of course.  Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory, they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferiour.  As I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing, and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.  It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation.  We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites.  And where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed, it will be right to make allowances for the difference of condition, of conversation, and of the sphere in which they move.  Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America.  Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society; yet many have been so situate, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites; some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best work from abroad.  The Indians with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes, not destitute of merit and design.  They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germe in their minds, which only wants cultivation.  They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory, such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated; but never yet could I find a black, that had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration[Footnote:  “Sleep hab no massa,” was the answer of a sleepy negro, who was told that his massa called him.—­See Edward’s History of Jamaica, 2d Vol.]; never see even an elementary trait of painting, or sculpture.  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[Footnote:  “The instrument proper to them is the banjore, which they brought here from Africa, and which is the origin of the guitar, it’s chords being precisely the four lower chords of that instrument.”  J——­ N.].  Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony[Footnote:  From this circumstance, I conceive our author’s catch was improperly so called.], is yet to be proved.  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.  Religion, or rather fanaticism, has produced a Phyllis Wheatly; but it could not produce a poet.  Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more credit to the heart than the head; supposing them to have been genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be easy of investigation.  The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition in life.