The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry.
Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet.
Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy, and show how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his style is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of words.