How long, my friend, shall an enthusiasm for knowledge continue to obstruct your happiness, and tear you from all the connexions that make life pleasing? How long will you continue to rove from climate to climate, circled by thousands, and yet without a friend, feeling all the inconveniences of a crowd, and all the anxiety of being alone?

I know you reply, that the refined pleasure of growing every day wiser, is a sufficient recompense for every inconvenience. I know you will talk of the vulgar satisfaction of soliciting happiness from sensual enjoyment only; and probably enlarge upon the exquisite raptures of sentimental bliss. Yet, believe me, friend, you are deceived; all our pleasures, though seemingly never so remote from sense, derive their origin from some one of the senses. The most exquisite demonstration in mathematics, or the most pleasing disquisition in metaphysics, if it does not ultimately tend to increase some sensual satisfaction, is delightful only to fools, or to men who have by long habit contracted a false idea of pleasure; and he who separates sensual and sentimental enjoyments, seeking happiness from mind alone, is, in fact, as wretched as the naked inhabitant of the forest, who places all happiness in the first, regardless of the latter. There are two extremes in this respect; the savage, who swallows down the draught of pleasure without staying to reflect on his happiness; and the sage, who passeth the cup while he reflects on the conveniences of drinking.

It is with a heart full of sorrow, my dear Altangi, that I must inform you, that what the world calls happiness must now be yours no longer. Our great emperor's displeasure at your leaving China, contrary to the rules of our government, and the immemorial custom of the empire,(1) has produced

(1) ["All who clandestinely proceed to sea to trade, or remove to foreign islands for the purpose of inhabiting and cultivating the same, shall be punished according to the law against communicating with rebels and enemies." -Chinese Penal Code, sect. ccxxv.]

:

the most terrible effects. Your wife, daughter, and the rest of your family, have been seized by his order, and appropriated to his use; all, except your son, are now the peculiar property of him who possesses all him I have hidden from the officers employed for this purpose; and even at the hazard of my life I have concealed him. The youth seems obstinately bent on finding you out, wherever you are; he is determined to face every danger that opposes his pursuit. Though yet but fifteen, all his father's virtues and obstinacy sparkle in his eyes, and mark him as one destined to no mediocrity of fortune.

You see, my dearest friend, what imprudence has brought thee to; from opulence, a tender family, surrounding friends, and your master's esteem, it has reduced thee to want, persecution, and, still worse, to our mighty monarch's displeasure. Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue; nor is there on earth a more powerful advocate for vice than poverty. As I shall endeavour to guard thee from the one, so guard thyself from the other; and still think of me with affection and esteem. Farewell.

LETTER VII.

THE TIE OF WISDOM ONLY TO MAKE US HAPPY.

BENEFITS

OF TRAVEL UPON THE MORALS OF A PHILOSOPHER.

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, first president, &c.

The Editor thinks proper to acquaint the reader, that the greatest part of the following letter seems to him to be little more than a rhapsody of sentences borrowed from Confucius, (1) the Chinese philosopher.

A wife, a daughter, carried into captivity to expiate my offence, a son scarce yet arrived at maturity, resolving to

(1) ["Confucius, as his name has been latinized by the Jesuits (being really Koong-foo-tse), was born about 550 years B.C. in the state Loo. Being the son of a statesman, the chief minister of his native kingdom, he employed

encounter every danger in the pious pursuit of one who has undone him, these indeed are circumstances of distress; though my tears were more precious than the gem of Golconda, yet would they fall upon such an occasion.

But I submit to the stroke of Heaven: I hold the volume of Confucius in my hand, and as I read, grow humble, and patient, and wise. We should feel sorrow, says he, but not sink under its oppression. The heart of a wise man should resemble a mirror, which reflects every object without being sullied by any. The wheel of fortune turns incessantly round; and who can say within himself, I shall to-day be uppermost? We should hold the immutable mean that lies between insensibility and anguish; our attempts should not

himself entirely on moral and political science. His doctrines, therefore, constitute rather a system of philosophy in the department of morals and politics, than any particular religious persuasion. He died about 479 years BC.; and though only a single descendant (his grandson) survived him, the succession has continued through sixty-seven or sixty-eight generations to the present day, in the very district where their great ancestor was born. The Lun-yu, the conversations or sayings of Confucius recorded by his disciples, together with the most remarkable actions of his life, is in all respects a complete Chinese BoswELL. There is the same submissive reverence towards the great master of letters and morals, and the same display of selfdevotion in erecting the fabric of his greatness. The conversational style is preserved alike throughout, as may be seen from these examples:

LUN-YU,

'A disciple enquired, 'What must the sage do to deserve renown?' Confucius asked, 'What do you call renown?' The other replied, 'To be known among the nations and at home.' Confucius said, 'That is merely notoriety, and not true renown. Now this consists in strait-forward and honest sincerity, in the love of justice, in the knowledge of mankind, and in humility,' &c.

BOSWELL,

"Talking of Goldsmith he said, 'Sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company. Boswell,' Yes, he stands forward.' Johnson, ‘True, Sir, but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it, not in an awkward posture, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule, &c."-Davis, Chinese, vol. ii. p. 51.]

be to extinguish nature, but to repress it; not to stand unmoved at distress, but endeavour to turn every disaster to our own advantage. Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I fancy myself at present, O thou reverend disciple of Taou,1more than a match for all that can happen. The chief business of my life has been to procure wisdom, and the chief object of that wisdom was to be happy. My attendance on your lectures, my conferences with the missionaries of Europe, and all my subsequent adventures upon quitting China, were calculated to increase the sphere of my happiness, not my curiosity. Let European travellers cross seas and deserts merely to measure the height of a mountain, to describe the cataract of a river, or tell the commodities which every country may produce: merchants or geographers, perhaps, may find profit by such discoveries, but what advantage can accrue to a philosopher from such accounts, who is desirous of understanding the human heart, who seeks to know the men of every country, who desires to discover those differences which result from climate, religion, education, prejudice, and partiality.

I should think my time very ill-bestowed, were the only fruits of my adventures to consist in being able to tell, that a tradesman of London lives in a house three times as high as that of our great emperor. (2) That the ladies wear longer

(1) ["Taou appeared nearly simultaneously with Confucius. As far as can be gathered of the real drift of his doctrines, he seems to have inculcated a contempt of riches and honours, and all worldly distinctions, and to have aimed, like Epicurus, at subduing every passion that could interfere with personal tranquillity and self-enjoyment."-Davis, vol. ii. p. 114.]

(2) [The dwellings of the Chinese consist usually of a ground-floor. Nothing surprises them more than the representations or descriptions of the five and six-storied houses of European cities; and the emperor is said to have enquired, if it was the smallness of the territory that compelled the inhabitants to build their dwellings so near the clouds.-See Sir G. Staunton, Embassy, ii. p. 139.]

cloaths than the men, that the priests are dressed in colours which we are taught to detest, and that their soldiers wear scarlet, which is with us the symbol of peace and innocence. How many travellers are there, who confine their relations to such minute and useless particulars! For one who enters into the genius of those nations with whom he has conversed, who discloses their morals, their opinions, the ideas which they entertain of religious worship, the intrigues of their ministers, and their skill in sciences, there are twenty who only mention some idle particulars, which can be of no real use to a true philosopher. All their remarks tend neither to make themselves nor others more happy; they no way contribute to control their passions, to bear adversity, to inspire true virtue, or raise a detestation of vice.

Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond. From Zerdusht(1) down to him of Tyanæa,(2) I honour all those great names who endeavour to unite the world by their travels: such men grew wiser as well as better, the farther they departed from home, and seemed like rivers, whose streams are not only increased, but refined, as they travel from their source.

For my own part, my greatest glory is, that travelling has not more steeled my constitution against all the vicissitudes of climate, and all the depressions of fatigue, than it

(1) [Zoroaster.]

(2) Apollonius of Tyanæa, the celebrated traveller, astrologer, &c., who numbered Vespasian among his dupes.-See his Life by Berwick.]