In the execution of this design,-in which Mr. Sharp at first had nothing but his own exertions, and in which he endeavoured to realize certain ideas of civil liberty, to which he was strongly attached, as, in his opinion, the original elements of the British Constitution-he had endless difficulties to encounter; arising chiefly from bad dispositions and worse habits in the colonists themselves; from the instigation of hostility by the neighbouring tribes, which the slave traders on the coast supplied uncea singly; and from the very limited resources which he could command for the relief or encouragement of the infant colony. The last of these causes of failures he endeavoured to remedy by the formation of a joint-stock company;-the two former-by strengthening the establishment itself, through the addition of European free-settlers. The affairs of the company, however, were not prosperous; and the colony, when at last it began to assume a smiling aspect, was almost annihilated by one of those wanton and unmanly predatory incursions which stain the modern history of France. At last, in 1808, the company feeling itself too weak, either for the external defence of the colony, or even for internal regulation, surrendered its charge into the hands of the British Government," and withdrew from its arduous enterprise, bearing with it the grateful consciousness, that it had humanely rescued from imminent peril the progress of those beneficent designs with which the colony had first been formed; that its zealous and long-continued labours had opened the paths of social improvement to a degraded continent, for the diffusion of the arts of civilized life, and of the benign precepts of Christianity; that it had freely imparted the benefits flowing from those sources, as far as the difficulties with which it had to struggle would permit; that, by the education of numerous African youths, it had tended to raise the minds of future chiefs of that country to the contemplation of just and important national objects, and had rescued their native character and talents from the base aspersions of European avarice; that, by exposing the real nature of the Slave Trade, and the artifices by which those miscreants who engaged in it, were so long able to delude a hesitating legislature, it had contributed more materially to the abolition of a traffic, which insulted the bounty of the Creator, and inflicted unspeakable evils on our fellowcreatures; that it had displayed the superior advantages of English law and English justice on a shore where England had been only known for crimes and named for execration; that, in fine, it had established a point of civilization for Africa, on a central part of the coast, now provided with adequate means of subsistence and defence, which, under the blessing of Providence, might in time become the emporium of commerce with Europe, and maintain between the two continents all the friendly relations of peace, science, justice, and religious truth."

The record of the concerns of the Sierra Leone settlement is closed with an interesting account, extracted chiefly from the Company's "Reports," of Naimbanna, the son of one of the native chiefs who was sent to Britain for education, and was consigned to the special guardianship of Mr. Sharp. This African,

Lee Boo, who appears to have been exceedingly amiable, was cut off by fever on the very day which restored him to his native land. His anxious plans for civilizing and Christianizing his kingdom perished with him.

When, by the surrender of the colony, Mr. Sharp was relieved from the laborious share which he had taken in its management, he returned with ardour to his favourite object-of which, indeed, the other had only been a collateral branch, the extinction of slavery. The Society for the abolition of the Slave Trade was now forming, and Mr. Sharp was appointed Chairman of the small committee to whom the management of its business was entrusted. Of this office he did the duties faithfully, though he never nominally accepted the appointment. This peculiarity is ascribed, by Mr. Clarkson, to a modest delicacy which, we think, would have savoured exceedingly of affectation. But, by Mr. Sharp himself (see note on page 413) it is more rationally accounted for, by a fear that, in accepting the office, he might be held as pledging himself for more of personal exertion than it was possible for him to bestow. It was also, perhaps, prompted in part by his disappointment in the limited range which the Society gave to their labours. His wish was, that the title of the association should embrace, not the abolition of the slave trade alone, but the extinction of slavery throughout the world. "As slavery," he asserted " was as much a crime against the divine laws as the Slave Trade, it became the Committee to exert themselves equally against the continuance of both; and he did not hesitate to pronounce all present guilty before God, for shutting those, who were then slaves all the world over, out of the pale of their approaching labours.' He delivered this his protest against their proceedings in the energetic manner usual to him, when roused on the subject, with a loud voice, a powerful emphasis, and both hands lifted up towards heaven. Finding, however, that he could not produce any alteration in the views of the Committee, he shewed no farther disposition to differ from it. Unable to effect the whole of his wishes, (which he relinquished with regret, and but for a while,) he felt satisfied that he had delivered his testimony against the proceedings which circumscribed them, and from that hour proved himself thoroughly desirous to aid, to his utmost ability, the part which he found could be undertaken with greater and more general consent. So strongly again, in this instance, was marked his distinctive character; extensive in his ideas, enthusiastic in his conceptions, vehement in his efforts; temperate, prudent, earnest in his perform

ance.

The history of the abolition of the slave trade lives in the hearts of us all; and we need not follow the outline which Mr. Hoare has given of it, except to mark our strong disapprobation of the hints which he repeatedly throws out against the sincerity of Mr. Pitt in this great enterprise. Surely it may suffice that a living adversary cannot be allowed to have done any one thing pure in motive, and comprehensive in range. Party virulence may spare the mighty dead. The calumny which Mr. Hoare

has condescended to revive, if there were no other proof against it, is satisfactorily answered by the statement of Sharp and Clarkson, which he himself inserts in pages 420 and 421.

"On the final success of the advocates for the abolition, when the welcome tidings were brought to Mr. Sharp, he is said to have immediately fallen on his knees, in devotion and gratitude to his Creator. On this record it is fit to add the comment of one who was best qualified to judge of the emotions of his heart, and of the action to which it is probable that they gave birth: 'I do not doubt that he did so, but it must have been in the deepest retirement."

To the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” the "African Institution" suceeded, announcing as " its design, to improve the temporal condition and the moral faculties of the natives of Africa; to diffuse knowledge, and excite industry, by methods adapted to the peculiar situation and manners of the inhabitants; to watch over the execution of the laws that have been passed in this and other countries, for abolishing the African Slave Trade; and, finally, to introduce the blessings of civilized society among a people sunk in ignorance and barbarism, and occupying no less than a fourth part of the habitable globe."

"Mr. Sharp was chosen one of the first directors, at the advanced age of seventy-three; and the duties which it was occasionally his part to execute, were performed by him with the same zeal and activity which had distinguished the early part of his life. He assisted regularly at every meeting, even to the last but one previous to his decease."

We

e say nothing of Mr. Sharp's party politics; for Mr. Sharp was no partizan. He was an advocate for parliamentary reform, when that question was in far different circumstances from those in which it is now placed. He corresponded, chiefly, however, in regard to the slave trade, with some of the leaders of the French Revolution; and wished them success on the outset of their course, But, to use the words of his biographer, "he had no sentiments in common with the organs of democratical zeal. He was a strict and zealous loyalist; and the definition of legal liberty given by Mr. Serjeant Davy on the trial of Somerset, might, with strict propriety, have been stated to express the sentiments of Mr. Sharp himself, I am not talking of licentiousness, nor (of liberty) in the sense some men understand it; but true genuine liberty is the birth-right and inheritance of the people of this country. That, I desire to be understood, is no other liberty than that of being governed by certain laws, as making a part of those people,' Minutes of

the Case of Somerset.

The narrative of Mr. Sharp's life now draws fast to a close. There remains only a brief account of the part which he took in the "Bible Society," and in the "Protestant Union,” * till we arrive at the sad record of that decay, to which even the best and the purest are liable. Amidst the wreck of his intellect, his affections survived. "During the further decline of his strength, he frequently entered the room where the family were assembled, and, taking a seat near to them, continued, sometimes for hours, to look stedfastly on them, appearing pleased with being in their company, but without ut

He had the honour to be Chairman in the original meeting of the former institu

tering a word. When on his death-bed, his two widowed sisters were his constant attendants. To the last he continued frequently to look at the family portraits which hung round the room, with the most earnest and affecting expression, as if tracing the resemblances, and then naming them one by one, my dear father,'' my good mother,' my dear brother William.' These affectionate ideas seemed to occupy his mind to the latest moment."

He died on the 6th July 1813, at the age of 78. His biographer inserts several of the tributes which were paid to Mr. Sharp's memory, of which the most discriminating and judicious appears to us to be that by the Rev. J. Owen, secretary to the Bible Society.

In the character of Granville Sharp, even when stripped of the glare which his biographer has gathered around it, there is much to esteem and much to revere. His talents do not appear to have been of the highest order. His mind was deficient both in com prehensiveness of information, and in native range of view. But his industry was unconquerable, and the one principle of duty. was strong enough in him to compensate for the want of fancy and enthusiasm; to strengthen him for every trial; and to reward him for every labour. Among those whom far higher intellect exalts, and far brighter genius adorns, how few, how very few are there who have done so much for their kind, or have left behind them a fame so stainless and imperishable? High intellect and bright genius no man can command; but the means through which Granville Sharp accomplished his usefulness are within the reach of all; and it will not be the smallest of the benefits which he has bestowed upon mankind, if the history of his life make his example attractive. A mind of no higher attainments than his own, if disciplined by greater acquaintance with actual life, might have escaped from many of the peculiarities which derogate from his fame. It might have escaped from the absurdity of supposing, that, with such materials as he had to employ, a single individual should be able to establish at Sierra Leone the model of "perfect liberty." It might have escaped from the whim of insisting that civilized England ought to revert to the political usages of her rudest day. It might have escaped from some mistakes which mingled with the purity and fervour of his religious belief, and which drew from him at times very strange language, about the limits of a particular Providence, and the commencement of the Millenium. But nothing except the principle by which he was guided-a deep and vital sense of religious duty, could ever have roused in a mind like his the energies which ennobled it; or could have stamped it with that unfading excellence, of which its little peculiarities cannot dim the lustre..

Some short and inodest observations, which there was no need for announcing so pompously in the title page, are subjoined by the excellent Bishop of St. David's, on Mr. Sharp's biblical criticisms. Into this field we do not mean to enter. To such of our readers as take no interest in Hebrew literature, we could scarcely hope to make the value of Mr. Sharp's labours in this department intelligible-not, at least, without details which would be unseasonable and exhausting. Every Hebrew scholar, on the other hand, is sufficiently aware without any commentary of ours, how much the study of the Old Testament is indebted to Mr. Sharp for his successful efforts to guard the integrity of the text against the rashness of conjectural changes-to burst the trammels of the Masoretic punctuation, and to introduce system into the syntax of a language whose very simplicity had made it be considered as anomalous. The merit of Mr. Sharp is enhanced, by remembering that he had no early advantage of regular classical education; that his acquirements were strictly his own, made, as we have seen, under the pressure of far other business, and far other cares; and that, when he entered the field of controversy with Dr. Kennicott, no name stood higher than that of his antagonist, none was more completely unheard-of than his own.

The same principle which swayed him in every action of his life guided him in this department also. He studied the ancient languages, not for the sake of literary distinction, but in order to assure himself that he understood aright the meaning of that volume which he had determined to make the rule of his life. He published the result of his studies that he might assist his fellowmen to conquer the difficulties which he himself had found in the pursuit of what he regarded as their paramount interest. Dearer than all the pomp of literary success is the consciousness of such a purpose, and holier is its reward.

ART. II.-Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, during the Years 1799-1804. By ALEXANDER DE HUMBOLDT, and AIME BONPLAND; with Maps, Plans, &c. Written in French by Alexander de Humboldt, and translated into English, by HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. Vol. 4th. London: Longman & Co.

Ir is generally admitted, we believe, that no traveller, in ancient or modern times, ever visited remote, or imperfectly known regions, with higher qualifications, or greater advantages, than those of the Baron de Humboldt,-profound and varied science; an am