ART. XI. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. In a Letter to the Right Hon. Edmund Burke; occafioned by his Reflections on the Revolution in France. By Mary Wollstonecraft. The Second Edition. 8vo. 2s. 6d. ftitched. Johnfon. London, 1790.

IT

T was to be supposed that Mr. Burke's extraordinary opinions would have produced a variety of anfwers, not only on account of their novelty, but because sentiments fo fubverfive of the advantages to be derived from the improbability of man need only to be divefted of their fpeciousness, in order to confute themselves. Mifs Wollstonecraft has a claim to no inconfiderable praise for the ftrength and plainnefs of her language, the juftnefs of her opinions, and the indignant fcorn with which the treats a dazzling trifle, that for a moment bewilders the understanding, while it faps all the foundations of virtue, public fpirit, and genuine benevolence. I perceive,'

fays fhe, that you have a mortal antipathy to reason; that we are to reverence the ruft of antiquity, and term the unnatural 'customs which ignorance and felf-intereft have confolidated the fage fruits of experience.-Yes, Sir, the ftrong have 'gained riches, the few have facrificed the many to their vices, and to be able to pamper their appetites, and fupinely exist ⚫ without exercifing mind or body, they have ceafed to be men." Some of our readers will fay, Mr. Burke is here too much repaid in his own coin; but fhould the expreffions be thought too bold and general, it should be remembered they were penned under the impreffion made by perufing a book that no feeling mind could retire from without horror. Our author next examines Mr. Burke's opinions of the abstract rights of men, and fhews that if we are only to regard customs and existing inftitutions as the plea for our rights, we must look for the origin of them in laws made by invaders for their mutual fecurity, and for keeping their conquered vaffals in a state of eternal ignorance and poverty. This is placed in fuch lively and strong colours, as muft convince every mind, not previously petrified by a consciousness of his own fecurity, and an indifference for the happiness of all others, or rather a dread left he should lofe any thing by a general participation. Nor are the arguments against the preference given to primogeniture lefs confpicuous or forceable: but, as we fo fully tranfcribed Mr. Burke's daftardly attack on an amiable character, we confider it a duty to take particular notice of this lady's reply:

You have fhewn, Sir, by your filence on thefe fubjects [the game laws, and the impreffing for the fea-fervice], that your respect for rank has fwallowed up the common feelings of humanity, and

that

that you feem to confider the poor as only the live stock on an estate, the feather of hereditary nobility. When you had fo little refpect for the filent majefty of mifery, I am not surprised at your manner of treating an individual, whofe brow a mitre will never grace, and whofe popularity may have wounded your vanity-for vanity is ever

fore.

I agree with you, Sir, that the pulpit is not the place for political difcuffions, though it might be more excufable to enter on fuch a fubject, when the day was fet apart merely to commemorate a political revolution, and no ftated duty was encroached upon. I will, however, wave this point, and allow that Dr. Price's zeal may have carried him further than found reafon can justify. I do alfo mott cordially coincide with you, that, till we can fee the remote confequences of things, prefent calamities must appear in the ugly form of evil, and excite our commiferation. The good that time slowly educes from them may be hid from mortal eye, or dimly feen; whilst sympathy compels man to feel for man, and almoft reftrains the hand that would amputate a limb to fave the whole body. But, after making this conceffion, allow me to expoftulate with you, and calmly hold up the glafs which will fhew you your partial feelings.

In reprobating Dr. Price's opinions you might have fpared the man; and if you had had but half as much reverence for the grey hairs of virtue as for the accidental diftinctions of rank, you would not have treated with fuch indecent familiarity and fupercilious contempt, a member of the community whose talents and modest virtues place him high in the fcale of moral excellence. I am not accustomed to look up with vulgar awe, even when mental fuperiority exalts a man above his fellows; but ftill the fight of one whofe habits are fixed by piety and reason, and whofe virtues are confolidated into goodness, commands my homage-and I should touch his errors with å tender hand when I made a parade of my fenfibility. Granting, for a moment, that Dr. Price's political opinions are Utopian reveries, and that the world is not yet fufficiently civilifed to adopt fuch a fublime fyftem of morality; they could, however, only be the reveries of a benevolent mind. Tottering on the verge of the grave, that worthy man in his whole life never dreamt of ftruggling for power or riches; and, if a glimpfe of the glad dawn of liberty rekindled the fire of youth in his veins, you, who could not stand the fascinating glance of a great lady's eyes, when neither virtue nor fenfe beamed in them, might have pardoned his unfeemly tranfport—if fuch it must be deemed.'

This is only a part of what is here offered in behalf of one whom Mr. Burke never thought proper to attack at a time when he first proposed his political opinions to the world, and on a fubject that might be thought more important to this countryat a time when England was engaged in war with her colonies. But it is not a little remarkable Mr. Burke fhould never ftumble on America in his whole book. Neither the fimilarity, as he might conceive, of the circumftances, the quantity of paper

iffued by Congrefs, nor the fuccefs with which they have fruggled through fo many difficulties, ever reminds him of the warmth with which he used to attack the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is true, indeed, no hierarchy was then overturned, no church was pillaged, no nobility was levelled. For, ftrange as the phenomenon may feem, America had arisen to a flourishing condition, which the now maintains, without bifhops, nobility, or any veftiges of the age of chivalry. But tc return to Mifs Wollftonecraft.-Many ingenious remarks are to be met with in the rest of her letter; and where the keeps to her purpose in anfwering Mr. Burke, fhe does it with ftrength, clearnefs, and brevity, and as much politenefs as his own unqualified language entitles him to. But Mr. Burke has perhaps taught her to digrefs a little too often, and fometimes a little too far from the main fubject. Thefe digreffions are, however, ingenious and well managed, if not always appofite; and we fcruple not to affert that her book will be read with pleasure by all fuch as wifh to promote the true interests of fociety.

The language may be thought by fome too bold and pointed for a female pen; but when women undertake to write on malculine fubjects, and reafon as Mifs Wollstonecraft does, we wifh their language to be free from all female prettinesses, and to express with energy and perfpicuity, the ideas they mean to

convey.

We have omitted one specific charge against Mr. Burke which it becomes his friends to confute if untrue-that he receives 1500l. per ann. on the Irish establishment, under a difguifed name. Let us admire the obfequioufnefs of an univerfity that could thus reward one of the filent plunderers of her country. But we have too high an opinion of the good fenfe of that oppreffed kingdom to think this measure will ever meet with their general approbation.

FOREIGN

LITERATURE.

ART. XII. A Defcription of Negritia. By M. P. D. P. förmerly Member of the Supreme Council at Senegal, and afterwards Governor of Fort St. Louis, at Gregoy, in the Kingdom of Juda. With Cuts. 8vo. Amfterdam, 1789.

NI IGRITIA, or, as it is commonly called, Negroland, iş an extensive tract of country in Africa, bounded on the north by the defart of Zaara, and ftretching a great way towards the south; but the interior parts of it are still very little

known.

known. The author of this work, who refided here upwards of twenty years, has collected fuch obfervations as he was enabled to make in the courfe of that period; and though he feems to have studied neither order nor method, the relations which he gives are, in many refpects, both curious and entertaining. Speaking of the Moors who inhabit the left bank of the river Senegal, he fays,

These people are very fober and temperate in their way of fiving. Their food, however, is not always the fame. Thofe who are rich in cattle kill feveral oxen every year, which they prepare in the following manner: having taken all the flesh from the bones, they cut it into flices a little thicker than an inch, and, having dipped it once in brine, hang it up in the fun for five or fix days; it then becomes perfectly dry and hard, like a piece of rope, and will keep for more than a year. When they have occafion to use it, they reduce it to powder, and boil it in water. This dried flesh ferves them for provifion during their journies; and they also make a kind of foup of it, which they drink when they are fick. Sometimes they fteep in it the flour of millet, baked and properly prepared, which affords them a very nourishing repaft; but this food does not prevent thofe who are rich from often eating fresh meat, and particularly mutton and lamb, which they cook in a very fingular manner.

Having flayed the fheep, or the lamb, and taken out the inteftines, they sprinkle a little falt over it, and then wrap it up in the fkin. After this they make a hole in the earth, of a fize proportioned to the animal, and kindle a large fire in it. At the end of an hour they take out a part of the hot earth, and, placing the animal in the hole, cover it with the fame earth and afhes, over which they fpread cold earth, to the thickness of feven or eight inches. They then kindle a large fire over the whole, and keep it continually burning, until they think the meat fufficiently baked, when they take it from the hole, throw afide the skin in which it was wrapped up, and, having collected the juice in wooden bafons, fit down to regale themselves with their families."

The manners and customs of savage people in different countries, and the resources which Nature, the common instructor of all, points out to them, in order to fupply the deficiencies of art, feem to have a great affinity with each other. The method practifed by the Moors to prepare their meat, by baking it in the earth, is exactly the fame as that employed by the inhabitants of fome of the islands in the South Seas, and of which we have a particular account in Captain Cook's voyages to the fouthern hemisphere. What our illuftrious navigator mentions is not, therefore, peculiar to these islanders, as the fame cuftom prevails on the western coafts of Africa.

The

The right bank of the river Senegal is inhabited by a people called the negroes of Yolof. Their country is exceedingly poor, and the lands belong to no fixed proprietor. Each takes poffeffion of whatever fpot he finds convenient; and the most industrious sow such a quantity of grain as may be fufficient for their own consumption, and leave fomething to fupply the wants of the whites, and other inhabitants of the country who have occafion to purchase provifion. The principal kinds of grain which these people fow are large and fmall millet, and maize, or Turkish corn. Their manner of preparing the earth re

quires very little labour:

A month before the commencement of the rainy feafon, which generally happens about the end of April, or the begining of May, they fet fire to the stubble of the former year, which, having been parched by the exceffive heat of the fun, burns rapidly, and leaves on the ground a quantity of afhes that form an excellent manure. When the rains come on, all the negroes, men, women, and children, repair to the fields. The men, with a kind of fmall pick-axe, at a fingle ftroke make a hole in the earth, while the women follow them, each having a kind of apron bound round her, and filled with feed, a fmall quantity of which they drop into the holes, and boys and girls behind the women throw earth into them with their feet, and cover them up. These people, marching always before each other, fow a field in this manner with aftonifhing expedition. As red beans thrive here furprisingly, they often plant them in the intervals between their maize; and when they cut down their crop, at the end of nine or ten weeks, the beans are only in flower; but, being freed from the maize, which checked their growth, they foon come to maturity, and are cut down, in their turn, about a month after.

• The labour required to fow thefe fields is little in comparison of that which is neceflary to preferve them from the depredations of birds, elephants, wild boars, &c. For this purpose, when the grain is nearly ripe, they are obliged to raise several fmall ftages, about fix feet high, formed of stakes fastened together, and placed at certain diftances throughout the field which they wish to defend. They then caufe women and children to mount upon these ftages, and to fend forth as loud cries as they can whenever they fee a cloud of birds ready to fall upon the grain. The birds, frightened by their cries, retire to the dif tance of two hundred paces, or to some other field, from which they are again driven in the like manner. Sometimes the negroes difcharge their fufees at them, in order to terrify them the more, and they then fly about from field to field, without knowing where to perch. It is very amusing to fee fuch a multitude of birds affembled in one fpot; but as they foon become

familiar