which was never acted. In the first place, I shall not be ashamed to own, that my chiefest motive was the ambition which I acknowledged in the epistle. I was desirous to lay at the feet of so beautiful and excellent a princess, a work which, I confess, was unworthy her; but which I hope she will have the goodness to forgive. I was also induced to it in my own defence, many hundred copies of it being dispersed abroad, without my knowledge or consent; so that everyone gathering new faults, it became at length a libel against me; and I saw, with some disdain, more nonsense than either I, or as bad a poet could have crammed into it, at a month's warning; in which time, it was wholly written, and not since revised. After this, I cannot, without injury to the deceased author of Paradise Lost, but acknowledge that this poem has received its entire foundation, part of the design, and many of the ornaments from him. What I have borrowed, will be so easily discerned from my mean productions, that I shall not need to point the reader to the places: and truly, I should be sorry, for my own sake, that anyone should take the pains to compare them together, the original being undoubtedly one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems, which either this age or nation has produced. And though I could not refuse the partiality of my friend, who is pleased to commend me in his verses, I hope they will rather be esteemed the effect of his love to me, than of his deliberate and sober judgment. His genius is able to make beautiful what he pleases: yet, as he has been too favourable to me, I doubt not but he will hear of his kindness from many of our contemporaries: for we are fallen into an age of illiterate, censorious, and detracting people; who, thus qualified, set up for critics.

In the first place, I must take leave to tell them, that they wholly mistake the nature of criticism, who think its business is principally to find fault. Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant a standard of judging well. The chiefest part of which is to observe those excellencies which should delight a reasonable reader. If the design, the conduct, the thoughts, and the expressions of a poem, be general, such as proceed from a true genius of poetry, the critic ought to pass his judgment in favour of the author. "Tis malicious and unmanly to snarl at the little lapses of a pen, from which Virgil himself stands not exempted. Horace acknowledges that honest Homer nods sometimes: he is not equally awake in every line. But he leaves it also as a standing measure for our judgments:

-Non, ubi plura nitent in carmine, paucis
Offendi maculis, quas ant incuria fudit
Aut humana parum cavit natura. I

And Longinus, who was undoubtedly, after Aristotle, the greatest critic among the Greeks, in his twenty-seventh chapter Teplovs, has judiciously preferred the sublime genius that sometimes errs, to the middling or indifferent one which makes few faults, but seldom or never rises to any excellence. He compares the first to a man of large possessions, who has not leisure to consider of every slight expense, will not debase himself to the management of every trifle particular sums are not laid out or spared to the greatest advantage in his economy, but are sometimes

1 Ars Poetica, lines 351-3, with the first words adapted to the English context

" -Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
Offendar maculis."

"Where many things shine in a poem I will not be offended by a few spts that carelessness scattered, or that human nature may hardly guard against."

2 It is the thirty-third section which shows that the sublime with a few faults is better than a faultless mediocrity.

suffered to run to waste, while he is only careful of the main. On the other side, he likens the mediocrity of wit to one of a mean fortune, who manages his store with extreme frugality, or rather parsimony; but who, with fear of running into profuseness, never arrives to the magnificence of living. This kind of genius writes indeed correctly: a wary man he is in grammar; very nice as to solecism or barbarism, judges to a hair of little decencies, knows better than any man what is not to be written, and never hazards himself so far as to fall; but plods on deliberately, and, as a grave man ought, is sure to put his staff before him; in short, he sets his heart upon it, and with wonderful care makes his business sure; that is, in plain English, neither to be blamed nor praised. I could, saith my author, find out some blemishes in Homer; and am, perhaps, as naturally inclined to be disgusted at a fault as another man. But, after all, to speak impartially, his failings are such, as are only marks of human frailty; they are little mistakes, or rather negligences, which have escaped his pen in the fervour of his writing, the sublimity of his spirit carries it with me against his carelessness. And though Apollonius his Argonautes, and Theocritus his Eidullia, are more free from errors, there is not any man of so false a judgment, who would choose rather to have been Apollonius or Theocritus, than Homer.

'Tis worth our consideration, a little to examine how much these hypercritics of English poetry differ from the opinion of the Greek and Latin judges of antiquity; from the Italians and French, who have succeeded them; and, indeed, from the general taste and approbation of all ages. Heroic poetry, which they contemn, has ever been esteemed, and ever will be, the greatest work of human nature; in that rank has Aristotle placed it, and Longinus is so full of the like expressions, that he abundantly confirms the other's testimony. Horace as plainly delivers his opinion, and particularly praises Homer in these verses:

"Trojani belli scriptorem, maxime Lolli,

Dum tu declamas Romæ, Præneste relegi;

Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit." 3

And in another place, modestly excluding himself from the number of poets, because he only wrote Odes and Satires, he tells you a poet is such an one :

Quotations are superfluous in an established truth, otherwise I could reckon up amongst the moderns, all the Italian commentators on Aristotle's Book of Poetry; amongst the French, the greatest in this age, Boileau and Rapin; the latter of which is alone sufficient, were all other critics lost, to teach anew the rules of writing. Any man who will seriously consider the nature of an epic poem, how it agrees with that of poetry in general, which is to instruct and to delight; what actions it describes, and what persons they are chiefly whom it informs; will find it a work which indeed is full of difficulty in the attempt, but admirable when 'tis well performed. I write not this with the least intention to undervalue the other parts of poetry; for comedy is both

excellently instructive, and extremely pleasant: satire lashes vice into reformation, and humour represents folly so as to render it ridiculous. Many of our present writers are eminent in both these kinds; and particularly the author of the Plain-Dealer, whom I am proud to call my friend, has obliged all honest and virtuous men, by one of the most bold, most general, and most useful satires which has ever been presented on the English theatre. I do not dispute the preference of tragedy: let every man enjoy his taste; but 'tis unjust that they who have not the least notion of heroic writing, should therefore condemn the pleasure which others receive from it, because they cannot comprehend it. Let them please their appetites in eating what they like; but let them not force their dish on all the table. They who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men. Are all the flights of heroic poetry to be concluded bombast, unnatural, and mere madness, because they are not affected with their excellences? "Tis just as reasonable as to conclude there is no day, because a blind man cannot distinguish of light and colours; ought they not rather in modesty to doubt of their own judgments, when they think this or that expression in Homer, Virgil, Tasso, or Milton's Paradise, to be too far strained, than positively to conclude, that 'tis all fustian and mere nonsense? 'Tis true, there are limits to be set betwixt the boldness and rashness of a poet; but he must understand those limits who pretends to judge, as well as he who undertakes to write; and he who has no liking to the whole, ought in reason to be excluded from censuring of the parts. He must be a lawyer before he mounts the tribunal; and the judicature of one court too, does not qualify a man to preside in another. He may be an excellent pleader in the Chancery, who is not fit to rule the Common Pleas. But I will presume for once to tell them, that the boldest strokes of poetry, when they are managed artfully, are those which most delight the reader.

Virgil and Horace, the severest writers of the severest age, have made frequent use of the hardest metaphors, and of the strongest hyperboles and in this case the best authority is the best argument. For generally to have pleased, through all ages, must bear the force of universal tradition. And if you would appeal from thence to right reason, you will gain no more by it in effect, than first, to set up your reason against those authors; and secondly, against all those who have admired them. You must prove why that ought not to have pleased, which has pleased the most learned, and the most judicious: and to be thought knowing, you must first put the fool upon all mankind. If you can enter more deeply than they have done, into the causes and resorts of that which moves pleasure in a reader, the field is open, you may be heard: But those springs of human nature are not so easily discovered by every superficial judge: it requires philosophy as well as poetry to sound the depth of all the passions; what they are in themselves, and how they are to be provoked; and in this science the best poets have excelled. Aristotle raised the fabric of his poetry, from observations of those things, in which Euripides, Sophocles, and Æschylus pleased; he considered how they raised the passions, and thence has drawn rules for our imitation. From hence have sprung the tropes and figures, for which they wanted a name, who first practised them, and succeeded in them: thus I grant you, that the knowledge of nature was the original rule, and that all poets ought to study her, as well as

1 The author of the Plain-Dealer, William Wycherley, who is represented by "The Plain-De ler" in the volume of this Library containing "English Plays," pages 359-363,

Aristotle and Horace her interpreters. But then this also undeniably follows, that those things which delight all ages, must have been an imitation of nature; which is all I contend. Therefore is rhetoric made an art; therefore the names of so many tropes and figures were invented; because it was observed they had such and such an effect upon the audience. Therefore catachreses and hyperboles have found their place amongst them; not that they are to be avoided, but to be used judiciously, and placed in poetry, as heightnings and shadows are in painting, to make the figure bolder, and cause it to stand off to sight.

Jam m dium; necdum fluctus latera ardua tinxit.”5 In imitation of this place, our admirable Cowley thus paints Goliah:

"The valley, now, this monster seem'd to fill;

And we, methought, look'd up to him from our bill." Where the two words, seem'd and methought, have mollified the figure; and yet if they had not been there, the fright of the Israelites might have excused their belief of the giant's stature.

In the eighth of the Æneids, Virgil paints the swiftness of Camilla thus:

"Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret Gramina, nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas: Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti, Ferret iter, celeris nec tingeret æquore plantas.' You are not obliged, as in history, to a literal belief of what the poet says: but you are pleased with the image, without being couzened by the fiction.

Yet even in history, Longinus quotes Herodotus on this occasion of hyperboles. The Lacedemonians, says he, at the Straits of Thermopylæ, defended themselves to the last extremity; and when their arms failed them, fought it out with their nails and teeth; till at length (the Persians shooting continually upon them) they lay buried under the arrows

of their enemies. to believe that men could defend themselves with their nails and teeth from an armed multitude; nor that they lay buried under a pile of darts and arrows: and yet there wants not probability for the figure, because the hyperbole seems not to have been made for the sake of the description, but rather to have been produced from the occasion.

It is not reasonable (continues the Critic)

"Tis true, the boldness of the figures are to be hidden sometimes by the address of the poet, that they may work their effect upon the mind, without discovering the art which caused it; and therefore they are principally to be used in passion, when we speak more warmly, and with more precipitation than at other times: For then, "Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi;" the poet must put on the passion he endeavours to represent. A man in such an occasion is not cool enough, either to reason rightly, or to talk calmly. Aggravations are then in their proper places; interrogations, exclamations, hyperbata, or a disordered connection of discourse, are graceful there, because they are natural. The sum of all depends on what before I hinted, that this boldness of expression is not to be blamed, if it be managed by the coolness and discretion which is necessary to a poet.

Yet before I leave this subject, I cannot but take notice how disingenuous our adversaries appear: all that is dull, insipid, languishing, and without sinews in a poem, they call an imitation of nature: they only offend our most equitable judges, who think beyond them; and lively images and elocution are never to be forgiven.

What fustian, as they call it, have I heard these gentlemen find out in Mr. Cowley's Odes? I acknowledged myself unworthy to defend so excellent an author: neither have I room to do it here; only in general I will say, that nothing can appear more beautiful to me, than the strength of those images which they condemn.

Imaging is, in itself, the very height and life of poetry. 'Tis, as Longinus describes it, a discourse, which by a kind of enthusiasm, or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints, so as to be pleased with them, and to admire them.

If poetry be imitation, that part of it must needs be best, which describes most lively our actions and passions, our virtues and our vices, our follies and our humours; for neither is comedy without its part of imaging; and they who do it best, are certainly the most excellent in their kind. This is too plainly proved to be denied. But how are poetical fictions, how are Hippocentaurs and Chimæras, or how are angels and immaterial substances to be imaged; which, some of them, are things quite out of nature; others, such whereof we can have no notion? This is the last refuge of our adversaries, and more than any of them have yet had the wit to ooject against us. The answer is easy to the first part of it. The fiction of some beings which are not in nature (second notions as the logicians call them) has been founded on the conjunction of two natures, which have a real separate being. So Hippocentaurs were imaged by joining the natures of a man and horse together, as Lucretius tells us, who has used this word of image oftener than any of the poets.

"Nam certe ex vivo Centauri non fit imago,
Nulla fuit quoniam talis natura animantis :
Verum ubi equi atque hominis casu convenit imago,
Hærescit facile extemplo, &c." 1

The same reason may also be alleged for Chimæras and the rest. And poets may be allowed the like liberty, for

1 "De Rerum Natura" iv. 739-742. "For assuredly no image of Centaur is ever formed ont of a live one, since no such nature of living creature ever existed; but when images of a horse and man have by chance come together, they readily adhere at once," &c.

describing things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular belief. Of this nature are fairies, pigmies, and and the extraordinary effects of magic: for 'tis still an imitation, though of other men's fancies; and thus are Shakespeare's Tempest, his Midsummer Night's Dream, and Ben Jonson's Mask of Witches, to be defended. For immaterial substances we are authorised by scripture in their description; and herein the text accommodates itself to vulgar apprehension, in giving angels the likeness of beautiful young men. Thus, after the pagan divinity, has Homer drawn his gods with human faces: and thus we have notions of things above us, by describing them like other beings more within our knowledge.

I wish I could produce any one example of excellent imaging in all this poem: perhaps I cannot; but that which comes nearest it, is in these four lines, which have been sufficiently canvased by my well-natured censors:

Seraph and Cherub, careless of their charge,
And wanton, in full ease now live at large;
Unguarded leave the passes of the sky,
And all dissolv'd in hallelujahs lie.

I have heard (says one of them) of anchovies dissolved in sauce, but never of an angel in hallelujahs. A mighty witticism! (if you will pardon a new word) but there is some difference between a laugher and a critic. He might have burlesqued Virgil too, from whom I took the image:

"Invadunt urbem, somno vinoque; sepultam." 2

A city's being buried, is just as proper on occasion, as an angel's being dissolved in ease and songs of triumph. Mr. Cowley lies as open too in many places:

"Where their vast courts the mother waters keep, &c." For if the mass of waters be the mothers, then their daughters, the little streams, are bound in all good manners to make curtsy to them, and ask them blessing. How easy 'tis to turn into ridicule the best descriptions, when once a man is in the humour of laughing till he wheezes at his own dull jest! But an image which is strongly and beautifully set before the eyes of the reader, will still be poetry when the merry fit is over; and last when the other is forgotten.

I promised to say somewhat of poetic license, but have in part anticipated my discourse already. Poetic license, I take to be the liberty which poets have assumed to themselves in all ages, of speaking things in verse, which are beyond the severity of prose. 'Tis that particular character which distinguishes and sets the bounds betwixt Oratio soluta 3 and poetry. This, as to what regards the thought, or imagination of a poet, consists in fiction; but then those thoughts must be expressed; and here arise two other branches of it: for if this license be included in a single word, it admits of tropes; if in a sentence or proposition, of figures; both which, are of a much larger extent, and more forcibly to be used in verse than prose. This is that birthright which is derived to us from our great forefathers, even from Homer down to Ben. And they who would deny it to us, have, in plain terms, the fox's quarrel to the grapes, they cannot reach it.

How far these liberties are to be extended, I will not presume to determine here, since Horace does not. But it is certain, that they are to be varied according to the language and age in which an author writes. That which would be allowed to a Grecian poet, Martial tells you, would not be suffered in a Roman. And 'tis evident that the English does more nearly follow the strictness of the latter, than the freedoms of the former. Connection of epithets, or the con

2 "Æneid" ii. 265. "They invade the city buried in sleep and wine." 3 Oratio soluta, prose.

Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni."

Charles II. as a political spy in Holland, during the Dutch war, before she turned playwright, but while she wrote much that was addressed to the corrupt taste of the town in her day, her industry is in some sense evidence of her honesty until her death in April, 1689. She had to earn her bread by diligent use of her brains, and we cannot think unkindly of the woman who among the frivolous remembered the wrongs of the negro, and made a brave use of her popularity by seeking to win.

and end with another: he restrains it so far, that thoughts of an unlike nature ought not to be joined together. That were indeed to make a chaos. He taxed not Homer, nor the divine Virgil, for interessing their gods in the wars of Troy and Italy: neither, had he now lived, would he have taxed Milton, as our false critics have presumed to do, for his choice of a supernatural argument; but he would have blamed any author who was a Christian, had he introduced into his poems heathen deities, as Tasso is condemned by Rapin on the like occasion: and as Camoëns, the author of the Lusiads, ought to be censured by all his readers, when he brings in Bacchus and Christ into the same adventure of his fable.

From that which has been said, it may be collected, that the definition of wit (which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully, by many poets) is only this, that it is a propriety of thoughts and words; or in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject. If our critics will join issue on this definition, that we may "convenire in aliquo tertio;" if they will take it as a granted principle, 'twill be easy to put an end to the dispute. No man will disagree from another's judgment concerning this dignity of style in Heroic Poetry; but all reasonable men will conclude it necessary, that sublimest subjects ought to be adorned with the sublimest, and (consequently often) with the most figurative expressions. In the meantime, I will not run into their faults of imposing my opinions on other men, any more than I would my writings on their tastes: I have only laid down, and that superficially enough, my present thoughts; and shall be glad to be taught better, by those who pretend to reform our poetry.

Among the wits also there was a woman, Mrs. Aphra Behn, who put a woman's heart into at least one of her works, although she wrote plays that had to please the profligate, who were then chief patrons of comedy, and novels not always so true in tone as that for which she is best remembered. She was born at Canterbury in 1642. Her father, General Johnson, was sent out as Governor to Surinam when

Aphra was very young. He died on the passage, but his widow and family settled in Surinam, where the English girl turned sick at heart from the cruelties of slavery, and became strongly interested in a slave-Oroonoko-who had been a prince in his own country. In later years, she married

a Dutch merchant, Mr. Behn, after whose death she had to support herself, and did so by writing seventeen plays, besides short novels, poems, model love-letters, translations. She had served

1 "Ars Poetica," lines 9-12. "Painters and poets had always an equal right to be daring; but not so as to mix

"the cruel and the kind,

Serpents with birds, and lambs with tigers joined."-Francis's Tr.

the black skin, broken by the whip, there might be housed the soul of a nobler creature than his master. This is Mrs. Behn's novel of "Oroonoko,' which struck, in English literature, out of a woman's

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SLAVE.

I do not pretend, in giving you the History of this Royal Slave, to entertain my Reader with the Adventures of a feign'd Hero, whose Life and Fortunes Fancy may manage at the Poet's pleasure; nor in relating the Truth, design to adorn it with any Accidents, but such as arrived in earnest to him: And it shall come simply into the World, recommended by its own proper Merits, and natural Intrigues; there being enough of Reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of Invention.

I was my self an Eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down; and what I cou'd not be Witness of, I receiv'd from the Mouth of the chief Actor in this History, the Hero himself, who gave us the whole Transactions of his Youth: And though I shall omit, for brevity's sake, a thousand little Accidents of his Life, which, however pleasant to us, where History was scarce, and Adventures very rare, yet

2 See, in this Library, "English Plays," page 394,

might prove tedious and heavy to my Reader, in a World where he finds Diversions for every Minute, new and strange. But we who were perfectly charm'd with the Character of this great Man, were curious to gather every Circumstance of his Life.

The Scene of the last part of his Adventures lies in a Colony in America, called Surinam, in the West-Indies.1

:

2

But before I give you the Story of this Gallant Slave, 'tis fit I tell you the manner of bringing them to these new Colonies; those they make use of there, not being Natives of the place for those we live with in perfect Amity, without daring to command 'em ; but, on the contrary, caress 'em with all the brotherly and friendly Affection in the world: trading with them for their Fish, Venison, Buffalo's Skins, and little Rarities; as Marmosets, a sort of Monkey, as big as a Rat or Weasel, but of a marvellous and delicate shape, having Face and Hands like a Human Creature; and Cousheries, a little Beast in the form and fashion of a Lion, as big as a Kitten, but so exactly made in all Parts like that Noble Beast, that it is it in Miniature. Then for little Paraketoes, great Parrots, Muckaws, and a thousand other Birds and Beasts of wonderful and surprizing Forms, Shapes, and Colours. For Skins of prodigious Snakes, of which there are some threescore Yards in length; as is the Skin of one that may be seen at his Majesty's Antiquary's; where are also some rare Flies, of amazing Forms and Colours, presented to 'em by my self; some as big as my Fist, some less; and all of various Excellencies, such as Art cannot imitate. Then we trade for Feathers, which they order into all Shapes, make themselves little short Habits of 'em, and glorious Wreaths for their Heads, Necks, Arms and Legs, whose Tinctures are uncon ceivable. I had a Set of these presented to me, and I gave 'em to the Kings Theatre, and it was the Dress of the Indian Queen, 3 infinitely admir'd by Persons of Quality; and was unimitable. Besides these, a thousand little Knacks, and Rarities in Nature; and some of Art, as their Baskets, Weapons, Aprons, &c. We dealt with 'em with Beads of all Colours, Knives, Axes, Pins and Needles; which they us'd only as Tools to drill Holes with in their Eares, Noses and Lips, where they hang a great many little things; as long Beads, bits of Tin, Brass or Silver beat thin, and any shining Trinket. The Beads they weave into Aprons about a Quarter of an Ell long, and of the same breadth; working them very prettily in Flowers of several Colours; which Apron they wear just before 'em, as Adam and Eve did the Fig-leaves; the Men wearing a long stripe of Linen, which they deal with us for. They thread these Beads also on long Cotton-threads, and make Girdles to tie their Aprons to, which come twenty times, or more, about the Waste, and then cross, like a Shoulder-belt, both ways, and round their Necks, Arms and Legs. This Adornment, with their long black Hair, and the Face painted in little Specks or Flowers here and there, makes 'em a wonderful Figure to behold. Some of the beauties, which indeed are finely shap'd, as almost all are, and who have pretty Features, are charming and novel; for they have all that is called Beauty, except the Colour, which is a reddish Yellow; or after a new Oiling, which they often use to themselves, they are of the Colour of a new Brick, but smooth, soft and

1 Surinam in the West-Indies, West Indies not in the present more restricted sense. Surinam is on the mainland to the south-east of the West India Islands; the Dutch part of Guiana.

2 Cousheries. The Puma, called the American Lion, is called also Couguar, a French form of the Paraguayan word Gouazouara; but the full-grown Puma, four feet long, plus two feet of tail, would be, as to its size, no kitten. Perhaps the jaguar is meant.

The Indian Queen, by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard, acted in January, 1664. See, in this Library, the volume of "English Plays," pages 327-331.

sleek. They are extreme modest and bashful, very shy, and nice of being touch'd. And though they are all thus naked, if one lives for ever among 'em, there is not to be seen an undecent Action, or Glance: and being continually us'd to see one another so unadorn'd, so like our first Parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no Wishes, there being nothing to heighten Curiosity; but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no Novelty, there can be no Curiosity. Not but I have seen a handsome young Indian, dying for Love of a very beautiful young Indian Maid; but all his Courtship was, to fold his Arms, pursue her with his Eyes, and Sighs were all his Language: While she, as if no such Lover were present, or rather as if she desired none such, carefully guarded her Eyes from beholding him; and never approach'd him, but she look'd down with all the blushing Modesty I have seen in the most severe and cautious of our World. And these People represented to me an absolute Idea of the first State of Innocence, before Man knew how to sin And 'tis most evident and plain, that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive and virtuous Mistress. 'Tis she alone, if she were permitted, that better instructs the World, than all the Inventions of Man: Religion wou'd here but destroy that Tranquillity they possess by Ignorance; and Laws wou'd but teach 'em to know Offence, of which now they have no Notion. They once made mourning and fasting for the Death of the English Governor, who had given his Hand to come on such a day to 'em, and neither came nor sent; believing, when a Man's word was past, nothing but Death cou'd or shou'd prevent his keeping it: And when they saw he was not dead, they ask'd him what Name they had for a Man who promis'd a thing he did not do? The Governor told them, Such a Man was a Lyar, which was a Word of Infamy to a Gentleman. Then one of 'em reply'd, Governor, you are a Lyar, and guilty of that Infamy. They have a native Justice, which knows no Fraud; and they understand no Vice, or Cunning, but when they are taught by the White Men. They have Plurality of Wives; which, when they grow old, serve those that succeed 'em, who are young, but with a Servitude easy and respected; and unless they take Slaves in War, they have no other Attendants.

Those on that Continent where I was, had no King; but the oldest War-Captain was obey'd with great Resignation.

A War-Captain is a Man who has led them on to Battle with Conduct and Success; of whom I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter, and of some other of their Customs and Manners, as they fall in my way.

With these People, as I said, we live in perfect Tranquillity, and good Understanding, as it behoves us to do; they knowing all the places where to seek the best Food of the Country, and the means of getting it; and for very small and unvaluable Trifles, supply us with what 'tis impossible for us to get for they do not only in the Woods, and over the Sevana's, in Hunting, supply the parts of Hounds, by swiftly scouring through those almost impassable Places, and by the mere Activity of their Feet run down the nimblest Deer, and other eatable Beasts; but in the Water, one wou'd think they were Gods of the Rivers, or Fellow-Citizens of the deep; so rare an Art they have in swimming, diving, and almost living in Water; by which they command the less swift Inhabitants of the Floods. And then for shooting, what they cannot take or reach with their Hands, they do with Arrows; and have so admirable an Aim, that they will split almost an Hair, and at any distance that an Arrow can reach they will shoot down Oranges, and other Fruit, and only touch the Stalk with the Dart's Point, that they may not hurt the Fruit. So that they being on all occasions very useful to us, we find it