul, and eternity; but he seemed quite indifferent about these subjects, making no reply, and asking for a tinder box." Such are some of the results of Mr. Campbell's" observations and inquiries" which authorize the Reporters of the Missionary Society to congratulate themselves that "in all the places visited during this tour he ascertained that the inhabitants were willing to receive missionaries." Mr. Burchell's impressions are somewhat different. Of the civilization produced at Klaarwater, he speaks in the following terms: "From the moment when I decided on making Klaarwater in my way to the Interior, I naturally endeavoured to form, in my own mind, some picture of it; and I know not by what mistake it arose, that I should conceive the idea of its being a picturesque spot surrounded by trees and gardens, with a river running through a neat village, where a tall church stood, a distant beacon to mark that Christianity had advanced thus far into the wilds of Africa. But the first glance now convinced me how false may oftentimes be the notions which men form of what they have not seen. The trees of my imagination vanished, leaving nothing in reality but a few which the missionaries themselves had planted; the church sunk to a barnlike building of reeds and mud; the village was merely a row of half a dozen reed cottages; the river was but a rill; and the situation an open, bare, and exposed place, without any appearance of a garden, excepting that of the missionaries." P. 351. "I cannot say that the scope and bearing of the doctrine of these teachers, were altogether such as I myself should have chosen, had I been in their situation, and desirous of making my hearers lead a more virtuous and religious life. But every man sincere in his religious enthusiasm, and pure in his intentions, is entitled to respect, whatever sect or religion he may belong to. Two of the missionaries were of the Dutch Calvinistic church, and one of the Wesleyan persuasion." P. 356. After describing the routine of missionary business, he observes: "With respect to its effects in forwarding the object of it, I cannot say that they appeared to me very evident: certainly, I saw nothing that would sanction me in making such favorable reports as have been laid before the public. VOL, XVII. APRIL, 1822. Bb "The enthusiasm which, perhaps, is inseparable from missionary affairs, may create some optical delusion in the mind's eye, that may cause it to see those things which are not visible to a more temperate and unbiassed observer; but still, it is much to be lamented that the community at home are misled by accounts (I speak generally) catching at the most trifling occurrence for their support, and showing none but the favorable circumstances; and even those, unfairly exaggerated." P. 358. But the lessons of the Missionaries have not altogether been lost upon the inhabitants, as the history of Stephanus will evince. Stephanus was a native of Courland, and had been clerk to a merchant in Cape Town. He was detected in forging colonial paper money, and took refuge among the missionaries established at Zack River. Here he served an apprenticeship, and having mastered the trade, he determined to set up for himself. Accordingly without arms, and with but a small stock of provisions, he succeeded in penetrating to the Gariep; where he joined the present inhabitants of Klaarwater, at a place called Kok's Kraal. "He had with him a bible, given him at the Zak River; and, with this in his hand, he set up as missionary, and gained an ascendancy over the minds of the kraal, such as, the missionaries have confessed, they have never been able to gain. He persuaded them to attend to agriculture, and also to erect a church. This he built in a superior style; and conducting the religious service with much imposing formality and ceremony, made his hearers at length believe he was expressly sent to them from heaven. He preached such doctrines as suited his purpose, and was not suspected of imposition, even when, on desiring to take another wife in addition, he declared he had the divine command for selecting such or such a female. At last, on some occasion he made a journey into the country of the Great Namaquas, and was murdered by the natives. "When the missionaries afterwards attached themselves to the Kok's and the Berend's party, they had great difficulty in persuading them that Stephanus was nothing but an impostor; so successfully had he managed to secure an authority over their minds, as well as over their conduct." P. 362. It cannot be supposed that we are unfriendly or indifferent to the conversion of these barbarians to Christianity: nor are we so uncharitable as to impute any but motives of piety and benevolence to those who have undertaken the task. But we may be permitted to doubt whether the method which they have chosen is likely to be efficacious; and whether the introduction of our Religion will be assisted or retarded, by the efforts of a Society which acknowledges no Church, no two members of which can be assured that they believe the same doctrine; and whose teachers, if we may judge from the specimens before us, in not a few things themselves require to be taught. Of Mr. Burchell we shall have but little to remark. He is given occasionally to fine writing. His book is ornamented with some very pretty vignettes and tinted outlines; and he loses no opportunity of saying sharp things against Mr. Barrow. He talks of the "irruption" which followed vaccination, (p. 276); of missing the "right tract" in the dark (p. 308); and of catching five and twenty moths "promiscuously," (p. 376). But he is evidently a good naturalist; and he has taken great pains to lay down an interesting map of his course, from his own actual observation. The most curious event recorded in his pages is a vision which he saw while at Klaarwater. As the concluding paragraph proves that he is speaking not of a figure but of a fact, we shall relate it in his own words. "Rapt in this musing, delightful mood, methought a beneficent deity of refulgent lustre, and countenance of inexpressible benignity, advanced towards me, and whispered softly in my ear, that sweet word LIBERTY! which repeating, till it thrilled in every nerve, the celestial being seemed to say; Follow me. And where, indeed, could I have obeyed the enticing summons, so easily and uncontrolled as in the wild regions before me? For some time I allowed myself full indulgence in these pleasing reflections. By subsequent experience, I have learnt that the delightful sensation of unshackled existence could never be recalled, after I had reentered the colonial boundary. Here the idea of restraint began to usurp its place; and at Cape Town they became completely annihilated. But if society smothered and extinguished them, I became, on the other hand, like one of society, adopting its mode of thinking, and enjoying its refinements, and its reasonable pleasures, as a compensation for those which I had lost. "The picture here given of the remarkable effects of the freshness of the atmosphere on my feelings, is neither overdrawn nor overcoloured; and though not easily accounted for, is not, there fore, the less exact and faithful.” P. 515. The present volume brings Mr. Burchell no farther than Klaarwater. But we are promised a second, and we hope it will have a good many engravings. ART. IV. Hamlet, and As You Like It; a Specimen of a IN spite of the national veneration universally felt for our great bard, he has been subjected amongst us to a series of more cruel mutilations and operations than any other author who has hitherto served to instruct or amuse his posterity. Emendations, curtailments and corrections (all for his own good), have been multiplied to infinity, by the zeal and care of those who have been suffered to take him in hand. They have purged and castrated him, and tattooed and beplaistered him, and cauterised and phlebotomised him with all the studied refinement, that the utmost skill of critical barbarity could suggest. Here ran Johnson's dagger through, "see what a rent envious Pope has made," and "here the wellbeloved Bowdler stabbed:" while, after every blow, they pause for a time, and with tiresome diligence unfold the cause why they that did love him while they struck him, have thus proceeded. But let us ask,-is there any just reason why the public should allow their favourite to be thus maltreated? Is there any rational ground to be urged for palming so much conjectural alteration upon an author who was living barely two centuries ago? Nor is this all: for, in addition to these acts of outrage on common sense, we have to complain of the very serious obstructions thrown in the reader's way, by numerous collateral and irrelevant squabbles and arguments, to. which he neither is, or would wish to become a party. What has he, for instance, to do with the mode in which they have conducted the contest, with respect either to the favourite theories of the commentators, or the genuineness of the portraits of their author? Why is he to be pestered with the eternal bowings and scrapings of one brother book-worm to another? What has this or that person's natural acumen, learned acquirements, or critical sagacity to do with him, or even with our author? Why must Warburton on Theobald, Malone on Steevens, or Steevens and Reed on Malone, "et hoc genus omne" all the herd of these and Meibomiuses of the British school be suffered to encumber the pages of our immortal poet, and with whom neither the reader nor author have any more concern than with the conflicting interests of Raleigh and Essex, or the less reputable jealousies between the favourites of James. Let us have him placed before our eyes such as he really was-let us have 1 |