Where the fierce murderer wolf, to pains decreed Wet from the whelming furge fhall triumph o'er Chiampa there her fragrant coast extends, Here y On the Mecon's fhore. It was on the mouth of this river that Camoëns fuffered the unhappy fhipwreck which rendered him the fport of fortune during the remainder of his life. Our poet mentions himself and the saving of his Lufiads with the greatest modefty. But though this indifference has its beauty in the original, it is certainly the part of a tranflator to add a warmth of colouring to a paffage of this nature. For the literal translation of this place and farther particulars, fee the Life of Camoëns. Here ere the cannon's rage in Europe z roar'd, And According to Le Comte's me z Here ere the cannon's rage in Europe roar'd. moirs of China, and thofe of other travellers, the mariner's compass, firearms, and printing, were known in that empire, long ere the invention of thefe arts in Europe. But the accounts of Du Halde, Le Comte, and the other Jefuits, are by no means to be depended on. It was their intereft, in order to gain credit in Europe and at the court of Rome, to magnify the fplendour of the empire where their miffion lay, and they have magnified it into romance itfelf. It is pretended that the Chinese used fire-arms in their wars with Zenghis Khan, and Tamerlane; but it is also faid that the Sogdianians used cannon against Alexander. The mention of any fulphurous compofition in an old writer is with fome immediately converted into a regular tire of artillery. The Chinefe, indeed, on the first arrival of Europeans, had a kind of mortars, which they called fire- pans, but they were utter strangers to the smaller fire-arms. Verbieft, a Jefuit, was the first who taught them to make brass cannon fet upon wheels. And even fo late as the hostile menace which Anfon gave them, they knew not how to level or manage their ordnance to any advantage. Their printing is indeed much more ancient than that of Europe, but it does not deserve the fame name, the blocks of wood with which they stamp their fheets being as inferior to the ufe of, as different from the moveable types of Europe. The Chinese have no idea of the graces of fine writing; here most probably the fault exists in their language; but the total want of nature in their painting, and of symmetry in their architecture, in both of which they have fo long been experienced, afford a heavy accusation against their genius. In improving every spot of their country by agriculture they are unequalled: and their tafte in gardening has been highly praised. Nature, as it were frifeur'd, however, and the gloomy viftos, adorned with gibbets, are certainly unpleafing. And even in their boasted gardening their genius stands accused. The art of ingrafting, known to ancient Greece, is ftill unknown to them. And hence their fruits are vaftly inferior in flavour to thofe of the Western World. The amazing wall of defence against the Tartars, though 1500 miles in extent, is a labour inferior to the canals, lined on the fides with hewn ftone, which every where enrich and adorn their country; fome of which reach 1000 miles, and are of depth to carry veffels of burden. These grand remains of antiquity prove there was a time when the Chinese were a much more accomplished people than at prefent. Though their princes Ee 4 for And here the trembling needle fought the north, No for these many centuries have discovered no fuch efforts of genius as thefe, the industry of the people ftill remains, in which they rival and resemble the Dutch. In every other respect they are the most unamiable of mankind : Amazingly uninventive; for, though poffeffed of them, the arts have made no progrefs among the Chinese these many centuries: Even what they were taught by the Jesuits is almost loft: So false in their dealings, they boast that none but a Chinese can cheat a Chinefe: The crime which difgraces human nature, is in this nation of atheists and the most stupid of all idolaters, common as that charter'd libertine, the air. Deftitute even in idea of that elevation of foul, which is expressed by the best sense of the word piety, in the time of calamity whole provinces are defolated by felf-murder; and end, as Hume fays of fome of the admired names of antiquity, not unworthy of fo deteftable a character: And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart, the most daftardly cowardice completes the description of that of the Chinese. Unimproved as their arts is their learuing. Though their language confifts of few words, it is almost impoffible for a stranger to attain the art of speaking it. And what an European learns ere he is seven years old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. In place of our 24 letters, they have more than 60,000 marks, which compofe their writings; and their paucity of words, all of which may be attained in a few hours, requires such an infinite variety of tone and action, that the slightest mistake in modulation renders the speaker unintelligible. And in addressing a great man, in place of my lord, you may call him a beaft, the word being the fame, all the difference confifting in the tune of it. A language like this must ever be a bar to the progrefs and accomplishments of literature. Of medicine they are very ignorant. The ginfeng, which they pretended was an univerfal remedy, is found to be a root of no fingular virtue. Their books confift of odes without poetry, and of moral maxims, excellent in themfelves, but without investigation or reafoning. For to philofophical difcuffion and the metaphyfics they feem utterly ftrangers, and when taught the mathematics by the Jefuits, their greateft men were lost in astonishment. Whatever their political wisdom has been, at prefent it is narrow and barbarous. Jealous left ftrangers fhould steal their arts, arts which are excelled at Drefden and other parts of Europe, they preclude themselves from the great advantages which arife from an intercourfe with civilized nations. Yet No more let Egypt boast her mountain pyres, A prouder Yet in the laws which they impofe on every foreign ship which enters their ports for traffic, they even exceed the cunning and avarice of the Hollanders. In their internal policy the military government of Rome under the emperors is revived with accumulated barbarifm. In every city and province the military are the conftables and peace officers. What a picture is this? Nothing but Chinese or Dutch industry could preferve the traffic and population of a country under the controul of armed ruffians. But hence the emperor has leifure to cultivate his gardens, and to write despicable odes to his concubines. Whatever was their most ancient do&rine, certain it is that the legislators who formed the prefent fyftem of China prefented to their people no other object of worship than Tien Kamti, the material heavens and their influ encing power; by which an intelligent principle is excluded. Yet finding that the human mind in the rudeft breafts is confcious of its weakness, and prone to believe the occurrences of life under the power of lucky or unlucky obfervances, they permitted their people the ufe of facrifices to thefe Lucretian gods of fuperftitious fear. Nor was the principle of devotion, imprinted by heaven in the human heart, alone perverted; another unextinguishable paffion was also misled. On tables, in every family, are written the names of the last three of their ancestors, added to each, Here refts his foul; and before these tables they burn incenfe and pay adoration. Confucius, whɔ, according to their histories, had been in the West about 500 years before the Christian æra, appears to be only the confirmer of their old opinions; but the accounts of him and his doctrine are involved in uncertainty. In their places of worship, however, boards are set up, infcribed, This is the feat of the foul of Confucius; and to these and their ancestors they celebrate folemn facrifices, without seeming to poffefs any idea of the intellectual existence of the departed mind. The Jefuit Ricci, and his brethren of the Chinese miffion, very honeftly told their converts, that Tien was the god of the Chriftians, and that the label of Confucius was the term by which they expreffed his divine majesty. But after a long and severe fcrutiny at the court of Rome, Tien was found to fignify nothing more than heavenly or univerfal matter, and the Jefuits of China were ordered to renounce this herefy. Among all the fects who worship different idols in China, there is only one who have any tolerable idea of the immortality of the foul; and among thefe, fays Leland, Christianity at present obtains fome footing. But the most interesting particular of China yet remains to be mentioned. Conscious of the obvious tendency, Voltaire and others triumphed in the great antiquity A prouder boast of regal power displays Than all the world beheld in ancient days. Not antiquity of the Chinese, and in the distant period they afcribe to the crea tion. But the bubble cannot bear the touch. If fome Chinese accounts fix the æra of creation 40,000 years ago, others are contented with no lefs than 884,953. But who knows not that every nation has its Geoffry of Monmouth? And we have already obferved the legends which took their rife from the Annus Magnus of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers, an apparent revolution of the ftars, which in reality has no exiftence. To the fanciful, who held this Annus Magnus, it seemed hard to suppose that our world was in its first revolution of the great year, and to suppose that many were past was eafy. And that this was the cafe we have abfolute proof in the doctrines of the Bramins, (see the Inquiry, &c. end of Lufiad VII.) who, though they talk of hundreds of thousands of years which are paft, yet confefs, that this, the fourth world, has not yet attained its 6000th year. And much within this compafs are all the credible proofs of Chinese antiquity comprehended. To three heads all these proofs are reducible. Their form of government, which, till the conqueft of the Tartars in 1644, bore the marks of the highest antiquity; their aftronomical obfervations; and their history. Simply and purely patriarchal every father was the magiftrate in his own family, and the emperor, who acted by his fubftitutes the Mandarines, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most paffive fubmiffion to authority thus branched out, was inculcated by Confucius and the other philofophers as the greatest duty of morality. But if there is an age in facred or prophane hiftory, where the manners of mankind are thus delineated, no fuperior antiquity is proved by the form of Chinese government. Their ignorance of the very ancient art of ingrafting fruit trees, and the state of their language, fo like the Hebrew in its paucity of words, a paucity characteristical of the ages when the ideas of men required few fyilables to clothe them, prove nothing farther than the early separation of the Chinese colony * from the The Chinese colony! Yes, let philofophy fmile; let her talk of the different fpecies of men which are found in every country, let her brand as abfurd the opinion of Montefquieu, which derives all the human race from one family. Let her enjoy her triumph. But let common sense be contented with the demonftration (fee Whifton, Bentley, &c.) that a creation in every country is not wanted, and that one family is fufficient in every refpect for the purpofe. If philofophy will talk of black and white men as different in fpecies, let common fenfe afk her for a demonftration, that climate and manner of life cannot produce this dif ference, |