It is thus that we see among the simple progenitors of a now polished race, a simplicity of literature in extreme accordance with their rude and unsophisticated manners. Yet when I speak of a rude literature, I am not to be understood as implying want of merit. On the contrary, the unpruned freedom of thought and unextinguished fire of feeling, so essential to true poetry, are chiefly to be found among a people martial and but little cultivated. Nor is this all; we often discover a beautiful tenderness, breathing of the primeval simplicity in which it has been nurtured. The dangers and hardships of severe employment, were sometimes forgotten in intervals of rest, and at such times, love ditties were made and sung. All natural beauties--the mountain--the waters of the valley--the dingle--the mossy wood, peopled by its vagabond essences and strange spirits--were inexhaustible food for poetry. This love of gentleness was the stronger for its contrast with the tone of feeling which preceded it. There are many instances of "the soft" to be found amongst the mutilated scraps and scattered records remaining to us from the numerous races usually called Barbarians. Montaigne somewhere quotes an original Caribbean song, which he pronounces worthy of Anacreon: "Oh, snake stay; stay, O snake, that my sister may draw from the pattern of thy painted skin, the fashion and work of a rich riband which I mean to present to my mistress: so may thy beauty and thy disposition be preferred to those of all other serpents. Oh, snake stay!" If this had been the song of a Peruvian or a Chilian, it would have been less singular. As it is, it was probably sung by a savage Carib in a moment of that rest, of which I have spoken as the season for "love ditties."