An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African: Translated from a Latin Dissertation, Which Was Honoured with the First Prize in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785, with AdditionsClarkson, Thomas
Philosophy
An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African: Translated from a Latin Dissertation, Which Was Honoured with the First Prize in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785, with Additions
Clarkson, Thomas
Slave trade -- Africa; Slavery -- History
"Fill'd with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav'nly and refin'd;
So shall the labours of the day begin,
More pure and guarded from the snares of sin.
----&c. &c."
* * * * *
_From an Hymn to the Morning_.
"Aurora hail! and all the thousand dies,
That deck thy progress through the vaulted skies!
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays.
Harmonious lays the feather'd race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
----&c. &c."
* * * * *
_From Thoughts on Imagination_.
"Now here, now there, the roving _fancy_ flies,
Till some lov'd object strikes her wand'ring eyes,
Whose silken fetters all the senses bind,
And soft captivity involves the mind.
"_Imagination!_ who can sing thy force,
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental opticks rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.
----&c. &c."
* * * * *
Such is the poetry which we produce as a proof of our assertions. How
far it has succeeded, the reader may by this time have determined in his
own mind. We shall therefore only beg leave to accompany it with this
observation, that if the authoress _was designed for slavery_, (as
the argument must confess) the greater part of the inhabitants of
Britain must lose their claim to freedom.
To this poetry we shall only add, as a farther proof of their abilities,
the Prose compositions of Ignatius Sancho, who received some little
education. His letters are too well known, to make any extract, or
indeed any farther mention of him, necessary. If other examples of
African genius should be required, suffice it to say, that they can be
produced in abundance; and that if we were allowed to enumerate
instances of African gratitude, patience, fidelity, honour, as so many
instances of good sense, and a sound understanding, we fear that
thousands of the enlightened Europeans would have occasion to blush.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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