to let's have the fauce his grace was fo fond of. I hate your immenfe loads of meat, that is country all over; extreme difgufting to those who are in the leaft acquainted with high life.

By this time my curiofity began to abate, and my appetite to encrease; the company of fools may at firft make us fmile, but at laft never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a prior engagement, and after having fhewn my refpect to the houfe, according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old fervant a piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs affuring me that dinner, if I staid, would be ready at least in lefs than two hours.

LETTER LV.

From Fum Hoam to Altangi, the difcontented wanderer, THE diftant founds of mufic that catch new sweetnefs as they vibrate through the long-drawn valley, are not more pleafing to the ear than the tidings of a far diftant friend.

I have just received two hundred of thy letters by the Ruffian caravan, defcriptive of the manners of Europe. You have left it to geographers to determine the fize of their mountains, and extent of their lakes, feeming only employed in difcovering the genius, the government, and difpofition of the people.

In those letters I perceive a journal of the operations of your mind upon whatever occurs, rather than a detail of your travels from one building to another; of your taking a draught of this ruin, or

that

that obelifk; of paying fo many Tomans for this commodity, or laying up a proper ftore for the paffage of fome new wilderness.

From your accounts of Ruffia I learn, that this nation is again relaxing into priftine barbarity, that its great emperor wanted a life of an hundred years more to bring about his vaft defign. A favage people may be resembled to their own forefts; a few years are fufficient to clear away the obstructions to agriculture; but it requires many ere the ground acquires a proper degree of fertility; the Ruffians, attached to their antient prejudices, again renew their hatred to strangers, and indulge every former brutal excess. So true it is, that the revolutions of wisdom are flow and difficult, the revolutions of folly or ambition precipitate and easy. We are not to be aftonished, fays Confucius *, that the wife walk more flowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their paffage to vice; fince passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.

The German empire, that remnant of the majefty of antient Rome, appears from your account on the eve of diffolution. The members of its vaft body want every tye of government to unite them, and feem feebly held together only by their respect for antient inftitutions. The very name of country and countrymen, which in other nations makes one of the strongest bonds of government, has been here for fome time laid afide, each of its inhabitants feeming more proud of being called from the petty ftate which gives him birth, than by the more well

known title of German.

This government may be regarded in the light of a fevere mafter, and a feeble opponent. The states

*Though this fine maxim be not found in the Latin edition of the morals of Confucius, yet we find it afcribed to him by Le Comte, Etat prefent de la Chine. Vol. I. p. 342.

which are now fubject to the laws of the empire, are only watching a proper occafion to fling off the yoke, and those which are become too powerful to be compelled to obedience, now begin to think of dictating in their turn. The ftruggles in this ftate are therefore not in order to preferve but to deftroy the antient conftitution; if one fide fucceeds, the government must become defpotic, if the other, feveral ftates will fubfift without nominal fubordination; but in either cafe the Germanic conftitution will be no more.

Sweden, on the contrary, though now feemingly a ftrenuous affertor of its liberties, is probably only haftening on to defpotifm. Their fenators, while they pretend to vindicate the freedom of the people, are only establishing their own independance. The deluded people will however at laft perceive the miferies of an ariftocratical government; they will perceive that the administration of a fociety of men is ever more painful than that of one only. They will fly from this most oppreffive of all forms, where one fingle member is capable of controlling the whole, to take refuge under the throne which will ever be attentive to their complaints. No people long endure an aristocratical government, when they could apply elsewhere for redrefs. The lower orders of people may be enflaved for a time by a number of tyrants, but upon the firft opportunity they will ever take a refuge in defpotifm or democracy.

As the Swedes are making concealed approaches to defpotifm, the French, on the other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themfelves into freedom. When I confider that thofe parliaments (the members of which are all created by the court, the prefidents of which can act only by immediate direction) presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who, till of late, received directions from the

throne

throne with implicit humility; when this is confidered, I cannot help fancying that the genius of freedom has entered that kingdom in difguife. If they have but three weak monarchs more fucceffively on the throne, the mafk will be laid afide, and the country will certainly once more be free.

When I compare the figure which the Dutch make in Europe with that they affume in Afia, I am ftruck with furprize. In Afia I find them the great Lords of all the Indian feas; in Europe the timid inhabitants of a paltry state. No longer the fons of freedom, but of avarice; no longer affertors of their rights by courage, but by negotiations; fawning on thofe who infult them, and crouching under the rod of every neighbouring power. Without a friend to fave them in diftrefs, and without virtue to fave themselves; their government is poor, and their private wealth will ferve to invite fome neighbouring invader.

I long with impatience for your letters from England, Denmark, Holland and Italy; yet why with for relations which only defcribe new calamities, which fhew that ambition and avarice are equally terrible in every region.

Adieu.

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

I HAVE frequently admired the manner of criticifing in China, where the learned are affembled in a body to judge of every new publication; to exa

2

mine

mine the merits of the work without knowing the circumftances of the author, and then to usher it into the world with proper marks of refpect or reprobation.

In England there are no fuch tribunals erected; but if a man thinks proper to be a judge of genius, few will be at the pains to contradict his pretenfions. If any chufe to be critics, it is but faying they are critics; and from that time forward they become invefted with full power and authority over every caitiff who aims at their inftruction or entertainment.

As almost every member of fociety has by this means a vote in literary tranfactions; it is no way furprizing to find the rich leading the way here as in other common concerns of life, to fee them either bribing the numerous herd of voters by their intereft, or brow-beating them by their authority.

A great man fays, at his table, that fuch a book is no bad thing. Immediately the praise is carried off by five flatterers to be difperfed at twelve different coffee-houses, from whence it circulates, ftill improving as it proceeds, through forty-five houses, where cheaper liquors are fold; from thence it is carried away by the honeft tradefman to his own fire-fide, where the applaufe is eagerly caught up by his wife and children who have been long taught to regard his judgment as the standard of perfection. Thus when we have traced a wide-extended literary reputation up to its original fource, we fhall find it derived from fome great man, who has, perhaps, received all his education and English from a tutor of Berne, or a dancing-mafter of Picardie.

The English are a people of good fenfe; and I am the more furprized to find them fwayed in their opinions, by men who often from their very education are incompetent judges. Men who being always bred in affluence, fee the world only on one fide,

are