who practise it must be influenced by greater | unrepenting criminal soon after renewed his motives than empty fame; the people are generally well pleased with a remission of punishment, and all that wears the appearance of humanity; it is the wise alone who are capable of discerning that impartial justice is the truest mercy; they know it to be very difficult, at once to compassionate, and yet condemn an object that pleads for tenderness.

A man

usual entertainment, and in the same manner killed another man. He was a second time condemned; and strange to think, a second time received his majesty's pardon! Would you believe it? A third time the very same man was guilty of the very same offence; a third time, therefore, the laws of his country found him guilty:-I wish, for the honour of humanity, I could suppress the rest-A third time was he pardoned! Will you not think such a story too extraordinary for belief? will you not think me describing the savage inhabitants of Congo? Alas! the story is but too true; and the country where it was transacted, regards itself as the politest in Europe! Adieu.

I have been led into this common-place train of thought by a late striking instance in this country of the impartiality of justice, and of the king's inflexible resolution of inflicting punishment where it was justly due. of the first quality, in a fit either of passion, melancholy, or madness, murdered his servant; it was expected that his station in life would have lessened the ignominy of his punishment; however, be was arraigned, condemned, and underwent the same degrading death with the meanest malefactor. It was well considered that virtue alone is true nobility; and that he FROM LIEN CHI ALTANGI TO whose actions sink him even beneath the vulgar, has no right to those distinctions which should be the rewards only of merit; it was perhaps considered that crimes were more heinous among the higher classes of people, as necessity exposes them to fewer temptations.

Over all the East, even China not excepted, a person of the same quality, guilty of such a crime, might, by giving up a share of his fortune to the judge, buy off his sentence. There are several countries, even in Europe, where the servant is entirely the property of his master; if a slave kills his lord, he dies by the most excruciating tortures; but if the circumstances are reversed, a small fine buys off the punishment of the offender. Happy the country where all are equal, and where those who sit as judges have too much integrity to receive a bribe, and too much honour to pity from a similitude of the prisoner's title or circumstances with their own. Such is England; yet think not that it was always equally famed for this strict impartiality. There was a time, even here, when title softened the rigours of the law, when dignified wretches were suffer ed to live, and continue for years an equal disgrace to justice and nobility.

To this day, in a neighbouring country, the great are often most scandalously pardoned for the most scandalous offences. A person is still alive among them who has more than once deserved the most ignominious severity of justice. His being of the blood royal, however, was thought a sufficient atonement for his being a disgrace to humanity. This remarkable personage took pleasure in shooting at the passengers below from the top of his palace; and in this most princely amusement he usually spent some time every day. He was at length arraigned by the friends of a person whom in this manner he had killed, was found guilty of the charge, and condemned to die.

His merciful monarch pardoned him, in consideration of his rank and quality. The

LETTER XXXVIII.

*** MERCHANT

IN AMSTERDAM.

CEREMONIES are different in every country: but true politeness is everywhere the same. Ceremonies, which take up so much of our attention, are only artificial helps which.ignorance assumes, in order to imitate politeness, which is the result of good sense and good nature. A person possessed of those qualities, though he had never seen a court, is truly agreeable; and if without them, would continue a clown, though he had been all his life a gentleman usher.

How would a Chinese, bred up in the formalities of an Eastern Court, be regarded, should be carry all his good manners_beyond the Great Wall? How would an Englishman, skilled in all the decorums of Western good-breeding, appear at an Eastern entertainment-would he not be reckoned more fantastically savage than even his unbred footman?

Ceremony resembles that base coin which circulates through a country by the royal mandate; it serves every purpose of real money at home, but is entirely useless if carried abroad; a person who should attempt to circulate his native trash in another country, would be thought either ridiculous or culpable. He is truly well-bred, who knows when to value and when to despise those national peculiarities, which are regarded by some with so much observance: a traveller of taste at once perceives that the wise are polite all the world over, but that fools are polite only at home.

I have now before me two very fashionable letters upon the same subject, both written by ladies of distinction; one of whom leads the fashion in England, and the other sets the ceremonies of China: they are both regarded in their respective countries, by all the beau monde, as standards of taste, and models of true politeness, and both give us a true idea of what they imagine elegant in their admirers: which of them understands true politeness, or

whether either, you shall be at liberty to determine. The English lady writes thus to her female confidant :

the dear creature may be able to produce the money, and pay papa my fortune. The colonel is reckoned the politest man in all Shensi. The first visit he paid at our house; mercy! what stooping, and cringing, and stopping, and fidg.

As I live, my dear Charlotte, I believe the colonel will carry it at last; he is a most ir-eting, and going back, and creeping forward, resistible fellow, that is flat. So well dressed, there was between him and papa: one would so neat, so sprightly, and plays about one so have thought he had got the seventeen books agreeably, that I vow, he has as much spirits of ceremonies all by heart. When he was come as the marquis of Monkeyman's Italian grey- into the hall, he flourished his hands three times hound. I first saw him at Ranelagh; he in a very graceful manner. Papa, who would shines there he is nothing without Ranelagh; not be out-done, flourished his four times; upand Ranelagh nothing without him. The next on this the colonel began again, and both thus day, he sent a card and compliments, desiring continued flourishing for some minutes in the to wait on mamma and me to the music sub- politest manner imaginable. I was posted in scription. He looked all the time with such the usual place behind the screen, where I saw irresistible impudence, that positively he had the whole ceremony through a slit. Of this something in his face gave me as much pleasure the colonel was sensible, for papa informed him. as a pair-royal of naturals in my own hand. I would have given the world to have shown He waited on mamma and me the next morn-him my little shoes, but had no opportunity. It ing to know how we got home: you must know the insidious devil makes love to us both. Rap went the footman at the door; bounce went my heart: I thought he would have rattled the house down. Chariot drove up to the window, with his footman in the prettiest liveries; he has infinite taste, that is flat. Mamma had spent all the morning at her head; but for my part I was in an undress to receive him; quite easy, mind that; no way disturbed at his approach: mamma pretended to be as degagee as I; and yet I saw her blush in spite of her. Positively he is a most killing devil! We did nothing but laugh all the time he staid with us; I never heard so many very good things before: at first he mistook mamma for my sister; at which she laughed: then he mistook my natural complexion for paint; at which I laughed; and then he showed us a picture in the lid of his snuff-box, at which we all laughed. He plays picquet so very ill, and is so very fond of cards, and loses with such a grace, that positively he has won me; I have got a cool hundred; but have lost my heart. I need not tell you that he is only a colonel of the trainbands. I am, dear Charlotte, yours for ever,

BELINDA.

The Chinese lady addresses her confidant, a poor relation of the family, upon the same occasion; in which she seems to understand decorums even better than the Western beauty. You who have resided so long in China, will readily acknowledge the picture to be taken from nature; and, by being acquainted with the Chinese customs, will better apprehend the lady's meaning.

FROM YAOUA TO YAYA.

PAPA insists upon one, two, three, four hundred taels from the colonel my lover, before he parts with a lock of my hair. Ho, how I wish

was the first time I had ever the happiness of seeing any man but papa, and I vow, my dear Yaya, I thought my three souls would actually have fled from my lips. Ho, but he looked most charmingly; he is reckoned the best shaped man in the whole province, for he is very fat, and very short; but even those natural advantages are improved by his dress, which is fashionable past description. His head was close shaven, all but the crown, and the hair of that was braided into a most beautiful tail, that reached down to his heels, and was terminated by a bunch of yellow roses. Upon his first entering the room, I could easily perceive he had been highly perfumed with assafoetida. But then his looks, his looks, my dear Yaya, were irresistible. He kept his eyes steadfastly fixed on the wall during the whole ceremony, and I sincerely believe no accident could have discomposed his gravity, or drawn his eyes away. After a polite silence of two hours, he gallantly begged to have the singing women introduced, purely for my amusement. After one of them had for some time entertained us with her voice, the colonel and she retired for some minutes together. I thought they would never I have come back; I must own he is a most agreeable creature. Upon his return, they again renewed the concert, and he continued to gaze upon the wall as usual, when in less than half an hour more, ho! but he retired out of the room with another. He is indeed a most agreeable creature.

When he came to take his leave, the whole ceremony began afresh; papa would see him to the door, but the colonel swore he would rather see the earth turned upside down than permit him to stir a single step, and papa was at last obliged to comply. As soon as he was got to the door, papa went out to see him on horseback; here they continued half an hour bowing and cringing, before one would mount or the other go in, but the colonel was at last victorious. He had scarce gone a hundred paces from the house, when papa running out hallooed after him, A good journey! upon which

the colonel returned, and would see papa into | for ought I know they never made a single verse his house before ever he would depart. He in their whole lives. was no sooner got home than he sent me a very fine present of duck eggs painted of twenty different colours. His generosity I own has won me. I have ever since been trying over the eight letters of good fortune, and have great hopes. All I have to apprehend is, that after he has married me, and that I am carried to his house close shut up in my chair, when he comes to have the first sight of my face, he may shut me up a second time and send me back to papa. However I shall appear as fine as possible: mamma and I have been to buy the clothes for my wedding. I am to have a new fong whang in my hair, the beak of which | will reach down to my nose; the milliner from whom we bought that and our ribbons cheated us as if she had no conscience, and so to quiet mine, I cheated her. All this is fair you know, I remain, my dear Yaya, your ever faithful YAOUA.

LETTER XXXIX.

FROM THE SAME.

You have always testified the highest esteem for the English poets, and thought them not inferior to the Greeks, Romans, and even the Chinese, in the art. But it is now thought even by the English themselves, that the race of their poets is extinct; every day produces some pathetic exclamation upon the decadence of taste and genius. Pegasus, say they, has slipped the bridle from his mouth, and our modern bards attempt to direct his flight by catching him by the tail.

Yet, my friend, it is only among the ignorant that such discourses prevail; men of true discernment can see several poets still among the English, some of whom equal if not surpass their predecessors. The ignorant term that alone poetry which is couched in a certain number of syllables in every line, where a vapid thought is drawn out into a number of verses of equal length, and perhaps pointed with rhymes at the end. But glowing sentiment, striking imagry, concise expression, natural description, and modulated periods, are full sufficient entirely to fill up my idea of this art, and make way to every passion.

If my idea of poetry therefore be just, the English are not at present so destitute of poetical merit as they seem to imagine. I can see several poets in disguise among them; men furnished with the strength of soul, sublimity of sentiment, and grandeur of expression, which constitute the character. Many of the writers of their modern odes, sonnets, tragedies, or rebusses, it is true, deserve not the name, though they have done nothing but clink, rhyme, and measure syllables for years together: their Johnsons and Smollets are truly poets; though

In every incipient language, the poet and the prose writer are very distinct in their qualifications: the poet ever proceeds first; treading unbeaten paths, enriching his native sounds, and employed in new adventures. The other follows with more cautious steps, and though slow in his motions, treasures up every useful or pleasing discovery. But when once all the extent and the force of the language is known, the poet then seems to rest from his labour, and is at length overtaken by his assiduous pursuer. Both characters are then blended into one; the historian and orator catch all the poet's fire, and leave him no real mark of distinction, except the iteration of numbers regularly returning. Thus in the decline of ancient European learning, Seneca, though he wrote in prose, is as much a poet as Lucan, and Longinus, though but a critic, more sublime than Apollonius.

From this then it appears, that poetry is not discontinued, but altered among the English at present; the outward form seems different from what it was, but poetry still continues internally the same: the only question remains, whether the metric feet used by the good writers of the last age, or the prosaic numbers employed by the good writers of this, be preferable? And here the practice of the last age appears to me superior; they submitted to the restraint of numbers and similar sounds; and this restraint, instead of diminishing, augmented the force of their sentiment and style. Fancy restrained may be compared to a fountain, which plays highest by diminishing the aperture. Of the truth of this maxim in every language, every fine writer is perfectly sensible from his own experience, and yet to explain the reason would be perhaps as difficult as to make a frigid genius profit by the discovery.

There is still another reason in favour of the practice of the last age, to be drawn from the variety of modulation. The musical period in prose is confined to a very few changes; the numbers in verse are capable of infinite variation. I speak not now from the practice of modern verse-writers, few of whom have any idea of musical variety, but run on in the same monotonous flow through the whole poem, but rather from the example of their former poets, who were tolerable masters of this variety, and also from a capacity in the language of still admitting various unanticipated music.

Several rules have been drawn up for va. rying the poetic measure, and critics have elaborately talked of accents and syllables; but good sense and a fine ear, which rules can never teach, are what alone can in such a case determine. The rapturous flowings of joy, or the interruptions of indignation, require accents placed entirely different, and a structure consonant to the emotions they would express. Changing passions, and numbers changing with those passions, make the whole secret of Western as well as Eastern poetry. In a word, the

great faults of the modern professed English | quit the temple before the service was concludpoets are, that they seem to want numbers ed? You surely mistake: not even the Kalwhich should vary with the passion, and are mucks would be guilty of such an indecency, inore employed in describing to the imagina- though all the object of their worship was but tion than striking at the heart. a joint-stool. My friend seemed to blush for his countrymen, assuring me that those whom I saw running away, were only a parcel of musical blockheads, whose passion was merely for sounds, and whose heads are as empty as a fiddle-case; those who remained behind, says he, are the true religious; they make use of music to warm their hearts, and to lift them to a proper pitch of rapture: examine their behaviour, and you will confess there are some among us who practise true devotion.

LETTER XL.

FROM THE SAME.

I now looked round me as directed, but saw

promised: one of the worshippers appeared to be ogling the company through a glass; another was fervent, not in addresses to Heaven, but to his mistress; a third whispered, a fourth took snuff, and the priest himself, in a drowsy tone, read over the duties of the day.

SOME time since I sent thee, O holy disciple of Confucius, an account of the grand abbey or mausoleum of the kings and heroes of this nation: I have since been introduced to a temple not so ancient, but far superior in beau-nothing of that fervent devotion which he had ty and magnificence. In this, which is the most considerable of the empire, there are no pompous inscriptions, no flattery paid the dead, but all is elegant and awfully simple. There are, however, a few rags hung round the walls, which have, at a vast expense, been taken from the enemy in the present war. The silk of Bless my eyes, cried I, as I happened to which they are composed, when new, might be look towards the door, what do I see! one of valued at half a string of copper money in Chi- the worshippers fallen fast asleep, and actually na; yet this wise people fitted out a fleet and sunk down on his cushion! Is he now enjoyan army in order to seize them, though nowing the benefit of a trance, or does he receive grown old, and scarcely capable of being patched up into a handkerchief. By this conquest, the English are said to have gained, and the French to have lost much honour. Is the honour of European nations placed only in a tattered silk?

In this temple I was permitted to remain during the whole service; and were you not already acquainted with the religion of the English, you might, from my description, be inclined to believe them as grossly idolatrous as the disciples of Lao. The idol which they seem to address, strides like a colossus over the door of the inner temple, which here, as with the Jews, is esteemed the most sacred part of the building. Its oracles are delivered in a hundred various tones, which seem to inspire the worshippers with enthusiasm and awe : an old woman, who appeared to be the priestess, was employed in various attitudes, as she felt the inspiration. When it began to speak, all the people remained fixed in silent attention, nodding assent, looking approbation, appearing highly edified by those sounds which to a stranger might seem inarticulate and unmeaning.

When the idol had done speaking, and the priestess had locked up its lungs with a key, observing almost all the company leaving the temple, I concluded the service was over, and taking my hat, was going to walk away with the crowd, when I was stopped by the man in black, who assured me that the ceremony had scarcely yet begun! What, cried I, do I not see almost the whole body of the worshippers leaving the church? Would you persuade me that such numbers who profess religion and morality, would, in this shameless manner,

the influence of some mysterious vision ?
"Alas! alas !" replied my companion, "no
such thing; he has only had the misfortune of
eating too hearty a dinner, and finds it impos-
sible to keep his eyes open." Turning to an-
other part of the temple, I perceived a young
lady just in the same circumstances and atti-
tude: Strange, cried I, can she too have
over-eaten herself?
"O fie!" replied my
friend, "you now grow censorious.
She grow
drowsy from eating too much! that would be
profanation! She only sleeps now from hav-
ing sat up all night at a brag party."
Turn me
where I will then, says I, I can perceive no
single symptom of devotion among the wor-
shippers, except from that old woman in the
corner, who sits groaning behind the long
sticks of a mourning fan; she indeed seems
greatly edified with what she hears. Ay,"
replied my friend, "I knew we should find
some to catch you; I know her; that is the
deaf lady who lives in the cloisters."

66

In short, the remissness of behaviour in almost all the worshippers, and some even of the guardians, struck me with surprise. I had been taught to believe that none were ever promoted to offices in the temple, but men remarkable for their superior sanctity, learning, and rectitude; that there was no such thing heard of, as persons being introduced into the church merely to oblige a senator, or provide for the younger branch of a noble family: I expected as their minds were continually set upon heavenly things, to see their eyes directed there also; and hoped, from their behaviour, to perceive their inclinations corresponding with their duty. But I am since informed, that

P

some are appointed to preside over temples | mandarines, who all resolved to apprize the they never visit; and, while they receive all vicious emperor Tisiang of the irregularity of the money, are contented with letting others his conduct? He who first undertook the do all the good. Adieu. dangerous task was cut in two by the emperor's order, the second was ordered to be tormented, and then put to a cruel death, the third undertook the task with intrepidity, and was instantly stabbed by the tyrant's hand: in this manner they all suffered, except one. But not to be turned from his purpose, the brave

FROM FUM HOAM, TO LIEN CHI ALTANGI, THE

DISCONTENTED WANDERER, BY THE WAY OF Survivor entering the palace with the instru