tory, in like manner, when it endeayours to ascend beyond a certain period, becomes vague and undefined. Conjecture in place of fact, and romantic hypothesis in place of accurate description, are all that can reasonably be expected from the "prima semina disjuncta rerum," the jarring principles of things.

The habits and manners of a people, however rude or uncivilized, present to our minds a picture worthy at all times of contemplation; and where are these pictures to be found so faithfully accurate as in National Poetry and Songs ?

What can be of greater utility; what can give a stronger impulse to the investigating and philosophical mind, than the history of imaginations and passions, hopes, desires, and fears; their particular bias, their preponderancy over the human heart; and the invigorating effect which they have upon society and manners?

All writers, of whatever age or country, agree in one point, that Poetry was the primary language of the world: its origin is conjectured to be coeval with creation, and man is generally supposed to have delivered his sentiments in measured cadence *. A celebrated French author has very judiciously remarked, "That the dance, and accompaniment with instrument or voice, is to be found wherever society exists, no matter however rude or uncivilized t." It is also affirmed by a learned and elegant Critic of our own country, that the bold and energetic language, the hieroglyphic personifications, of original States, must have burst forth in spontaneous numbers: hence, says he, an American chief at this day harangues at the head of his tribe in a more bold and animated style than a modern European would venture to use in an epic poem t. Thus far then we are led to believe that Song was the original effusion of man in the infancy of his being, while Nature was as yet in the golden stage of her existence, and Astrea remained in the peaceful habitations of mortals. How curious, how interesting is it, to be made acquainted with the genuine effusions of

*Burney's Hist. of Music, Book I. + Querelon, Memoire sur la Chanson. Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian.

the human mind in the state of primitive innocence and simplicity, before interest or avarice had warped and polluted it! There is an original Charibbean Ode preserved in Montaigne's Essays, which is remarkable for its beauty and native simplicity.

"Snake, stay; O snake! loveliest of insects, stay, till my sister has drawn from thy painted skin the pattern of a rich ribbon, which I mean to present to my mistress; so may thy beauty and thy disposition raise thee above all other serpents: Stay, O snake, stay §."

The manners of the earlier ages of society were, in general, highly favourable to the cultivation of Poetry and Song. Covetousness had not as yet sapped, nor effeminacy shackled the march of the human understanding.

Free from the anxieties and cares of life, men wandered on heedless of the present, and careless as to the future. Hunting and fishing were their principal employments; and their domestic amusement, the music of the Bard, listening to the descriptions of those who had passed away, or train ing their children to the use of the lyre and the bow.

When war, in after ages, became in of their attention, still the Song had a great measure the principal object its predominant effect, and to "re ceive their fame" was the height of their ambition. He was deemed an unfortunate warrior who had fallen unnoticed and unknown: his name was not recorded on the four grey stones; his bow and his dogs had not accom panied him into the land of the sha dow; and his ghost was unpropitiated by the Song of the Bard.

But there is, perhaps, no species of composition which so universally captivates the mind, and conveys so accu rate a delineation of men and manners, as the Metrical Romances or Histo rical Legends of the early Minstrels. In these representations we become doubly interested: to know what our forefathers said or thought upon the various situations of human affairs, must be to enter at once into their most secret recesses, and to lay open to our view the whole of the arcana of their ways and manuers, customs and su perstitions. Hence the avidity with which they are in general received by the publick, and treasured up from

§ Montaigne's Essays, B. I. C, 30.

the