f bygone ages, are as if they had never been.
The past is to him as yesterday, and the future scarcely more than
to-morrow. Ancestral monuments, he has none; written documents fraught
with cogitations of other times, he has none; and any instrumentality
calculated to awaken and expound the intellectual activity and
comprehension of a present or approaching generation, he has none. His
condition is that of the leopard of his own native Africa. It lives, it
propagates its kind; but never does it indicate a movement towards that
all but angelic intelligence of man. The slave eats, drinks, and
sleeps--all for the benefit of the man who claims his body as his
property. Before the tribunals of his country he has no voice. He has no
higher appeal than the mere will of his owner. He knows nothing of the
inspired Apostles through their writings. He has no Sabbath, no Church,
no Bible, no means of grace,--and yet we are told that he is as well off
as the labouring classes of England. It is not enough that the people of
my country should point to their Declaration of Independence which
declares that "all men are created equal." It is not enough that they
should laud to the skies a constitution containing boasting declarations
in favour of freedom. It is not enough that they should extol the genius
of Washington, the patriotism of Henry, or the enthusiasm of Otis. The
time has come when nations are judged by the acts of the present instead
of the past. And so it must be with America. In no place in the United
Kingdom has the American Slave warmer friends than in Newcastle.

* * * * *

I am now in Sheffield, and have just returned from a visit to James
Montgomery, the poet. In company with James Wall, Esq., I proceeded to
The Mount, the residence of Mr. Montgomery; and our names being sent in,
we were soon in the presence of the "Christian Poet." He held in his
left hand the _Eclectic Review_ for the month, and with the right gave
me a hearty shake, and bade me "Welcome to old England." He was anything
but like the portraits I had seen of him, and the man I had in my mind's
eye. I had just been reading his "Pelican Island," and I eyed the poet
with no little interest. He is under the middle size, his forehead high
and well formed, the top of which was a little bald; his hair of a
yellowish colour, his eyes rather small and deep set, the nose long and
slightly aquiline, his mouth rather small, and not a