ments, such as reading and writing, which flatter the literary pride with which they are puffed up, are most congenial to their habits. The collation of manuscripts, which they perform with industry and accuracy, takes up much of their time. The Pagan African, on the contrary, is commonly a merry, dancing animal, given to every species of antic and apish amusement; and as he is unacquainted with the future and promised delights of the Arabian prophet, he enjoys the bad music, and imperfect beauty of this world, with a most eager and undisturbed relish.

There is something so natural, and so closely derived from human governments, in the notion of the immediate interference of Providence, that mankind are only weaned from it by centuries of contradiction and discussion. In all cases, where crime is alleged, the accused is obliged to prove his innocence, by submitting to an ordeal. If he is burnt by red-hot iron, or scalded by boiling oil, he is immediately hurried to the gallows, with a zeal proportioned to the force and perspicuity of the evidence. In the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, a curious species of pharmaceutical tyranny is resorted to for the purpose of ordeal. The bark of a particular tree, of purgative and emetic qualities, is infused into a large quantity of water, of which the prisoner is to drink about six calibashes quite full. If this judicial and inquisitive drink take a superior direction, and return by the aperture through which it is admitted, all is well; but if the least honourable and elegant of its powers predominate over the other, and it evince a disposition to descend, all opportunity of changing its line of egress is prevented, by the immediate elevation of the accused person to the gibbet.

The desire of penetrating into futurity, and the belief that some persons are capable of doing it, is as difficult to eradicate from the human mind, as is the belief in an immediate Providence; and consequently, the Africans not only have their ordeal, but their conjurers and magicians, who are appealed to in all the difficulties and uncertainties of life, and who always, of course, preserve their authority, though they are perpetually showing, by the clearest evidence of facts, upon what sort of foundation it rests. But the most singular circumstance in the history of barbarians is, that tendency to form interior societies, comprehending a vast number of members, and rivalling the government in their influence upon public opinion. Such is the Areoy Society at Otaheite, and such the Society of the Purra in Africa. Every person, on entering into this Society, lays aside his former name, and takes a new one. They have a superior, whose commands are received with the most profound veneration. When the Purra comes into a town, which is always at night, it is accompanied with the most horrid screams, howlings, and every kind of awful noise. The inhabitants, who are not members, are obliged to secure themselves within doors. Should any one be discovered without, or peeping to see what was going forwards, he would infallibly be put to death. Mere seclusion of females is not considered by the Society as a sufficient guarantee against their curiosity; but all the time the Purra remains in town, the women are obliged to clap their hands, to show they are not attempting any private indulgence of espionnage. Like the Secret Tribunal which formerly existed in Germany, it punishes the guilty and disobedient, in so secret a manner, that the perpetrators are never known, and, from the dread of the Tribunal, not often inquired for. - The natives about Sierra Leone speak of the Purra men with horror, and firmly believe that they have all strict and incessant intercourse with the devil.

This account of Africa is terminated by a single chapter on Sierra Leone; a subject on which we cannot help regretting that Dr. Winterbottom has not been a little more diffuse. It would derive a peculiar interest from the present state of St. Domingo, as the perils with which West India property is now threatened must naturally augment curiosity respecting the possibility of a pacific change of that system; and we should have read with pleasure and instruction the observations of so intelligent and entertaining a writer as Dr. Winterbottom, who is extensively acquainted with the subjects on which he writes, and has a talent of selecting important matter, and adorning it. Dr. Winterbottom says he has been in Africa some years, and we do not doubt the fact; he might, however, have written this book without giving himself that trouble; and the only difference between him and a mere compiler is, that he sanctions his quotations by authority, and embellishes them by his ingenuity. The medical volume we have not yet seen, but this first volume may be safely purchased.

TRIMMER AND LANCASTER.* (E. REVIEW, 1806.)

A Comparative View of the New Plan of Education promulgated by Mr. Joseph Lancaster, in his Tracts concerning the Instruction of the Children of the Labouring Part of the Community; 'and of the System of Christian Education founded by our pious Forefathers for the Initiation of the Young Members of the Established Church in the Principles of the Reformed Religion. By Mrs. Trimmer. 1805.

THIS is a book written by a lady who has gained considerable reputation at the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard; who flames in the van of Mr. Newberry's shop; and is, upon the whole, dearer to mothers and aunts than any other author who pours the milk of science into the mouths of babes and sucklings. Tired at last of scribbling for children, and getting ripe in ambition, she has now written a book for grown-up people, and selected for her antagonist as stiff a controversialist as the whole field of dispute could well have supplied. Her opponent is Mr. Lancaster, a Quaker, who has lately given to the world new and striking lights upon the subject of Education, and come forward to the notice of his country by spreading order, knowledge, and innocence among the lowest of mankind.

Mr. Lancaster, she says, wants method in his book; and therefore her answer to him is without any arrangement. The same excuse must suffice for the desultory observations we shall make upon this lady's publication.

The first sensation of disgust we experienced at Mrs. Trimmer's book, was from the patronising and protecting air with which she speaks of some small part of Mr. Lancaster's plan. She seems to suppose, because she has dedicated her mind to the subject, that her opinion must necessarily be valuable upon it; forgetting it to be barely possible, that her application may have made her more wrong, instead of more right. If she can make out of her case, that Mr. Lancaster is doing mischief in so important a point as that of national education, she has a right, in common with every one else, to lay her complaint before the public; but a right to publish praises must be earned by something more difficult than the writing sixpenny books for children. They may be very good; though we never remember to have seen any one of them; but if they be no more remarkable for judgment and discretion than parts of the work before us, there are many thriving children quite capable of repaying the obligations they owe to their amiable instructress, and of teaching, with grateful retaliation, "the old idea how to shoot."

In remarking upon the work before us, we shall exactly follow the plan of the authoress, and prefix, as she does, the titles of those subjects on which her observations are made; doing her the justice to presume, that her quotations are fairly taken from Mr. Lancaster's book.

1. Mr. Lancaster's Preface. - Mrs. Trimmer here contends, in opposition to Mr. Lancaster, that ever since the establishment of the Protestant Church, the education of the poor has been a national concern in this country; and the only argument she produces in support of this extravagant assertion, is an appeal to the Act of Uniformity. If there are millions of Englishmen who cannot spell their own names, or read a sign-post which bids them turn to the right or left, is it any answer to this deplorable ignorance to say, there is an Act of Parliament for public instruction? - to show the very line and chapter where the King, Lords, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, ordained the universality of reading and writing, when, centuries afterwards, the ploughman is no more capable of the one or