LETTER XXX.

well as mine. Well, owing him for a suit of conclusions: this, therefore, must be my exclothes, and hearing that my book took very cuse for sending so far as China, accounts of well, he sent for his money, and insisted upon manners and follies, which, though minute in being paid immediately though I was at the their own nature, serve more truly to charactertime rich in fame, for my book ran like wild-ize this people, than histories of their public fire, yet I was very short in money and being treaties, courts, ministers, negotiations, and amunable to satisfy his demand, prudently resolved bassadors. Adieu. to keep my chamber, preferring a prison of my own choosing at home, to one of my tailor's choosing abroad. In vain the bailiffs used all their arts to decoy me from my citadel; in vain they sent to let me know that a gentleman wanted to speak with me at the next tavern; in vain they came with an urgent message from my aunt in the country; in vain I was told that a particular friend was at the point of death, and desired to take his last farewell. I was deaf, insensible, rock, adamant; the bailiffs could make no impression on my hard heart, for I effectually kept my liberty by never stirring out of the room.

"This was very well for a fortnight; when one morning I received a most splendid message from the Earl of Doomsday, importing, that he had read my book, and was in raptures with every line of it; he impatiently longed to see the author, and had some designs which might turn out greatly to my advantage. I paused upon the contents of this message, and found there could be no deceit, for the card was gilt at the edges, and the bearer, I was told had quite the looks of a gentleman.-Witness, ye powers, how my heart triumphed at my own importance! I saw a long perspective of felicity before me; I applauded the taste of the times which never saw genius forsaken: I had prepared a set introductory speech for the occasion; five glaring compliments for his lordship, and two more modest for myself. The next morning, therefore, in order to be punctual to my appointment, I took coach, and ordered the fellow to drive to the street and house mentioned in his

lordship's address. I had the precaution to pull up the window as I went along, to keep off the busy part of mankind, and, big with expectation, fancied the coach never went fast enough. At length, however, the wished for moment of its stopping arrived: this for some time I impatiently expected, and letting down the window in a transport, in order to take a previous view of his lordship's magnificent palace and situation, I found, poison to my sight! I found myself not in an elegant street, but a paltry lane; not at a nobleman's door, but the door of a spunging-house! I found the coachman had all this while been just driving me to jail; and I saw the bailiff, with a devil's face, coming out to secure me."

To a philosopher, no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute; he finds instruction and entertainment in occurrences, which are passed over by the rest of mankind, as low, trite, and indifferent; it is from the number of these particulars, which to many appear insignificant, that he is at last enabled to form general

FROM THE SAME.

THE English have not yet brought the art of gardening to the same perfection with the Chinese, but have lately begun to imitate them: Nature is now followed with greater assiduity than formerly; the trees are suffered to shoot out into the utmost luxuriance; the streams, no longer forced from their native beds, are permitted to wind along the valleys: spontaneous flowers take place of the finished parterre, and the enamelled meadow of the shaven green.

Yet still the English are far behind us in this charming art; their designers have not yet attained the power of uniting instruction with beauty. A European will scarcely. conceive my meaning, when I say that there is scarcely a garden in China which does not contain some fine moral, couched under the general design, where one is taught wisdom as he walks, and feels the force of some noble truth, or delicate precept, resulting from the disposition of the groves, streams or grottos. mit me to illustrate what I mean by a description of my gardens at Quinsi. My heart still hovers round those scenes of former happiness with pleasure; and I find a satisfaction in enjoying them at this distance, though but in imagination.

Per

You descended from the house between two groves of trees, planted in such a manner, that they were impenetrable to the eye; while on each hand the way was adorned with all that was beautiful in porcelain, statuary, painting. This passage from the house opened into an area surrounded with rocks, flowers, trees, and shrubs, but all so disposed as if each was the spontaneous production of nature. you proceeded forward on this lawn, to your right and left hand were two gates, opposite each other, of very different architecture and design; and before you lay a temple, built ra ther with minute elegance than ostentation.

As

The right hand gate was planned with the ut most simplicity, or rather rudeness; ivy clasped round the pillars, the baleful cypress hung over it; time seemed to have destroyed all the smoothness and regularity of the stone; two champions with lifted clubs appeared in the act of guarding its access; dragons and serpents were seen in the most hideous attitudes, to deter the spectator from approaching; and the perspective view that lay behind seemed

dark and gloomy to the last degree; the stranger was tempted to enter only from the motto-PERVIA VIRTUTI.

The opposite gate was formed in a very different manner; the architecture was light, elegant, and inviting; flowers hung in wreaths round the pillars; all was finished in the most exact and masterly manner; the very stone of which it was built still preserved its polish; nymphs, wrought by the hand of a master, in the must alluring attitudes, beckoned the stranger to approach; while all that lay behind, as far as the eye could reach, seemed gay and luxuriant, and capable of affording endless pleasure. The motto itself contributed to invite him; for over the gate were written these words, FACILIS DESCENSUS.

By this time I fancy you begin to perceive, that the gloomy gate was designed to represent the road to virtue; the opposite, the more agreeable passage to Vice. It is but natural to suppose, that the spectator was always tempted to enter by the gate which offered him so many allurements. I always in these cases left him to his choice; but generally found that he took to the left, which promised most entertainment.

Immediately upon his entering the gate of Vice, the trees and flowers were disposed in such a manner as to make the most pleasing impression; but as he walked farther on, he insensibly found the garden assume the air of a wilderness, the landscapes began to darken, the paths grew more intricate, he appeared to go downwards, frightful rocks seemed to hang over his head, gloomy caverns, unexpected precipices, awful ruins, heaps of unburied bones, and terrifying sounds, caused by unseen waters, began to take place of what at first appeared so lovely; it was in vain to attempt returning, the labyrinth was too much perplexed for any but myself to find the way back. In short, when sufficiently impressed with the horrors of what he saw, and the imprudence of his choice, I brought him by a hidden door a shorter way back into the area from whence at first he had strayed,

Though from this description you may imagine, that a vast tract of ground was necessary to exhibit such a pleasing variety in, yet be assured, I have seen several gardens in England take up ten times the space which mine did, without half the beauty. A very small extent of ground is enough for an elegant taste; the greater room is required if magnificence is in view. There is no spot, though ever so little, which a skilful designer might not thus improve; so as to convey a delicate allegory, and impress the mind with truths the most useful and necessarv. Adieu.

LETTER XXXI.

FROM THE SAME.

IN a late excursion with my friend into the country, a gentleman with a blue ribbon tied round his shoulder, and in a chariot drawn by six horses, passed swiftly by us, attended with a numerous train of captains, lacqueys, and coaches filled with women. When we were recovered from the dust raised by this cavalcade, and could continue our discourse without danger of suffocation, I observed to my companion, that all this state and equipage, which he seemed to despise, would in China be regarded with the utmost reverence, becsuse such distinctions were always the reward of merit; the greatness of a mandarine's retinue being a most certain mark of the superiority of his abilities or virtue.

The gentleman who has now passed us, replied my companion, has no claims from his own merit to distinction; he is possessed neither of abilities nor virtue; it is enough for him that one of his ancestors was possessed of these qualities two hundred years before him. There was a time, indeed, when his family deserved their title, but they are long since degenerated, and his ancestors, for more than a century, have been more and more solicitous to keep up the breed of their dogs and horses, than that of The gloomy gate now presented itself before their children. This very nobleman, simthe stranger; and though there seemed little ple as he seems, is descended from a race of in its appearance to tempt his curiosity, yet statesmen and heroes: but unluckily, his encouraged by the motto, he gradually proceed-great-grandfather marrying a cook-maid, and ed. The darkness of the entrance, the frightful figures that seemed to obstruct his way, the trees, of a mournful green, conspired at first to disgust him; as he went forward, however, all began to open and wear a more pleasing appearance; beautiful cascades, beds of flowers, trees loaded with fruit or blossoms, and unexpected brooks improved the scene; he now found that he was ascending, and, as he proceeded, all nature grew more beautiful, the prospect widened as he went higher, even the air itself seemed to be. come more pure. Thus pleased and happy from unexpected beauties, I at last led him to an arbour, from whence he could view the garden, and the whole country around, and where he might own, that the road to VIRTUE terminated in HAPPINESS.

she having a trifling passion for his lordship's groom, they somehow crossed the strain, and produced an heir, who took after his mother in his great love to good eating, and his father in a violent affection for horse-flesh. These passions have for some generations passed on from father to son, and are now become the characteristics of the family, his present lordship being equally remarkable for his kitchen and his stable.

But such a nobleman, cried I, deserves our pity, thus placed in so high a sphere of life, which only the more exposes to contempt. A king may confer titles, but it is personal merit alone that insures respect. I suppose, added I, that such men are despised by their equals, neglected by their inferiors, and cop

demned to live among involuntary dependents | but cannot afford it at the first hand, post themin irksome solitude.

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selves on these occasions round the huts of the rich, and watch the opportunities of the ladies and gentlemen as they come down to pass their liquor: and holding a wooden bowl, catch the delicious fluid, very little altered by filtration, being still strongly tinctured with the intoxicating quality. Of this they drink with the utmost satisfaction, and thus they get as drunk and as jovial as their betters.

Happy nobility, cries my companion, who can fear no diminution of respect, unless_by being seized with strangury, and who when most drunk are most useful! Though we have not this custom among us, I foresee, that

You are still under a mistake, replied my companion; for though this nobleman is a stranger to generosity; though he takes twenty opportunities in a day of letting his guests know how much he despises them; though he is possessed neither of taste, wit, nor wisdom; though incapable of improving others by his conversation, and never known to enrich any by his bounty; yet, for all this, his company is eagerly sought after he is a lord, and that is as much as most people desire in a companion. Quality and title have such allurements, that hundreds are ready to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flat-if it were introduced, we might have many a ter, to look little, and to pall every pleasure in constraint, merely to be among the great, though without the least hopes of improving their understanding, or sharing their generosity they might be happy among their equals, but those are despised for company, where they are despised in turn. You saw what a crowd of humble cousins, card-ruined beaux, and captains on half-pay, were willing to make up this great man's retinue down to his country-seat. Not one of all these that could not lead a more comfortable life at home, in their little lodging of three shillings a-week, with their lukewarm dinner, served up between two pewter plates from a cook's shop. Yet, poor devils! they are willing to undergo the impertinence and pride of their entertainer, merely to be thought to live among the great: they are willing to pass the summer in bondage, though conscious they are taken down only to approve his lordship's taste upon every occasion, to tag all his stupid observations with a very true, to praise his stable, and descant upon his claret and cookery.

toad-eater in England ready to drink from the wooden bowl on these occasions, and to praise the flavour of his lordship's liquor. As we have different classes of gentry, who knows but we may see a lord holding the bowl to a minister, a knight holding it to his lordship, and a simple 'squire drinking it double distilled from the loins of the knighthood? For my part, I shall never for the future hear a great man's flatterers haranguing in his praise, that I shall not fancy I behold the wooden bowl; for I can see no reason why a man, who can live easily and happily at home, should bear the drudgery of decorum and the impertinence of his entertainer, unless intoxicated with a passion for all that was quality; unless he thought that whatever came from the great was delicious and had the tincture of the mushroom in it. Adieu.

LETTER XXXII.

FROM THE SAME.

The pitiful humiliations of the gentlemen you are now describing, said I, put me in mind of a custom among the Tartars of Koreki, not I AM disgusted, O Fum Hoam, even to sickentirely dissimilar to this we are now consi-ness disgusted. Is it possible to hear the predering.* The Russians who trade with them, sumption of those islanders, when they pretend carry thither a kind of mushrooms, which they to instruct me in the ceremonies of China! They exchange for furs or squirrels, ermines, sables, lay it down as a maxim, that every person who and foxes. These mushrooms the rich Tartars comes from thence must express himself in melay up in large quantities for the winter; and taphor; swear by Alla, rail against wine, and bewhen a nobleman makes a mushroom-feast, all have, and talk, and write, like a Turk or Perthe neighbours around are invited. The mush- sian. They make no distinction between our rooms are prepared by boiling, by which the elegant manners, and the voluptuous barbarities water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a of our Eastern neighbours. Wherever I come, sort of drink which the Tartars prize beyond 1 raise either diffidence or astonishment: all other. When the nobility and ladies are some fancy me no Chinese, because I am assembled, and the ceremonies usual between formed more like a man than a monster; and people of distinction over, the mushroom-broth others wonder to find one born five thousand goes freely round; they laugh, talk double en- miles from England, endued with common tendre, grow fuddled, and become excellent sense, Strange, say they, that a man who has company. The poorer sort, who love mush- received his education at such à distance from room-broth to distraction as well as the rich, London, should have common sense: to be born out of England, and yet have common sense! Impossible! He must be some Englishman in disguise; his very visage has nothing of the true exotic barbarity.

* Van Stralenberg, a writer of credit, gives the same account of this people. See an Historico Geographical Description of the north-eastern parts of Europe and

Asia, p. 397.

I yesterday received an invitation from a

lady of distinction, who it seems had collected all her knowledge of Eastern manner from fictions every day propagated here, under the titles of Eastern tales and Oriental histories; she received me very politely, but seemed to wonder that I neglected bringing opium and a tobacco-box; when chairs were drawn for the rest of the company, I was assigned my place on a cushion on the floor. It was in vain that I protested the Chinese used chairs as in Europe: she understood decorum too well to entertain me with the ordinary civilities.

I had scarcely been seated according to her directions, when the footman was ordered to pin a napkin under my chin; this I protested against, as being no way Chinese; however, the whole company, who it seems were a club of connoisseurs, gave it unanimously against me, and the napkin was pinned accordingly.

persuaded the rest of the company to be of his opinion.

I was going to expose his mistakes, when it was insisted that I had nothing of the true Eastern manner in my delivery. This gentleman's conversation (says one of the ladies, who was a reader) is like our own, mere chitchat and common sense: there is nothing like sense in the true Eastern style, where nothing more is required but sublimity. Oh! for a history of Aboulfaouris, the grand voyager, of genii, magicians, rocks, bags of bullets, giants, and enchanters where all is great, obscure, magnificent, and unintelligible.-I have written many a sheet of Eastern tale myself, interrupts the author, and I defy the severest critic to say but that I have stuck close to the true manner. I have compared a lady's chin to the snow upon the mountains of Romek; a soldier's sword, to the clouds that obscure the face of heaven. If riches are mentioned, I compare them to the flocks that graze the verdant Tefflis; if poverty, to the mists that veil the brow of mount Baku. I have used thee and thou upon all occasions; I have described fallen stars and splitting mountains, not forgetting the little Houries, who make a pretty figure in every description. But you should hear how I generally begin: "Eben-ben-bolo, who was the son of Ban, was born on the foggy summits of Benderabassi. His beard was whiter than the feathers which veil the breasts of the PenAguin; his eyes were like the eyes of doves when washed by the dews of the morning; his hair, which hung like the willow weeping over the glassy stream, was so beautiful that it seemed to reflect its own brightness; and his feet were as the feet of a wild deer which fleeth to the tops of the mountains." There, there is the true Eastern taste for you; every advance made towards sense, is only a deviation from sound. Eastern tales should always be sonorous, lofty, musical, and unmeaning.

It was impossible to be angry with people, who seemed to err only from an excess of politeness, and I sat contented, expecting their importunities were now at an end; but as soon as ever dinner was served, the lady demanded, whether I was for a plate of Bears' claws, or a slice of Birds' nests? As these were dishes with which I was utterly unacquainted, I was desirous of eating only what I knew, and therefore begged to be helped from a piece of beef that lay on the side-table; my request at once disconcerted the whole company. Chinese eat beef! that could never be! there was no local propriety in Chinese beef, whatever there might be in Chinese pheasant. Sir, said my entertainer, I think I have some reason to fancy myself a judge of these matters in short, the Chinese never eat beef; so that I must be permitted to recommend the Pilaw. There was never better dressed at Pekin; the saffron and rice are well-boiled, and the spices in perfection.

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I had no sooner begun to eat what was laid before me, than I found the whole company I could not avoid smiling, to hear a native as much astonished as before; it seems I of England attempt to instruct me in the true made no use of my chop-sticks. A grave Eastern idiom; and after he looked round gentleman, whom I take to be an author, ha- some time for applause, I presumed to ask him, rangued very learnedly (as the company seem- whether he had ever travelled into the East, to ed to think, upon the use which was made of which he replied in the negative. I demandthem in China. He entered into a long argued whether he understood Chinese or Arabic; ment with himself about their first introduc- to which also he answered as before. Then tion, without once appealing to me, who might how, Sir, said I, can you pretend to determine be supposed best capable of silencing the in- upon the Eastern style, who are entirely unacquiry. As the gentleman therefore took my quainted with the Eastern writings? Take, silence for a mark of his own superior sagacity, Sir, the word of one who is professedly a he was resolved to pursue the triumph; he Chinese, and who is actually acquainted with talked of our cities, mountains, and animals, as the Arabian writers, that what is palmed upon familiarly as if he had been born in Quamsi, you daily for an imitation of Eastern writing, but as erroneously as if a native of the moon. no way resembles their manner, either in sentiHé attempted to prove that I had nothing of ment or diction. In the East, similes are the true Chinese cut in my visage; showed seldom used, and metaphors almost wholly unthat my cheek-bones should have been higher, known; but in China particularly, the very re and my forehead broader. In short, he almost verse of what you allude to takes place: a reasoned me out of my country, and effectually cool phlegmatic method of writing prevails

there. The writers of that country, ever | who had invited me, with the most mortifying more assiduous to instruct than to please, ad- insensibility, saw me seize my hat, and rise dress rather the judgment than the fancy. Un- from my cushion; nor was I invited to repeat like many authors of Europe, who have no my visit, because it was found that I aimed at consideration of the reader's time, they gene- appearing rather a reasonable creature, than an rally leave more to be understood than they outlandish idiot. Adieu.