are dull, teſtaclestaſteleſs, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this inveſtigation.
We will conſider them here, on the ſame
ſtage with the whites, and where the facts are not
apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed.
It will be right to make great allowance for the
difference of condition, of education, of converſation,
of the ſphere in which they move. Many
millions of them have been brought, to and born
in America. Moſt of them indeed have been
confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own
ſociety: yet many have been ſo ſituated, that they
might have availed themſelves of the converſation
of their maſters; many have been brought up to
the handicraft arts, and from that circumſtance
have always been aſſociated with the whites. Some
have been liberally educated, and all have lived
in countries where the arts and ſciences are
cultivated to a conſiderable degree, and have had
before their eyes ſamples of the beſt works from
abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this
kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not
deſtitute of deſign and merit. They will crayon
out an animal, a plant, or a country, ſo as to
prove the exiſtence of a germ in their minds which
only wants cultivation. They aſtoniſh you with
ſtrokes of the moſt ſublime oratory; ſuch as prove
their reaſon and ſentiment ſtrong, their imagination
glowing and elevated. But never yet could
I find a black that had uttered a thought above
the level of plain narration; never ſee even an
elementary trait of painting or ſculpture. In muſic
they are more generally gifted than the whites
with accurate ears for tune and time, and they
have been found capable of imaginging a ſmall
A A
