Voyage to
the South Sea." The book is striking in itself; it is
not one of the best, but it is very good; and as it is
republished complete, if we read it through, carefully
shutting off Captain Bethune's notes with one hand,
we shall then find in it the same beauty which breathes
in the tone of all the writings of the period.

It is a record of misfortune, but of misfortune which
did no dishonour to him who sunk under it; and there
is a melancholy dignity in the style in which Hawkins
tells his story, which seems to say, that though he had
been defeated, and had never again an opportunity of
winning back his lost laurels, he respects himself still
for the heart with which he endured a shame which
would have broken a smaller man. It would have
required no large exertion of editorial self-denial to
have abstained from marring the pages with puns of
which Punch would be ashamed, and with the vulgar
affectation of patronage with which the sea captain of
the nineteenth century condescends to criticize and
approve of his half-barbarous precursor; but it must
have been a defect in his heart, rather than in his
understanding, which betrayed him into such an offence
as this which follows. The war of freedom of the
Araucan Indians is the most gallant episode in the
history of the New World. The Spaniards themselves
were not behindhand in acknowledging the chivalry before
which they quailed, and, after many years of ineffectual
attempts to crush them, they gave up a conflict which they
never afterwards resumed; leaving the Araucans alone,
of all the American races with which they came in
contact, a liberty which they were unable to tear from
them. It is a subject for an epic poem, and whatever
admiration is due to the heroism of a brave people
whom no inequality of strength could appal and no
defeats could crush, these poor Indians have a right to
demand of us. The story of the war was well known in
Europe: and Hawkins, in coasting the western shores of
South America, fell in with them, and the finest passage
in his book is the relation of one of the incidents of
the war.

"An Indian captain was taken prisoner by the Spaniards,
and for that he was of name, and known to have done
his devoir against them, they cut off his hands, thereby
intending to disenable him to fight any more against them.
But he, returning home, desirous to revenge this injury,
to maintain his liberty, with the reputation of his nation,
and to hel