excellent of all poets, the model and chief of all tragic writers. But let us ftill remember that hymns in honour of the Gods and the elogiums of great men, are the only kinds of poetry that fhould be allowed in the republic; and that if we once allow this imitative mufe, who charms and deceives us by the foftnefs of her accents, the actions of men will no longer have for their object, either law, or any of thofe things that are eftimable, but grief and voluptuoufnefs; the excited paffions will prevail instead of reafon; citizens will no longer remain virtuous and juft men, ever in obedience to duty and equity, but fenfual weak men, who will confider good and evil through no other medium than their own de fires. In a word, always re member, that in banishing from our ftate dramatic and theatrical representations, we do not purfue a barbarous prejudice; but that we give the preference to thofe immortal beauties which refult from the harmony of the foul, and the fymmetry of the fa culties. . Let us go ftill farther. To guard against all partiality, and, no way yield to that ancient dif. cord which reigns between philofophers and poets, let us take nothing from poetry and imitation that may be any way pleaded in their defence; nor from ourfelves those innocent pleasures which they may afford us. Let us fo far honour truth as to re fpect even its image, and leave every one at liberty to be heard, who propofes increasing his fame by her. In impofing filence upen the poets, let us allow their friends the privilege of defending them, and to fhew us if they can, that the art which we condemn as pernicious, is not only agreeable but ufeful to the republic and citizens. Let us liften to their reafons with an impartial ear, and heartily agree that we fhall ourfelves be great gainers, if they prove that we may, without any rifk, yield to fuch foft impreffions; otherwife, my dear Glaucus, like a wife man ftruck with the charms of his mistress, finding his virtue ready to defert him, break though with regret fo foft a chain, facrifice love to duty and to reafon: thus freed from our infancy of the feducing attractions of poetry, and though perhaps too fenfible of its beauties, we will, however, furnish ourselves with ftrength and reafon again ft its delufive influence: if we dare yield in any degree to that tafte which attracts us, we muft at leaft fear to give way to her first affection: we will therefore fay to ourfelves that there is nothing ferious or ufeful in dramatic pageantry, yet by liftening fometimes to poetry, we fhall fecure our hearts againft its illufions, as we will not fuffer it to difturb order or liberty, either in the interior republic of the foul, or in that of human fociety. The alternative of becoming better or worse, is not a trivial confideration, for indeed it cannot be weighed with too much deliberation. Oh! my friends, it is, I must acknowledge, a delectable thing to yield to the charms of that bewitching talent which leads to riches, honours, power, and glory, but power, glory, riches, and even pleasures, are all eclipfed and and vanish like a fhadow, before justice and virtue. The attention of the public having been greatly excited by the difcovery faid to have been made by the Dolphin and others of his ma· jefty's fhips, of a nation in South America, of a moft extraordinary and gigantic fize; and the government not having yet thought proper to admit an authentic publication of thefe difcoveries; we imagine it may not be difagreeable to our readers, to lay before them what former travellers have related of thefe remarkable people. T * HESE people are firft mentioned in the account of a voyage for new difcoveries, undertaken by Magellan in the year 1519. The words in Har ris's abridgment of this account are thefe: "When they had croffed the line, and the fouth pole appeared above the horizon, they held on their south courfe and came upon the Main of Brafil, about that part of it which lies in twenty-two degrees. They obferved it to be all one continued tract of land, higher from the cape St. Auguftine, which is in this part of the country. Having made two degrees and an half more fouth latitude, they fell in with a Country inhabited by a wild fort of people: They were of a prodigious ftature, fierce and barbarous, made a horrible roaring noife, more like bulls than human creatures; and yet with all that mighty bulk were fo nimble and light of foot that none of the Spaniards or Portuguese could overtake them." By this account giants appear to have been found in lat. 24 fouth; but upon referring to the map, the account appears to be erroneous, for cape St. Auguftine, which is faid to be latitude 22, appears to be in latitude 10; fo that it is doubtful whether the giants were found in latitude 12, or 24. If they were difcovered after failing two degrees and an half fouth from St. Auguftine, they were found in 12, if after failing two degrees and an half fouth, from that part of the Main of Brafil, which lies in 22, they were found in 24 and an half. Such is the accuracy of Harris. The account, however, goes on. "The next advance was to 49 degrees and an half fouth latitude; here they were fhut up by hard weather, and forced to take up their winter quarters for no lefs than five months. They for a long time believed the country to be uninhabited, but at length a favage of the neighbouring parts came up to give them a vilit; he was a brisk jolly fellow, merrily difpofed, finging and dancing all the way he came; being got to the haven, he flood there, and threw duit upon his head, upon which fome people went afhore to him, who alfo throwing duft upon their head, he came with them to the fhip without fear or fufpicion. The head of one of Magellan's middle-fized men reached but to his waift, and he was proportionably big; his body was formidably painted all over, especially his face. A ftag's horn was drawn upon each cheek, and great red circles round his eyes; his colours were were otherwife moftly yellow, only his hair was white. For his apparel, apparel, he had the fkin of a beaft clumfily fewed together, but a beat as ftrange as that was that wore it; every way unaccount able, neither mule, horfe, nor camel, but fomething of every one, the ears of the first, the tail of the fecond, and the shape and body of the laft; it was one entire fuit, all of one piece from head to foot; as his breaft and back were covered with it above, fo his legs and feet were wrapped up in it below. The arms that he brought with him were a ftout bow and arrow: the ftrings of the bow was a gut or finew of the beast whose skin covered him, and the arrows were tipped with fharp ftones. Magellan, the admiral, made him eat and drink, and he enjoyed himself very comfortably till he happened to peep into a lookingglafs that was given him among other trifles: This put him into a fright from which he could not eafily recover, fo that ftarting back with violence, he threw two of the men who stood by him to the ground. This giant, however, fared fo well, notwithstanding his fright by the looking-glafs, that the Spaniards had quickly the company of more; one in particular made himfelf mighty familiar, and fhewed fo much pleafantry and good humour, that the Europeans were greatly pleafed with his company. Magellan was defirous of making fome of thefe gigantic people prifoners, and with this view his crew filled their hands with toys and little things that pleafed them; and in the mean time put iron fhackles upon their legs; at firft they thought them fine play-things as well as the reft, and were pleaf ed with their gingling found; but, when they found them felves hampered and betrayed, they implored the aid of fome fuperior and invifible being, by the name of Setebos; upon this occafion their ftrength appeared to be proportionable to their bulk, for one of them defeated the utmost efforts of nine men, and though they had him down, and tied his hands tightly, yet he freed himself from his bonds, and got loose, in spite of all their endeavours to detain him. Their appetite is also in proportion to their strength; the admiral gave them the name of Patagons, and took notice of the following words; bread, capar ; water, oli; black, amel; red, cheiche; red cloth, cherecai. They tie up their hair, though it is fhort, with a cotton lace. They have no fixed habitations, but certain moveable cottages, which they carry from place to place as their fancy leads them; thefe cottages are covered with the fame skin that covers their bodies. A certain sweet root, which they call by the name they give to bread, capar, is a confiderable part of their food; what flesh they eat is devoured raw. They practife phyfic but in two articles, vomiting and phlebotomy, and both in a very extraordinary manner. To vomit they thrust an arrow a foot and half down the throat; and to bleed, they give the part affected, whether leg, arm, or face, a good chop with fome fharp inftrument." Such is the account of the Patagons, as given by Harris, who fays he has taken the utmost pains to είνα give it in the cleareft manner poffible, by comparing all the different relations of the Portuguese and Spanish writers; and it is to be hoped, that no man can read the account of the violence and perfidy practifed against thefe blame. lefs, friendly, unfufpecting people, without indignation. Harris, however, fuffers it to pass without animadverfion; and probably defcribed this attempt of Magellan to betray the confidence of a reafonable being, and to force him into exile and mifery, with as much phlegm as he would the fnaring a tyger, or hooking a fish. Magellan himself was afterwards killed in an hoftile attempt to extort tribute from a king of Mathan, or Matahan, one of the Ladrone Islands, to which he had just as much right as the king of Mathan had to tribute from Spain. The Patagons are next men. tioned in an account of the voyage of Sir Francis Drake; but in Harris's epitome their ftature is not particularly afcertained. The paragraph relating to them being only as follows: "In failing fouth from the river of Plate, in latitude 36 S. they came to a good bay, in which were feveral pretty iflands; the admiral being on fhore in one of thefe islands, the people came dancing and leaping about him, and were very free to trade; they were a comely ftrong-bodied people, very fwift of foot, and of a brisk live. ly conftitution; their faces were painted, and their apparel only a covering of the fkins of beafts, with the fur on, about their waifts, and fomething wreathed about their heads; they had bows an ell long, but no more than two ar rows a-piece: They feemed not altogether ignorant of martial difcipline, as appeared by their method of ordering and ranging their men. They were the nation which Magellan called Patagons." The latitude of this island is not particularly mentioned; it must have been about 46 or 47. There is fome difference in the accounts of their cloathing; Magellan fays they were cloathed from head to foot; Drake, that they were covered only round the waist, and upon the head; but this may eafily be accounted for, because Magellan wintered with them, and Drake faw them in fummer. These giants are next mentioned in an account of a voyage round the world, by Sir Thomas Cavendifh: Of which Harris's epitome is as follows. "Sailing from Cape Frio, in the Brafils, they fell in upon the coaft of America, in 47 d. 20 m. north, (it should be fouth) latitude. They proceeded to port Defire, ia latitude 50. Here the favages wounded two of the company with their arrows, which are made of cane, headed with flints. A wild and rude fort of creatures they were; and, as it seemed, of a gigantic race, the measure of one of their feet being 18 inches in length, which, reckoning by the ufual proportion, will give about 7 feet and an half for their ftature." Harris fays, that this agrees very exactly with the account given of them by Magellan, but in his epitome of Magellan's account he fays that the head of one of his middle-fized men reached but to the Patagonian's waist; which, fuppofing Magellan's man to be but 5 feet 6 inches high, will make make the Patagonian 9 at leaft. He fays, indeed, that Magellan gave them the name of Patagons, because their ftature was five cubits, or feven feet fix, but, if so, his own account is inconfiftent with itself, neither has he told us in what language Patagon expreffes this ftature. Oliver Noort, the firft Dutch man that attempted a voyage round the world, performed his expedition between the years 1598 and 1601, and the account he gives of the inhabitants of thefe parts, as abridged by Harris, is to the following effect: "He went up the river at Port Defire, and going on fhore found beafts like flags and buffaloes, alfo fome favages, who, he fays, were tall portly men, painted, and armed with fhort bows and arrows, that were headed with ftone. Thefe beafts, like buffaloes, probably furnished the skins that Magellan defcribed to have the ears of an afs, the tail of a horfe, and the fhape of a camel, for the buffalo has a bunch upon his back. Having afterwards entered the Streights, they faw fome men upon two islands, near a cape which is here called cape Naffau. There is no cape marked either in the chart or map prefixed to Harris's collection by that name, nor has he told us to which of the capes that are marked this name was given by the Dutch. Thefe favages having now, by fad experience, been taught to regard every European as an enemy, fhook their weapons against the Dutch, in hopes to prevent their landing. The Dutch, however, did land upon one of the islands, and the poor Indians retreating, they purfued them to the cave which contained their wives and children, and killed every one of them. When thefe ruffians rushed in, the women covered their infants with their own bodies, that they might receive the firft ftab; the Dutch did not, indeed, murder thefe forlorn and defenceless wretches in cold blood, but having butchered the fathers and hufbands, they took away fix of the children, four boys and two girls, and carried them on fhipboard. It is impoffible for any man, whofe feelings of humanity have not been obtunded by felfishness or fuperftition, to read the accounts of the difcoveries and fettlements of the people of Europe, in other parts of the world, without regretting their fuccefs, and wifhing that they had all perished in the attempt. In thefe expeditions they have filled the earth with violence, and, as far as their influence could extend, diffused wickedness and mifery, by every violation of the laws of nature, that the moit wanton cruelty and fordid avarice could prompt, while they diftinguifhed themselves from thofe whom they destroyed, and enflaved, by the name of chriftians, and gloried in the refinements of honour, which, looking down up on mere moral obligation, pretends to merit beyond the limits of duty. One of the boys thus brought on board Van Noort's fleet, learnt the Dutch language, and gave intelligence to the following ef fect: that the inhabitants of the continent near the island from which he had been taken, were divided into different tribes; that three of these tribes, which he |