veneration I have for the characters of its principal promoters, I make no doubt but I shall look upon a horse race with becoming reverence, predisposed as I am by a similar amusement, of which I have lately been a spectator; for just now I happened to have an opportunity of being present at a cart race. Whether this contention between three carts of different parishes was promoted by a subscription among the nobility, or whether the grand jury, in council assembled, had gloriously combined to encourage plaustral merit, I cannot take upon me to determine; but certain it is, the whole was conducted with the utmost regularity and decorum, and the company, which made a brilliant appearance, were universally of opinion, that the sport was high, the running fine, and the riders influenced by no bribe. I do not know whether this description may not have anticipated that which I intended giving of Newmarket. I am told, there is little else to be seen even there. There may be some minute differences in the dress of the spectators, but none at all in their understandings; the quality of Brentford are as remarkable for politeness and delicacy as the breeders of Newmarket. The quality of Brentford drive their own carts and the honourable fraternity at Newmarket ride their own horses. In short, the matches in one place are as rational as those in the other; and it is more than probable that turnips, dust, and dung are all that can be found to furnish out description in either. Forgive me, my friend, but a person like me, bred up in a philosophic seclusion, is apt to regard, perhaps with too much asperity, those occurrences which sink man below his station in nature, and diminish the intrinsic value of A dieu. It was run on the road from London, to a village called Brentford, between a turnip-cart, a dust-cart, and a dung-cart: each of the own-humanity. ers condescending to mount, and be his own driver. The odds at starting, were Dust against Dung, five to four; but after half a mile's going, the knowing ones found themselves all on the wrong side, and it was Turnip against the field, brass to silver. Soon, however, the contest became more doubtful; Turnip indeed kept the way, but it was perceived that Dung had better bottom. The road re-echoed with the shouts of the spec. tators-" Dung against Turnip! Turnip against Dung!" was now the universal cry; neck and neck; one rode lighter, but the other had more judgment. I could not but particularly observe the ardour with which the fair sex espoused the cause of the different riders on this occasion; one was charmed with the unwashed beauties of Dung; another was captivated with the patibulary aspect of Turnip, while in the mean-time, unfortunate gloomy Dust who came whipping behind, was cheered by the encouragement of some, and pity of all. The contention now continued for some time, without a possibility of determining to whom victory designed the prize. The winning post appeared in view, and he who drove the turnip-cart assured himself of success; and successful he might have been, had his horse been as ambitious as he; but upon approaching a turn from the road, which led homewards, the horse fairly stood still, and refused to move a foot farther. The dung-cart had scarcely time to enjoy this temporary triumph when it was pitched headlong into a ditch by the wayside, and the rider left to wallow in congenial mud. Dust, in the meantime, soon came up, and not being far from the post, came in, amidst the shouts and acclamations of all the spectators, and greatly caressed by all the quality of Brentford. Fortune was kind only to one, who ought to have been favourable to all; each had peculiar merit, each laboured hard to earn the prize, and each richly deserved the cart he drove. LETTER LXXXVI. FROM FUM HOAM TO LIEN CHI ALTANGI. You tell me the people of Europe are wise: but where lies their wisdom? You say they are valiant too; yet I have some reasons to doubt of their valour. They are engaged in war among each other, yet apply to the Russians their neighbours and ours fcr assistance. Cultivating such an alliance argues at once imprudence and timidity. All subsidies paid for such an aid is strengthening the Russians, already too powerful, and weakening the employers, already exhausted by intestine commotions. I cannot avoid beholding the Russian empire as the natural enemy of the more western parts of Europe; as an enemy already possessed of great strength, and from the nature of the government every day threatening to become more powerful. This extensive empire, which both in Europe and Asia, occupies almost a third of the old world, was about two centuries ago divided into separate kingdoms and dukedoms, and from such a division, consequently feeble. Since the time, however, of Johan Basilides, it has increased in strength and extent; and those untrodden forests, those innumerable savage animals, which formerly covered the face of the country, are now removed, and colonies of mankind planted in their room. A kingdom thus enjoying peace internally, possessed of an unbounded extent of dominion, and learning the military art at the expense of others abroad, must every day grow more powerful; and it is probable we shall bear Russia, in future times, as formerly, called the Officina Gentium. It was long the wish of Peter, their great monarch, to have a fort in some of the western parts of Europe; many of his schemes and treaties were directed to this end, but happily for Europe, he failed in them all. A fort in the power of this people would be like the possession of a floodgate; and whenever ambition, interest, or necessity prompted, they might then be able to deluge the whole world with a barbarous inundation. Believe me, my friend, I cannot sufficiently contemn the politicians of Europe, who thus make this powerful people arbitrators in their quarrel. The Russians are now at that period between refinement and barbarity, which seems most adapted to military achievement; and if once they happen to get footing in the western parts of Europe, it is not the feeble efforts of the sons of effeminacy and dissension that can serve to remove them. The fertile valley and soft climate will ever be sufficient inducements to draw whole myriads from their native deserts, the trackless wild, or snowy mountain. LETTER LXXXVII. FROM LIEN CHI ALTANGI, TO FUM HOAM, FIRST As the instruction of the fair sex in this country is entirely committed to the care of foreigners; as their language masters, music masters, hair frizzers, and governesses, are all from abroad, I had some intentions of opening a female academy myself, and made no doubt, as I was quite a foreigner, of meeting a favourable reception. In this, I intended to instruct the ladies in all the conjugal mysteries; wives should be taught the art of managing husbands, and maids the skill of properly choosing them; I would teach a wife how far she might venture to be sick, without giving disgust; she should be acquainted with the great benefits of the cholic in the stomach, and all the thorough-bred insolence of fashion; maids should learn the secret of nicely distinguishing every competitor; they should be able to know the difference between squire and his horse, a beau and his monkey; but chiefly they should be taught the art of managing their smiles, from the contemptuous simper to the long laborious laugh. History, experience, reason, nature, expand the book of wisdom before the eyes of mankind, but they will not read. We have seen with terror a winged phalanx of famished locusts, each singly contemptible, but from multi-a pedant and a scholar, a citizen and a prig, a tude become hideous, cover like clouds the face of day, and threaten the whole world with ruin. We have seen them settling on the fertile plains of India and Egypt, destroying in an instant the labours and the hopes of nations; But I have discontinued the project; for sparing neither the fruit of the earth nor the what would signify teaching ladies the manner verdure of the fields, and changing into a of governing or choosing husbands, when marfrightful desert, landscapes of once luxuriant riage is at present so much out of fashion, that a beauty. We have seen myriads of ants issu- lady is very well off who can get any husband ing together from the southern desert, like at all! Celibacy now prevails in every rank a torrent whose source was inexhaustible, of life: the streets are crowded with old bachesucceeding each other without end, and renew-lors, and the houses with ladies who have refusing their destroyed forces with unwearied per-ed good offers and are never likely to receive severance, bringing desolation wherever they any for the future. came, banishing men and animals, and when destitute of all subsistence, in heaps infecting the wilderness which they had made! Like these have been the migrations of men. When as yet savage, and almost resembling their brute partners in the forest, subject like them only to the instincts of nature, and directed by hunger alone in the choice of an abode, how have we seen whole armies starting wild at once from their forests and their dens! Goths, Huns, Vandals, Saracens, Turks, Tartars, my riads of men, animals in human form, without country, without name, without laws, overpowering by numbers all opposition, ravaging cities, overturning empires, and after having destroyed whole nations, and spread extensive desolation, how have we seen them sink oppressed by some new enemy more barbarous and even more unknown than they! Adieu. The only advice, therefore, I could give the fair sex, as things stand at present, is to get husbands as fast as they can. There is certainly nothing in the whole creation, not even Babylon in ruins, more truly deplorable than a lady in the virgin bloom of sixty-three, or a battered unmarried beau, who squibs about from place to place, showing his pigtail wig and his ears. The one appears to my imagination in the form of a double night-cap, or a roll of pomatum, the other in the shape of an electuary, or a box of pills. I would once more, therefore, advise the ladies to get husbands, I would desire them not to discard an old lover without very suffi. cient reasons, nor treat the new with ill nature till they know him false; let not prudes allege the falseness of the sex, coquettes the pleasures of long courtship, or parents the necessary preliminaries of penny for penny. I have reasons that would silence even a casuist in this particular. In the first place, therefore, I divide the subject into fifteen heads, and then sic argumentor-But not to give you and myself the spleen be contented at present with an Indian | women; let us throw it back into the sea where tale. we found it." In a winding of the river Amidar, just be- The diver, in the mean time, stood upon the fore it falls into the Caspian Sea, there lies an beach at the end of the line, with the hook in island unfrequented by the inhabitants of the his mouth, using every art that he thought continent. In this seclusion, blest with all could best excite pity, and particularly looking that wild uncultivated nature could bestow, extremely tender, which is usual in such cirlived a princess and her two daughters. She cumstances. The coquette, therefore, in some had been wrecked upon the coast while her measure influenced by the innocence of his children as yet were infants. who of consequence, looks, ventured to contradict her companion. though grown up, were entirely unacquainted" Upon my word, sister," says she, "I see with man. Yet, inexperienced as the young ladies were in the opposite sex, both early discovered symptoms, the one of prudery, the other of being a coquette. The eldest was ever learning maxims of wisdom and discretion from her mamma, while the youngest employed all her hours in gazing at her own face in a neighbouring fountain. : nothing in the animal so very terrible as you are pleased to apprehend; I think it may serve well enough for a change. Always sharks, and sturgeons, and lobsters, and crawfish, make me quite sick. I fancy a slice of this, nicely grilladed, and dressed up with shrimp sauce, would be very good eating I fancy mamma would like a bit with pickles above all things Their usual amusement in this solitude was in the world; and if it should not sit easy on fishing their mother had taught them all the her stomach, it will be time enough to disconsecrets of the art; she showed them which tinue it when found disagreeable, you know." were the most likely places to throw out the "Horrid," cries the prude, "would the girl be line, what baits were most proper for the va- poisoned? I tell you it is a Tanglang; I have rious seasons, and the best manner to draw up read of it in twenty places. It is every where the finny prey, when they had hooked it. In described as the most pernicious animal that this manner they spent their time, easy and in- ever infested the ocean. I am certain it is the nocent, till one day, the princess being indis- most insidious ravenous creature in the world; posed, desired them to go and catch her a stur- and is certain destruction if taken internally." geon or shark for supper, which she fancied The youngest sister was now therefore obliged might sit easy on her stomach. The daughters to submit: both assisted in drawing the hook obeyed, and clapping on a gold fish, the usual with some violence from the diver's jaw; and bait on those occasions, went and sat upon one he finding himself at liberty, bent his breast of the rocks, letting the gilded hook glide down against the broad wave and disappeared in an with the stream. instant. On the opposite shore, farther down, at the mouth of the river, lived a diver for pearls, a youth who, by long habit in his trade, was almost grown amphibious; so that he could remain whole hours at the bottom of the water, without ever fetching breath. He happened to be at that very instant diving when the ladies were fishing with the gilded hook. Seeing therefore the bait, which to him had the appearance of real gold, he was resolved to seize the prize, but both his hands being already filled with pearl oysters, he found himself obliged to snap at it with his mouth: the consequence is easily imagined; the hook, before unperceived, was instantly fastened in his jaw; nor could he, with all his efforts or his floundering get free. Just at this juncture the mother came down to the beach, to know the cause of her daughters' delay; they told her every circumstance, describing the monster they had caught. The old lady was one of the most discreet women in the world; she was called the black eyed princess, from two black eyes she had received in youth, being a little addicted to boxing in her liquor. "Alas my children," cries she, "what have you done! the fish you caught was a man-fish; one of the most tame domestie animals in the world. We could have let him run and play about the garden, and he would have been twenty times more entertaining than your squirrel or monkey."-If that be all," says the young coquette, "we will fish for him again. If that be all, I'll hold three Sister," cries the youngest princess, "I tooth-picks to one pound of snuff, I catch him have certainly caught a monstrous fish; I whenever I please." Accordingly they threw never perceived any thing struggle so at the end in their line once more, but with all their gildof my line before; come and help me to drawing, and paddling, and assiduity, they could it in." They both now, therefore, assisted in never after catch the diver. In this state of fishing up the diver on shore; but nothing solitude and disappointment, they continued for could equal their surprise upon seeing him. many years, still fishing, but without success; "Bless my eyes," cries the prude, "what have till at last the genius of the place, in pity to we got here? this is a very odd fish to be sure; their distresses, changed the prude into a I never saw any thing in my life look so queer: shrimp, and the coquette into an oyster. what eyes, what terrible claws, what a monstrous Adieu. snout! I have read of this monster somewhere before, it certainly must be a Tanglang, that eats 66 LETTER LXXXVIII. FROM THE SAME. I AM amused, my dear Fum, with the labours of some of the learned here. One shall write you a whole folio on the dissection of a caterpillar. Another shall swell his works with a description of the plumage on the wing of a butterfly; a third shall see a little world on a peach leaf, and publish a book to describe, what his readers might see more clearly in two minutes, only by being furnished with eyes and a microscope. I have frequently compared the understand ings of such men to their own glasses. Their field of vision is too contracted to take in the whole of any but minute objects; they view all nature bit by bit; now the proboscis, now the antennæ, now the pinnæ of a flea. Now the polypus comes to breakfast upon a worm; now it is kept up to see how long it will live without eating; now it is turned inside outward, and now it sickens and dies. Thus they proceed, laborious in trifles, constant in experiment, without one single abstraction, by which alone knowledge may be properly said to in crease ; till at last their ideas, ever employed upon minute things, contract to the size of the diminutive object, and a single mite shall fill the whole mind's capacity. Yet believe me, my friend, ridiculous as these men are to the world, they are set up as objects of esteem for each other. They have particular places appointed for their meetings; in which one shows his cockle-shell, and is praised by all the society; another produces his powder, makes some experiments that result in nothing, and comes off with admiration and applause; a third comes out with the important discovery of some new process in the skeleton of a mole, and is set down as the accurate and sensible; while one still more fortunate than the rest; by pickling, potting, and preserving monsters, rises into unbounded reputation. The labours of such men, instead of being calculated to amuse the public, are laid out only in diverting each other. The world becomes very little the better or the wiser, for knowing what is the peculiar food of an insect, that is itself the food of another, which in its turn is eaten by a third; but there are men who have studied themselves into a habit of investigating and admiring such minutiæ. To these such subjects are pleasing, as there are some who contentedly spend whole days in endeavouring to solve enigmas, or disentangle the puzzling sticks of children. But of all the learned, those who pretend to investigate remote antiquity have least to plead in their own defence, when they carry this passion to a faulty excess. They are generally found to supply by conjecture the want of recold, and then by perseverance are wrought up into a confidence of the truth of opinions, which even to themselves at first appeared founded only in imagination. The Europeans have heard much of the kingdom of China: its politeness, arts, commerce, laws, and morals, are, however, but very imperfectly known among them. They have even now in their Indian warehouses numberless utensils, plants, minerals, and machines, of the use of which they are entirely ignorant : nor can any among them even make a probable guess for what they might have been designed. Yet though this people be so ignorant of the present real state of China, the philosophers I am describing have entered into long, learned, laborious disputes about what China was two thousand years ago. China and European happiness are but little connected even at this day; but European happiness, and China two thousand years ago, have certainly no connexion at all. However, the learned have written on and pursued the subject through all the labyrinths of antiquity: though the early dews and the tainted gale be passed away, though no footsteps remain to direct the doubtful chase, yet still they run forward, open upon the uncertain scent, and though in fact they follow nothing, are earnest in the pursuit. In this chase, however, they all take different ways. One, for example, confidently assures us, that China was peopled by a colony from Egypt. Sesostris, he observes, led his army as far as the Ganges; therefore, if he went so far, he might still have gone as far as China, which is but about a thousand miles from thence; therefore he did go to China; therefore China was not peopled before he went there; therefore it was peopled by him. Besides, the Egyptians have pyramids; the Chinese have in like manner their porcelain tower: the Egyptians used to light up candles upon every rejoicing; the Chinese have lanterns upon the same occasion; the Egyptians had their great river; so have the Chinese. But what serves to put the matter past a doubt is, that the ancient kings of China and those of Egypt were called by the same names. The Emperor Ki is certainly the same with King Atoes; for if we only change K into A, and i into toes, we shall have the name Atoes; and with equal ease Menes may be proved to be the same with the Emperor Yu; therefore the Chinese are a colony from Egypt. But another of the learned is entirely differ. ent from the last; and he will have the Chinese to be a colony planted by Noah just after the deluge. First, from the vast similitude there is between the name of Fohi, the founder of the Chinese monarchy, and that of Noah, the preserver of the human race: Noah, Fohi, very like each other truly; they have each but four letters, and only two of the four happen to differ. But to strengthen the argument, Fohi, as the Chinese chronicle asserts, had no father. Noah, it is true, had a father, as the European Bible tells us; but then, as this father was town in proportion to his wife's good-humour. Upon their arrival in London, they exchange their disorders. In consequence of her parties and excursions, he puts on the furred cap and scarlet stomacher, and perfectly resembles an Indian husband, who, when his wife is safe probably drowned in the flood, it is just the same as if he had no father at all; therefore Noah and Fohi are the same. Just after the flood the earth was covered with mud; if it was covered with mud, it must have been incrustated mud; if it was incrustated, it was clothed with verdure: this was a fine unem-ly delivered, permits her to transact business barrassed road for Noah to fly from his wicked children; he therefore did fly from them, and took a journey of two thousand miles for his own amusement; therefore Noah and Fohi are the same. Another sect of literati, for they all pass among the vulgar for very great scholars, assert, that the Chinese came neither from the colony of Sesostris, nor from Noah, but are descended from Magog, Meshec, and Tubal, and therefore neither Sesostris, nor Noah, nor Fohi, are the same. It is thus, my friend, that indolence assumes the airs wisdom, and while it tosses the cup and ball with infantine folly, desires the world to look on, and calls the stupid pastime philosophy and learning. Adieu. LETTER LXXXIX. FROM THE SAME. WHEN the men of this country are once turned of thirty, they regularly retire every year at proper intervals to lie in of the spleen. The vulgar, unfurnished with the luxurious comforts of the soft cushion, down bed, and easy chair, are obliged when the fit is on them, to nurse it up by drinking, idleness, and illhumour. In such dispositions, unhappy is the foreigner who happens to cross them: his long chin, tarnished coat, or pinched hat, are sure to receive no quarter. If they meet no foreigner, however, to fight with, they are, in such cases, generally content with beating each other. The rich, as they have more sensibility, are operated upon with greater violence by this disorder. Differen: from the poor, instead of becoming more insolent, they grow totally unfit for opposition. A general here, who would have faced a culverin when well, if the fit be on him, shall hardly find courage to snuff a candle. An admiral, who could have opposed a broad-side without shrinking, shall sit whole days in his chamber, mobbed up in double night-caps, shuddering at the intrusive breeze, and distinguishable from his wife only by his black beard and heavy eyebrows. In the country, this disorder mostly attacks the fair sex; in town, it is most unfavourable to the men. A lady, who has pined whole years amidst cooing doves and complaining nightingales, in rural retirement, shall resume all her vivacity in one night at a city gaming table; her husband, who roared, hunted, and got drunk at home, shall grow splenetic in abroad, while he undergoes all the formality of keeping his bed, and receiving all the condolence in her place. But those who reside constantly in town, owe this disorder mostly to the influence of the weather. It is impossible to describe what a variety of transmutations an east wind shall produce; it has been known to change a lady of fashion into a parlour couch; an alderman into a plate of custards; and a dispenser of justice into a rat-trap. Even philosophers themselves are not exempt from its influence; it has often converted a poet into a coral and bells, and a patriot senator into a dumb waiter. Some days ago I went to visit the man in black, and entered his house with that cheerfulness which the certainty of a favourable reception always inspires. Upon opening the door of his apartment, I found him with the most rueful face imaginable in the morning-gown and flannel night-cap, earnestly employed in learning to blow the German flute. Struck with the absurdity of a man in the decline of life thus blowing away all his constitution and spirits, even without the consolation of being musical, I ventured to ask what could induce him to attempt learning so difficult an instrument so late in life? To this he made no reply, but groaning, and still holding the flute to his lips, continued to gaze at me for some moments very angrily, and then proceeded to practise his gamut as before. After having produced a variety of the most hideous tones in nature, at last turning to me, he demanded, whether I did not think he had made a surprising progress in two days?" You see," continues he, "1 have got the ambusheer already; and as for fingering, my master tells me, I shall have that in a few lessons more." I was so much astonished with this instance of inverted ambition, that I knew not what to reply, but soon discerned the cause of all his absurdities; my friend was under a metamorphosis by the power of spleen, and flute-blowing was unluckily become his adventitious passion. In order, therefore, to banish his anxiety imperceptibly, by seeming to indulge it, I began to descant on those gloomy topics by which philosophers often get rid of their own spleen, by communica tingit; the wretchedness of man in this life; the happiness of some wrought out of the miseries of others; the necessity that wretches should expire under punishment, that rogues might enjoy affluence in tranquillity: I led him on from the inhumanity of the rich to the ingratitude of the beggar; from the insincerity of refinement to the fierceness of rusticity; and at last had the good fortune to restore him to his usual serenity of |