Spoken to man, to be only, that it was fit the common people fhould believe fo.

Among the eafterns an opinion was entertained, that befides the revolution of each particular planet, there was an entire revolution of the whole heavenly bodies, which took up an amazing number of years, and was called by them annus magnus, or the great year. And as they were unwilling to think the univerfe fo new as only to be in the first of thefe periods, they were naturally inclined to remove the age of the world very far back. There is fome probability that the extravagant dates they affign may have arifen from this circumftance.

The regular fucceffion of a prodigious number of kings may be ac. counted for, by fuppofing, what we know has happened in fimilar cafes, that they mention the names of feveral petty princes who reigned in different parts of the empire at the fame time, as if they had been all fupreme fucceffive fovereigns.

With refpect to their proficiency in fcience, we may almost conclude à priori, that it is very fmall. They have not yet found out the art of ufing an alphabet of fimple founds; and hence they are obliged to invent a particular mark for every word, which renders it the work of a man's whole life to be able to read a book*. And fo extremely irregular and defective is their language, that the learned, when converfing together, are often forced to write down what they have spoken, in order to render it intelligible. Among the neighbouring nations, the Chinese tongue is usually called the language of confufion †.

They had fome idea of fire-arms before we inftructed them, but it was quite rude ; and they feem to

* Sonnerat. II. 23. note to p. 468 of the Lufiad. Rech. Phil. I. 47.

have learned it from fome other nas tion |. Before printing was known in Europe, they had alfo fome rude method of ftamping with wooden blocks, but they had never improved it in any degree; and the European printing was as much fuperior to theirs as the rougheft draught to the finest copperplate. When the Jefuits examined their pretended skill in mathematics, they found it an impofition. To this day they are obliged to employ Germans at Pekin to compose the almanack of the empire §.

În medicine they are very igno rant. Cauterifing with red-hot wires is a kind of universal remedy among them. The route they make about the pulfe feems little more than a fpecies of quackery. The extravagant opinions they hold on this fubject, joined to their exceffive jealoufy, have led them into ftrange abfurdities. In China it would be high treafon for a phyfician to touch a lady's arm. When a woman of rank is fick, a filk thread is tied round it, and the extremity of it given to the doctor; who from the vibrations communicated to the thread, muft judge the whole safe of the patient, and prescribe accordingly . In this refpect they resemble all the eastern nations, who never permit phyficians to fee their female patients. In Perfia, the only medi cal attendants allowed to the ladies are old matrons, fo ignorant that they can neither read nor write. When M. Tournefort vifited the feraglio of the Grand Vifior at Conftantinople, the ladies were permit ted to put out their hands through holes in the wall, that he might feel their pulfes. It was a great conceffion, but he was not allowed to fee or fpeak to them. These nations

feem

+ Mickle, § Rech. Phil. II. 131«

feem only to have carried to full perfection the principles upon which those writers proceed who have reprobated the employment of male practitioners in midwifery.

In anatomy, fays Dr Hunter, they are two thousand years behind the Europeans *. Their figures are no better than a common butcher might draw. We cannot poffibly entertain a high idea of the state of phyfic among them, when we confider that madnefs, which has fo long infected them, of finding out a liquor of immortality; in purfuit of which, it is faid, feveral of their princes have poifoned themselves t. They pretend that gin-feng is a remedy for all poffible difeafes; but our experiments have proved it to be a very forry root.

It is a practice among the literati in China, to fuffer their nails to grow to an immoderate length, that they may not be taken for labourers, or have their dignity fo much degraded as to be fuppofed to depend on toil for their fubfiftence ‡. This ridiculous fhift is fufficient to convince us, that they are little better than quacks, among whom the genuine fpirit of philofophy is unknown. If we wish farther proof of this, we have it in their univerfal attachments to the method of divination by magical rods and the y-king, which Confucius, of whom we shall speak by and by, taught them . Du Halde himself admits, that the first literati in China are very ignorant, incapable of reasoning juftly on the operations of nature, the foul, or the Deity, who indeed occupies little of their attention §.

If we allow them the merit of induftry, it is employed only in trifles; and we must at the fame

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time add, that they are the most uninventive people on the face of the earth. It is faid, that already they have loft almost all that the Jefuits taught them when they had free access to China. All the great improvements have been made by the Tartar princes. Koublai Khan, in the end of the 13th century, almost changed the face of the country

**

In the fine arts they are very poor proficients tt. The Jefuits, in order to draw people to their churches, painted them in the European manner; and the fcheme fucceeded beyond their utmost expectations. What most charmed the Chinese were the perspective views, of which they feemed to have almoft no conception. The Tartars themselves could not endure the miferable defigns of the Chinese; and the emperors of that race always employed European painters at their court. Ghirardini, who went to China in 1698, was taken for a magician at Pekin; and when he returned home, he declared, that that people had not the leaft idea of the fine arts: They knew nothing but to weigh gold and eat rice ‡‡. Their colours are fine, but they have produced nothing tolerable with them, except the pieces executed from European defigns, of which immenfe numbers have been fent to them. In every thing of their own, we trace the exaggerated genius of the east. Their wares are covered with frightful pictures of dragons and unnatu ral monfters. Nothing is ftriking in them, but the horrid glare of the eyes and fcales of ferpents. It must have been the rage for expenfive and foreign luxuries which could have induced people of fortune to prefer fuch articles to the elegant

ma

manufacture of our own country. In China, as in the other kingdoms of Afia, defpotifm has prevented the progrefs of the arts. The monarch endeavours to monopolize manufactures, and calls to the Court every artist of fuperior eminence. In Siam, fays La Larbere, no man studies to excel greatly in his profeffion, becaufe he would be forced to work fix years for the court *. In the palace of the Perfian King there are thirty-two work fhops, where every thing for his Majesty is made t.

They are deeply tinctured with a fpecies of fuperftition, common to all Barbarians, that of paying a peculiar reverence to certain numbers. In China, nine and five are the facred numbers, and every thing is accommodated to them . Hence they make five moral virtues, five canonical books, five primary colours, five mufical notes, &c. and five elements, which are fire, water, earth, wood, and metal || ! Their country abounds with fteeples and towers nine ftories high; and when any one comes into the prefence of the emperor, he muft proftrate himfelf nine times to the ground before his throne §. They have nine facred vafes, reprefenting the nine provinces of the empire, to which the fafety of these provinces is fuppofed to be, in fome unaccountable manner, attached ¶.

The real character of their great philofopher Confucius feems ftill to be little understood in Europe**. A great number of books have been forged in his name, and impofed on the public. Such of his works as are authentic, contain no cenfure of the impious and abfurd practices common in China. They are favourable to defpotifm, and the ex

* Relat. du Royaume de Siam, I. 2. nerat. II. 30. Rech. Phil. I. 345. Phil. II. 195. *** Sonnerat. II. 29.

Like the ignorant populace, he was attached to unequal numbers, and faid that two, four, fix, eight, &c. were terreftrial, while three, five, nine, &c. were celeftial. For the two laft he had a peculiar reverence. Of his account of the origin of Things and of the Deity, I comprehend nothing. I fhall be glad if any other perfon can decypher it. From the great height were engendered two qualities, the perfect and the imperfect. These two qualities have engendered four images: these four images produced the figures of Fo-hi, that is to fay, all things.' Thus we have it in his commentary on the Yking. And what bears hardest of all on his character is, that he was extremely fond of the method of predieting future events by the magical rods and y-king; of which the curious reader will find an account in M. Vifdelou's book already cited, p. 410. Of this practice he not only approved, but formed a fyftem of rules for it, which will for ever remain a monument of the weakness of Confucius, and of that of the human mind. On the whole, after viewing his character in the most candid light, I can only confider him as an extraordinary man, whofe wifdom was tarnished by deplorable follies, and who, at beit, was not fo wife as a common mechanic may be under the light of revelation.

It is not poffible that science can flourish extenfively among the Chinefe, fince they have no public fchools.

65

ment, policy, morals, and religion; but having already perhaps encroached on your limits, I fhall close at prefent: And if this fpecimen be agreeable, I fhall at a future period, when I can command a fpare hour, conclude my subject.

Edin. June 17.2 1786.

I am, Sir, Yours, &c.

T. C.

THE

HE body of Archbishop Elphege, who was murdered by the Danes at Greenwich 1012, and buried at London, was found ten years after ab omni corruptionis tabe immune,' and transferred to Canterbury +.

The corpfe of Etheldritha, foundrefs of Ely monaftery, was feen through a hole which the Danes broke in her coffin; a prieft, more forward than the reft, prying too bufily, and endeavouring to pull the envelope out by a cleft ftick, the faint drew back the drapery fo haftily that the tript up his heels, and gave him fuch a fail as he never recovered, nor his fenfes afterwards. Bishop Athelwold ftopped up the hole, and fubftituted monks to the priefts. Abbot Brithnoth transferred hither the body of Withburga, the foundrefs's fifter: and when afterwards, in the time of Abbot Richard, fome doubts were entertained about the incorruptibility of the foundrefs, no body prefumed to examine her body; but they contented themfelves with uncovering that of her fifter ultra mammas ;' who was VOL. IV. N° 20.

found to be in fuch good prefervation, that fhe feemed more like a perfon afleep than dead: a filk cufhion lay under her head; her veil and veftments all feemed as good as new; her complexion clear and rofy; her teeth white, her lips fomewhat fhrunk, and her breasts redu. ced t

In the year 1497, in the moneth of April, as labourers digged for the foundation of a wall within the church of St Mary-hill, nere unto Bilingfgate, they found a coffin of rotten timber, and therein the corpfe of a woman, whole of skinne and bones undiffevered, and the joynts of her arms plyable without breaking of the fkin; upon whofe fepulcher this was engraver:

"Here lye the bodies of Ri"chard Hackney fifhmonger and "Alice his wife; which Richard was fheriff in the 15th of Ed"ward II."

66

Her body was kept above ground three or four dayes without noyance; but then it waxed unfavory, and was again buried ||.'

In the curious and ancient regi-
I

Ibid. 167. b.

fters

Stow Lon