t, they are capable of attaining any other, at least, of the
same class, if they should receive but the same instruction.

With respect to the liberal arts, their proficiency is certainly less;
but not less in proportion to their time and opportunity of study; not
less, because they are less capable of attaining them, but because they
have seldom or ever an opportunity of learning them at all. It is yet
extraordinary that their talents appear, even in some of these sciences,
in which they are totally uninstructed. Their abilities in musick are
such, as to have been generally noticed. They play frequently upon a
variety of instruments, without any other assistance than their own
ingenuity. They have also tunes of their own composition. Some of these
have been imported among us; are now in use; and are admired for their
sprightliness and ease, though the ungenerous and prejudiced importer
has concealed their original.

Neither are their talents in poetry less conspicuous. Every occurrence,
if their spirits are not too greatly depressed, is turned into a song.
These songs are said to be incoherent and nonsensical. But this proceeds
principally from two causes, an improper conjunction of words, arising
from an ignorance of the language in which they compose; and a wildness
of thought, arising from the different manner, in which the organs of
rude and civilized people will be struck by the same object. And as to
their want of harmony and rhyme, which is the last objection, the
difference of pronunciation is the cause. Upon the whole, as they are
perfectly consistent with their own ideas, and are strictly musical as
pronounced by themselves, they afford us as high a proof of their
poetical powers, as the works of the most acknowledged poets.

But where these impediments have been removed, where they have received
an education, and have known and pronounced the language with propriety,
these defects have vanished, and their productions have been less
objectionable. For a proof of this, we appeal to the writings of an
Af