CORRESPONDENCE.

To the MONTHLY REVIEWERS.

HE attention and judgment with which you' felect the moft important obfervations of the Authors that come under your Review, entitle you to public approbation; and particularly your care to exhibit whatever immediately interests the general economy of life. In this view I confider your extracts and remarks in the last month on Dr. Ingenhoufz's experiments upon vegetables, from which you take occafion to communicate the danger of confinement in a clofe room containing a large quantity of fragrant flowers. As 1 imagine your Review is more generally read than any other periodical performance in Europe, I doubt not but your communication will extenfively diffufe a proper fufpicion of this fragrant and infidious poifon, and thereby obviate future injuries from the fame caufe; but I was not a little furprised, when you mentioned this as a cause of danger bilberto unfufpected."

Though I am of opinion, that Dr. Ingenhoufz has more clearly explained this deleterious quality in fragrant flowers, it has, I beJieve, been long fufpected, though not elucidated with that accuracy which the difcoveries of Dr. Priestley have fince enabled experimentalifts to do. About ten years ago I intimated my opinion, in the Hiftory of Tea, that its fragrance was deleterious, founded upon 'experiments, and confirmed by experience; and inftanced two examples of death in tea-brokers, who in order to ascertain the refpective qualities of teas, fmell at them forcibly, and thus infpire their effluvia; one of thefe perfons died paralytic, and the other Give apoplectic

Lucretius, in his 6th Book, fpeaks very fully of the deleterious effects of effluvia from different fubftances; and his ideas are so appli cable to the present fubject, that I beg leave to tranfcribe them here a Arboribus primum certis gravis umbra tributa eft Ufque adeo, capitis faciant ut fæpe dolores, Siquis eas fubter jacuit profitatus in herbis. Eft etiam in magnis Heliconis montibus arbos Floris adore hominem tetro confueta necare.

In the Acta Curioforum, as well as in fome of the earlier Philofophical Tranfactions, I think I recollect having feen accounts of fome examples of fatality from exposure to fragrant flowers in confined rooms. All the early navigators to the Welt Indies notice the deleterious effluvium of the Manchineel tree, though they vary refpecting its virulence. I do not therefore addrefs you as claiming the merit of a difcovery, but to confirm the fufpicions which you have already fuggested, as feveral cafes have been related to me of perfons who have loft their lives by this expofure, and more than one inftance where the fame fatal confequences have happened from fleeping in a field of beans in bloffem.

London, June 12, 1780.

next.

JOHN COAKLEY LETTSOM,

C.'s favour is received, and fhall be farther noticed in our

APPENDIX

TO THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

VOLUME the SIXTY-SECOND.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I.

Memoire dans lequel on examine les Fondemens de l'Ancienne Hiftoire Chinoife, & ou l'on fait voir que les Miffionaires fe font appuyés fur divers Paffages corrompus d'Auteurs Chinois pour etablir 'lAncienneté de la Nation.-An Inquiry into the Foundations of the ANCIENT HISTORY of China, in which it is proved, that the Miffionaries have employed several corrupted Paffages of the Chinese Authors to afcertain the Antiquity of that Nation. By M. DE GUIGNES, Member of the Royal Academy of Infcriptions, &c.

TH

HIS Piece is the fummary of a more ample and extenfive Memoir, which the learned Author had read at different fittings of the Royal Academy, and it contains an examination of the proofs that have been employed to afcertain the Chinese chronology; Ift, in the writings of the Miffionaries; and 2dly, in the annals of China, themselves. In a former Memoir, M. DE' GUIGNES, by an attentive difcuffion of fome parts of the ancient history of China, had fhewn how uncertain that history is and as feveral Miffionaries had endeavoured to anfwer his objections, he returns to the fubject in the prefent Memoir, and illuftrates and confirms, by new acceffions of evidence, what he had formerly maintained.

One of the first particulars we obferve in this Memoir, is, the learned FRERET employing a paffage of Meng-tfe, a claffical author among the Chincfe, and looking upon it as one of the ftrongest proofs of the authenticity of the Chinese chronology; while it is evident, that this paffage does not exift in Meng-tfe, but was a note of a commentator, who lived near twelve hundred years after*. Father Noel, in his tranflation of the works

Meng-tfe lived in the ivth century before the Christian æra, and his Commentator in the xiith century after. APP, REV. Vol. lxii. LI

of

of Meng-tfe, inferted into the text the notes of the modern commentator, without either diftinguishing them as they are diftinguished in the Chinese work, or informing the public that he had taken this liberty: and as M. FRERET did not underftand the Chinese language, and was therefore obliged to lean upon the authority, and follow the lights (often worse than ambiguous), of the Miffionaries, he built his confident affertion of the antiquity of the Chinefe chronology on Father Noel's tranflation, and alleged, for proof, a falfe quotation, without knowing it. The reader need not be surprised at this inftance of credulity in an unbeliever, though implicit faith in a monkish miffionary be rather a curious phenomenon in fuch a man as M. FRERET.-Be that as it may, Father Noel's tranflation is full of additions of this kind, which cannot be diftinguifhed by a French reader from the Chinese text; but our learned author, by confulting the original, difcovered the error of M. FRERET, whofe hypothefis, and all the labour it coft him, vanish into air in confequence of this difcovery.- Father Couplet, in his tranflation of the works of Confucius, has followed, fays our author, the fame method; if we depend upon the authority of thefe tranflations, we fhall find, indeed, in them a multitude of paffages, that prove the antiquity of the Chinefe chronologybut the misfortune is, that thefe paffages do not exift in the originals.

We learn farther, in this curious Memoir, that Father de Mailla, in the celebrated Chinefe annals, that are published from his tranflation, is guilty of the fame inconfiderate way of proving, and that his references to paffages in the Chinese books are inaccurate, and fallacious, in a very high degree. M. DE GUIGNES gives an inftance of this, which is really ftriking: De Mailla, in order to prove that the Chinefe have not fixed, at random, the duration of the reigns of their ancient kings, tells us, that the Chou-king, a book of the first authority in China, mentions pofitively the duration of the reigns of ten kings of the fecond Dynafty;-he even indicates the chapter, where this is to be found.-Happily for Father Mailla, few critics are capable of examining the original; but, unhappily for him, our Author is one of the few, and affures us, that in the chapter, to which the Rev. Father refers us, there are only three princes mentioned, together with the years in which they governed, and that the greateft part of the others are not even named. Thus the mistakes and tricks of the Miffionaries, and the conjectures and imaginations of other authors, make a confiderable part of that hiftory of China, which a certain set of philofophers fet up as a regulator of the chronology of other hiftorics.

The

The champions of Chinese hiftory have availed themselves much of aftronomical obfervations to fupport the credit of its ancient chronology; but the contradictions and ambiguity that reign in the accounts of thefe obfervations, render the conclufions, drawn from them, very uncertain.-Father Amiot, in a work fent to the king's library, in 1769, affirms, that the conjunction of five planets, which happened under Tchuen hio, is a fictitious epocha,-that it is not mentioned in any work really authentic, or worthy of credit, and that, confequently, it cannot be employed to afcertain the Chinese chronology. But, as if this Rev. Father had forgot himfelf, he, in another work, fent to France in 1775, and lately published, contiders the fame conjunction as a demonftration of the authenticity of the Chinese chronology, and fixes its epocha at the 28th of February of the year 2449, before Chrift. How he came to change his opinion, our Author cannot tell: nor can we imagine, how hiftorians, that were unworthy of credit in 1769, fhould command our affent in 1775. Befide, if we attend to the reports of the other Millionaries, fome of them will be found rejecting this chronology, others adopting it, and all of them calculating it in different ways.

Who shall decide when Doctors difagree?-Similar doubts are excited by fimilar contradictions with refpect to the eclipfe of Tchong-kang. Father De Premare, in one of his publications, throws a profufion of ridicule upon the aftronomers, by whom it was calculated; and yet we find this fame Father reprefented in the Lettres Edifiantes, as maintaining the credit of this eclipse. Our Author alfo fhews the interruption, the diforder, and inaccuracy, that have always reigned in the Chinese cycle of fixty (defigned, at first, to form a period of fixty days, and which was long after applied to a period of fixty years), and of confequence, the fallacy of thofe calculations, which M. FRERET and the Miffionaries have founded upon it.

M. DE GUIGNES, after having evinced the precipitation of the Miffionaries, and fhewn the errors and contradictions into which they have been betrayed by their enthufiaftical admiration of the Chinese hiftory, goes a ftep farther, and undertakes to examine that hiftory, with his own eyes, in order to fee in what it confifts, and on what foundations its credit refts. For this purpose, he examines the hiftory of the Dynafty of Hia, the firft of the imperial Dynafties, which had feventeen emperors, during the fpace of 440 years, and which began about the year 2207 before Jefus Chrift. The Chou-king (fays he) which the Chinese confider as the bafis of their hiftory, and the pureft fource of inftruction, gives very little information with respect to that ancient Dynafty ;-it mentions only four of the

L12

feventeen

feventeen emperors, that modern writers fuppofe to have belonged to it, without even taking notice of the duration of each reign it contains abundance of reflections and maxims relative to government, but few or no events. The history of the second Dynafty is not more circumftantial: of twenty-fix emperors, that it is fuppofed to have contained, the Chou-king mentions only eight, and of these only three, the duration of whofe reigns is fpecified.

It is pretended, that fo early as the reign of Yoa, 2357 years before Chrift, the Chinese made aftronomical obfervations, in countries far diftant from the capital of their empire - that they had a complete year of 365 days and a quarter, and that they undertook immenfe works, to change the course of certain rivers-and all this-when? at a time when they were learning the first elements of agriculture, and only beginning to emerge from a ftate of barbarifm! This, indeed, is not likely unless we follow M. Bailli's hypothefis, according to which it is poffible, that when the great northern Coloffus of erudition and philofophy (erected who knows when or where?) was broken into pieces (who knows how?), fome fplinters of aftronomy might have been carried into China, even in its rude and uncivilized state.

Nor does the Chinese hiftory, according to our Author, derive more confiderable riches from the works of Meng-tfe, who occafionally speaks of fome of the ancient princes, the fame that are mentioned in the Chou-king:-Confucius, in the little treatifes that have been collected by his difciples, mentions no other; so that, from these different works, which are anterior to the general conflagration of the Chinese books (and about which fome doubts might perhaps be eafily excited), it is impoffible to draw a folid body of hiftory.-How then did Se-matfien, about 97 years before Chrift, compofe one, and from what fource did he take the names of all thele ancient emperors? It is true, indeed, he does no more than merely indicate them, and begins to mark the dates only at the year 841 before Chrift, fo that the two firft imperial Dynafties are without date,-which is a ftrange manner of fixing chronology.-Be that as it maySe-ma-tfien is the father of Chinese hiftory; but, even in China, he has the reputation of a ftory-teller, is accufed of having employed the fables invented by the Bonzes; and, in general, his history is little efteemed by the Miffionaries. Sibaud, whole works have been lately printed at Paris, under the name of a Chinese called Ko, fays, that Se-ma-tfien defigned to flatter the vanity of the emperor of China, by compofing á hiftory, in fuch a manner, that the ambaffadors from the western nations of Afia fhould not be able to dispute with that

Father

prince,