grand object of the care of the public minifters. China has always had granaries and magazines erected in every province, and in most of the principal cities, for the relief of the people in times of scarcity. We ftill read orders and edicts of the ancient Emperors, which are full of the tendereft expreffions towards their fuffering fubjects. We can, fay they, neither eat, drink, nor enjoy repose, until we have relieved the public mifery.

These fatherly expreffions, if taken literally, must be underflood as refpecting the time when the Chinese were governed by Emperors of their own nation, who confidered their fubjects as their children. At prefent, the theory is ftill the fame; orders are iffued in the like manner; and, in the provinces, they eafily impofe upon those who hear them published; but, at court, all thefe fine words, which practice belies, are reduced to their proper value. The Emperor perhaps may ftill have the fame affection for his fubjects; but the officers who are entrusted with his orders, are far from executing them with equal zeal. The delays and impediments that keep back fuccour, for the most part prevent it from arriving feasonably. "When the crop has failed in any of the provinces, before the Mandarins, who have the government of it, can fend their memorials to court; before thefe memorials have paffed through all the hands neceffary to convey them to the Emperor; before this prince has affembled the grandees and different tribunals; and before commiffaries are appointed and fet out, the fuffering people are reduced to the greatest extremities, and a thoufand unhappy wretches perish before any affiftance arrives.

Another caufe of the fcarcity of grain in China, is the prodigious confumption which is occafioned daily by the compofition of wines, and of a kind of fpirituous liquor called rack. This is one of the grand fources of the evil, both in the northern and fouthern provinces; government is not ignorant of it; but it employs too weak means to prevent it. Proclamations have often heen published, forbidding the diftillation of rack. The orders of the court are every where pofted up, and announced in all the cities by the governors. Officers, appointed for the purpose, vifit the ftill houses, and deftroy the furnaces if nothing is given them; but if the owner flips into their hand a few pieces of filver, they fhut their eyes, and go fomewhere else to act the fame farce. The mandarin fometimes goes round himself; the workmen are then feized and thrown into prifon; after which, they are condemned to be whipped, or to carry what is called the cangue; but they are never punished with death. The makers of wine then change their habitations, conceal themfelves for a fhort while, and again begin their operations.'

Will thefe acknowlegements, extorted by the obftinacy of facts, juftify the encomiums fo continually beftowed by writers on the government of China?

Moft of our information refpecting the Chinese comes from French writers, who are apt to use a great difplay of words, the meaning of which, if it does not clash in different places, like the inftances already produced, amounts to very little upon examination. When the Abbé Grofier attempts to fum up their

I 4

general

general character, he obferves, One must have been cotemporary with the ancient Chinese, to be able to speak with any certainty of their primitive character. That which they have at prefent, has been acquired, it is the fruit of long difcipline, and of four thousand years habitude. Montaigne has faid, that cuftom becomes a fecond nature; it is at leaft certain, that it impairs and greatly corrupts the firft. The following we confider as a ftriking example. If we take a furvey of all the different provinces of France, we fhall find in each particular features and marks of character, which diftinguish their various inhabitants, and which even point out their difference of origin. It would be in vain to expect any information of this kind from rank or dignity. If, in the like manner, we caft our eye Over the Chinese empire, a perfect uniformity will be obferved in the whole, and all will appear to have been caft in the fame mould. Hence it happens that the Chinese, in general, are a mild and affable people; polite even to excefs; circumfpect in all their actions, and always attentive to weigh the confequences of every thing they are about to attempt; more careful not to expofe their prudence to danger, than to preferve their reputation; as fufpicious of ftrangers, as they are ready to take advantage of them; too much prepoffeffed with a notion of their own importance, to be fenfible of their defects, and entertaining too high ideas of their own knowledge, to feek for inftruction from others.'

What does the author mean by their primitive as diftinguished from their prefent character? Their prefent character is faid to have been acquired; yet, if it is the refult of four thousand years habitude,' we find fome difficulty in admitting the change he supposes; but rather imagine, that, in their prefent character, we difcover the permanency of native diftinctions. The outlines he gives of the Chinese character are thofe of a narrow underftanding, confined by that prejudice which has prevented them from profiting by a free intercourfe with other nations.

Of that propenfity to tricking, from which the Abbé Grofier does not attempt to free the Chinese, the writer of Anfon's voyage gives fome diverting inftances, that took place while the Centurion remained in the harbour of Canton. It has indeed been pleaded in extenuation of fuch practice, well known to all Eaft India failors, that our intercourfe with the Chinese is only at a fea-port town, whence we ought not to form our ideas of national characters: but a better answer is, that as China is univerfally allowed to be extremely populous, and great part of the people wretchedly poor, hunger cannot afford to be honeft, in a ravenous competition.

In the ufual panegyrical ftyle, we are told that filial piety regulates in China the duties of fathers, as well as of children, and thofe too of the Emperor, confidered as the father or patriarch of all:' and that filial piety is fo much honoured and refpected in China, that no inftance is known of a legiflator's having been under the neceffity of enforcing it by enacting laws in its

favour.

favour. In China, it is not confidered as a fimple rule of decency, or duty purely natural: it is a point of religion-and a point of religion that is obferved with the greateft ftrictnefs and attention. Yet within three pages afterward, we have a long quotation from the Li-ki, a kind of code refpecting filial piety, from which we fhall extract a few lines, that may appear ftrange after the preceding affertions:

If a fon makes any attempt against the life of his father or mo ther, every officer and domestic belonging to the family is authorised to kill the parricide. The house fhall be demolished, and rafed from the foundation; and the place on which it flood shall be changed into a common fewer.'

The Abbé gives us feveral articles on the natural hiftory of this remote country, in which, as on all other occafions, we credit him with fidelity to his authorities. He treats of the Chinefe religion, and, in conjunction with father Amiot, difcovers a fymbol of the Trinity in an ancient Chinese character, which is corroborated by paffages from their books, to fhew them to have been poffeffed of fome knowlege of this fublime mystery.* He alfo treats of their language, their literature, their printing, the proceffes in the manufacture of porcelain, their mufic, medicine, &c. An inftance or two will enable us to make a tolerable eftimate of Chinese capacities:

Such, for example, is part of a canal which conducts from Chaobing to Ning-po. Near thefe cities, there are two canals, the waters of which do not communicate, and which differ ten or twelve feet in their level. To render this place paffable for boats, the Chinese have conftructed a double glacis of large ftones, or rather two inclined planes, which unite in an acute angle at their upper extremity, and extend on each fide to the furface of the water. If the bark is in the lower canal, they push it up the plane of the first glacis, by means of feveral capftans, until it is raifed to the angle, when, by its own weight, it glides down the fecond glacis, and precipitates itfelf into the water of the higher canal, with the velocity of an arrow. It is aftonishing, that thefe barks, which are generally very long and heavily laden, never burst asunder when they are balanced in the air upon this acute angle. However, we never hear that any accident happens in this paffage. It is true, they take the precaution of ufing for the keels of thefe barks a kind of wood which is exceedingly hard and proper for refifting the violence of fuch an effort.'

This acute muft certainly be a mistake for an obtufe angle; but after hearing fo much of their inland navigations, is it poffible the Chinese fhould be ignorant of the conftruction of locks, and have a laborious recourfe to fuch clumfy expedients ?

Their method of difcovering murders is very curious:

We have already given a hint of the great fagacity difplayed by the Chinese tribunals in difcovering whether a perfon has died a natural death, or in confequence of fome violence, and even after the body has begun to corrupt. As the importance of this fubject re

quires a fuller detail, we fhall here give it, to terminate the chapter. The body is first taken from the earth, and washed in vinegar. After this, a large fire is kindled in a pit dug on purpose, fix feet long, three wide, and the fame in depth; and this fire is continually aug. mented, until the furrounding earth becomes as hot as an oven. The remaining fire is then taken from the pit; a large quantity of wine is poured into it, and it is covered with a hurdle, made of ofiertwigs, upon which the body is ftretched out at full length. A cloth is thrown over both, in the form of an arch, in order that the steam of the wine may act upon it in every direction. At the end of two hours, this cloth is taken off, and if any blows have been given, they then appear upon the body, in whatever ftate it may be."

The fame experiment is even extended to bones, ftripped of their flesh. The Chinese affures us, that, if the blows given have been fo fevere as to occafion death, this trial makes the marks appear upon the bones, although none of them may be broken, or injured. We muft here remark, that the wine, of which we have spoken, is nothing but a kind of beer, made from rice and honey. This obfervation we confider to be of importance, fhould any attempt ever be made in Europe, to prove the truth of this expedient, which deferves fo much to be verified.'

If the decifions of their criminal courts are governed by fuch proceffes of baking or ftewing dead bodies, and the learned Abbé can hope to introduce the expedient into Europe, our British Solomon's rules for the difcovery of witches and wizards deferve to be viewed with equal degrees of refpect!

Their phyficians are not lefs profound than their lawyers and magiftrates:

When a Chinefe phyfician is called to vifit a fick perfon, he firft places the patient's arm upon a pillow, after which, he applies his four fingers along the artery, fometimes foftly, and fometimes with force. He employs a confiderable time in examining the beats of his pulfe, and in comparing their difference, for it is by a quicker or flower, a ftronger or weaker pulfe, and its regular or irregular motion, that he difcovers the fource of the diforder, and, without afking any questions, informs the patient where he feels pain, what parts are attacked, and what are most expofed to danger; he alfo tells him in what manner, and in what time, his diforder will terminate.

From this precision, one would be apt to conclude that the Chinefe are much better acquainted with anatomy than is generally fuppofed in Europe. It is true, they never ufe diffection, and that they do not even open the bodies of their dead; but if they neglect to ftudy nature in dead fubjects, which always leave much to be gueffed, it appears that they have long ftudied living nature with profound attention, and with advantage. Living nature may, perhaps, not be impenetrable to an observation of three thousand years.'

The obvious credulity of thefe miffionaries will juftify our receiving with fuitable diftruft any thing they may affirm, and which we do not poffels the means of bringing to an adequate test.

12

We

We therefore beg leave to doubt the exiftence of those ftones, faid to contain natural reprefentations of landscapes, rivers, mountains, and trees, which are cut into flabs; and those crabs that petrify on being taken out of the water *.

We doubt alfo, the Tartars on the river Oufouri being obliged to fubfift wholly on fish, because all their land animals have an infupportable tafte +.

We doubt, the droves of wild mules, in Tartary, that can never be tamed; because the production of a mule is a deviation from the natural course of instinct, under human influence 1.

We doubt, that every kind of water in the island of Formofa is a deadly poifon to ftrangers §.

We doubt the ftory of that fpecies of purple fever, among the Tonquinefe, the cure of which is faid to be performed by taking the pith of a certain reed, dipping it in oil, and which, on being fucceffively applied to all the purple spots on the body, caufes the flesh to burft with a report as loud as that of a piftol! And that the cure is to be finifhed by rubbing the wounds with ginger!

We doubt the population of China amounting to 200 milJions ¶.

We doubt that convenient method of gathering olives, by boring a hole in the trunk of the tree, putting falt into it, and then ftopping it up: by which means it is affirmed that all the fruit will drop of itself in the courfe of a few days **. That fo violent an operation may have an effect on the tree, is not queftioned; but the fubfequent health of the tree, which is certainly implied, is the problematical part of the ftory.

We doubt there being a (pecies of pine, whofe fap is poisonous, and whose root, put into the earth or water, foon petrifies, fo as to be used for fharpening the beft tempered tools ++.

Laftly, for we wish to ftop fomewhat fhort of Pyrrhonism, we doubt what we are told of a flat fish, with one eye, and with fins and scales on one fide only; fo that a junction of two is required, to be able to swim as one effective fish ‡‡. We must doubt once more whether the Abbé is juftified in terming this double fifh the most fingular of the Chinese fish!

After all our doubts, we reft in the firm perfuafion, that there is no production of any country whatever, that, when divefted of ignorant and fuperftitious defcription, thoroughly examined, and well understood, will be found to violate the general known Jaws of nature.

Noo. tld. p. 192. ¶ Id. p. 365. It Id. p. 574. ART.