ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR AUGUST, 1817.

Art. I. An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean. With an Original Grammar and Vocabulary of their Language. Compiled and arranged from the extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner, several Years resident in those Islands. By John Martin, M. D. 8vo. 2 vols. pp. about 1100. Price 11. 4s. Murray. 1817.

THERE would be, perhaps, some little difficulty in making

out a clear, short reply to the question, Why is it desirable to obtain more information of the state of the human race in the yet imperfectly examined parts of the world?-since that question is nearly identical with this, What satisfaction can there be in having a still ampler vision of the depravity of a race whose nature was originally good, a race which can be happy only in being good, and which therefore in being bad is necessarily miserable?

We are supposing the question to be addressed to the inquirer who is actuated merely by the general principle of curiosity, probably the most prevailing principle in the passion for more of this melancholy kind of knowledge. It is a different thing if this desire is combined with some specific valuable object;if the knowledge is sought to be obtained in aid of serious spe culations and projects for doing good to mankind; if it is sought for the purpose of judging the better where and how it may be the most practicable and hopeful to make moral war on ignorance, delusion, barbarism, and iniquity; if it is sought as the ground of schemes for communicating the Bible and Christianity; if it is pursued in the spirit of wishing to pray the more appropriately to Heaven in behalf of a miserable world.

Nor must we affect to undervalue the inferior objects, a beneficial extension of commerce, the improvement of any useful arts of life, and the means for the more judicious direction of experiments of colonization. If it should be represented that important accessions also may be brought to the philosophy of human nature, to use a high diction, from our extending acquaintance with remote tribes, we will confess we think it must VOL. VIII. N. S. K

have been either our own fault, or something intrinsically mysterious in the subject, if we have not long since come to a comprehensive and final estimate of the nature of man.

There is a class of readers who never can, without an expression of contempt, hear such terms applied to human nature as we have used above, in reference to its moral condition. If any such are in the habit of inspecting our pages, we would recommend them to peruse this account of the people of the Tonga Islands, a tribe in many respects very far above the lowest degree in the scale of humanity, but among whom it is one of the most favourite occupations to knock out one another's brains; an expression which we do not employ from any partiality to a strong vulgar phrase;-this precise operation was literally one of the chief, if not the very chief, of the occupations and delights of these people during the four years spent among them by the very observant young man to whom the inquisitive public are indebted for these volumes.

He is not in a strict literary sense their Author. But, by Dr. Martin's account, every fact and circumstance is so carefully given in his statement, and with so constant an intervention of his check and sanction at every step in the progress of the relation, that the adventurer himself stands distinctly before the public as the authority for the whole matter of the book; while nevertheless he is under very great obligations to Dr. Martin for throwing the whole into arrangement, and bringing it out in so respectable a form.

In a long Introduction, Dr. M. has given such particulars of information as the reader might be expected to desire concerning Mr. Mariner; has explained the whole of the partnership process in composing the book; and has pointed out, as aiding to verify its statements, a number of undesigned coincidences with the accounts of Capt. Cook, and other voyagers, and the missionaries in the South Sea; indicating, at the same time, the advantages which Mr. Mariner has possessed over the other relaters and describers, from his long and intimate communication with the barbarians, and his implication in their transactions.

Mr. Mariner appears to have had no design of calling the public attention to his adventures, or the knowledge he had acquired in them, till urged to it by his Editor, who sought bis acquaintance in consequence of hearing among his connexions some reports of his extraordinary story.

My curiosity being strongly excited,' says Dr. M., Isolicited his acquaintance. In the course of three or four interviews I discovered, with much satisfaction, that the information he was able to communicate respecting the people with whom he had been so lone and so intimately associated, was very far superior to, and mch morg

extensive than any thing that had yet appeared before the public. His answers to several inquiries, in regard to their religion, government, and habits of life, were given with that kind of unassuming confidence which bespeaks a thorough intimacy with the subject, and carries with it the conviction of truth-in fact, having been thrown upon those islands at an early age, his young and flexible mind had so accorded itself with the habits and circumstances of the natives, that he evinced no disposition to overrate or to embellish what to him was neither strange nor new.'

When, however, it is told, that this investigator of the habits, government, and religion, of a peculiar race, had not finished his sixteenth year at the time of his being thrown among them, some doubt may very naturally be excited as to his intellectual competence. It was therefore very proper to mention, that though destined to the sea-service by his father, whose own early life had been so employed, he was in a respectable degree an educated youth. The tutor is mentioned in whose academy,'

besides the common acquisitions of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he had made much progress in the knowledge of history, geography, and the French language, and also some advance in the first rudiments of the Latin.'

The particulars in the book, if they were given to the Editor exactly, in point of substance, as they are given to the public, certainly furnish, by their multitude, taken in connexion with the distinctness of the Author's statement, unobvious also as some of them would have been to a slightly discriminating observer, strong evidence of very good faculties, unusually mature, and kept in a full exercise of vigilant observation. Some special instances are mentioned by the Editor of the uncommon fidelity of his memory It is quite apparent, too, that the necessity of choosing and acting a part, in emergencies and sometimes very critical junctures, forced this youthful mind to a state of decision, of vigour, of promptitude, of policy, and of selfcommand, far beyond the ordinary attainments of such an age.

It seems that though subsequently to this perilous and romantic portion of his life, young Mariner has subsided into a 'sedateness of character, and disposition to rest and quiet, which,' says his Editor, may easily be conceived to arise from dis' appointments, and unexpected hardships and dangers, expe"rienced at too early a period of life,' he disclosed in his most juvenile years, evident proofs of a mind very susceptible of external impressions, disposed to activity,' and of a cast apparently fitted for a life of change and adventure.'

He was fond of books of travels, and he used often to say how much he should like to live among savages and meet with strange

have been either our own fault, or something intrinsically mysterious in the subject, if we have not long since come to a comprehensive and final estimate of the nature of man.

There is a class of readers who never can, without an expression of contempt, hear such terms applied to human nature as we have used above, in reference to its moral condition. If any such are in the habit of inspecting our pages, we would recommend them to peruse this account of the people of the Tonga Islands, a tribe in many respects very far above the lowest degree in the scale of humanity, but among whom it is one of the most favourite occupations to knock out one another's brains; an expression which we do not employ from any partiality to a strong yulgar phrase ;-this precise operation was literally one of the chief, if not the very chief, of the occupations and delights of these people during the four years spent among them by the very observant young man to whom the inquisitive public are indebted for these volumes.

He is not in a strict literary sense their Author. But, by Dr. Martin's account, every fact and circumstance is so carefully given in his statement, and with so constant an intervention of his check and sanction at every step in the progress of the relation, that the adventurer himself stands distinctly before the public as the authority for the whole matter of the book; while nevertheless he is under very great obligations to Dr. Martin for throwing the whole into arrangement, and bringing it out in so respectable a form.

In a long Introduction, Dr. M. has given such particulars of information as the reader might be expected to desire concerning Mr. Mariner; has explained the whole of the partnership process in composing the book; and has pointed out, as aiding to verify its statements, a number of undesigned coincidences with the accounts of Capt. Cook, and other voyagers, and the missionaries in the South Sea; indicating, at the same time, the advantages which Mr. Mariner has possessed over the other relaters and describers, from his long and intimate communication with the barbarians, and his implication in their tran

sactions.

Mr. Mariner appears to have had no design of calling the public attention to his adventures, or the knowledge he had acquired in them, till urged to it by his Editor, who sought his acquaintance in consequence of hearing among his connexions some reports of his extraordinary story.

My curiosity being strongly excited,' says Dr. M., 'I'solicited his acquaintance. In the course of three or four interviews I discovered, with much satisfaction, that the information he was able to communicate respecting the people with whom he had been so lone and so intimately associated, was very far superior to, and mch morg

extensive than any thing that had yet appeared before the public. His answers to several inquiries, in regard to their religion, government, and habits of life, were given with that kind of unassuming confidence which bespeaks a thorough intimacy with the subject, and carries with it the conviction of truth-in fact, having been thrown upon those islands at an early age, his young and flexible mind had so accorded itself with the habits and circumstances of the natives, that he evinced no disposition to overrate or to embellish what to him was neither strange nor new.'

When, however, it is told, that this investigator of the habits, government, and religion, of a peculiar race, had not finished his sixteenth year at the time of his being thrown among them, some doubt may very naturally be excited as to his intellectual competence. It was therefore very proper to mention, that though destined to the sea-service by his father, whose own early life had been so employed, he was in a respectable degree an educated youth. The tutor is mentioned in whose academy,'

16

besides the common acquisitions of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he had made much progress in the knowledge of history, geography, and the French language, and also some advance in the first rudiments of the Latin.'

The particulars in the book, if they were given to the Editor exactly, in point of substance, as they are given to the public, certainly furnish, by their multitude, taken in connexion with the distinctness of the Author's statement, unobvious also as some of them would have been to a slightly discriminating observer, strong evidence of very good faculties, unusually mature, and kept in a full exercise of vigilant observation. Some special instances are mentioned by the Editor of the uncommon fidelity of his memory It is quite apparent, too, that the necessity of choosing and acting a part, in emergencies and sometimes very critical junctures, forced this youthful mind to a state of decision, of vigour, of promptitude, of policy, and of selfcommand, far beyond the ordinary attainments of such an age.

It seems that though subsequently to this perilous and romantic portion of his life, young Mariner has subsided into a 'sedateness of character, and disposition to rest and quiet, which,' says his Editor, may easily be conceived to arise from disappointments, and unexpected hardships and dangers, expe"rienced at too early a period of life,' he disclosed in his most juvenile years, evident proofs of a mind very susceptible of external impressions, disposed to activity,' and of a cast apparently fitted for a life of change and adventure.'

He was fond of books of travels, and he used often to say how much he should like to live among savages and meet with strange