augment the confumption of British manufactures, by any other methods than through the channel of a very few Indians, comparatively speaking. Thefe Indians however, brought down enough to enrich a few individuals, whofe intereft it was to prevent too great an influx of furs, which would not only lower the price at market, but probably open the eyes of an injured commercial people. In the days I am alluding to, the port of York Fort was furrounded with nations of Indians entirely unknown to the traders of the Company; and they would have remained in the fame ftate of ignorance to this day, had they not been awakened from their reveries by the unfurmountable perfeverance of a few Canadian merchants, who found them out, through obftacles and impediments attended with more danger and perfonal hazard than a voyage to Japan.

Since that time their affairs have undergone a material change in thefe parts. The Canada merchants annually fend into the interior country, for the Indian trade, about forty large canoes of about four tons burthen each, a confiderable part of which goods are conveyed to thofe Indians who used to fend their furs down to Hudson's Bay, by the Indian carriers, which did not amount to half the quantity at prefent procured. So that by this interference of the Canada traders, it is evident that many more peltries are procured and imported into England, and a greater quantity of its manufactures confumed than heretofore; and when it is further confidered, that these goods are of a very inferior quality, which perhaps would hardly find a fale elsewhere, this extenfion of the trade will appear an object not very inconfiderable.

By the profecution of this commerce from Canada, the Hudfon's Bay Company found themfelves effectually fupplanted on the fea-fhore, the natives being fupplied inland with every conveniency for war and domestic uses. This induced the Company, in the year 1773, to begin their inland voyages, fo that the Canadians from Canada and the Europeans from Hudfon's Bay met together, not at all to the ulterior advantage of the natives, who by this means became degenerated and debauched, through the exceffive ufe of fpirituous liquors imported by these rivals in commerce.

It however mufl be owned, that the Hudson's Bay traders have ingratiated themfelves more into the efteem and confidence of the natives than the Canadians. The advantage of trade is evidently on their fide; their men, whofe honefty is incorruptible, being more to be depended upon. In proportion to the goods imported, the Company export a greater quantity of furs, and thefe in better prefervation, and confequently more valuable. Their unfeasonable parfimony has hitherto been proved very favourable to their Canadian opponents; as the accumulated expences attending fo diftant an undertaking would overbalance the profits of the latter, if the exertions of the Company were adequate to the value of the prize contended for.

The Hudfon's Bay fervants being thus more in poffeffion of the efteem of the natives, they will always have the preference of trade as long as this conduct continues. Another great advantage in their favour is, that the principal article of their trading goods are

of a fuperior quality to thofe imported from Canada. I would not by this infinuation infer, that the goods fent inland from Canada are not good enough for the Indian trade; no, I well know that the worst article imported is good enough; but while they have to contend with people who fend goods of a fuperior kind, they evidently lie under a difadvantage, and it is my opinion, that it would be for the intereft of the Canada merchants to fupply goods of an equal if not fuperior quality to their adverfaries, at every post where they have these formidable rivals to oppofe them.

The great imprudence, and bad way of living of the Canadian traders have been an invincible bar to the emolument of their employers. Many of thefe people, who have been the greatest part of their lives on this inland fervice among favages, being devoid of every focial and benevolent tie, are become flaves to every vice which can corrupt and debafe the human mind; fuch as quarrelling, drunkennefs, deception, &c. From a confirmed habit in bad courfes of this nature, they are held in abhorrence and difguft, even by the Indians, who finding themfelves frequently deceived by fpecious promifes, never intended to be performed, imagine the whole fraternity to be impregnated with the fame failing, and accordingly hold the generality of the Canadian traders in detefta tion and contempt.

On the contrary, the fervants of the Hudfon's Bay Company, imported principally from the Orkney Ifles, are a clofe, prudent, quiet people, ftrictly faithful to their employers, and fordidly avaricious. When thefe people are fcattered about the country in fmall parties among the Indians, the general tenor of their behaviour is conducted with fo much propriety, as not only to make themselves esteemed by the natives, and to procure their protection, but they alfo employ their time in endeavouring to enrich themfelves, and their principals, by their diligence and unwearied affiduity. By this prudent demeanor among the Indians, notwith ftanding they have annually expofed themfelves to all the dangers incident to the trade, for fifteen years paft, they have not sustained the lofs of a man; and the principal advantage of the Company over the Canadian traders, is more to be attributed to the laudable efforts of their fervants, than even to the fuperior quality of their goods.

While the Canadian fervants are fo far from being actuated by the fame principles, that very few of them can be trufted with a fmall affortment of goods, to be laid out for their masters profit, but it is ten to one that he is defrauded of the whole by commerce with Indian women, or fome other fpecies of peculation. By this and various other means which lower them in the eyes of the na tives, as before obferved, they are become obnoxious to the In dians, their faith is not to be relied on, nor their honesty confided in; fo that scarce a year elapfes, without one or more of them falling victims to their own imprudence, at a time when fatal experience should teach them, that a conduct guided by caution and difcretion ought to be the invariable and uniform rule of their be haviour.'

REV. JUNE 1791:

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How Mr. Umfreville differed with his Canadian employers does not appear: but he gives their agents a far worse character than he had before given of the Hudson's Bay. Company and their agents; who now rife in his eftimation by the comparifon, though he had previously reprefented the Indians as grofsly deceived by the Hudfon's Bay traders: but this is not the only inftance wherein he differs from himself;-for, whereas at the beginning of his book he argued ftrenuously for the Hudson's Bay charter being abolished, and the trade thrown open, he clofes his work with recommending a regular incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company, with the affociated Canada traders, in the manner of the Old and New Eaft India Companies! After remarking this overfight, it may be added, that he has furnished a better plea, than he perhaps intended, for continuing a dangerous diftant branch of trade with poor ignorant nations, to a company whofe agents are under fteady regulations, rather than expofing it to ruin by a competition of individuals, whofe conduct is influenced by felfish motives, without any uniform principles of action.

We cannot recommend this as a well-digefted work; the writer does not treat of places with fufficient geographical precifion; his account of the Indians is not fo fatisfactory as what we have seen in other writers. A map of this northern extremity of America would have fupplied many of his deficiencies, and might eafily have been procured. In the defcriptions of animals, much novelty was not to be expected; yet the particulars here given may be new, and entertaining, to many readers.

N.

ART. V. A Difcourfe, delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, Dec. 10, 1790. By the Prefident. 4to. pp. 31. 35. Cadell. 1791.

To the artist, little need be urged in favour of the inftructions which flow from the pen of Sir Joshua Reynolds:-he knows their value: neither can the connoiffeur nor the scholar, he whofe tafte is already formed, nor he whofe opinions are yet unfixed, be infenfible of the benefits to be derived from the advice of one, who excels in the art which he teaches, and who himself is, what he inftructs others to be: whofe opinions the learner may fafely ftore in his mind, and with confidence maintain, as the principles of his fcience; and whofe judgment, in the eye of the adept, muft give fanction to that which wanted authority, and enfure ftability to what was before uncertain.

* Page 85.

In the beginning of this difcourfe, the Prefident addreffes his audience, in words which feem to imply a determination not to renew his literary labours. They are as follows:

The intimate connection which I have had with the Royal Academy ever fince its establishment, the focial duties in which we have all mutually engaged for fo many years, make any profeffion of attachment to this inititution, on my part, altogether fuperfluous; the influence of habit alone in fuch a connection would naturally have produced it.

Among men united in the fame body, and engaged in the fame purfuit, along with permanent friendship, occafional differences will arife. In thefe difputes men are naturally too favourable to themfelves, and think perhaps too hardly of their antagonists. But compofed and confituted as we are, thofe little contentions will be loft to others, and they ought certainly to be loft amongst ourselves, in mutual esteem for talents and acquirements: every controversy ought to be, and I am perfuaded, will be, funk in our zeal for the perfection of our common art.

In parting with the Academy, I fhall remember with pride, affection, and gratitude, the fupport with which I have almost uniformly been honoured from the commencement of our intercourse. I fhall leave you, Gentlemen, with unaffected cordial wishes for your future concord, and with a well-founded hope, that in that concord, the aufpicious and not obfcure origin of our Academy may be forgotten in the fplendor of your fucceeding prospects.

My age, and my infirmities ftill more than my age, make it probable that this will be the last time I fhall have the honour of addreffing you from this place. Excluded as I am, fpatiis iniquis, from indulging my imagination with a diftant and forward peripective of life, I may be excufed if I turn my eyes back on the way which I have paffed.'

In taking this review, the learned Prefident adverts to his difcourfes; and gives fome proper illuftrations of the principles which had been laid down in his former lectures.

Sir Joshua takes occafion, in this difcourfe, to give a fpirited and masterly sketch of the character of Michael Angelo, the exalted founder and father of modern art, of which he was not only the inventor, but which he, by the divine energy of his own mind, carried at once to its highest point of poffible perfection.'

The fudden maturity to which Michael Angelo brought our art, and the comparative feebleness of his followers and imitators, might perhaps be reafonably, at leaft plaufibly explained, if we had time for fuch an examination. At prefent I fhall only obferve, that the subordinate parts of our Art, and perhaps of other Arts, expand themselves by a flow and progreffive growth, but thofe which depend on a native vigour of imagination generally burit forth at once in fullness of beauty. Of this Homer probably, and Shakspear more affuredly, are fignal examples. Michael Angelo poffeffed the poeti

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cal part to a moft eminent degree; and the fame daring spirit, which urged him firft to explore the unknown regions of the imagination, delighted with the novelty, and animated by the fuccefs of his discoveries, could not have failed to ftimulate and impel him forward in his career beyond thofe limits which his followers, deftitute of the fame incentives, had not ftrength to pass.

To diftinguish between correctnefs of drawing, and that part which refpects the imagination, we may fay the one approaches to the mechanical (which in its way too may make juft pretenfions to genius) and the other to the poetical. To encourage a folid and vigorous courfe of ftudy, it may not be amifs to fuggeft that perhaps a confidence in the mechanic produces boldness in the poetic. He that is fure of the goodness of his fhip and tackle puts out fearlefsly from the fhore; and he who knows, that his hand can execute whatever his fancy can fuggeft, fports with more freedom in embodying the vifionary forms of his own creation. I will not fay Michael Angelo was eminently poetical, only because he was greatly mechanical; but I am fure that mechanic excellence invigorated and emboldened his mind to carry Painting into the regions of Poetry, and to emulate that Art in its moft adventurous flights.

Michael Angelo equally poffeffed both qualifications. Yet of the former there were certainly great examples to be found in Ancient Sculpture, and particularly in the fragment known by the name of the Torfo of Michael Angelo; but of that grandeur of character, air, and attitude, which he threw into all his figures, and which fo well correfponds with the grandeur of his outline, there was no example; they could therefore proceed only from the most poetical and fublime imagination.

It is impoffible not to exprefs fome furprife, that the race of Painters, who preceded Michael Angelo, men of acknowledged great abilities, fhould never have thought of transferring a little of that grandeur of outline which they could not but fee and admire in Ancient Sculpture, into their own works; but they appear to have confidered Sculpture as the later fchools of Artists look at the inventions of Michael Angelo, as fomething to be admired, but with which they have nothing to do. Quod fuper nos, nihil ad nos.— The artists of that age, even Raphael himself, feemed to be going on very contentedly in the dry manner of Pietro Perugino, and if Michael Angelo had never appeared, the Art might still have continued in the fame ftile.'

We pats over much interefting matter, in order to quote the following remarks:

The fublime in painting, as in poetry, fo overpowers, and takes fuch a poffeffion of the whole mind, that no room is left for attention to minute criticifm. The little elegancies of art in the prefence of thefe great ideas thus greatly expreffed, lofe all their value, and are, for the inftant at leaft, felt to be unworthy of our notice. The correct judgment, the purity of tale, which characterife Raphael; the exquifite grace of Corregio and Parmegiano, all difappear before them.

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