Thefe are a few of the obftacles to marriage here, and it is certain, they have in fome meafure anfwered the end, for celibacy is both frequent and fashionable. Old batchelors appear abroad without a mask, and old maids, my dear Fum Hoam, have been abfolutely known to ogle. To confefs in friendship; if I were an Englishman, I fancy I fhould be an old batchelor myfelf; 1 fhould never find courage to run through all the adventures prefcribed by the law. I could fubmit to court my miftrefs herself upon reafonable terms; but to court her father, her mother, and a long tribe of coufins, aunts, and relations, and then ftand the butt of a whole country church; I would as foon turn tail and make love to her grandmother.

I can conceive no other reafon for thus loading matrimony with fo many prohibitions, unless it be that the country was thought already too populous, and this was found to be the moft effectual means of thinning it. If this was the motive, I cannot but congratulate the wife projectors on the fuccefs of their fcheme. Hail, O ye dim-fighted politicians, ye weeders of men! "Tis yours to clip the wing of induftry, and convert Hymen to a broker. "Tis yours to behold fmall objects with a microfcopic eye, but to be blind to thofe which require an extent of vifion. Tis yours, O ye difcerners of mankind, to lay the line between fociety, and weaken that force by dividing, which fhould bind with united vigour. 'Tis yours, to introduce national real distress, in order to avoid the imaginary diftreffes of a few. Your actions can be juftified by an hundred reasons like truth, they can be opposed by but a few reasons, and thofe reafons are true. Farewel

LETTER

From Lien Chi Altangi to Hingpo, by the way of
Mofcow.

AGE that leffens the enjoyment of life increases our defire of living. Thofe dangers, which, in the vigour of youth we had learned to defpife, affume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increafing as our years increafe, fear becomes at laft the prevailing paffion of the mind; and the fmall remainder of life is taken up in ufelefs efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued exiftence.

Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wife are liable! If I thould judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already feen, the profpect is hideous. Experience tells me, that my paft enjoyments have brought no real felicity; and fenfation affures me, that those I have felt are stronger than thofe which are yet to come. Yet experience and feníation in vain perfuade; hope, more powerful than either, dreffes out the diftant profpect in fancied beauty, fome happinefs in long perfpective ftill beckons me to puriue, and, like a lofing gamefter, every new difappointment increases my ardour to continue the game.

Whence, my friend, this increafed love of life, which grows upon us with our years; whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preferve our existence, at a period when it becomes fcarcely worth the keeping? Is it that Nature, attentive to the prefervation of mankind, increafes our wifhes to live, while the leffens our enjoyments; and, as the

robs the fenfes of every pleasure, equips imagination in the fpoil? Life would be infupportable to an old man, who loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood; the numberlefs calamities of decaying nature, and the confciousness of furviving every pleafure would at once induce him with his own hand to terminate the fcene of mifery; but happily the contempt of death forfakes him at a time when it could be only prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value is no more.

Our attachment to every object around us increases, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. I would not chufe, fays a French philofopher, to fee on old poft pulled up, with which I had been long acquainted. A mind long habituated to a certain fet of objects, infenfibly becomes fond of seeing them; vifits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance: hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of poffeffion. They love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages; not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long.

Chinvang, the Chafte, afcending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjuftly detained in prison, during the preceding reigns, fhould be fet free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occafion, there appeared a majeftic old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, addreffed him as follows: Great father of China, "behold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who "was fhut up in a dungeon, at the age of twenty

❝ two.

I was imprisoned, though a ftranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accufers. I have now lived in folitude and in "darkness for more than fifty years, and am grown " familiar

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familiar with diftrefs. As yet dazzled with the. fplendour of that fun to which you have reftored 66 me, I have been wandering the ftreets to find "fome friend that would affift, or relieve, or re"member me; but my friends, my family, and re"lations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit "me then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wretched "remains of life in my former prifon; the walls of my dungeon are to me more pleafing than the "moft fplendid palace; I have not long to live, and fhall be unhappy except I fpend the reft of my 66 days where my youth was paffed; in that prifon " from which you were pleafed to release me."

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The old man's paffion for confinement is fimilar to that we all have for life. We are habituated to the prison, we look round with discontent, are difpleafed with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houfes we have built, or the pofterity we have begotten, all ferve to bind us clofer to earth, and embitter our parting. Life fues the young like a new acquaintance; the companion as yet unexhaufted, is at once inftructive and amufing, it is company pleafes, yet for all this it is but little regarded. To us, who are declined in years, life appears like an old friend; its jefts have been anticipated in former converfation; it has no new ftory to make us fmile, no new improvement with which to furprize, yet ftill we love it; deftitute of every enjoyment ftill we love it; husband the wafting treasure with increafed frugality, and feel all the poignancy of anguifh in the fatal feparation.

Sir Philip Mordaunt was young, beautiful, fincere, brave, an Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the love of the king his mafter, which was equivalent to riches. Life opened all her treasure before him, and promifed a long

U 3

fuc

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fucceffion of future happiness. He came, tafted of the entertainment, but was difgufted even in the beginning. He profeffed an averfion to living, was tired of walking round the fame circle; had tried every enjoyment, and found them all grow weaker at every repetition. "If life be in youth fo difpleafing, cried he to himself, "what will it appear "when age comes on; if it be at prefent indifferent, "fure it will then be execrable." This thought imbittered every reflection; till, at laft, with all the ferenity of perverted reafon, he ended the debate' with a piftol! Had this felf-deluded man been apprized, that exiftence grows more defirable to us the longer we exift, he would have then faced old age without fhrinking, he would have boldly dared to live, and ferved that fociety, by his future affiduity, which he bafely injured by his desertion. Adieu.

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, first president of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China.

IN reading the news-papers here, I have reckoned

up not less than twenty-five great men, feventeen very great men, and nine very extraordinary men in Jefs than the compafs of half a year. Thefe, fay the gazettes, are the men that pofterity are to gaze at with admiration; thefe the names that fame will be employed in holding up for the aftonishment of fucceeding ages. Let me fee- forty-fix great men in · half