Perfection of the Chinese Government. quietly fet down in my old fhop, com- For the Monthly Magazine. perufal of the recent accounts of China, by Sir GEORGE STAUNTON, and Mr. ANDERSON. The firit is too verbofe; but both are interefting. Some confiderations naturally arife, of high importance to human fociety. I do not find that I have difcovered from either works, the state of property in China; though no topic can be more interesting. Are the estates large, or fmall? Is the inheritance firm and ecure? Thefe are queftions not aniwered. We only know that there is no hereditary nobility-and that large eftates, if fuch exist, can bestow no fort of influence, or political power. There is no church and itate: there is no property governmentYet I have heard of fome diftant countries, not far from Terra Incognita, in which it is faid, that church and state muft ftand or fall together; nay, the clergy gravely toall, CHURCH and fate, while the French were content with a lefs prepofterous order of words, l'Etat ett Eglife. In the fame countries, it is faid, that property is the natural and just foundation of power; and that a man will ferve. his country in proportion to the take he has in its welfare. Good heavens! what fools thefe Chinese are! Their government is a government without church and Eate, a government in which property is a political cypher-fuch a government cannot stand a dozen years. It has food five thousand years and has feen all the eminent empires and republics tile and fall. "What is the cause of this unaccountable mytery? ५ 165 There is no mystery. The plain caufe is, that the government of China is founded on the inodel of that of heaven, in which there is no church and state, no property government. Pray explain the emperor: He indeed is no deity, except in power. He may be a tyrant; but a country, containing three hundred millions of fouls, is fo wide, that his tyranny is comparatively finall, and felt only by a few rich people round him, a few ambitious men, who chule to trample the flippery ice of fortune. Setting the emperor afide, I fay the governinent of China refembles the pe-petual aristocracy of heaven, in that radical point, that it is regulated by MIND only. It is a mere LITERARY government, in which the fkilful, (a perpetual and in defeatible law of nature) 'conduct and guide the ignorant. Their fchools and colleges, instead of ripening fools into eloquent fenators, or pedantic clergy, are dedicated to inftruct youth in the united practical fciences of inorals and politics. A man is promoted in exact proportion to his merit and knowledge. The examinations are public: and no influence is, or can be used. There is a rabbinical fable of a re bellion in heaven. It is impoffible, Pure- In China, government is as it ought to be, a province alloted only to TRIED SKILL. A man proceeds, in proportion to his learning and justice, from a finall office to a greater, A Chinese will laughat the idea of alloting even the meancit fhare in government to a raw college fu-; deat, or a templar. I repeat, therefore, that the amazing: duration of the Chinele empire, its univerial cultivation, stupendous population, unexampled profperity and happiness of its inhabitants, its, contempt of foolish wars, &c. in fhort, every thing the *No foreign conquest has ever affected the internal government of China, becaufe it is founded on MIND, is regular as the uni verial laws of morality, immutable as truth, eternal as fincere. exact 166 Mr. Webber on Mrs. Langhans's Monument. exact reverfe of all other ftates, ancient and modern,-all, all, arife from one fimple caufe: Its government is the exact reverse of most athers, because it is the province of men of letters; because it is the facred prerogative of MIND only; while most others are abandoned to court intrigues,-to the wickedness and ignorance of men of rank and property -to tygers, fometimes called warriors, fometimes ftyled heroes-idiot favourites bereditary lupidity-the yellow fever of corruption-brutal force and terror-and the worst of all plagues, perverfe, ignorant, profligate minifters, who in China would be burned, if they afpired to the lowest rank of Mandarins. 2. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, T has often been the misfortune of the ders, by magnifying, in the liveliness of their imagination, the objects they defcribe; or to be themfelves deceived by the idle tales of the Ciceroni in Italy, and in other countries by thole of the valets de place who generally accompany them. I have lately met with two inftances of the errors into which the travellers were led by the univerfal love of mankind for the wonderful. Give me leave, Sir, to correct them in your interesting Magazine. nument to vanity in a country village, became paffionately enamoured of the curate's wife, a beautiful woman in the prime of life, and that, a deeply concerned witnefs of her untimely death, he thought of immortalizing at once, his tenderness and her deplorable fate. Permit me, Sir, to contradict those two ftories, equally founded on truth. Mrs. Langhans was truly beautiful, and of the mott amiable difpofition; but the tender fympathy for the grief of an inconfolable husband, the unanimous prayers of a flock by whom the curate and his wife were fincerely beloved, and who rewarded the labours of the artift, determined, alone, Mr. Nabl, a Pruffian sculp tor, to exert his great talents on this mournful occafion. The love of truth, and the tender care for the facred memory of a relation, much efteemed and refpected, me this letter in your Magazine. I will not attempt a defcription of this monument, fo often given in many Englith books of travels, and known by a after it; both, it must be confeffed, give fine French print, and an English one a very inadequate idea of it. If, then, fome amateurs of arts, after the reading of this letter, and of the various accounts of travellers, would wish to fee its original model, made by the statuary himfelf, which is in my pofleflion, I would very willingly gratify their curiofity. I am, Sir, your humble fervant, ELIZABETH WEBBER. Pretending to know more than is commonly known in England about the hif tory of the so justly famous Mrs. Langhans's monument, at Hindelbank, near Berne, Dr. SMITH* attributes its ori- No. 8, Mount-fireet, Berkley-fquare, gin to fome revengeful feelings in Mr. Nahl, the fculptor, who thought himself difgraced by the painting and gilding the family of D'E----, had caufed to be 13th Dec. 1797. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, G. in answer to N.'s question re daubed over the superb maufeleum he B. fpecting what is meant by the had erected to one of their relations in the fame church. The learned Dr. will, I hope, give credit to a native of Berne, and niece of Mrs. Langhans, when the afferts, that he knows, and has written even more than what is commonly known in Switzerland, and in the family of this lady. The anecdote with which he has amufed his readers is as fabulous, though not fo much fentimental, as that of MAYERT. He has feigned that the ftatuary, while he was occupied in erecting a superb mo Vol. iii. p. 176. «Tour on the Continent in 1786 and 1787," &c. "Tableau Hifforique, Politique et PhiloSophique de la Suiffe," p. 22, lettre xx. de Berne. "communion of faints," has, after a proteftant divine, given only a partial view of the fubject. This article of the ancient creed, referred by the tradition of the church to the apostles themselves, the catholic religion: it does not merely comprizes one of the leading dogmata of from Archbishop Secker, "that commuexprefs, according to B. G.'s quotation nion of benevolence, kind offices, inftruction, and edification, which should be among all good christians;" but as a point of the orthodox creed, acknowledged by the fathers of the church, further implies, that the faithful on earth communicate, or are in communion with the angels, and faints in heaven. It has indeed been the general belief of Chriftians from Communion of Saints... The Enquirer, No. XV. from the time of the apostles, that there is in mediately within the divine prefence, belides the boits of angels, a fociety, or community of patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and other holy pertons who, in their ftate of glory, ftill fympathize with the faithful below, under their manifold trials; falhiting, and comforting them in various ways, or prefenting their prayers, and interceding for them with the divine majetty!.. The communion of faints, and alfor the • Revelations, chap. 4 6, 17, 20, 167 Rome, fucceffor of St. Peter, vicar of Your correfpondent N. in propofing Feb. 22, 1798. ***THE ENQUIRER, No. XV. THE gentleman with whom, though greatly my fuperior in fortune, I have long been in habits of an eafy intimacy. He role in the world by honourable induftry; and married, rather late in life, a lady to whom he had been long attached, and in whom centered the wealth of feveral expiring families. Their carnett with for children was not immediately gratified. At length they were made happy by a fon, who, from the moment he was born, engroffed all their care and attention. My friend received me in his library, where I found him bufied in turning over books of education, of which he had collected all that were worthy notice, from Xenophon to Locke, and from Locke to Catharine Macauley. As he knows I have been engaged in the bufnefs of inftruction, he did me the honour to confult ine on the fubject of his refearches, hoping, he faid, that, out of all the fyftems before him, we fhould be able to form a plan equally complete and comprehenlive, it being the determination of both hintelf and his lady to chufe the beft that could be had, and to fpare neither pains nor expence in making their child all that was great and good. I gave him my thoughts with the utmot freedom, and after I returned home, threw upon paper the obfervations which had occurred to me. The first thing to be confidered, with refpect to education, is the object of it. This appears to me to have been generally milunderfood. Education, in its largelt fente, is a thing of great feope and extent. It includes the whole process by which a human being is formed to be what he is, in habits, principles, and cultivation of levery kind. But of this a very finall part is in the power even of the parent Bernard, op. 113. Cyprian Lib. 5 and 7 768 The Enquirer, No. XV. himself; a finaller ftill can be directed by purchafed tuition of any kind. You engage for your child masters and tutors at large falaries, and you do well, for they are competent to inftruct him; they will give him the means, at least, of acquiring fcience and accomplishments; but in the bufinefs of education, properly fo called, they can do little for you. Do you ask then, what will educate your fon? Your example will educate him; your converfation with your friends ; the business he fees you tranfact; the likings and diflikings you exprefs; thefe will educate him---the fociety you live in will educate him; your domeftic will educate him; above all, your rank and fituation in life, your houfe, your table, your pleafure-grounds, your hounds and your tables will educate him. It is not in your power to withdraw him from the continual influence of these things, except you were to withdraw yourself from them alfo. You speak of beginning the education of your fon. The moment he was able to form an idea his education was already begun; the education of circumfances-infenfible education-which, like infenfible perfpiration, is of more conftant and powerful effect, and of infinitely more confequence to the habit than that which is direct and apparent. This education goes on at every inftant of time; it goes on like time; you can neither top it nor turn its courfe. What thefe have a tendency to make your child, that he will be. Maxims and documents are good precifely till they are tried, and no longer; they will teach him to talk, and nothing more. The circumstances in which your fon is placed will be even more prevalent than your example; and you have no right to expe&t him to become what you yourself are, but by the fame You, that have toiled during youth, to fet your fon upon higher ground, and to enable him to begin where you left off, do not expect that fon to be what you were, diligent, modest, active, fimple in his taftes, fertile in refources. You have put him under quite a different mafter. Poverty educated you; wealth will educate him. You cannot fuppofe the refult will be the fame. You must not even expect that he will be what you now are; for though relaxed perhaps from the feverity of your frugal habits, you till derive advantage from having formed them; and, in your heart, you like plain dinners, and early hours, and old friends, whenever your fortune will permit you to choy them. But it will not be fo with means. What is Education? your fon: his taftes will be formed by your prefent fituation, and in no degree by your former one. But I take great care, you will fay, to counteract thefe tendencies, and to bring him up in hardy and fimple manners. I know their value, and a refolved that he fhall acquire no other. Yes, you make him hardy; that is to fay, you take a country-house in a good air, and make him ran, well clothed and carefully attended, for, it may be, an hour in a clear frofty winter's day upon your gravelled terrace; or perhaps you take the puny fhivering infant from his warm bed, and dip him in an icy cold bath, and you think you have done great matters. And fo you have; you have done all you can. But you were fuffered to run abroad half the day on a bleak heath, in weather fit and unfit, wading barefoot through dirty ponds, fometimes lofing your way benighted, fcrambling over hedges, climbing trees, in perils every hour both of life and limb. Your life was of very little confequence to any one; even your parents, encumbered with a numerous family, had little time to indulge the foftnelles of affection, or the folicitude of anxiety; and to every one else it was of no confequence at all. It is not poffible for you, it would not even be right for you, in your prefent fituation, to pay no more attention to your child than was paid to you. In these mimic experiments of education, there is always fomething which diftinguishes them from reality; fome weak part left unfortified, for the arrows of misfortune to find their way into. Achilles was a young nobleman, dios Achilleus, and therefore, though he had Chiron for his tutor, there was one foot left undipped. You may throw by Rouflau; your parents practiced without having read it, and you may read, but imperious circumflances forbid you the practice of it. You are fenfible of the advantages of fimplicity of diet, and you make a point of reftricting that of your child to the plaineft food, for you are refolved that he hall not be nice, But this plain food is of the choiceft quality, prepared by your own cook; his fruit is ripened from your walls; his cloth, his glattes, all the accompaniments of the table, are fuch as are only met with in families of opulence; the very fervants who attend him are neat, well drefled, and have a certain air of fafhion. You may call this fimplicitys but I fay he will be nice, for it is a kind of fimplicity which only wealth can attain to, and which will fubject him to be The Enquirer, No. XV. be difgufted at all common tables. Be- I would not be understood to inveigh against wealth, or against the enjoyments of it; they are real enjoyments, and allied to many elegancies in manners and in tafte; I only wish to prevent unprofitable pains and inconfiftent expectations. You are fenfible of the benefit of early rifing, and you may, if you pleafe, make it a point that your daughter fhall retire with her governels, and your fon with his tutor, at the hour when you are preparing to fee company. But their leep, in the firit place, will not be fo fweet and undisturbed amidst the rattle of carriages, and the giare of tapers glancing through the rooms, as that of the village child in his quiet cottage, protected by filence and darkness; and, moreover, you may depend upon it, that as the coercive power of education is laid a fide, they will in a few months flide into the habitudes of the reft of the family, whole hours are determined by their company and fituation in life. You have, however, done good as far as it goes; it is fomething gained to defer pernicious habits, if we cannot prevent them. There is nothing which has fo little fhare in education as direct precept. To be convinced of this, we need only reflect, that there is no one point we labour more to establish with children than that of their fpeaking truth, and there is not any in which we fucceed worse. And why? Because children readily fee we have an intereft in it. Their fpeaking truth is ufed by us as an engine of government. "Tell me, my dear child, when you have broken any thing, and I will not be angry with you.", Thank you for nothing, fays the child. If I prevent you from finding it out, I am fare you will not be angry and nine times out of ten he can prevent it. He knows that, in the common intercourfes of life, you tell a thousand falsehoods. But thefe are neceffary lies on important occafions. Your child is the best judge how much occasion he has to tell a lie; he may have as great occasion for it, as you have to conceal a bad piece of news from a fick friend, or to hide your vexation from an unwel come vifitor. That authority which extends its claims over every action, and even every thought, which infifts upon an anfwer to every interrogation, however indifcreet or oppreflive to the feelings, will, in young or old, produce falfehood; or, if in fome few inftances, the deeply imbibed fear of future and unknown punifhment fhould reftrain from direct falfehood, it will produce a habit of diffimulation, which is ftill worfe. The child, the flave, or the fubject, who, on proper occafions may not fay, "I do not chufe to tell," will certainly, by the circumstances in which you place him, be driven to have recourfe to deceit, even fhould he not be countenanced by your example. I do not mean to affert, that fentiments inculcated in education have no influence; they have much, though not the most: but it is the fentiments we let drop occafionally, the converfation they overhear when playing unnoticed in a corner of the room, which has an effect upon children, and not what is addreffed directly to them in the tone of exhortation. If you would know precifely the effect these fet difcourfes have upon your child, he pleafed to reflect upon that which a difcourfe from the pulpit, which you have reafon to think merely profeffional, has upon you. Children have almoft an intuitive difcernment between the maxims you bring forward for their use, and thofe by which you direct your own conduct. Be as cunning as you will, they are always more cunning than you. Every child knows whom his father and mother love, and fee with pleafure, and whom they diflike; for whom they think themfelves obliged to fet out their best plate and china whom they think it an honour to vifit, and upon whom they confer honour by admitting them to their com pany. "Refpect nothing fo much as virtue, (fays Eugenio to his fon) virtue and talents are the only grounds of diftinction." The child prefently has occafion to enquire why his father pulls off his hat to fome people and not to others; he is told, that outward refpect must be proportioned to different ftations in life; this is a little difficult of comprehenfion; however, by dint of explanation, he gets over it tolerably well. But he fees his father's houfe in the buftle and hurry of preparation; common business laid aside, every body in movement, an unusual anxiety to pleafe and to fhine. Nobody is at leifure to receive his careffes, or attend to his queftions; his leffons are interrupted, his hours deranged. At length a guest |