dened as he went higher, even the air itself feemed to become more pure. Thus pleased, and happy from unexpected beauties, I at laft led him to an arbour, from whence he could view the garden, and the whole country around, and where he might own, that the road to Virtue terminated in Hap piness.

Though from this defcription you may imagine, that a vaft tract of ground was neceffary to exhibit fuch a pleafing variety in, yet be affured I have feen feveral gardens in England take up ten times the space which mine did, without half the beauty. A very small extent of ground is enough for an elegant tafte; the greater room is required if magnificence is in view. There is no fpot, though ever fo little, which a fkilful defigner might not thus improve, so as to convey a delicate allegory, and imprefs the mind with truths the most useful and neceffary. Adieu.

LETTER XXXI.

FROM THE SAME.

IN a late excurfion with my friend into the coun→ try, a gentleman with a blue ribbon tied round his fhoulder, and in a chariot drawn by fix horfes paffed fwiftly by us, attended with a numerous train of captains, lacquies, and coaches filled with women. When we were recovered from the duft raised by this cavalcade, and could continue our difcourfe without danger of fuffocation, I obferved to my companion, that all this ftate and equipage, which he seemed to defpife, would in China be regarded with the utmoft reverence, because such dif

tinctions

tinctions were always the reward of merit; the greatnefs of a mandarine's retinue being a moft certain mark of the fuperiority of his abilities or virtue.

The gentleman who has now paffed us, replied my companion, has no claims from his own merit to distinction; he is poffeffed neither of abilities nor virtue: it is enough for him that one of his anceftors was poffeffed of thefe qualities two hundred years before him. There was a time, indeed, when his family deferved their title, but they are long fince degenerated, and his ancestors for more than a century have been more and more folicitous to keep up the breed of their dogs and horfes, than that of their children. This very nobleman, fimple as he feems, is defcended from a race of ftatesmen and heroes; but unluckily his great-grandfather marrying a cook-maid, and the having a trifling paffion for his lordship's groom, they fome how croffed the ftrain, and produced an heir, who took after his mother in his great love to good eating, and his father in a violent affection for bor fe-flesh. hefe paffions have for fome generations paffed on from father to fon, and are now become the characteriftics of the family, his present lordship being equally remarkable for his kitchen and his ftable.

But fuch a nobleman, cried I, deferves our pity, thus placed in fo high a sphere of life, which only the more exposes to contempt. A king may confer titles, but it is perfonal merit alone that infures respect. I suppose, added I, that fuch men are defpifed by their equals, neglected by their interiors, and condemned to live among involuntary dependants in irksome folitude.

You are still under a miftake, replied my companion, for though this nobleman is a ftranger to generofity; though he takes twenty opportunities in a day of letting his guefts know how much he

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defpifes

defpifes them; though he is poffeffed neither of tafte, wit, nor wifdom; though incapable of improving others by his converfation, and never known to enrich any by his bounty; yet for all this, his company is eagerly fought after: he is a lord, and that is as much as moft people defire in a companion. Quality and title have fuch allurements, that hundreds are ready to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flatter, to look little, and to pall every pleasure in conftraint, merely to be among the great, though without the leaft hopes of improving their underftanding, or fharing their generofity; they might be happy among their equals, but those are defpifed for company, where they are despised in turn. You faw what a croud of humble coufins, card-ruined beaus, and captains on halfpay, were willing to make up this great man's retinue down to his country-feat. Not one of all thefe that could not lead a more comfortable life at home in their little lodging of three fhillings a week, with their luke-warm dinner, ferved up between two pewter plates from a cook's-fhop. Yet poor devils, they are willing to undergo the impertinence and pride of their entertainer, merely to be thought to live among the great: they are willing to país the fummer in bondage, though confcious they are taken down only to approve his lordship's tafte upon every occafion, to tag all his ftupid obfervations with a very true, to praise his ftable, and defcant upon his claret and cookery.

The pitiful humiliations of the gentlemen you are now defcribing, faid I, puts me in mind of a cuftom among the Tartars of Koreki, not entirely diffimilar to this we are now confidering *. The Ruf

Van Stralenberg, a writer of credit, gives the fame account of this people. See an Hiftorico-Geographical Defpription of the north-eastern parts of Europe and Afia, p. 397.

fians, who trade with them carry thither a kind of mushrooms, which they exchange for furs or fquirrels, ermins, fables, and foxes. These mushrooms the rich Tartars lay up in large quantities for the winter; and when a nobleman makes a mushroom-feaft, all the neighbours around are invited. The mushrooms are prepared by boiling, by which the water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a fort of drink which the Tartars prize beyond all other. When the nobility and ladies are affembled, and the ceremonies ufual between people of diftinction over, the mushroom-broth goes freely round; they laugh, talk double entendre, grow fuddled, and become excellent company. The poorer fort, who love mushroom-broth to diftraction as well as the rich, but cannot afford it at the firft hand, poft themselves on thefe occafions round the huts of the rich, and watch the opportunity of the ladies and gentlemen as they come down to pafs their li quor, and holding a wooden bowl, catch the delicious fluid, very little altered by filtration, being ftill ftrongly tinctured with the intoxicating quality. Of this they drink with the utmost fatiffaction, and thus they get as drunk and as jovial as their betters.

Happy nobility, cries my companion, who can fear no diminution of refpect, unless by being feized with ftranguary; and who when moft drunk are moft useful; though we have not this cuftom among us, I foresee, that if it were introduced, we might have many a toad-eater in England ready to drink from the wooden bowl on these occafions, and to praise the flavour of his lordship's liquor: As we have different claffes of gentry, who knows but we may fee a lord holding the bowl to a minifter, a knight holding it to his lordfhip, and a fimple 'fquire drinking it double diftilled from the

loins of knighthood? For my part, I fhall never for the future hear a great man's flatterers haranging in his praise that I fhall not fancy I behold the wooden bowl; for I can fee no reason why a man, who can live eafily and happily at home, fhould bear the drudgery of decorum and the impertinence of his entertainer, unless intoxicated with a paffion for all that was quality; unless he thought that whatever came from the great was delicious, and had the tincture of the mushroom in it. Adieu,

I AM difgufted, O Fum Hoam, even to fickness difgufted. Is it poffible to bear the prefumption of thofe iflanders, when they pretend to instruct me in the ceremonies of China! They lay it down as a maxim, that every perfon who comes from thence muft exprefs himself in metaphor; fwear by Alla, rail against wine, and behave, and talk and write like a Turk or Perfian. They make no diftinction between our elegant manners, and the voluptuous barbarities of our eaftern neighbours. Wherever I come, I raise either diffidence or aftonishment; fome fancy me no Chinese, because I am formed more like a man than a monster; and others wonder to find one born five thousand miles from England, endued with common fenfe. Strange, fay they, that a man who has received his education at fuch a diftance from London, fhould have common fenfe to be born-out of England, and yet