) interposing a letter by way of copula,--forgetting
his own German and the English, which are, in truth, the same. The
confident belief entertained by the Abipones of immortality, in connection
with the utter absence in their minds of the idea of a God, is very
remarkable. If Warburton were right, which he is not, the Mosaic scheme
would be the exact converse. My dear daughter's translation of this book[2]
is, in my judgment, unsurpassed for pure mother English by any thing I have
read for a long time.
[Footnote 1:
"He was a man of rarest qualities,
Who to this barbarous region had confined
A spirit with the learned and the wise
Worthy to take its place, and from mankind
Receive their homage, to the immortal mind
Paid in its just inheritance of fame.
But he to humbler thoughts his heart inclined:
From Gratz amid the Styrian hills he came,
And Dobrizhofter was the good man's honour'd name.
"It was his evil fortune to behold
The labours of his painful life destroyed;
His flock which he had brought within the fold
Dispers'd; the work of ages render'd void,
And all of good that Paraguay enjoy'd
By blind and suicidal power o'erthrown.
So he the years of his old age employ'd,
A faithful chronicler, in handing down
Names which he lov'd, and things well worthy to be known.
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