fpoken of by Sir R. Hawkins in his obfervations, and If. Voffius upon Pomponius Mela, as allo Magninus de Manna, but also from the rains in the Indies; there being certain trees which attract the rain, fo as that if you destroy the woods, you abate or deftroy the rains. So Barbadoes hath not now half the rains it had when more wooded. In Jamaica likewife, at Guanaboa, they have diminished the rains as they extended their Plantations. But to return to Jamaica: that this night wind depends much upon the mountains, appears by this, that its force extends to an equal distance from the mountain; fo that at Port-Morant, which is the easternmost part of the ifland, there is a little of landbreeze, because the mountain is remote from thence, and the breeze fpends its force along the land thither. I fhall further illuftrate this kind of attraction. In the harbours of Jamaica there grow many rocks, fhaped like bucks and ftags horns: there grow also feveral fea-plants, whofe roots are ftony. Of these ftone trees (if I may term them fo) fome are infipid, but others perfectly ni. trous. Upon thofe other plants, with petrified roots, there gathers a lime-ftone, which fixes not upon other feafans growing by them: It is obfervable alfo, that a Monchinel-apple, falling into the fea, and lying in the water, 'will contract a lanugo of falt-petre. It is commonly affirmed, that the feafons of the year, betwixt the tropics, are divided by the rains and fair weather, and fix months are attributed to each feafon. But this obfervation holds not generally true for at the point in Jamai ca fcarce fall (as was hinted above) 40 fhowers in a year, beginning in Auguft to October inclufively. From the point you may look to, wards Port-Morant, and fo along to Ligonee, fix miles from the point; and you will fcarce fee, -for eight or nine months, beginning from April, an afternoon in which it rains not. At the Spanish-Town it rains but three months in the year, and then not much. And at the fame time it rains at Mevis, it rains not at the Barbadoes. And at Cignateo, (otherwife called Eleutheria) in the gulf of Bahama, it rains not fometimes for two or three years; so that that ifland hath been twice deferted for want of rain to plant it. At the point of Jamaica, whereever you dig five or fix foot, water will appear, which ebbs and flows as the tide. It is not falt, but brackish; unwholefome for men, but wholefome for hogs. At the Caymans there is no water but what is brackish alfo; yet is that wholefome for men, infomuch that many are recovered there by feeding on tortoifes, and yet drink no other water. The blood of tortoises is colder than any water I ever felt there; yet is the beating of their heart as vigorous as that of any animal (as far as I have obferved), and their arteries are as firm as any creatures I know: which feems to fhew, it is not heat that hardens the coats of the arteries, or gives motion to the heart. Their lungs lie in their belly, below the dia phragm, extending to the end of their fhell. Their spleen is triangular, and of a firm flesh (no parenchyma) and floridly red. Their liver is of a dark green, inclining to black, and parenchymatous. In the the cefophagus are a fort of teeth with which they chew the grafs they eat in the meadows, which there grows at the bottom of the fea. All the tortoises from the Caribbees to the bay of Mexico and Honduras, repair in fummer to the Cayman islands to lay their eggs, and to hatch there. They coot for fourteen days together, then lay in One night fome three hundred eggs, with white and yolk, but no fhells; then they coot again, and lay in the fand; and fo thrice: then the male is reduced to a kind of jelly within, and blind, and is fo carried home, by the female. Their fat is green, but not offenfive to the ftomach, though you eat it as broth tewed, Your urine looks of a yellowish green, and oily, after eating it. There is no manner of earth, but fand at the point; yet I have eaten admirable melons, mufk, and water-melons, that have grown there. A great many trees alfo grow there, efpecially mangranes, and prickle pears. In fome ground, that is full of falt-petre, your tobacco that grows wild, flashes as it is fmoaked. The fruit of trees there of the fame kind ripen not at one time: there is a hedge of plumb-trees of three miles long, as you go to the Spanish town; on it I have many times remarked fome trees in flower, others with ripe, others with green fruit, and others to have done bearing, at the fame time. Jafmins I have feen to blow before their leaves, and alfo after their leaves are fallen again. The fower-fap, a pleafant fruit there, hath a flower with three leaves; when thefe open, they give fo great a crack, that I have VOL. TY more than once run from under th tree, thinking it all to be tumbling down. There is a bird called a pelican, but a kind of cormorant, that is of a fishy tate; but if it lie buried in the ground but two hours, it will lofe that tafte, as I have been told for certain." I tried fome analysis of bodies, by letting ants eat them; and found that they would eat brown fugar, white, and at last reduced it to an infipid powder; fo they reduced a pound of fallad-oil to two drachms of powder. At our firft coming there we fweat continually in great drops for three quarters of a year, and then it ceaieth: during that space I could not perceive myself or others more dry, more coftive, or to make lefs urine than in England; neither does all that fweat make us faintifh. If one be dry, it is a thirst generally arifing from the heat of the lungs, and affecting the mouth, which is best cooled by a little brandy. Moft creatures drink little or nothing there, as hogs; nay, horfes in Guanaboa never drink; nor cows in fome places of the ifland for fix months; goats drink but once perhaps in a week; parrots never drink, nor paroquets, nor civetcats, but once a month. The hottest time of the day to us is eight in the morning, when there is no breeze. I fet a weather-glafs in the window, to obferve the weather, and I found it not rife confiderably at that time; but by two of the clock it rose two inches. Venice-treacle did fo dry in a gallipot, as to be friable; and then it it produced a fly, called a weavil, and a fort of white worm. So did the Pilulæ de Tribus produce a weavil. There is in the midft of the ifland a plain, called Magotti Savanna, in which, when foever it rains, (and the rain paffeth along the island before it falls there,) the rain as it fettles upon the feams of any garment, turns, in half an hour, to maggots; yet is that plain healthful to dwell in. Mr. Benfon has been beforehand with me in the refutation of this paffage of Pope: for he has justly obferved, that as long as our admirable verfion of the Bible continues to be read in churches, there will remain a perpetual standard for the language; and here I cannot avoid commending Mr. Johnfon's judgment in having his eye principally upon this authority in his Dictionary, a work which I look on with equal pleasure and amazement, as I do upon St. Paul's cathedral; each the work of one Some Thoughts on the English Lan- man, each the work of an English N guage. Otwithstanding a great number of pieces have occafionally appeared in periodical works upon the fame fubje& as the prefent effay, yet as I conceive that fome new obfervations have fuggefted themselves to me, I prefume they will be neither unaccept able nor unentertaining to the reader. I fhall first begin with the ob-, jections which are made to it, and that the rather, as they all redound to its honour. The first objection that I fhall mention is, its fluctuating ftate and incertitude of duration. man. A fecond objection against our mother-tongue is its being a med. ley of others, and that it has not a right to fet up for a language by itfelf. One would imagine that the difficulty which foreigners find in obtaining a competent knowledge of the English, would be a fatisfactory anfwer to this pofition. There is no language in the world but has its derivatives from others, the Hebrew alone perhaps ex• cepted. But what our language is chargeable with, on this fcore, is greatly to its advantage, and is, in fact, one of the greatest mat ters that can be faid in its behalf. We have culled the flowers from others, and at the fame time have rejected the weeds. The Spanish is too grave, folemn, and formal: the French too light, precipitate, and coxcomical. The Italian is over foftened and emafculated with a redundancy of vowels; as, the German is burthened and rendered barbarous by a harth, unutterable, difagreeable concurrence of confonants. But the English tongue is majeftic without ftiffness, lively without without lightness, mufical without With a thousand inftances of the effeminacy, and nervous without like nature. roughness; which obfervations are enough to make us allow its fuperiority over all the modern languages at leaft, notwithstanding the affertion of our noble countryman, (Sir William Temple) to the contrary. It is farther alledged, that the English abounds too much with monofyllables; a characteristical defect not to be met with in other languages. But why is it a defect? Is it becaufe from hence there arifes fuch a comprehenfive energy, that an Englishman can exprefs the fame idea in one fyl. lable, for which purpose a Frenchman muft make ufe of three? A bad writer indeed may croud fo many of them together as to form very unmufical periods, especially in verfe. But a good one, on the reverse, will turn this feeming deficiency into a real beauty. In Adam and Eve's morning-hymn, Milton gives us thefe charming lines, The laft objection that occurs to me at prefent, is, that our tongue wants univerfality, which feems to be an argument against its merit. This is owing to the affectation of Englishmen, who prefer any language to their own, and is not to be imputed to a defect in their native tongue. But this objection, if fuch it be, is vanishing daily; for I have been affured, by feveral ingenious foreigners, that in many places abroad, Italy in particular, it is become the fashion to study the English tongue. I fhall now present the reader with a few loofe thoughts on our native language in contradiftin&tion to certain others. In respect to the Greek, I am afraid we muft yield up the palm; for that tongue, like the writer in it, without doubt, remains unri valled. There is an incredible analogy between the humour of a people, and their particular forms of fpeech; hence the ftupidity of a Dutchman, the gravity of a Spaniard, and the levity of a French. man, are immediately difcernible. No wonder then that the Grecians, who thought and acted beyond the reft of mankind, fhould convey their fentiments in a manner fuitable to fuch fuperior uncommon advantages. But, though I readily give up the point to the Ionians, olians, and Dorians, I fhall not be fo complaifant to the Romans; for, notwithstanding the many obligations our tongue has to the Latin, I muft infift upon it, we have an intrinfic force in ours which they cannot come up to. In the filt O z place, Which literally translated runs thus, "Nor does it escape me, that it will be difficult to illuftrate (my philofophy) in Latin verse, espe. cially as many things must be handled in new forms of fpeech, on account of the poverty of the language, and the novelty of the fubject." The eloquent Cicero himself found this inconveniency, and, in his familiar epiftles, is often obliged to make ufe of Greek words. Secondly, the affected placing, or rather misplacing the words, which in profe obtains in this lan. guage only, is frequently embarraffing it by introducing obfcurity, and though it tunes the found, yet difcomposes the fenfe. In all good English writers the periods in general flow according to the order of the ideas, from whence arifes a perfpicuity, which is the first beauty in all languages: with regard to the compounding of words, and forming two, fometimes three, into one, which has an admirable effect in poetical compofitions, the English is incomparably preferable to the Latin, nor is lefs fuperior to it in concifenefs than it is in perfpicuity. The Italian, Spanish, and efpe cially the Portuguese, being mani feftly corrupted Latin, we shall not contend with; for, it our_tongue can bear up against the Roman) à fortiore, it must excel the three above mentioned. I come now to the French, that fathionable, that univerfal language. Indeed, there are good reafons to be given why it is fo; but that it by no means deferves to be fo, I fhall endeavour to demonftrate. To begin with their orthography: What can be more abfurd, unnatural, and ridiculous, than to fet down a parcel of letters, which are to be of no use in pronunciation at all It is true, indeed, we have fome few words, to which the fame abfurdity may be imputed; but they are, for the moft part, imported from them, and I wish they had them again, with all my heart, for we have better to fupply their places. From their orthography, let us proceed to their pronunciation, which operation, if accurately performed, fhould be through the nose, so as to imitate, as much as poffible, the found of a poft-horn. It must be acknowledged that they have a great many eminent writers; but thefe illuftrious perfonages would have wrote as good fenfe in High Dutch, if that had been their native language. The tediousness and pro lixity of the French profe can be equalled by nothing but the bur lefque manner of their verfification. Their heroic meafure, in which their most ferious authors, namely, their epic and tragic poets, write, may very well be fung to the tune of, "A cobler there was, and he liv'd in a stall.” ́ As for exJeuke ample. 5 |