no opportunity. It was the first time I had ever whom we bought that and our ribands cheated us the happiness of seeing any man but papa, and I as if she had no conscience, and so to quiet mine I vow, my dear Yaya, I thought my three souls cheated her. All this is fair, you know. I remain, would actually have fled from my lips. Ho, but my dear Yaya, your ever faithful

LETTER XL.

From the Same.

YAOUA.

he looked most charmingly; he is reckoned the best shaped man in the whole province, for he is very fat, and very short; but even those natural advantages are improved by his dress, which is fashionable past description. His head was close shaven, all but the crown, and the hair of that was braided into a most beautiful tail, that reached You have always testified the highest esteem down to his heels, and was terminated by a bunch for the English poets, and thought, them not infeof yellow roses. Upon his first entering the room, rior to the Greeks, Romans, or even the Chinese, I could easily perceive he had been highly perfum- in the art. But it is now thought even by the ed with assafoetida. But then his looks, his looks, English themselves, that the race of their poets is my dear Yaya, were irresistible. He kept his extinct; every day produces some pathetic exclaeyes steadfastly fixed on the wall during the whole mation upon the decadence of taste and genius. ceremony, and I sincerely believe no accident could Pegasus, say they, has slipped the bridle from have discomposed his gravity, or drawn his eyes his mouth, and our modern bards attempt to direct away. After a polite silence of two hours, he his flight by catching him by the tail. gallantly begged to have the singing women in- Yet, my friend, it is only among the ignorant troduced, purely for my amusement. After one that such discourses prevail; men of true discernof them had for some time entertained us with her ment can see several poets still among the English voice, the colonel and she retired for some minutes to some of whom equal if not surpass their predecesgether. I thought they would never have come back: sors. The ignorant term that alone poetry which I must own he is a most agreeable creature. Upon is couched in a certain number of syllables in every his return, they again renewed the concert, and line, where a vapid thought is drawn out into a he continued to gaze upon the wall as usual, when number of verses of equal length, and perhaps in less than half an hour more, ho! but he retired pointed with rhymes at the end. But glowing out of the room with another. He is indeed a sentiment, striking imagery, concise expression, most agreeable creature. natural description, and modulated periods, are full sufficient entirely to fill up my idea of this art, and make way to every passion.

When he came to take his leave, the whole ceremony began afresh; papa would see him to the door, but the colonel swore he would rather see If my idea of poetry therefore be just, the Engthe earth turned upside down than permit him to lish are not at present so destitute of poetical merit stir a single step, and papa was at last obliged to as they seem to imagine. I can see several poets comply. As soon as he was got to the door, papa in disguise among them; men furnished with that went out to see him on horseback; here they con- strength of soul, sublimity of sentiment, and grantinued half an hour bowing and cringing, before deur of expression, which constitute the character. one would mount or the other go in, but the colo- Many of the writers of their modern odes, sonnets, nel was at last victorious. He had scarce gone a tragedies, or rebuses, it is true, deserve not the hundred paces from the house, when papa, run-name, though they have done nothing but clink ning out, halloo'd after him, A good journey; up-rhymes and measure syllables for years together: on which the colonel returned, and would see their Johnsons and Smollets are truly poets; though papa into his house before ever he would depart. for aught I know they never made a single verse He was no sooner got home than he sent me a in their whole lives.

very fine present of duck eggs painted of twenty In every incipient language, the poet and the different colours. His generosity I own has won prose writer are very distinct in their qualificame. I have ever since been trying over the eight tions; the poet ever proceeds first; treading unletters of good fortune, and have great hopes. All beaten paths, enriching his native funds, and emI have to apprehend is, that after he has married ployed in new adventures. The other follows with me, and that I am carried to his house close shut more cautious steps, and though slow in his moup in my chair, when he comes to have the first tions, treasures up every useful or pleasing discosight of my face, he may shut me up a second time very. But when once all the extent and the force and send me back to papa. However, I shall ap- of the language is known, the poet then seems to pear as fine as possible: mamma and I have been to rest from his labour, and is at length overtaken by buy the clothes for my wedding. I am to have a his assiduous pursuer. Both characters are then new fong whang in my hair, the beak of which blended into one; the historian and orator catch will reach down to my nose; the milliner from all the poet's fire, and leave him no real mark of

distinction, except the iteration of numbers regu-soleum of the kings and heroes of this nation: I larly returning. Thus, in the decline of ancient have since been introduced to a temple not so anEuropean learning, Seneca, though he wrote in cient, but far superiour in beauty and magnificence prose, is as much a poet as Lucan, and Longinus, In this, which is the most considerable of the emthough but a critice, more sublime than Apollonius. pire, there are o pompous inscriptions, no flattery From this then it appears, that poetry is not paid the dead, but all is elegant and awfully simple. discontinued, but altered among the English at pre- There are, however, a few rags hung round the sent; the outward form seems different from what walls, which have, at a vast expense, been taken it was, but poetry still continues internally the from the enemy in the present war. The silk of the same: the only question remains, whether the which they are composed, when new, might be metric feet used by the good writers of the last age valued at half a string of copper money in China; or the prosaic numbers employed by the good yet this wise people fitted out a feet and an army writers of this, be preferable? And here the prac-in order to seize them, though now grown old, and tice of the last age appears to me superior: they scarcely capable of being patched up into a handsubmitted to the restraint of numbers and similar kerchief. By this conquest, the English are said sounds: and this restraint, instead of diminishing, to have gained, and the French to have lost, much augmented the force of their sentiment and style. honour. Is the honour of European nations placed Fancy restrained may be compared to a fountain, only in tattered silk ?

which plays highest by diminishing the aperture. In this temple I was permitted to remain during Of the truth of this maxim in every language, the whole service; and were you not already acevery fine writer is perfectly sensible from his own quainted with the religion of the English, you experience, and yet to explain the reason would might, from my description, be inclined to believe be perhaps as difficult as to make a frigid genius them as grossly idolatrous as the disciples of Lao. profit by the discovery. The idol which they seem to address, strides like a There is still another reason in favour of the colossus over the door of the inner temple, which practice of the last age, to be drawn from the va- here, as with the Jews, is esteemed the most sacred riety of modulation. The musical period in prose part of the building. Its oracles are delivered in a is confined to a very few changes: the numbers in hundred various tones, which seem to inspire the verse are capable of infinite variation. I speak not worshippers with enthusiasm and awe: an old now from the practice of modern verse-writers, few woman, who appeared to be the priestess, was emof whom have any idea of musical variety, but run ployed in various attitudes as she felt the inspiraon in the same monotonous flow through the whole tion. When it began to speak, all the people repoem; but rather from the example of their former poets, who were tolerable masters of this variety, and also from a capacity in the language of still admitting various unanticipated music.

mained fixed in silent attention, nodding assent, looking approbation, appearing highly edified by those sounds which to a stranger might seem inarticulate and unmeaning.

Several rules have been drawn up for varying When the idol had done speaking, and the the poetic measure, and critics have elaborately priestess had locked up its lungs with a key, obtalked of accents and syllables; but good sense and serving almost all the company leaving the temple, a fine ear, which rules can never teach, are what I concluded the service was over, and taking my alone can in such a case determine. The raptur- hat, was going to walk away with the crowd, when ous flowings of joy, or the interruptions of in-I was stopped by the man in black, who assured dignation, require accents placed entirely different, me that the ceremony had scarcely yet begun! and a structure consonant to the emotions they What, cried I, do I not see almost the whole would express. Changing passions, and numbers body of the worshippers leaving the church? changing with those passions, make the whole Would you persuade me that such numbers who secret of Western as well as Eastern poetry. In profess religion and morality, would, in this shamea word, the great faults of the modern professed less manner, quit the temple before the service was English poets are, that they seem to want numbers concluded? You surely mistake: not even the which should vary with the passion, and are more Kalmucks would be guilty of such an indecency, employed in describing to the imagination than though all the object of their worship was but a striking at the heart.

LETTER XLI.

From the Same.

SOME time since I sent thee, O holy disciple of Confucius, an account of the grand abbey or mau

joint-stool. My friend seemed to blush for his countrymen, assuring me that those whom I saw running away, were only a parcel of musical blockheads, whose passion was merely for sounds, and whose heads were as empty as a fiddle-case: those who remain behind, says he, are the true religious; they make use of music to warm their hearts, and to lift them to a proper pitch of rapture: examine

their behaviour, and you will confess there are some happiness! What yet untasted banquet, what luxamong us who practise true devotion.

I now looked round me as directed, but saw nothing of that fervent devotion which he had promised: one of the worshippers appeared to be ogling the company through a glass; another was fervent, not in addresses to Heaven, but to his mistress; a third whispered, a fourth took snuff, and the priest himself, in a drowsy tone, read over the duties of the day.

ury yet unknown, has rewarded thy painful adventures? Name a pleasure which thy native country could not amply procure; frame a wish that might not have been satisfied in China! Why then such toil, and such danger, in pursuit of raptures within your reach at home?

The Europeans, you will say, excel us in sciences and in arts; those sciences which bound the aspiring wish, and those arts which tend to gratify Bless my eyes, cried I, as I happened to look to- even unrestrained desire. They may perhaps outwards the door, what do I see! one of the worship-do us in the arts of building ships, casting cannons, pers fallen fast asleep, and actually sunk down on or measuring mountains; but are they superior in his cushion! Is he now enjoying the benefit of a the greatest of all arts, the art of governing kingtrance, or does he receive the influence of some doms and ourselves? mysterious vision? Alas! Alas! replied my com- When I compare the history of China with that panion, no such thing; he has only had the mis- of Europe, how do I exult in being a native of that fortune of eating too hearty a dinner, and finds kingdom which derives its original from the sun. it impossible to keep his eyes open. Turning to Upon opening the Chinese history, I there behold another part of the temple, I perceived a young an ancient extended empire, established by laws lady just in the same circumstances and attitude: which nature and reason seem to have dictated. Strange! cried I, can she too have over-eaten her- The duty of children to their parents, a duty which self? O fie! replied my friend, you now grow nature implants in every breast, forms the strength censorious. She grow drowsy from eating too of that government, which has subsisted for time much! that would be a profanation! She only immemorial. Filial obedience is the first and greatsleeps now from haring sat up all night at a brag est requisite of a state; by this we become good party. Turn me where I will then, says I, I can perceive no single symptom of devotion among the worshippers, except from that old woman in the corner, who sits groaning behind the long sticks of a mourning fan; she indeed seems greatly edified with what she hears. Ay, replied my friend, I knew we should find some to catch you; I know her; that is the deaf lady who lives in the clois

ters.

subjects to our emperors, capable of behaving with just subordination to our superiors, and grateful dependants on Heaven: by this we become fonder of marriage, in order to be capable of exacting obedience from others in our turn: by this we become good magistrates; for early submission is the truest lesson to those who would learn to rule. By this the whole state may be said to resemble one family, of which the emperor is the protector, father, and friend.

In short, the remissness of behaviour in almost all the worshippers, and some even of the guardians, In this happy region, sequestered from the rest struck me with surprise. I had been taught to be- of mankind, I see a succession of princes who in lieve that none were ever promoted to offices in the general considered themselves as the fathers of their temple, but men remarkable for their superior people; a race of philosophers who bravely comsanctity, learning, and rectitude; that there was bated idolatry, prejudice, and tyranny, at the exno such thing heard of, as persons being introduced pense of their private happiness and immediate into the church merely to oblige a senator, or pro-reputation. Whenever a usurper or a tyrant invide for the younger branch of a noble family: I truded into the administration, how have all the expected, as their minds were continually set upon good and great been united against him! Can Euheavenly things, to see their eyes directed there ropean history produce an instance like that of the also; and hoped, from their behaviour, to perceive twelve mandarines, who all resolved to apprize the their inclinations corresponding with their duty. vicious emperor Tisiang of the irregularity of his But I am since informed, that some are appointed conduct? He who first undertook the dangerous to preside over temples they never visit; and, while they receive all the money, are contented with letting others do all the good. Adieu.

task was cut in two by the emperor's order; the second was ordered to be tormented, and then put to a cruel death: the third undertook the task with intrepidity, and was instantly stabbed by the tyrant's hand: in this manner they all suffered except one. But not to be turned from his purpose, the brave survivor, entering the palace with the instruments of torture in his hand, Here, cried he, MUST I ever continue to condemn thy persever- addressing himself to the throne, here, O Tisiang, ance, and blame that curiosity whith destroys thy are the marks your faithful subjects receive for

LETTER XLII.

From Fum Hoam, to Lien Chi Altangi, the discontented
Wanderer, by the way of Moscow.

their loyalty; I am wearied with serving a tyrant, prey to those whom they had conquered. We see and now come for my reward. The emperor, those barbarians, when become Christians, engaged struck with his intrepidity, instantly forgave the in a continual war with the followers of Mahomet; boldness of his conduct, and reformed his own. or, more dreadful still, destroying each other. We What European annals can thus boast of a tyrant see councils in the earlier ages authorizing every thus reclaimed to lenity? iniquity; crusades spreading desolation in the When five brethren had set upon the great em- country left, as well as that to be conquered; experor Ginsong alone, with his sabre he slew four communications freeing subjects from natural alleof them; he was stuggling with the fifth, when his giance, and persuading to sedition; blood flowing guards coming up were going to cut the conspi- in the fields and on scaffolds; tortures used as arator into a thousand pieces. No, no, cried the guments to convince the recusant; to heighten the emperor with a calm and placid counterance, of all his brothers he is the only one remaining, at least let one of the family be suffered to live, that his aged parents may hare somebody left to feed and comfort them!

horror of the piece, behold it shaded with wars, rebellions, treasons, plots, politics, and poison.

And what advantage has any country of Europe obtained from such calamities? Scarcely any. Their dissensions for more than a thousand years have When Haitong, the last emperor of the house served to make each other unhappy, but have enrichof Ming, saw himself besieged in his own city by ed none. All the great nations still nearly preserve the usurper, he was resolved to issue from his pa- their ancient limits; none have been able to subdue lace with six hundred of his guards, and give the the other, and so terminate the dispute. France, enemy battle; but they forsook him. Being thus in spite of the conquests of Edward the Third and without hopes, and choosing death rather than to Henry the Fifth, notwithstanding the efforts of fall alive into the hands of a rebel, he retired to his Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, still regarden, conducting his little daughter, an only mains within its ancient limits. Spain, Germany, child, in his hand; there, in a private arbour, un- Great Britain, Poland, the States of the North, sheathing his sword, he stabbed the young inno-are nearly still the same. What effect then has cent to the heart, and then dispatched himself, leav-the blood of so many thousands, the destruction of ing the following words written with his blood on so many cities, produced? Nothing either great or the border of his vest: Forsaken by my subjects, considerable. The Christian princes have lost inabandoned by my friends, use my body as you will, but spare, O spare my people!

deed much from the enemies of Christendom, but they have gained nothing from each other. Their princes, because they preferred ambition to justice, deserve the character of enemies to mankind; and their priests, by neglecting morality for opinion, have mistaken the interests of society.

An empire which has thus continued invariably the same for such a long succession of ages; which, though at last conquered by the Tartars, still preserves its ancient laws and learning, and may more properly be said to annex the dominions of Tartary On whatever side we regard the history of Euto its empire, than to admit a foreign conquerer; an rope, we shall perceive it to be a tissue of crimes, empire as large as Europe, governed by one law, ac- follies, and misfortunes, of politics without design, knowledging subjection to one prince, and experi- and wars without consequence: in this long list of encing but one revolution of any continuance in the human infirmity, a great character, or a shining space of four thousand years; this is something so virtue, may sometimes happen to arise, as we often peculiarly great, that I am naturally led to despise all meet a cottage or a cultivated spot in the most other nations on the comparison. Here we see no hideous wilderness. But for an Alfred, an Alphonreligious persecutions, no enmity between man- so, a Frederick, or an Alexander III., we meet a kind, for difference in opinion. The disciples of thousand princes who have disgraced humanity. Lao Kium, the idolatrous sectaries of Fohi, and the philosophical children of Confucius, only strive to show by their actions the truth of their doctrines.

Now turn from this happy, peaceful scene, to Europe, the theatre of intrigue, avarice, and ambition. How many revolutions does it not experience in the compass even of one age! and to what do these revolutions tend but the destruction of thousands? Every great event is replete with some new calamity. The seasons of serenity are passed over in silence, their histories seem to speak only of the

LETTER XLIII.

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum loam, First President of the
Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China.

WE have just received accounts here, that Voltaire, the poet and philosopher of Europe, is dead! He is now beyond the reach of the thousand enemies, who, while living, degraded his writings, and branded his character. Scarcely a page of his latThere we see the Romans extending their pow- ter productions, that does not betray the agonies of e: over barbarous nations, and in turn becoming a a heart bleeding under the scourge of unmerited

storm.

reproach. Happy, therefore, at last in escaping from calumny; happy in leaving a world that was unworthy of him and his writings!

An inflexible perseverance in what he thought was right, and a generous detestation of flattery, formed the groundwork of this great man's characLet others, my friend, bestrew the hearses of the ter. From these principles many strong virtues great with panegyric; but such a loss as the world and few faults arose: as he was warm in his friendhas now suffered, affects me with stronger emo- ship, and severe in his resentment, all that mention tions. When a philosopher dies, I consider my-him seem possessed of the same qualities, and self as losing a patron, an instructor, and a friend. speak of him with rapture or detestation. A perI consider the world losing one who might serve to son of his eminence can have few indifferent as to console her amidst the desolations of war and am- his character; every reader must be an enemy or bition. Nature every day produces in abundance an admirer.

men capable of filling all the requisite duties of au- This poet began the course of glory so early as thority; but she is niggard in the birth of an exalt the age of eighteen, and even then was author of a ed mind, scarcely producing in a century a single tragedy which deserves applause. Possessed of a genius to bless and enlighten a degenerate age. small patrimony, he preserved his independence in Prodigal in the production of kings, governors, an age of venality, and supported the dignity of mandarines, chams, and courtiers, she seems to learning, by teaching his contemporary writers to have forgotten, for more than three thousand years, live like him above the favours of the great. He the manner in which she once formed the brain of was banished his native country for a satire upon a Confucius; and well it is she has forgotten, when the royal concubine. He had accepted the place a bad world gave him so very bad a reception. of historian to the French king, but refused to keep Whence, my friend, this malevolence which has it, when he found it was presented only in order ever pursued the great even to the tomb? whence that he should be the first flatterer of the state. this more than fiend-like disposition of embittering The great Prussian received him as an ornathe lives of those who would make us more wise ment to his kingdom, and had sense enough to and more happy? | value his friendship, and profit by his instructions. When I cast my eye over the fates of several In this court he continued till an intrigue, with philosophers, who have at different periods enlight- which the world seems hitherto unacquainted, obened mankind, I must confess it inspires me with liged him to quit that country. His own happiness, the most degrading reflections on humanity. When the happiness of the monarch, of his sister, of a I read of the stripes of Mentius, the tortures of part of the court, rendered, his departure necesTchin, the bowl of Socrates, and the bath of Sene- sary. ca; when I hear of the persecutions of Dante, the| imprisonment of Galileo, the indignities suffered by Montaigne, the banishment of Cartesius, the infamy of Bacon, and that even Locke himself escaped not without reproach; when I think on such subjects, I hesitate whether most to blame the ignorance or the villany of my fellow-creatures.

Tired at length of courts, and all the follies of the great, he retired to Switzerland, a country of liberty, where he enjoyed tranquillity and the muse. Here, though without any taste for magnificence learned and polite of Europe, who were attracted himself, he usually entertained at his table the received so much satisfaction. The entertainment by a desire of seeing a person from whom they had was conducted with the utmost elegance, and the conversation was that of philosophers. Every country that at once united liberty and science, was his peculiar favourite. The being an Englishman was to him a character that claimed admiration and respect.

Should you look for the character of Voltaire among the journalists and illiterate writers of the age, you will there find him characterized as a monster, with a head turned to wisdom, and a heart inclining to vice; the powers of his mind and the baseness of his principles forming a detestable contrast. But seek for his character among writers like himself, and you find him very differently de-j scribed. You perceive him, in their accounts, Between Voltaire and the disciples of Confucius, possessed of good-nature, humanity, greatness of there are many differences; however, being of a soul, fortitude, and almost every virtue; in this different opinion does not in the least diminish my description, those who might be supposed best ac-esteem: I am not displeased with my brother, bequainted with his character are unanimous. The cause he happens to ask our father for favours in a Let his errors rest in royal Prussian,* d'Argents,† Diderot,t d'Alembert, different manner from me. and Fontenelle, conspire, in drawing the picture, in describing the friend of man, and the patron of every rising genius.

* Philosophe sans souci. † Let. Chin. Encyclopéd

peace, his excellencies deserve admiration; let me with the wise admire his wisdom; let the envious and the ignorant ridicule his foibles: the folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish. Adieu.