fatal vengeance. They frequently make incurfions on their interior neighbours, like the Carribbees, for flaves; and the vicinity of their refidence particularly exposes them to reprifals from thofe injured tribes. To prevent this, all the avenues to their houses are guarded by sharp pieces of hard wood, planted in the earth, and poifoned, except only one obfcure winding path, which they use themfelves, and make known to their countrymen by private marks.

"The poifon arrows are made from fplinters of the hard folid outer fubftance of the cokarito tree, and are ufually about twelve inches in length, and are fomewhat larger than a coarfe knitting needle. One end of the arrow is formed into a fharp point, and invenomed in the poifon of woorara; round the other end is wound a roll of cotton, adapted to the cavity of the reed, through which the arrow is to be blown. The arrow, thus decked, and armed for deftruction, is inferted into a hollow ftraight reed, feveral feet in length, which being directed towards the object, the arrow is, by a fingle blaft of air from the lungs, protruded through the cavity of the reed, and flies, with great fwiftness and unerring certainty, the diftance of thirty or forty yards, conveying fpeedy and inevitable death to the animal from which it draws blood. Blowing thefe arrows is the principal exercife of the Indians from their childhood; and by long use and habitude, they acquire a degree of dexterity and exactnefs at this exercife, which is inimitable by an European, and almost incredible.

"The following is the recipe by which the Accawau arrow poifon is ufually prepared, and which I have procured from feveral of their peii's, or phyficians, at different times, who all exactly a greed in the number and identity of the ingredients, but with fome variation in their quantities, which, indeed, they have no method of either expreffing, or afcertaining, with exactness.

Take of the bark of the root of

woorara, fix parts;

Of the bark of warracobba

coura, two parts;

Of the bark of the roots of couranapi, baketi, and hatchybaly, of each one part: "All these are to be finely fcraped, and put into an Indian pot, and covered with water. The pot is then to be placed over a flow fire, that the water may fimmer for a quarter of an hour; after which, the juice is to be expreffed from the bark by the hands, taking care that the fkin is unbroken this being done, the bark is to be thrown away, and the juice evaporated over a moderate fire to the confiftence of tar; when it is to be removed, and flat pieces of the wood of cokarito are dipped therein, to which the poifon, when cold, adheres, appearing like a gum, of a brown reddish colour, The pieces of wood are then put into large hollow canes, clofed at the ends with skins; and in this manner the poison is preserved until it is wanted to invenom the point of an arrow; at which time, it is either diffolved in water, and the points of arrows dipped in the folution; or the wood to which it adheres, is held over the fire until it melts, and the points of arrows

are

are then fmeared with it. The fmalleft quantity of this poifon, conveyed by a wound into the red blood-veffels of an animal, caufes it to expire in lefs than a minute, without much apparent pain or uneafinefs; though flight convulfions are fometimes feen near the inftant of expiration.

"The poifon, when thus infpiffated, is liquifiable by heat, and diffoluble in water, in alcohol, in fpirit of fea-falt, and in a volatile alkaline fpirit; as alfo in blood, faliva, &c. except only a very fmall part, which fubfides both in a fpirituous and aqueous menftruum, and probably confifts of earthy particles foreign to the compofition. It unites with acids without emotion, or change of colour. On mixing it with alkalies, no ebullition is perceptible, but the colour changes from a reddish brown to a yellowish brown. A few grains, mixed with as many ounces of human blood, warm from the veins, intirely prevents a feparation of ferum and craffamentum, and the whole mafs continues united in a state of fluidity, fimilar to that in which it is drawn, until after fome days, it putrifies.

"I ought to have before informed you, that the feveral ingredients mentioned in the recipe for compounding the Accawau poifon, are all nibbees of different kinds; but whether all, or indeed any more of them than the Woorara are neceffary, or whether the efficacy of the poifon might not be farther improved, I am uncertain it is, however, already too fatal to be trusted in the hands of any people, but those who are in a state of nature, in which cri

minal paffions are feeble and languid. How the inftantaneous fatal effects of this poifon can result from fo fmall a portion, as may be fuppofed to be left by the point of an arrow immediately extracted, is inexplicable: that it has the power of diffolving the fluids, is certain; but I am far from thinking that its fatal effects are produced by any fuch diffolution. The Indians conftantly moiften the points of their poifon-arrows, when over dry, with the juice of lemons, which tends to produce an oppofite effect; and blood drawn from the jugular veins, and carotid arteries of animals, at the inftant of their expiration by the effects of this poifon, affords no uncommon appearance; and, after ftanding, regularly feparates into ferum and craffamentum, with a greater degree of cohefion than is ufually obferved in fcorbutic cafes: but yet the animals expired, as it were," by an infenfible extinction of the the vital flame. Can fuch inftantaneous fatality refult from any change in the texture of the fluids in fo fhort a space? I doubt whether they are fufceptible of it: nor do I believe that these fudden deleterious effects can arife, except from an immediate injury offered to the fenfible nervous fyftem, or the fource of the vital functions. Mr. Heriffant thinks it contracts the veffels; but fays, it does not ufually alter the appearance of the fluids, though he once or twice obferved the blood to affume a brownifh colour.

"Against this poifon there is no certain antidote difcovered; and its effects are fo fudden, that I doubt whether any thing taken by the alimentary paffage, can act

with fufficient celerity to preferve life. M. de la Condamine, indeed, fays, that falt, but fugar, more certainly, is an antidote for the Amazonian poifon : and fugar, or rather the juice of canes, is commonly thought, by the white inhabitants of this colony, to prevent the Accawau poifon : but the Indians themselves do not acknowledge this quality in the cane; and I have never been able, either by my own experiments or inquiries, to discover a fingle inftance of its efficacy for that purpose. That gentleman inftances an experiment made on a fowl at Cayenne, which was wounded with one of the poifon-arrows in prefence of the commandant, &c. and which, after be ing dofed with fugar, betrayed no figns of indifpofition: but the fugar had not this effect at a fubfequent experiment made at Leyden, in prefence of feveral of the medical profeffors in that univerfity; though the activity of the poifon was then confeffedly impaired by the winter: nor did the fugar prove an antidote at the experiments repeated by Mr. Heriffant, or at an experiment made by Dr. Brocklesby. Mr. Heriffant, how-ever, declares, that an actual cautery immediately applied to the poifoned wound, prevents its effects.

"I have long imagined, from the diftant affinity between the effects of this poifon, and thofe of fome peftilential and malignant fevers, that an antidote for the former would be useful in the latter, and therefore have fpent fome time in fruitless endeavours for the difcovery of one. Acids or alcalies, as fuch, do not feem either to promote or retard its effects; and it

is but feldom that either animal or vegetable poisons derive their deleterious properties from either of thefe principles; nor is the doctrine of acids or alcalies pertinent, except to faline or foffil poisons.

"That this poifon may duly operate, it is neceffary that it fhould be externally admitted into the fanguine veffels; because when received by the alimentary paffage, it is fubdued by the action of the digeftive organs, or excluded from the channel of circulation by the lacteals. When fwallowed by animals in large quantities, it is ufually ejected by the mouth. Dr. Brocklesby, indeed, declares, that in giving a watery solution of the Amazonian poffon internally to a bird, it became convulfed, and died, when two drops had fcarcely touched its tongue, though it had juft before been dofed with fugar. This is an experiment which contradicts every other obfervation of Meffrs. de la Condamine and Heriffant, as well as the conftant practice of the Amazonian Indians, in eating the flesh of animals killed by this poifon; a practice, in which they are imitated by the Indians of Guiana, who frequently tafte the poifon of Woorara, as I have myfelf feveral times done, without detriment."

We have left out fome of the author's phyfical difcuffions, as well as fome quotations from M. de la Condamine, Mr. Heriffant, and fome other writers upon this fubject; and the limits assigned to our work, oblige us to omit many curious particulars, as well relating to the Indians, as to fome of the uncommon natural productions of this country.

An

An Effay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear, compared with the Greek and French dramatic poets. With Some remarks upon the mifreprefentations of M. de Voltaire. 1 vol. 8vo.

may

T may, perhaps, be imagined, that the character of our admirable dramatic poet is now fo well eftablished, and his great merit fo generally acknowledged, that a defence of his works against attacks founded apparently upon prejudice, or proceeding from an ignorance of the language in which he wrote, is, in a great meafure, if not totally, unneceffary. However this be confidered, every reader of tafte will acknowledge the great pleasure that he receives from the perufal of the incomparable effay before us, and will think it a most valuable acquifition to polite literature. Whether we regard it as a judicious defence, as a candid and ingenious difquifition, or as an happy and elegant illuftration of the writings of our favourite author; in whatever point of view we confider it, it claims our warmeft approbation, and the critic feems, upon every occafion, worthy of the great writer whom he illuftrates.

M. Voltaire's high character, both as a writer and a critic, the avidity with which his works are read throughout Europe, and the effect which his decifive and precipitate determinations upon this fubject may have upon the general opinion in regard to our national tafte, are, however, fuch confiderations, as fufficiently claimed a candid and accurate defence of Shakespear. The opinion which generally prevailed among foreigners, that the French writer had a

competent knowledge of our language on which to found his criticifms, made his partial strictures the more liable to take effect, and pointed out the neceffity of fhewing, that he is totally ignorant of its true force and fpirit.

The merits of this effay are not, however, confined to a mere defence of Shakespear, or to obfer, vations on Voltaire's criticifm. It abounds with curious difquifitions, and will undoubtedly hold a high rank among the most claffical pieces of the fame nature in the English language. The parallel drawn between the conduct of the two poets, in refpect to the ghoft of Darius in the Perfians of Efchylus, and that of Hamlet, as well as the comparisons made between Shakespeare and the French dramatic writers, are attended with a great number of the moft judicious and beautiful obfervations. The charges against Voltaire of mifreprefentation, of not underftanding the English language, and of his being guilty of the greatest abfurdities in his tranflation of the first acts of Shakespear's Julius Cæfar, are abundantly proved.

Our elegant effayist observes, in the introductory part, "That Shakefpear, whose very faults pass here unquestioned, or are perhaps confecrated through the enthufiafm of his admirers, and the veneration paid to long-established fame, is by a great wit, a great critic, and a great poet of a neighbouring nation, treated as the writer of monftrous farces, called by him tragegedies; and barbarifm and ignorance are attributed to the nation, by which he is admired. Yet if wits, poets, critics, could ever be charged with prefumption, one might fay there was fome degree

of

of it in pronouncing, that, in a country where Sophocles and Euripides are as well understood as in any in Europe, the perfections of dramatic poetry fhould be as little comprehended as among the Chinese.

Learning here is not confined to ecclefiaftics, or a few lettered fages and academics: every English gentleman has an education, which gives him an early acquaintance with the writings of the ancients. His knowledge of polite literature does not begin with that period, which Mr. Voltaire calls, Le Siecle de Louis quatorze. Before he is admitted as a fpectator at the theatre at London, it is probable he has heard the tragic mufe as fhe fpoke at Athens, and as fhe now fpeaks at Paris, or in Italy; and he can difcern between the natural language, in which the addreffed the human heart, and the artificial dialect, which he has acquired from the prejudices of a particular nation, or the jargon caught from the tone of a court. To please upon the French stage, every perfon of every age and nation was made to adopt their manners.

The heroes of antiquity were not more difguifed in the romance's of Calprenede and Scuderi, than in the tragedies of Corneille. In fpite of the admonitions given by that admirable critic Boileau to their dramatic writers in the following lines:

Gardez donc de donner, ainfi
que dans Clélie,
L'air ni l'efprit François à
l'antique Italie;

Et fous des noms Romains
faiffant notre portrait,
Peindre Caton galant, & Brutus
damoret.

The Horatii are reprefented no lefs obfequious in their address to their king, than the courtiers of the grand monarque. Thefeus is made a mere fighing fwain. Many of the greatelt men of antiquity, and even the rougheft heroes amongst the Goths and Vandals, were exhibited in this effeminate form. The poet dignified the piece, perhaps with the name of an Hercules, but, alas! it was always Hercules fpinning, that was fhewn to the fpectator. The editor of Cerneille's works, in terms fo grofs as are hardly pardonable in fuch a mafter of fine raillery, frequently attacks our Shakespear for the want of delicacy and politenefs in his pieces: it must be owned, that in fome places they bear the marks of the unpolished times, in which he wrote; but one cannot forbear fmiling to hear a critic, who profeffes himself an admirer of the tragedies of Corneille, object to the barbarifm of Shakespear's. There never was a more barbarous mode of writing than that of the French romances in the last age, nor which from its tedioufnefs, languor, and want of truth of character, is lefs fit to be copied on the ftage and what are moft parts of Corneille's boasted tragedies, but the romantic dialogue, its tedious foliloquy, and its extravagant fentiments in the true Gothic livery of rhyme?

The French poets affume a fuperiority over Shakespear, on account of their more conftant adherence to Ariftotle's unities of time and place.

The pedant who bought at a great price the lamp of a famous philofopher, expecting that by its affiftance his lucubrations would become equally celebrated, was