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Show 170 ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE as they have been taught, they are capable of attaining any other, at leail:, of the famG clafs, if they fi1ould receive but the fame infiruClion. With refpeCl: to the liberal art s, their proficiency is certainly lcfs; but not Jefs in proportion to their time and opportunity of fiudy; not lefs, becaufe they are lefs capable of attaining them, but becaufe they have feldom or ever an opportunity of learning them at all. It is yet extraordinary that their talents appear, even in fame of thefc fciences, in which they are totally uninfiruCl: ed. Their' abilities in mufick are fuch, as to have been generally noticed. They play frequently upon a variety of infiruments, without any other afiifiance than their own ingenuity. They have alfo tunes of their own compolition. Some of thefe have been imported among us; are now in ufe; and are admired for their fprightlinefs and eafe, though the ungenerous and prejudiced importer has concealed their original. Neither are their talents in poetry Jefs confpicuous. Every occurrence, if their fpirits. OF THE HuMAN SPECIES. fpirits are not too greatly depreffe~, is tur~<;d into a fang. Thefe fangs are fatd to be 111- coherent and nonfenlical. But this proceeds principally from two caufes, an improper conjunCtion of words, ariling from an ignorance of the language in which they compofe ; and a wildnefs of _thoug~t, ariling from the different manner, 111 wht~h the organs of rude and civilized people wtll be firuck by the fame objeCt. And ~s t~ their want of harmony and rhyme, whtch IS the Jail: objeCtion, the difference of pronunciation is the caufe. Upon the whole, as they are perfeCtly conliil:ent with their own ideas, and are il:riCl:ly mulical as pronounced by themfelves, they afford us as high a proof of their poetical powers, as the works of the mo!l: acknowledged poets. But where thefe impediments have been removed, where they have received an education, and have known and pronounced the language with propriety, thefe defeCts have vanifhed, and their produCtions have been Jefs objeCtionable. For a proof of this, we |