OCR Text |
Show 174 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMERCE " Harmonious lays the feather'd race refume, " Dare the bright eye, and lhake the painted plume. -- --- &c. &c. From Thoughts on Imagination. " N ow here, now there, the roving fancy fl ies, " Till fomc lov'd objeCt {hikes her wand' ring eyes, " Whole filkcn fetters all the fcnfcs bind, " And foft captivity involves the mind. " hnogination ! who can fing thy force, 'c Or who dcfcribc the fwiftncfs of thy courfc? " Soaring through air to find the bright abode, " Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God, u We on thy pinions can furpafs the wind, " And leave the rolling univerfe behind: " From fiar to fiar the mental opticks rove, " Meafurc the tkies, and range the realms above. " There in one view we grafp the mighty whole, " Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded foul. -- --- &c. &c. Such is the poetry which we produce as a proof of our alfertions. How far it has fucceeded, the reader may by this time have determined in his own mind. We !hall therefore oF THE H uMAN SPECIES. 175 therefore only beg leave to accompany it with this obfervation, that if the authore[s <vas dejigned for J!avery, (as the argument mull: confcfs) the greater part of the inhabitants of Britain mull: lofe their claim to freedom . To this poetry we !hall only add, as a farther proof of their abilities, the Profe compofitions of Ignatius Sancho, who received fame little education. His letters are to<:> well known, to make any extraCt, or indeed any farther mention of him, neceffary. If other examples of African genius lhould be required, fuffice it to fay, that they can be produced in abundance; and that if we were allowed to enumerate infiances of African gratitude, patience, fidelity, honour, as fo many inll:ances of good fenfe, and a found underll:anding, we fear that thoufands of the enlightened Europeans would have occafion to blulh. But an objeCtion will be made here, that the two perfons whom we have particularized by name, are prodigies, and that if we were to live for many years, we 1bould fcarcely meet with two other Africans of the |