be furprized, O fage difciple and follower of Confucius! you who believe one eternal intelligent caufe of all, fhould you be prefent at the barbarous ceremonies of this infatuated people! How would you deplore the blindness and folly of mankind. His boafted reason feems only to light him aftray, and brutal inftinct more regularly points out the path to happiness. Could you think it? they adore a wicked divinity; they fear him and they worship him; they imagine him a malicious Being, ready to injure and ready to be appeafed. The men and women affemble at midnight in a hut, which ferves for a temple. A priest stretches himself on the ground, and all the people pour forth the most horrid cries, while drums and timbrels fwell the infernal concert. After this diffonance, mifcalled mufic, has continued about two hours, the priest rises from the ground, affumes an air of inspiration, grows big with the infpiring dæmon, and pretends to a skill in futurity.

In every country, my friend, the bonzes, the brachmans, and the priests, deceive the people; all reformations begin from the laity; the priests point us out the way to heaven with their fingers, but stand still themfelves, nor feem to travel towards the country in view.

The cuftoms of this people correspond to their religion; they keep their dead for three days on the fame bed where the perfon died; after which they bury him in a grave moderately deep, but with the head ftill uncovered. Here for feveral days they prefent him different forts of meats; which, when they perceive he does not confume, they fill up the grave, and defift from defiring him to eat for the future. How, how can mankind be guilty of fuch ftrange abfurdity; to entreat a dead body already putrid to partake of the banquet! Where, I again repeat it, is human reafon? not only fome men, but whole nations, feem divefted of its illumination.

Here we observe a whole country adoring a divinity through fear, and attempting to feed the dead. These are their moft ferious and moft religious occupations are thefe men rational, or are not the apes of Borneo more wife?

Certain I am, O thou inftructor of my youth! that without philofophers, without fome few virtuous men, who feem to be of a different nature from the reft of mankind, without fuch as thefe the worship of a wicked divinity would furely be established over every part of the earth. Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude: for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation that he thinks he lies under to the giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from the apprehenfions of punishment. Could thefe laft, be perfuaded, as the Epicureans were, that heaven had no thunders in ftore for the villain, they would no longer continue to acknowledge fubordination, or thank that Being who gave them exiftence. Adieu.

LETTER XI.

TO THE SAME.

FROM fuch a picture of Nature in primeval fimplicity, tell me, my much refpected friend, are you in love with fatigue and folitude? Do you figh for the fevere frugality of the wandering Tartar, or regret being born amidst the luxury and diffimulation of the polite? Rather tell me, has not every kind of life vices peculiarly its own? Is it not a truth, that refined countries have more vices, but those not fo terrible; barbarous nations few, and they of the

moft

moft hideous complexion? Perfidy and fraud are the vices of civilized nations, credulity and violence thofe of the inhabitants of the defert. Does the luxury of the one produce half the evils of the inhumanity of the other? Certainly thofe philofophers, who declaim againft luxury have but little understood its benefits; they seen infenfible, that to luxury we owe not only the greateft part of our knowledge, but even of our virtues.

It may found fine in the mouth of a declaimer when he talks of fubduing our appetites, of teaching every fenfe to be content with a bare fufficiency, and of fupplying only the wants of Nature; but is there not more fatisfaction in indulging thofe appetites, if with innocence and fafety, than in reftraining them? Am not I better pleafed in enjoyment than in the fullen fatisfaction of thinking that I can live without enjoyment? The more various our artificial neceffities, the wider is our circle of pleasure; for all pleasure confifts in obviating neceffities as they rife; luxury, therefore, as it increases our wants, increases our capacity for happiness.

Examine the hiftory of any country remarkable for opulence and wifdom, you will find they would never have been wife had they not been first luxurious; you will find poets, philofophers, and even patriots, marching in Luxury's train. The reafon is obvious; we then only are curious after knowledge when we find it connected with fenfual happiness. The fenfes ever point out the way, and reflection comments upon the difcovery. Inform a native of the defert of Kobi, of the exact meafure of the parallax of the moon, he finds no fatisfaction at all in the information; he wonders how any could take fuch pains, and lay cut fuch treafures in order to folve fo useless a difficulty; but connect it with his happiness, by fhewing that it improves navigation, that by fuch an investigation he may have a warmer

coat,

coat, a better gun, or a finer knife, and he is inftantly in raptures at fo great an improvement. In fhort, we only defire to know what we defire to poffefs; and whatever we may talk against it, luxury adds the fpur to curiofity, and gives us a defire of becoming more wife.

But not our knowledge only, but our virtues are improved by luxury. Obferve the brown savage of Thibet, to whom the fruits of the fpreading pomegranate fupply food, and its branches an habitation. Such a character has few vices, I grant, but those he has are of the most hideous nature; rapine and cruelty are scarcely crimes in his eye; neither pity nor tenderness, which ennoble every virtue, have any place in his heart; he hates his enemies, and kills thofe he fubdues. On the other hand, the polite Chinese and civilized European feem even to love their enemies. I have just now seen an instance where the English have fuccoured thofe enemies, whom their own countrymen actually refused to relieve.

The greater the luxuries of every country, the more closely, politically fpeaking, is that country united. Luxury is the child of fociety alone; the luxurious man ftands in need of a thousand different artifts to furnish out his happiness; it is more likely, therefore, that he should be a good citizen who is connected by motives of felf-intereft with so many, than the abftemious man who is united to none.

In whatsoever light, therefore, we confider luxury; whether as employing a number of hands naturally too feeble for more laborious employment; as finding a variety of occupation for others who might be totally idle, or as furnishing out new inlets to happiness, without encroaching on mutual property; in whatever light we regard it, we fhail have reafon to ftand up in its defence, and the fentiment of Confucius ftill remains unfhaken; that VOL. III.

D

we

ave fhould enjoy as many of the luxuries of life as are confiftent with our own fafety, and the profperity of others; and that he who finds out a new pleafure is one of the most useful members of fociety.

FROM the funeral folemnities of the Daures, who think themselves the politeft people in the world, I muft make a tranfition to the funeral folemnities of the English, who think themselves as polite as they. The numberlefs ceremonies which are ufed here when a perfon is fick, appear to me fo many evident marks of fear and apprehenfion. Afk an Englifhman, however, whether he is afraid of death, and he boldly anfwers in the negative; but obferve his behaviour in circumftances of approaching ficknefs, and you will find his actions give his affertions

the lie.

The Chinese are very fincere in this refpect; they hate to die, and they confefs their terrors; a great part of their life is fpent in preparing things proper for their funeral. A poor artizan fhall fpend half his income in providing himfelf a tomb twenty years before he wants it; and denies himself the neceffaries of life, that he may be amply provided for when he fhall want them no more.

But people of diftinction in England really deferve pity, for they die in circumftances of the moft extreme diftrefs. It is an established rule, never to let a man know that he is dying: phyficians are fent for, the clergy are called, and every