And here we cannot help taking notice of a mistake of the bishop of Bergen, who, in his Natural Hif tory of Norway, fpeaking of the Laplanders, fays, the extremes of heat and cold occafion the dark colour of the skin. Hence it is plain, that he never confidered the inhabitants of America, who are all of a copper colour from one end of America to the other, except the Efkimeaux, we mean the native Indians, not thofe who are defcended from a mixture of Europeans with the original inhabitants. This we can affirm, partly from our own experience, and partly from the concurring teftimony of all voyagers. Some have thought this peculiar complexion owing to the air; which cannot be true; for, upon examining fome, who had been cloathed from their infancy, we found them to be the colour of bright red copper. Indians, who have little or no clothes, have a cuftom of daubing themselves all over with grease, which gives them a dufky hue, and has occafioned fome to say they were of an olive complexion; but this however is not natural. Thefe Indians feem all to be defcended from the fame parents; but whether they came here foon after the flood, as Charlevoix thinks, or before it, as the bishop of Clogher believes, we cannot pretend to determine; though there is one thing which feems to GENTLEMEN, favour the bishop's opinion, that the animals of America are almost all different from thofe of Europe, Afia, and Africa. Another argument to prove that. they all proceeded from one common stock, might be taken from fome peculiarities belonging to these Indians, for they have all coarse black hair, and no beards; befides, they have no hair on their breasts, under their arm-pits, or on any other parts of their bodies. We know the old ftory of the women being employed to pluck the men's beards, &c. up by the roots, which has been handed from one author to another, time out of mind; but this may be refuted by experience; for tho' the Turks, both men and women, ufe a cauftic compofition to take off the hairs, yet it does not prevent its growing again, and they are forced to repeat it as often as it repullulates. However, the latest and most sensible travellers all agree that this is nothing but a mere fiction; as we likewife affirm from our examination and experience. Hence it is evident, that the climate only is not the caufe of the peculiar complexion of any people whatever. Befides, every one may obferve, that blacks will be blacks, let them live in what country they will, and that the defcendants of the negroes from Africa will have woolly heads, tho' they are born in the very middle of a temperate zone. To the Authors of the BRITISH MAGAZINE. IN 'N an excurfion I lately made to the Isle of Wight, during my fhort stay at Newport, I was there informed, that fome years fince, having occafion to repair the pave ment near the altar of their church, they found a ftone-arch, upon opening of which, there appeared a coffin, with a plate bearing the following infcription: ELIZABETHSTUART. 3 R 2 The The perfon who gave me this account affured me this was the corpfe of princess Elizabeth, daughter of the Royal Martyr, Charles the Firft; that after that unfortunate Monarch's leaving the Isle of Wight, fhe was kept there for fome years in difguife, and the better to conceal her, was actually put apprentice to a glover, and worked fome time at that business, but died thro' excefs GENTLEMEN, of grief, at about the age of fourteen, and now lies without the least infcription to commemorate her noble afhes. If any your readers can throw a further light on this affair, and will communicate it, or will be kind enough to mention a history which relates any particulars of this unfortunate Princefs, this will much oblige their and your humble fervant, W. B. To the Authors of the BRITISH MAGAZINE. The following letter was written by the famous Voltaire to Mr. Elie de Beaumont, upon his publishing a juftly admired Memoir, in favour of the widow and children of Calas. The generofity and courage of this advocate, who first, without any view of intereft, took in hand the defence of that unfortunate family, fhew there are men in France to whom the magnanimity of a Demofthenes and a Cicero are no less known than their eloquence. Your's, &c. To Mr. Elie de Beaumont, Advocate to the Parliament of Paris. SIR, TILL the prefent times there was but one voice heard in the defert, which cryed out, Prepare ye the ways of the Lord. Your memorial is affuredly the work of a mafter. I know nothing that carries fo much conviction along with it, nothing fo touching. My indignation against the parliament of Thouloufe redoubles at it, and my tears have begun to flow anew. I am perfuaded that you will fucceed fo far as to caufe a repeal of the edict of the parliament of Thoulouse. Your generous conduct is worthy your eloquence. This cruel affair, which will do you infinite honour, begins to be a proof to me of what I have always thought, that our laws are very imperfect. Almoft every thing appears to me to have D D. been left to the arbitrary opinion of the judges. It is very strange that the criminal ordinance of Louis XIV. has provided fo little for the fecurity of mens lives, and that we fhould be obliged to have recourfe to the decrees of Charlemagne. Your memorial will hereafter ferve as a rule in cafes of this fort: fanaticifm furnishes them fometimes. I have read your work thrice over, and I was as much touched at the third reading as at the first. I add to the three impoffibilities which you place in so strong light, a fourth, which is that of withitanding your reafons. I join my acknowledgements to those which the Calafes owe you. I dare fay the judges of Thouloufe think they owe you as much. You have opened their eyes with respect to their errors. If I had the misfortune to be of their number, I fhould propose to them, on the reading only of your memorial, to afk pardon of the fa. mily whom they have undone, and to give them a penfion. I hold them unworthy of their office if they take not this course. The cfteem you inspire me with, Sir, gives me almost a right to infift upon your friendship. You have a lady worthy of yourself. Accept of my refpects both of you, and of all those fentiments with which I shall be, as long as I live, Cafle of Ferney, SIR, * Madam de Beaumont, already reputably known by fundry pieces, as well in profe as in verse, has very lately published a work, which does equal honour to her heart and to her pen, entitled, Letters of the Marquis de Rofelie, in two parts, 12mo. Paris, 1764. diverting Inftance of the Sagacity of an ELEPHANT. From Captain Hamilton's Voyages. W Hil Hile capt. Hamilton was at Achen, the metropolis of the inland of Sumatra, he observes, that he saw an elephant which had been kept there above one hundred years, but by report was then three hundred years old; he was about eleven feet high, and was remarkable for his extraordinary fagacity, as an inftance of which he relates a comical piece of revenge he took on a taylor. In the year 1692, fays he, a fhip called the Dorothy, commanded by capt. Thwaits, called at Achen for refreshments, and two English gentlemen in that city went aboard to furnish themselves with what European neceffaries they had occafion for, and amongst other things, bought fome Norwich ftuffs for cloaths; and there being no English taylor to be had, they employed a Surat, who kept a fhop in the great market-place, and had commonly fix or ten workmen fewing in his shop. It was the elephant's cuftom to reach in his trunk at doors or windows as he paffed along the ide of the street, as begging for the decayed fruits and roots, which the inhabitants generally gave him. One morning as he was going to the river to be washed, with his rider on his back, he chanced to put his trunk in at this taylor's window, and the taylor, instead of giving him what he wanted, pricked him with his needle. The elephant feemed to take no notice of the affront: but went calmly on to the river, and was washed; after which he troubled the water with one of his fore-feet, and then fucked up a good quantity of the dirty water into his trunk, and palling unconcernedly along the fame fide of the street where the taylor's fhop was, he put in his trunk at the window, and blew his nofe on the taylor with fuch a force and quantity of water, that the poor taylor and his journeymen were blown off the table they worked on, almoft frightened out of their fenfes; but the English gentlemen had their cloaths fpoiled by the elephant's comical, but innocent revenge. Poetical ***************** Poetical ESSAYS for SEPTEMBER, 1764. ELEGY on a HUMMING-BIRD, Wrote in a Flower-Garden, Nulla rofa fervia fpina. A Humming Bird, by Nature led, On Nature's bounteous honey fed: Oh, had you feen her glowing breaft, Her course unsteady, high and low, Her pureft nectar erft the drew ROBERT DE CHELLOWE, The CHAPLET: an ODE. By Mr. One morn, on murm'ring wing fufpended, AS lately o'er a lovely plain, She to thofe well-known pinks defcended; Where Flora helds her pleafing reign, The rural mufe did chance to stray, She heard the goddefs to her maids Thus fpeak: "Collect whate'er is gay; "Whate'er's most odorous, that braids "This fav'rite fpot, and yonder fav'rite "fhades." On Zephyr's wings, they inftant flew, The prim-rofe drefs'd in bride's array, And Iris, daughter of the sky, Whofe hue delights, and chears the eye, But, like the maiden's bloom, fades prefently. The beau ranunculus, whofe face His spouse, that loves the vernal ray Some Some feiz'd the fav'rite of the vale †, And, as a contraft to her fweet, What 'twas three mornings funs to meet, They fweetly harmonizing set in view. The flow'r was cull'd that lines the Where Flora sports the noon-tide hours, Or aught that decks Elysian vales, That never-cloying scents exhales, She cried, "A fav'rite's merit fhall repay. excel. Their ftores, when by my lab'rers‡ wrought, And to enrich his native land; This bloomy chaplet I command, As pleasure is to her decreed, [vey'd. And in a bleft alliance join To make the fair Lavinia mine. I have, 'tis true, no fpacious mead, Where would, with thee, dwell ev'ry sweet : For which the tender lover fighs, SEPTEMBER. AN ODE. Farewell the pomp of Flora! vivid scene! year Farewell to fummer's eye-delighting green! Her verdure fades--autumnal blasts are She that was wont to charm us in the Muft nature's livery wear a fadder hue, And a dark canopy be stretch'd above? The golden ballance poizes now on high, |