incapable of deceiving; and the latter, in ascribing greater influence to love among these savages, than perhaps will ever be found realised in such a condition of our nature.  One cannot believe, that so philosophical an enquirer should impute much efficacy as a source of happiness to the mere brute passion; and it is equally unlikely that so acute an observer should discover any thing more refined than such an appetite in the sexual intercourse among so rude a tribe.  Probably then his language is fully more poetic than becomes the sober narrator.  This, indeed, is nowise uncommon with him, as the reader perhaps is already convinced.  But this very circumstance, it is obvious, is to his advantage as a writer.—­E.

[4] “The uncomfortable season of the year, the many contrary winds, and the total want of interesting incidents, united to make this run extremely tedious to us all, and the only point we gained by it, was the certainty that no great land was situated in the South Sea about the middle latitudes.”—­G.F.

[5] “The spirits of all our people were much exhilarated in proportion as we approached to the tropics, and our sailors diverted themselves with a variety of plays every evening.  The genial mildness of the air was so welcome to us, after a long absence from it, that we could not help preferring the warm climates as the best adapted for the abode of mankind.”—­G.F.

An observation of this sort, the evident result of experience, is worth a thousand treatises, in shewing how much man is the creature of circumstances and situation, and how justly his feelings, and of consequence his thoughts, are modified by climate and weather.  Some philosophers, and, perhaps, more religionists, have endeavoured to devise means to render the human mind and character independent of physical elements.  The attempt is just about as rational, and not a bit less presumptuous, than that of making them free of the Divine cognizance and authority, to which these elements are subjected.  Such attempts, it seems pretty evident, have been the source of delusive self-congratulation in all ages of the world, and may be ascribed, with no very mighty stretch of fancy, to the same busy agent, by whom, in the earliest stage of our nature, man was tempted with the alluring hope of becoming “as God.”  A wiser and more benevolent instructor would teach him, on the contrary, to acknowledge his dependences and avoiding forbidden things, to partake with cheerfulness of the material blessings which surround him.  This is genuine confidence in the Supreme Ruler, though, to be sure, it has little or no charms for the obstinate stoic, or the conceited pharisee.  But “wisdom, it is certain, will be justified of all who are under its influence.”—­E.

[6] “The difference between the salubrity of the two vessels probably arose from the want of fresh air in the Adventure, our sloop being