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sounds they give are by no means comparable to that of yu, neither can musical instruments be formed from them as from that. But that there are other sonorous stones in

China, is evident from a Chinese king in the collection of M. Binte, at Paris, which, being analysed, was found to be bituminous black marble.

POETRY.

EXAMPLE BETTER THAN PRE- But which the best he could not tell.

CEPT.

[By Edward Coxe, Esq.]

MADAME CRAB, like an alderman's lady, grown fine,

Thus addressed her fat daughter-" to day with us dine,

Cousin LOBSTER, who mourns for the loss of his mother,

And CRAY-FISH in black too, his little half brother;

I expect PERIWINKLE, and COCKLE, and MUSCLE,

And OYSTER, who wags not, though all 's in a bustle;

And the PRAWNS, and their miniature, that tiny imp,

Whow we, that are great folks, denomi

nate SHRIMP:

Then hold up your head, child, and turn out your toes,

And don't waddle sideways before such smart beaux!"

The pert saucy daughter this answer returned

By example much more than by precept is learned;

So, if you would have me the graces display

In my walking and dancing, first show me the way;

For, believe me, I'm not quite so silly an elf,

As to mind what you say, while you wad dle yourself!"

A SONG AND A LAUGH.
THE CHOICE OF A WIFE BY CHEESE.

Tune-Nontongpaw-By Dibdin.
There lived in York, an age ago,
A man, whose name was Pimlico:
He loved three sisters passing well,

These sisters three, supremely fair,
Showed Pimlico their tenderest care;
For each was elegantly bred,
And all were much inclined to wed,
And all made Pimlico their choice,
And praised him with their sweetest voice.
Like ass in doubt 'tween loads of hay,
Young Pim, the gallant and the gay,
At last resolved to gain his ease,
And choose his wife by eating cheese.
He wrote his card, he sealed it up,
And said with them that night he'd sup;
Desired that there might only be
Good Cheshire cheese, and but them
three;

He was resolved to crown his life,
And by that means to fix his wife.
The girls were pleased at his conceit;
Each dressed herself most beauteous neat;
With faces full of peace and plenty,
For surely Nancy, Betsy, Sally,
Blooming with roses under twenty;
Were sweet as lillies of the valley.
To those the gay divided Pim
Come elegantly smart and trim;
When every smiling maiden, certain,
Cut of the cheese to try her fortune.

Nancy, at once, not fearing-caring
To show her saving, ate the paring;
And Bet, to show her generous mind,
Cut, and then threw away the rind,
While prudent Sarah, sure to please,
Like a clean maiden, scraped the cheese.
This done, young Pimlico replied,
"Sally I now declare my bride,
And she shall be my wedded wife,
For worse or better, for my life."

"With Nan I can't my welfare put,
For she has proved a dirty slut;
And Betsey, who has pared the rind,
Would give my fortune to the wind.
Sally the happy medium chose,
And I with Sally will repose;
She's prudent, cleanly; and the man,
Who fixes on a nuptial plan,
Can never err, if he will choose,
A wife by cheese-before he vows."

Articles of literary intelligence, inserted by the booksellers in the UNITED STATES' GAZETTE, will be copied into this Magazine without further order.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

By Ezra Sargeant, New York, Republished-The Quarterly Review, No. V. Price $1 25.

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J. Kingston, Baltimore,

Proposes publishing by subscriptionThe New Medical Compendium for the Use of Physicians and Families. By D. Cox, Chymist to his Britannick Majesty. Corrected, improved and enlarged, with some valuable Notes. By an American Physician.

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E. Sargeant, New York, Proposes to republish-The Edinburgh Annual Register.

Also-Sketches of Scottish Scenery, by Mrs. Grant.

Also-In 5 or 6 volumes quarto, The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New

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SELECT REVIEWS,

FOR DECEMBER, 1810.

FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

An Authentick Narrative of four Years' Residence at Tongataboo, one of the Friendly Islands, in the South Sea. By who went thither in the Duff, under captain Wilson, in 1796. With an Appendix, by an eminent Writer. 8vo. pp. 234. London. 1810.

IN our account of the mission to the South Sea islands,* it is mentioned that one of the missionaries renounced his office; accommodated himself to the manners of the natives; and remained in Tongataboo after the brethren effected their escape. The history of this man's adventures is now made publick, and the narratives of Stade's captivity among the Tupinambas and Drury's in Madagascar, are scarcely more interesting.

The name of the adventurer is supprest. It would be improper to repeat it here, lest it might expose him to uncivil curiosity, and, therefore, we shall call him by his baptismal name of George. He had been a bricklayer, and was in his twentyfifth year when he was landed, with nine other brethren, in Tongataboo. Connelly and Ambler, two Europeans [runaways, as it afterward appeared, from Botany Bay] whom they found upon the island, were their negotiators with the dugonagaboola or chief. Moomooe, who held that office, was in the last stage of debility and disease. He went on

VOL. IV.

board the ship, and the exertion so exhausted him, that he was obliged to rest at the gangway. Having reached the deck, he would not appear before the captain till he had been shaved; a circumstance which the journalist seems to consider as a proof of great decency. This chief readily promised to take the missionaries under his protection. The abbee, or estate, however, which he offered them, was not deemed an eligible situation. The chiefs usually resided in a different part of the island; they drew after them the greater part of the inhabitants; and the missionaries supposed the more they mingled with the people, the greater would be their usefulness. There was yet a weightier objection to the place of abode. If they accepted it, they placed themselves under the protection of Moomoʊe, a man evidently near his end. That event would leave them without a protector; their property would become an object of desire and contention among the chiefs; and their lives, not improbably, endangered. For these reasons they preferred settling

* See Select, Reviews, Vol. III. p. 27.

under the protection of his eldest son Toogahowe, a middle aged man. Stout, sullen, and morose, his voice, when in anger, bellowed like the roaring of a lion. This chief soon succeeded to his father; but the missionaries finding that while they remained together, the temptation of conversing in their own language impeded their progress in that of the country, resolved to se parate into small parties. George chose to live entirely with the natives, and took up his abode with one of the principal lords, by name Mulkaamair.

Such was their situation when the Duff left them. They watched her in the distance; then, looking round upon the island, exclaimed: "This is the ground where our bodies will moulder; this we must look upon as our country and our grave." Reflections of this kind made no very lasting impression upon George. A funeral sermon, it seems, had frightened him into methodism, about a year before he embarked in the mission. On the voyage, his fervour was not likely to abate, stimulated as it was by the sympathy of all around him. But when he went to live among men, to whom his routine of prayer was unintelligible, he found it far more easy to sympathize with them, than to make them comprehend, and participate in a devotion which he now rather affected than felt. The brethren had been informed, before the ship departed, that he cohabited with one of the native women, and they saw that some parts of his conduct corresponded with the information; but he denied the charge, and both they and capt. Wilson thought it better to leave him on the island, than to take him to Europe. The ship had not sailed many days before his falling off was fully discovered. Its first manifestation was putting on the dress of the natives. In this, however, the missionaries would have done right to follow his example. It consists,

among the better ranks, of a piece of cloth, several yards in length, wrapped round the body, and fastened below the breast by a peculiar kind of knot, for which, if it were accurately described, a sailor's vocabulary might probably furnish the fit name. From thence it hangs loose below the knees, and being closely girdled, is sufficiently long for the upper part to be thrown over the shoulder. This, however, is a costly dress, and what is called the jiggee is more generally used. It is made of the leaves of the gee plant, which are very broad and strong. These are finely shredded, and being thickly entwined in a belt, and fastened round the waist, they hang down to the mid thigh like a full fringe. The women commonly wear it in their festive dances, with the addition of a few strings of flowers. A similar dress is described by Le Moyne de Morgues as in use among some of the old Floridan tribes. The inferiour classes most frequently wear nothing but a belt, about six inches broad, crossed and fastened round the waist.

The jesuits always adopted the fashion of the people among whom they were stationed, unless they were invested with authority which ena bled them to appear in their own habit, as a superiour race. The Tupinamban missionaries were, however, shocked at the appearance of their brother in the native garb, and regarded, as empty excuses, the warmth of the climate, the custom of the people, and the folly of wearing European clothes, in a country, where, when worn out, it was impossible to replace them. Thus far George had reason on his side; but his companion, when he shook his head in grief at the metamorphosis, was right in foreseeing that this was but the prelude to farther conformity. Mulkaamair, his protector, advised him to take a wife, and offered him a relation of his own, a handsome girl, about eighteen. The young women of Tongataboo, pride them

selves upon their virginity; a feeling belonging to a more advanced state of society than that of these islanders, and probably retained among them from the first peoplers, or the subsequent race of conquerors.Their hair remains uncut till marriage, as a token and ornament of maidenhood. It is then shorn, and by a peculiarity of language, which ought to imply a better system of morals than accompanies it, husband and wife are designated by the common word of oanna. The daughters of the chiefs are always under the care of women, who may be called duennas. From their birth, they are never suffered to be without one or two of these attendants; and, after marriage, a similar guard is provided by the husband. This, however, seems to be more an attendance of ceremony than of precaution; or if intended for precaution, it is of little avail, for the sense of honour preserves the maiden from incontinence. The wife has no sense of duty to preserve her, and all feeling of affection is precluded or destroyed by the practice of polygamy, and the frequency of divorce.

The young women are not allowed to choose for themselves. The father, or his representative, always chooses for them; and an instance of refusal on their part, has never been known. George's bride was brought to him, modestly dressed in her best apparel, at the head of a number of women, one of whom took her by the hand and seated her by his side. This was all the ceremony. Mulkaamair entertained a large company in honour of the marriage, and they danced and sung till a late hour. The news soon reached the two brothers who dwelt nearest, and they, in their own words, "dealt with him on this mournful occasion according as they were enabled." He received them coldly, yet, he says, not without much inward alarm at the enormity of his conduct. They continued to admonish him, and as

he would not consent to abandon his wife, as he called her, they judged it best to marry him according to the English form. It was a remnant of grace in George; and if he felt it as an indissoluble engagement, that was all the good which was to be expected from it. But the brethren, instead of impressing this upon him, endeavoured to explain it to the woman, and terrified her so much by the austerity of their manner, that she burst into tears, and refused to go through a solemnity which must necessarily have appeared to her as a piece of foreign conjuring, the cause of which she could not divine, and the consequences of which, from the manner of the offi ciating priests, she might well ap prehend to be something dreadful. She was, therefore, sent back to her father. This separation did not continue long. George began to consider, that to all lawful purposes in Tongataboo, she was his wife already. Mulkaamair, at his request, scnt for her again, and gave them a habitation near his own, and here they lived, for some time, in great comfort. He daily advanced in his knowledge of the language, and determined to pass the remainder of his days upon the island.

The mode of life which he had enjoyed with Mulkaamair, before he began an establishment of his own, was, indeed, sufficiently tempting. The habitation of this chieftain was fifty feet in length, and of an oval form. One large and lofty post was fixed in the centre, and an oval ring of lesser ones, at equal distances, planted round it. Layers were fixed upon these, from which rafters extended to the pillar in the middle; thus uniting the whole edifice. The outer roof was rather of basket work than thatch; the inner, warm and beautiful matting. Screens of matting, made from the cocoa tree, were fastened to the outer post in rainy weather, at other times the whole seems to have been open.

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