of whose mind towards that subtle study was little seconded by habits of close reasoning or patient investigation. To all these various employments he brought one qualification-a light, discursive, active intellect, always capable of making out a plausible case in terse language, and of sometimes hitting on a discovery; but wanting in that force and concentration by which alone great things are effected. He had no leisure to treasure up thoughts for posterity, since he was compelled to commit all, as soon as they were born, to leaves as volatile as those of the Sibyl -rapidis ludibria ventis-not those only which flowed spontaneously, but those which, as he often complained, were wrung out with pain and difficulty to meet the exigencies of the hour. Under such disadvantages, the wonder is not that he has not achieved all which his over-zealous panegyrists appear inclined to attribute to him, but that he has made himself a name in literature at all—a name which will retain a share of its popularity while terse and sententious expression, variety of thought, and vigorous home truths, mixed with the paradoxes and refinements of a subtler philosophy, continue to please and interest the ordinary reader. ART. VI.-1. Resumo para servir de introducçao a Memoria N ancient times colonies were propagated very much in the I same manner as polypi. Whenere a state felt inconvenien ced by its increase, it dropped the aching or discontented limb, which was no sooner separated from the parent body than it began an independent existence. The intercourse of these rapidly multiplying members of the human family, while each of them confessedly possessed the right not only to exist but to prosper, was naturally regulated by the sound and effective principle of mutual interest. Such was the spirit of Greek colonization. But very different were the spirit and the motives which impelled and guided the nations of Western Europe, when in the early half of the sixteenth century they spread their colonies far and wide over the shores of the Old and the New World. Gold, and the enrichment of the mother country were then the sole mp tives. The folly and iniquity of a system of colonization founded on such principles, were, we should have thought, manifest enough to all who had any acquaintance, however slight, with the history of modern Europe. But Portuguese statesmen, it appears (at least such is the inference which may be drawn from the volume now before us), still cling to the dreams of political alchemy. It will not, however, be necessary for us to enter into a formal discussion of our author's abstract doctrines, if indeed he have any. When we shall have shown that his volume is an earthy lump, not containing a single particle of gold, we may leave to the common sense of our readers, his endless celebration of the gold mines of Monomotapa. That the less cannot comprehend the greater, is a maxim as true in ethics as in mathematics. A man of a naturally contracted understanding and pragmatical temper, cannot be easily brought to a sense of his own inferiority. He supposes his own intellectual horizon to be that of all mankind; and easily acquires a habitual and obstinate scepticism respecting the many things "twixt heaven and earth which are not revealed to his philosophy.' As the attentive examination of our own mind can alone furnish us with a key to the operations of the minds of others, the unhappy individual who moves in society without having ever been conscious of the resources of knowledge-the reach of sagacity— or the revelations of fine and cultivated sympathies-can never be aware of the keen and penetrating spirit which wakes and watches around him. His shallow ingenuity displays itself in little arts and stratagems, in shifts to do something, and shifts to conceal what he does. The enlightened moralist visits the errors of an individual so constituted with mitigated censure. For how can correctness be expected of one who has never formed habits of mental accuracy; who wraps vague ideas in ambiguous language; and who has no code of morality to guide him, save one of home manufacture, made probably from time to time to meet the calls of political expediency. Senhor Botelho is certainly one of those who can most justly and prudently plead ignorance in excuse for the quantity of erroneous matter which he has put forward-ignorance not only of the facts connected with the subject which he discusses, but also of the importance which the enlightened portion of mankind attach in all cases to the pure statement of facts. Yet his publications merit our attention for several reasons. In the first place, he occupied the highest official station in the colony which he describes; and by exhibiting in his proper person the possible ignorance of a public functionary, he throws more light on the pro mismanagement of the Portuguese possessions, than by his fuse invectives against the conduct of others. Secondly, his volume has excited some attention, and may exercise some influence in Lisbon, where the public mind is not sufficiently serene, nor perhaps enlightened, to be free from credulity. Thirdly, the Memoir announces a plain, indisputable, and instructive fact, which may be studied with advantage,—we mean the decline and ruined condition of the Portuguese colonies. And, finally, in the general character of the work, we find abundant proof of the ignorance of the Portuguese nation respecting its ultra-marine possessions. Of the two productions now before us, one-the Resumo is but a pamphlet issued beforehand for the purpose of inviting attention to the Memoria, which again is nothing more than the Resumo, mixed up with a great deal of borrowed and useless matter. The pith and substance of the work were all contained in the preliminary flourish. Our author, before he begins to pour out the effulgence of his own light, passes in review the puny host of preceding writers on Eastern Africa; and very cunningly dismisses with censure, those among them, to whom the world, if it gave him credit for sense and discrimination, might suppose him. most indebted. The classical historian Diogo de Couto appears to Senhor Botelho to be little better than a fabulist. The soberminded and ingenuous friar Joao dos Santos resided sixteen years in Sofala, and wrote the best account which is extant of that part of Africa; but our author affects to know nothing of that work save its errors, and we see good reason to believe that he does not really know even so much of it. He laments that Fernao Mendes Pinto, though he described at length the affairs of Abyssinia (he really describes only a short journey into Tigré), said nothing of Mozambique; so that there is nothing to be gleaned from the pages of that veracious author. Among later writers, the Abbé Raynal is the chief subject of Senhor Botelho's criticism; but honourable mention is made of Rener (Rennel) and Bronne (Browne who visited Darfur); though the latter, according to our author, directed his attention wholly to the East, and did little for the geography of any other quarter of the earth, except in so far as he determined exactly the sources of the Nile, and the ، almost strict accuracy of the maps of Ptolemy! Having th.s taken some pains to show himself but little acquainted with the best writers of his own and of other countries, Senhor Botelho proceeds as follows: ' Yet although we must not rely implicitly on those writers, it is as well to consult them, to compare them, and occasionally to make use of them. Accordingly I have availed myself of what they have written, as well as of the traditions preserved from the remotest ages by the natives, so as to accumulate all the information which unsparing research, and the aid of experienced persons, could bring together, for the purpose of tracing the origin, and noting the progress and actual state of the Portuguese possessions in this part of Eastern Africa, devoting to this labour the hours which I could steal from the cares of government.'— (Resumo, p. 22.) This heavy task he undertook, in order to obtain a sure basis for the measures of the Colonial Administration. What a picture he draws in the following passage, of his predecessors in office!— evidently to exhibit a contrast between them and himself. 'I imagined that, in turning over the archives of the Chamber and the Government state papers, I should find a stock of statistical information suitable to my purpose; and a stock indeed I did find, but utterly despicable, like base coin, aud not like legal money which one could make use of. I discovered that the preceding colonial governments had been vying with one another to see which could be guilty of the greatest faults, political and administrative. The ignorance, the presumption, and caprice of some rulers made it easier for them to persist in error than to follow good advice. They rested the credit of their administration on the deceitful opinions of hangers-on, instead of strengthening themselves by the counsels of well instructed experienced persons, devoted to the public good and untainted with base passions and venality.'-(Ib. p. 23.) The search of the archives at Mozambique was not, however, wholly unsuccessful: it brought to light one unique and vuluable document, which Senhor Botelho prides himself on having consulted. Here is his own account of it:— 'Pedro de Saldanha, who governed Mozambique at a time when Africa justly engaged some portion of the attention of the Portuguese Government, ordered a map to be executed, which I have seen and examined, comparing it with the information of persons well acquainted with every locality, and used to cross the country in many directions in their mercantile expeditions. The map in question was executed by a mariner, (hum piloto) merely according to the principles and rules of navigation ; aided only by a mariner's compass, which lost its magnetism (destemperava) at every step, as is usual in the great heats of the interior. though, to this hour, nobody can tell why; and so, on that account, the latitudes became all affected with errors. As proper instruments for observing triangles and measuring the ground were wanting, many places were marked down out of their true situations. This is the case with Manica, Shingamira, Quiteve, and the districts near Monomopata, as well as the source af the Zambeze and the two arms into which it is divided.'—( P. 7.) We cannot sufficiently admire the ingenuousness of our author's acknowledgment that the latitudes observed with a mariner's compass were not strictly correct; nor his prudence in saying no thing whatever of observations of longitude, which he probably supposed could not be computed quite as strictly by the aid of the same instrument. If the before-mentioned mariner's compass had not so unaccountably gone out of order, the map which Sr. Botelho saw and examined would have been a miracle of Geodesy. Our scientific readers will, we doubt not more readily pardon the surveyor who misplaces, not merely some points, but whole kingdoms in the aggregate, than the author, who, pretending to have discovered such errors, omits to supply their correction. But we must proceed to examine more strictly the tangible and appreciable portion of Sr. Botelho's volume. Three-fourths of the Memoria consist of a geographical description of the Portuguese dependencies in Eastern Africa; and coming, as this description does, from one who has wielded the highest authority in those countries, and who inveighs so bitterly against the ignorance and presumption of his predecessors in office and authorship, one might naturally expect to find it both accurate and complete. But we are sorry to say that we have seldom met with a work so utterly deficient in any thing like adequacy and correctness. Sr. Botelho describes, apparently from autopsy, the coasts of Cafferland and Natal; yet accurately as those coasts are known in this country, we find it difficult to recognise a single feature of his description; and we observe, with surprise, that he does not mention the name of any one of the tribes which occupy those shores. This region, however, lies beyond the limits of the Portuguese dominion, and we must, therefore, overlook our author's slender acquaintance with it; although we think that he ought to have gone to the seat of his government provided at least with our Admiralty charts of the coasts, and John Arrowsmith's maps of Eastern Africa. It is not so easy to refrain from laughter at the following allusion to the newiy-discovered interior westward of Natal: Barrow, in his Annal of Voyages, relates the very recent dis" covery of a town called Litakow, the capital of the Boussouhanas (Bechuanas), which is situated, according to the observations of Roggwild, (!) in 27° 30' lat. S., and 250 E. long. This town, is as large as Cape Town, including the gardens down to Table Bay,' &c.-(P. 49.) Our readers will at once perceive that this recent discovery is thirty years old; and that reference is here made to old Litakoo, which has long since disappeared, leaving only its name to a moderately-sized village in a new situation. But in order to appreciate fully the simplicity of the man, who, though morally bound, in virtue of his office, to make himself acquainted with Southern Africa, |