SUPPL

SUPPL. VOL. I. Part II.

does Julius Pollux, who has collected with great care Chimney. the Greek names of every part of a dwelling house; and Grapsalus, who in later times made a collection of the Latin terms, has not given a Latin word expressive of a modern chimney.

Our author admits the derivation of the word chimney to be as we have given it in the Encyclopædia; but (says he) "Caminus signified, as far as I have been able to learn, first a chemical or metallurgic furnace, in which a crucible was placed for melting and refining metals; secondly, a smith's forge; and, thirdly, a hearth on which portable stoves or fire-pans were placed for warming the apartment. In all these, however, there appears no trace of a chimney." Herodotus relates (lib. viii. c. 137.), that a king of Libya, when one of his servants asked for his wages, offered him in jest the sun, which at that time shone into the house through an opening in the roof, under which the fire was perhaps made in the middle of the edifice. If such a hole must be called a chimney, our author admits that chimneys were in use among the ancients, especially in their kitchens; but it is obvious that such chimneys bore no resemblance to our's, through which the sun could not dart his rays upon the floor of any apartment.

However imperfect may be the information which can be collected from the Greek and Roman authors respecting the manner in which the ancients warmed their apartments, it nevertheless shews that they commonly used for that purpose a large fire-pan or portable stove, in which they kindled wood, and, when the wood was well lighted, carried it into the room, or which they filled with burning coals. When Alexander the Great was entertained by a friend in winter, as the weather was cold and raw, a small fire bason was brought into the apartment to warm it. The prince, observing the size of the vessel, and that it contained only a few coals, desired his host, in a jeering manner, to bring more wood or frankincense; giving him thus to understand that the fire was fitter for burning perfumes than to produce heat. Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, though displeased with many of the Grecian customs, praised the Greeks, however, because they shut out the smoke and brought only fire into their houses*. We are informed by Lampridius, that the extravagant He. liogabulus caused to be burned in these stoves, instead of wood, Indian spices and costly perfumes†. It is also worthy of notice, that coals were found in some of the apartments of Herculaneum, as we are told by Winklemann, but neither stoves nor chimneys.

It is well known to every scholar, that the useful arts of life were invented in the east, and that the customs, manners, and furniture of eastern nations, have remained from time immemorial almost unchanged. In Persia, which the late Sir William Jones seems to have considered as the original country of mankind, the methods employed by the inhabitants for warming themselves have a great resemblance to those employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans for the same purpose. According to De la Valle, the Persians make fires in their apartments, not in chimneys as we do, but in stoves in the earth, which they call tenzor. These stoves consist of a square or round hole, two spans or a little more in depth, and in shape not unlike an Italian cast. That this hole may throw out heat sooner, and with more strength, there is placed in it an iron vessel of the

Chimney. same size, which is either filled with burning coals, or a fire of wood and other inflammable substances is made in it. When this is done, they place over the hole or stove a wooden top, like a small low table, and spread above it a large coverlet quilted with cotton, which hangs down on all sides to the floor. This covering condenses the heat, and causes it to warm the whole apartment. The people who eat or converse there, and some who sleep in it, lie down on the floor above the carpet, and lean, with their shoulders against the wall, on square cushions, upon which they sometimes also sit; for the tennor is constructed in a place equally distant from the walls on both sides. Those who are not very cold only put their feet under the table or covering; but those who require more heat can put their hands under it, or creep under it altogether. By these means the stove diffuses over the whole body, without causing uneasiness to the head, so penetrating and agreeable a warmth, that I never in winter experienced any thing more pleasant. Those, however, who require less heat let the coverlet hang down on their side to the floor, and enjoy without any inconvenience from the stove the moderately heated air of the apartment. They have a method also of stirring up or blowing the fire when necessary, by means of a small pipe united with the tennor or stove under the earth, and made to project above the floor as high as one chooses; so that the wind, when a person blows into it, because it has no other vent, acts immediately upon the fire like a pair of bellows. When there is no longer occasion to use this stove, both holes are closed up, that is to say, the mouth of the stove and that of the pipe which conveys the air to it, by a flat stone made for that purpose. Scarcely any appearance of them is then to be perceived, nor do they occasion inconvenience, especially in a country where it is always customary to cover the floor with a carpet, and where the walls are plastered. In many parts these ovens are used to cook victuals, by placing kettles over them. They are employed also to bake bread; and for this purpose they are covered with a large broad metal plate, on which the cake is laid; but if the bread is thick and requires more heat, it is put into the stove itself."

Our learned author having proved, to our entire satisfaction, that chimneys, such as we have now in every comfortable room, were unknown to the most polished nations of antiquity, sets himself to inquire into the era of their invention; and the oldest account of them which he finds is an inscription at Venice, which relates, that in the year 1347 a great many chimneys were thrown down by an earthquake. It would appear, however, that in some places they had been in use for a considerable time before that period; for De Gataris, in his history of Padua, relates, that Francesco de Carraro, lord of Padua, came to Rome in 1368, and finding no chimneys in the inn where he lodged, because at that time fire was kindled in a hall in the middle of the floor, he caused two chimneys like those which had long been used at Padua to be constructed by masons and carpenters, whom he had brought along with him. Over these chimneys, the first ever seen at Rome, he affixed his arms, which were still remaining in the time of De Gataris, who died of the plague in 1405.

Though chimneys have been thus long in use, they are yet far enough from being brought to perfection.

There is hardly a modern house, especially if highly finished, in which there is not one room at least liable to be filled with smoke when it is attempted to be heated by an open fire; and there are many houses so infested with this plague, as to be almost uninhabitable during the winter months; not to mention other great defects in common chimneys, which not being so obvious have attracted less attention. Many ingenious methods have been proposed to cure smokey chimneys in every situation (see SMOKE, Encycl.); but Count Rumford's Essay on this subject contains the most valuable directions that we have seen, not only for removing the inconvenience of smoke, but likewise for increasing the heat of the room by a diminished consumption of fuel.

To those who are at all acquainted with the nature and properties of elastic fluids, it must be obvious, that the whole mystery of curing smokey chimneys consists in finding out and removing the accidental causes which prevent the heated smoke from being forced up the chimney by the pressure of the cool and therefore heavier air of the room. Though these causes are various, yet, says our author, that which will most commonly be found to operate, is the bad construction of the chimney in the neighbourhood of the fire-place. "The great fault of all the open fire-places or chimneys for burning wood or coals in an open fire now in common use is, that they are much too large; or rather it is the throat of the chimney, or the lower part of its open canal, in the neighbourhood of the mantle, and immediately over the fire, which is too large."

To this fault, therefore, the attention should be first turned in every attempt which is made to improve the construction of chimneys; for however perfect a fire-place may be in other respects, if the opening left for the passage of the smoke is larger than is necessary for that purpose, nothing can prevent the warm air of the room from escaping through it; and whenever this happens, there is not only an unnecessary loss of heat, but the warm air which leaves the room to go up the chimney being replaced by cold air from without, draughts of cold air cannot fail to be produced in the room, to the great annoyance of those who inhabit it. But although both these evils may be effectually remedied by reducing the throat of the chimney to a proper size, yet in doing this several precautions will be necessary. And first of all, the throat of the chimney should be in its proper place; that is to say, in that place in which it ought to be, in order that the ascent of the smoke may be most facilitated: now as the smoke and hot vapour which rise from a fire naturally tend upwards, the proper place for the throat of the chimney is evidently perpendicularly over the fire.

But there is another circumstance to be attended to in determining the proper place for the throat of a chimney, and that is, to ascertain its distance from the fire, or how far above the burning fuel it ought to be placed. In determining this point there are many things to be considered, and several advantages and disadvantages to be weighed and balanced.

As the smoke and vapour which ascend from burning fuel rise in consequence of their being rarefied by heat, and made lighter than the air of the surrounding atmosphere; and as the degree of their rarefaction, and consequently their tendency to rise, is in proportion to the intensity of their heat; and further, as they are hot-

ter near the fire than at a greater distance from it—it is clear that the nearer the throat of a chimney is to the fire, the stronger will be what is commonly called its draught, and the less danger there will be of its smoking. But, on the other hand, when the draught of a chimney is very strong, and particularly when this strong draught is occasioned by the throat of the chimney being very near the fire, it may so happen that the draught of air into the fire may become so strong as to cause the fuel to be consumed too rapidly. There are likewise several other inconveniences which would attend the placing of the throat of a chimney very near the burning fuel.

The position of the throat of a chimney being once determined, the next points to be ascertained are its size and form, and the manner in which it ought to be connected with the fire-place below, and with the open canal of the chimney above. But as these investigations are intimately connected with those which relate to the form proper to be given to the fire-place itself, we must consider them all together.

Now the design of a chimney fire being simply to warm a room, it is necessary, first of all, to contrive matters so that the room shall be actually warmed; secondly, that it be warmed with the smallest expense of fuel possible; and, thirdly, that in warming it, the air of the room be preserved perfectly pure, and fit for respiration, and free from smoke and all disagreeable smells.

To determine in what manner a room is heated by an open chimney fire, it will be necessary first of all to find out under what form the heat generated in the combustion of the fuel exists, and then to see how it is communicated to those bodies which are heated by it.

In regard to the first of these subjects of inquiry, it is quite certain that the heat which is generated in the combustion of the fuel exists under two perfectly distinct and very different forms. One part of it is combined with the smoke, vapour, and heated air which rise from the burning fuel, and goes off with them into the upper regions of the atmosphere; while the other part, which appears to be uncombined, or, as some ingenious philosophers have supposed, combined only with light, and therefore called radiant heat, is sent off from the fire in rays in all possible directions.

With respect to the second subject of inquiry, namely, how this heat, existing under these two different forms, is communicated to other bodies, it is highly probable that the combined heat can only be communicated to other bodies by actual contact with the body with which it is combined; and with regard to the rays which are sent off by burning fuel, it is certain that they communicate or generate heat only when and where they are stopped or absorbed. In passing through air, which is transparent, they certainly do not communicate any heat to it; and it seems highly probable that they do not communicate heat to solid bodies by which they are reflected.

As it is the radiant heat alone which can be employed in warming a room, when fuel is burnt for this purpose in an open fire-place, it becomes an object of much importance to determine how the greatest quantity of it may be generated in the combustion of the fuel, and how the greatest proportion possible of that generated may be brought into the room.

Now the quantity of radiant heat generated in the combustion of a given quantity of any kind of fuel depends very much upon the management of the fire, or upon the manner in which the fuel is consumed. When the fire burns bright, much radiant heat will be sent off from it; but when it is smothered up, very little will be generated, and indeed very little combined heat that can be employed to any useful purpose: most of the heat produced will be immediately expended in giving elasticity to a thick dense vapour or smoke, which will be seen rising from the fire; and the combustion being very incomplete, a great part of the inflammable matter of the fuel being merely rarefied and driven up the chimney without being inflamed, the fuel will be wasted to little purpose. And hence it appears of how much importance it is, whether it be considered with a view to economy, or to cleanliness, comfort, and elegance, to pay due attention to the management of a chimney fire.

Nothing can be more perfectly void of common sense, and wasteful and slovenly at the same time, than the manner in which chimney fires, and particularly where coals are burned, are commonly managed by servants. They throw on a load of coals at once, through which the flame is hours in making its way; and frequently it is not without much trouble that the fire is prevented from going quite out. During this time no heat is communicated to the room; and what is still worse, the throat of the chimney being occupied merely by a heavy dense vapour, not possessed of any considerable degree of heat, and consequently not having much elasticity, the warm air of the room finds less difficulty in forcing its way up the chimney and escaping than when the fire burns bright. And it happens not unfrequently, especially in chimneys and fire places ill-constructed, that this current of warm air from the room which presses into the chimney, crossing upon the current of heavy smoke which rises slowly from the fire, obstructs it in its ascent, and beats it back into the room; hence it is that chimneys so often smoke when too large a quantity of fresh coals is put upon the fire. So many coals should never be put on the fire at once as to prevent the free passage of the flame between them. In short, a fire should never be smothered; and when proper attention is paid to the quantity of coals put on, there will be very little use for the poker; and this circumstance will contribute very much to cleanliness, and to the preservation of furniture.

As we have seen what is necessary to the generation of the greatest quantity of radiant heat, it remains to be determined how the greatest proportion of that which is generated and sent off from the fire in all directions may be made to enter the room, and assist in warming it.

This must be done, first, by causing as many as possible of the rays, as they are sent off from the fire in straight lines, to come directly into the room; which can only be effected by bringing the fire as far forward as possible, and leaving the opening of the fire-place as wide and as high as can be done without inconvenience; and, secondly, by making the sides and back of the fire-place of such a form, and constructing them of such materials, as to cause the direct rays from the fire, which strike against them, to be sent into the room by reflection in the greatest abundance.

Now it will be found upon examination, that the best form

Chimney. form for the vertical sides of a fire-place, or the covings (as they are called), is that of an upright plane, making an angle with the plane of the back of the fire-place of about 135 degrees.—According to the present construction of chimneys, this angle is sometimes only 90, and very seldom above 100 or 110 degrees; but it is obvious, that in all these cases the two sides or covings of the fire-place are very ill contrived for throwing into the room by reflection the rays from the fire which fall upon them.

With regard to the materials which should be employed in the construction of fire-places, particularly the backs and covings, it is obvious that those are to be preferred which absorb the least, and of course reflect the greatest quantity of radiant heat. Iron, therefore, and, in general, metals of all kinds, are the very worst materials which can possibly be employed for the backs and covings of chimneys; whilst fire stone white-washed, or common bricks and mortar, covered with a thin coating of plaster, and white-washed, answer the purpose extremely well. A white colour should, indeed, be always given to the inside of a chimney of whatever materials it be constructed; and black, which is at present so common, should be carefully avoided, because white reflects the most, and black the least, radiant heat. The grate, however, cannot well be made of any thing else than iron; but there is no necessity whatever for that immense quantity of iron which surrounds grates as they are commonly fitted up, and which not only renders them very expensive, but essentially injures the fire-place.

To have only pointed out the faults of the chimneys in use, without shewing how these faults may be corrected, would have been a work of very little value; but the Count's Treatise is complete, and contains the plainest directions for the construction of fire-places. These directions are introduced by an explanation of some technical words and expressions. Thus, by the throat of a chimney, already mentioned, he means the lower extremity of its canal, where it unites with the upper part of its open fire-place. This throat is commonly found about a foot above the level of the lower part of the mantle, and it is sometimes contracted to a smaller size than the rest of the canal of the chimney, and sometimes not.

Fig. 1. shews the section of a chimney on the common construction, in which d e is the throat.

Fig. 2. shews the section of the same chimney altered and improved, in which d i is the reduced throat.

The breast of a chimney is that part of it which is immediately behind the mantle. It is the wall which forms the entrance from below into the throat of the chimney in front, or towards the room. It is opposite to the upper extremity of the back of the open fire-place, and parallel to it: in short, it may be said to be the back part of the mantle itself.—In the figures 1. and 2. it is marked by the letter d. The width of the throat of the chimney (d e fig. 1. and d i fig. 2.) is taken from the breast of the chimney to the back, and its length is taken at right angles to its width, or in a line parallel to the mantle (a fig. 1. and 2.).

The bringing forward of the fire into the room, or rather bringing it nearer to the front of the opening of the fire-place, and the diminishing of the throat of the chimney, being two objects principally had in view in

the alterations in fire-places proposed by the Count, it is evident that both these may be attained merely by bringing forward the back of the chimney. The only question therefore is, How far it should be brought forward? The answer is short, and easy to be understood: bring it forward as far as possible, without diminishing too much the passage which must be left for the smoke. Now as this passage, which in its narrowest part he calls the throat of the chimney, ought, for reasons which have been already explained, to be immediately, or perpendicularly over the fire, it is evident that the back of the chimney must always be built perfectly upright. To determine, therefore, the place for the new back, or how far precisely it ought to be brought forward, nothing more is necessary than to ascertain how wide the throat of the chimney ought to be left, or what space must be left between the top of the breast of the chimney where the upright canal of the chimney begins, and the new back of the fire-place carried up perpendicularly to that height.

Numerous experiments have convinced the Count, that, all circumstances being well considered, and the advantages and disadvantages compared and balanced, four inches is the best width that can be given to the throat of a chimney, whether the fire-place be destined to burn wood, coals, turf, or any other fuel. In very large halls where great fires are kept up, it may sometimes, though very rarely, be proper to increase this width to four inches and a half, or even to five inches.

The next thing to be considered is the width which it will be proper to give to the back of the chimney; and, in most cases, this should be one-third of the width of the opening of the fire-place in front. It is not indeed absolutely necessary to conform with rigour to this decision, nor is it always possible; but it should invariably be conformed to as far as circumstances will permit. Where a chimney, says the Count, is designed for warming a room of a middling size, and where the thickness of the wall of the chimney in front, measured from the front of the mantle to the breast of the chimney, is nine inches, I should set off four inches more for the width of the throat of the chimney, which, supposing the back of the chimney to be built upright, as it always ought to be, will give thirteen inches for the depth of the fire-place, measured upon the hearth, from the opening of the fire-place in front to the back. In this case, thirteen inches would be a good size for the width of the back; and three times thirteen inches, or 39 inches, for the width of the opening of the fire-place in front; and the angle made by the back of the fire-place and the sides of it, or covings, would be just 135 degrees, which is the best position they can have for throwing heat into the room. This position, indeed, it may sometimes be impossible to attain in altering chimneys already built; but a deviation from it of two or three degrees will be of no great consequence; for the points of by much the greatest importance in altering fire-places upon the principles here recommended, are the bringing forward the back to its proper width, and making it of the proper width.

Provision, however, must be made for the passage of the chimney-sweeper up the chimney; and this may easily be done in the following manner: In building up the new back of the fire-place; when this wall (which need never be more than the width of a single brick

brick in thickness) is brought up so high that there remains no more than about ten or eleven inches between what is then the top of it and the inside of the mantle, or lower extremity of the breast of the chimney, an opening or door-way, eleven or twelve inches wide, must be begun in the middle of the back, and continued quite to the top of it, which, according to the height to which it will commonly be necessary to carry up the back, will make the opening abundantly sufficient to let the chimney-sweeper pass. When the fire-place is finished, this door-way is to be closed by a tile or fit piece of stone placed in it without mortar, and by means of a rabbit made in the brick-work, confined in its place in such a manner as that it may be easily removed when the chimney is to be swept, and restored to its place when that work is over. Of this contrivance the reader will be able to form a clear conception from fig. 2. which represents the section of a chimney after it has been properly altered from what is exhibited in fig. 1. In this improved chimney k l is the new back of the fire-place; l the tile or stone which closes the door-way for the chimney-sweeper; d i the throat of the chimney narrowed to four inches; i the mantle, and b the stone placed under the mantle, supposed to have been too high, in order to diminish the height of the opening of the fire-place in front.

It has been observed above, that the new back, which it will always be found necessary to build in order to bring the fire sufficiently forward, in altering a chimney constructed on the common principles, need never be thicker than the width of a common brick. The same may be said of the thickness necessary to be given to the new sides or covings of the chimney; or if the new back and covings are constructed of stone, one inch and three quarters, or two inches in thickness, will be sufficient. Care should be taken in building up these new walls to unite the back to the covings in a solid manner.

Whether the new back and covings are constructed of stone or built of bricks, the space between them and the old back and covings of the chimney ought to be filled up, to give greater solidity to the structure. This may be done with loose rubbish, or pieces of broken bricks or stones, provided the work be strengthened by a few layers or courses of bricks laid in mortar; but it will be indispensably necessary to finish the work where these new walls end, that is to say, at the top of the throat of the chimney, where it ends abruptly in the open canal of the chimney, by a horizontal course of bricks well secured with mortar. This course of bricks will be upon a level with the top of the door-way left for the chimney-sweeper; and the void behind the door-way must be covered with a horizontal stone or tile, to be removed at the same time the door is removed, and for the same purpose.

From these descriptions it is clear, that where the throat of the chimney has an end, that is to say, where it enters into the lower part of the open canal of the chimney, there the three walls which form the two covings and the back of the fire-place all end abruptly. It is of much importance that they should end in this manner; for were they to be sloped outward, and raised in such a manner as to swell out the upper extremity of the throat of the chimney in the form of a trumpet, and increase it by degrees to the size of the canal

of the chimney, this manner of uniting the lower extremity of the canal of the chimney with the throat would tend to assist the winds, which may attempt to blow down the chimney, in forcing their way through the throat, and throwing the smoke backward into the room; but when the throat of the chimney ends abruptly, and the ends of the new walls form a flat horizontal surface, it will be much more difficult for any wind from above to find and force its way through the narrow passage of the throat of the chimney.

As the two walls which form the new covings of the chimney are not parallel to each other, but inclined, presenting an oblique surface towards the front of the chimney, and as they are built perfectly upright, and quite flat, from the hearth to the top of the throat, where they end, it is evident that an horizontal section of the throat will not be an oblong square; but its deviation from that form is a matter of no consequence; and no attempts should ever be made, by twisting the covings above where they approach the breast of the chimney, to bring it to that form. All twists, bends, prominences, excavations, and other irregularities of form in the covings of a chimney, never fail to produce eddies in the current of air which is continually passing into, and through, an open fire-place in which a fire is burning; and all such eddies disturb either the fire or the ascending current of smoke, or both; and not unfrequently cause the smoke to be thrown back into the room. Hence it appears, that the covings of chimneys should never be made circular, or in the form of any other curve, but always quite flat.

For the same reason, that is to say, to prevent eddies, the breast of the chimney, which forms that side of the throat that is in front or nearest to the room, should be neatly cleaned off, and its surface made quite regular and smooth. This may be easily done by covering it with a coat of plaster, which may be made thicker or thinner in different parts, as may be necessary in order to bring the breast of the chimney to be of the proper form.

With regard to the form of the breast of a chimney, this is a matter of very great importance, and which ought always to be particularly attended to. The worst form it can have is that of a vertical plane or upright flat; and next to this the worst form is an inclined plane. Both these forms cause the current of warm air from the room, which will, in spite of every precaution, sometimes find its way into the chimney, to cross upon the current of smoke which rises from the fire in a manner most likely to embarrass it in its ascent, and drive it back.

The current of air which, passing under the mantle, gets into the chimney, should be made gradually to bend its course upwards; by which means it will unite quietly with the ascending current of smoke, and will be less likely to check it, or force it back into the room. Now this may be effected with the greatest ease and certainty, merely by rounding off the breast of the chimney or back part of the mantle, instead of leaving it flat or full of holes and corners; and this of course ought always to be done.

Having thus ascertained the form and position of the new covings, the ingenious author next turns his attention to the height to which they should be carried. This will depend not only on the height of the mantle, but

Chimney, but also, and more especially, on the height of the breast of the chimney, or of that part of the chimney where the breast ends and the upright canal begins.—The back and covings must rise a few inches, five or six for instance, higher than this part, otherwise the throat of the chimney will not be properly formed; but no advantage would be gained by carrying them higher.

One important circumstance respecting chimney fire-places still remains to be considered; and that is the grate. In placing the grate, the thing principally to be attended to is, to make the back of it coincide with the back of the fire-place. But as many of the grates now in common use will be found to be too large, when the fire-places are altered and improved, it will be necessary to diminish their capacities by filling them up at the back and sides with pieces of fire-stone. When this is done, it is the front of the flat piece of fire-stone which is made to form a new back to the grate, which must be made to coincide with, and make part of the back of the fire-place.—But in diminishing the capacities of grates with pieces of fire-stone, care must be taken not to make them too narrow.

The proper width for grates destined for rooms of a middling size will be from six to eight inches, and their length may be diminished more or less according as the room is heated with more or less difficulty, or as the weather is more or less severe.—But where the width of a grate is not more than five inches it will be very difficult to prevent the fire from going out.

It frequently happens that the iron backs of grates are not vertical, or upright, but incline backwards.—When these grates are so much too wide as to render it necessary to fill them up behind with fire-stone, the inclination of the back will be of little consequence; for by making the piece of stone with which the width of the grate is to be diminished in the form of a wedge, or thicker above than below, the front of this stone, which in effect will become the back of the grate, may be made perfectly vertical; and the iron back of the grate being hid in the solid work of the back of the fire-place, will produce no effect whatever; but if the grate be already so narrow as not to admit of any diminution of its width, in that case it will be best to take away the iron back of the grate entirely, and fixing the grate firmly in the brick-work, cause the back of the fire-place to serve as a back to the grate.

Where grates, which are designed for rooms of a middling size, are longer than 14 or 15 inches, it will always be best, not merely to diminish their lengths, by filling them up at their two ends with fire-stone, but, forming the back of the chimney of a proper width, without paying any regard to the length of the grate, to carry the covings through the two ends of the grate in such a manner as to conceal them, or at least to conceal the back corners of them in the walls of the covings.

Had these directions been duly attended to by the masons who in Scotland pretend to alter chimneys on the principles of Count Rumford, we should not have observed so many of the grates placed by them jutting out beyond the mantle of the chimney; nor of course heard so many complaints of rooms being rendered more

smoky and the consumption of fuel increased by these pretended improvements. But when the grate is not set in its proper place, when its sloping iron back is retained, when no pains have been taken to make its ends coincide with the covings of the fire place, when the mantle, instead of having its back rounded off, is a vertical plane of iron cutting the column of smoke which rises beneath it, and, above all, when the throat of the chimney, instead of four, is made, as we often see, fourteen inches wide; let it be remembered, that not one of Count Rumford's directions has been followed, and that his principles have as little to do with the construction of such a chimney as with the building of the wall of China or the pyramids of Egypt.

To contribute our aid to prevent these blunders for the future, we shall here subjoin the Count's directions for laying out the work; not to instruct masons and bricklayers, to whom we earnestly recommend the study of the essay itself (a), which contains much valuable information that we have omitted; but merely to give the country gentleman an opportunity of discovering whether the workmen whom he employs deviates far and needlessly from the principles which he pretends to follow.

When a chimney is to be altered, after taking away the grate and removing the rubbish, first draw a true line with chalk, or with a lead pencil, upon the hearth, from one jamb to the other,—even with the front of the jambs. The dotted line $AB$, fig. 3. may represent this line.

From the middle $c$ of this line, ($AB$) another line $cd$, is to be drawn perpendicular to it, across the hearth, to the middle $d$, of the back of the chimney.

A person must now stand upright in the chimney, with his back to the back of the chimney, and hold a plumb-line to the middle of the upper part of the breast of the chimney ($d$, fig. 1.), or where the canal of the chimney begins to rise perpendicularly;—taking care to place the line above in such a manner that the plumb may fall on the line $cd$ (fig. 3.), drawn on the hearth from the middle of the opening of the chimney in front to the middle of the back, and an assistant must mark the precise place $e$, on that line where the plumb falls.

This being done, and the person in the chimney having quitted his station, four inches are to be set off on the line $cd$, from $e$, towards $d$; and the point $f$, where these four inches end, (which must be marked with chalk, or with a pencil), will show how far the new back is to be brought forward.

Through $f$, draw the line $gb$ parallel to the line $AB$, and this line $gb$ will show the direction of the new back, or the ground line upon which it is to be built. The line $cf$ will show the depth of the new fire place; and if it should happen that $cf$ is equal to about one-third of the line $AB$, and if the grate can be accommodated to the fire-place instead of its being necessary to accommodate the fire-place to the grate; in that case, half the length of the line $cf$ is to be set off from $f$ on the line $gb$, on one side to $k$, and on the other to $i$, and the line $ik$ will show the ground line of the fore part of the back of the chimney.

In all cases where the width of the opening of the fire-place in front ($AB$) happens to be not greater, or

not more than two or three inches greater than three times the width of the new back of the chimney ($ik$), this opening may be left; and lines drawn from $i$ to $A$, and from $k$ to $B$, will show the width and position of the front of the new coverings:—but when the opening of the fire-place in front is still wider, it must be reduced; which is to be done in the following manner:

From $c$, the middle of the line $AB$, $ea$ and $eb$ must be set off equal to the width of the back ($ik$), added to half its width ($fi$); and lines drawn from $i$ to $a$, and from $k$ to $b$, will show the ground plan of the fronts of the new coverings.

When this is done, nothing more will be necessary than to build up the back and coverings; and if the fire-place is designed for burning coals, to fix the grate in its proper place, according to the directions already given.—When the width of the fire place is reduced, the edges of the coverings $aA$ and $bB$ are to make a finish with the front of the jambs.—And in general it will be best, not only for the sake of the appearance of the chimney, but for other reasons also, to lower the height of the opening of the fire place whenever its width in front is diminished.

A front view of the chimney, after it has been thus altered, is exhibited in fig. 4. where the under part of the door-way is represented, as closed by the white dotted lines.

When the wall of the chimney in front, measured from the upper part of the breast of the chimney to the front of the mantle, is very thin, it may happen, and especially in chimneys designed for burning wood upon the hearth, or upon dogs, that the depth of the chimney, determining according to the directions here given, may be too small.

Thus, for example, supposing the wall of the chimney in front, from the upper part of the breast of the chimney to the front of the mantle, to be only four inches, (which is sometimes the case, particularly in rooms situated near the top of a house), in this case, if we take four inches for the width of the throat, this will give eight inches only for the depth of the fire-place, which would be too little, even were coals to be burnt instead of wood.—In this case (says the Count) I should increase the depth of the fire-place at the hearth to 12 or 13 inches, and should build the back perpendicular to the height of the top of the burning fuel (whether it be wood burnt upon the hearth or coals in a grate); and then, sloping the back by a gentle inclination forward, bring it to its proper place, that is to say, perpendicularly under the back part of the throat of the chimney. This slope, (which will bring the back forward four or five inches, or just as much as the depth of the fire-place is increased), though it ought not to be too abrupt, yet it ought to be quite finished at the height of eight or ten inches above the fire, otherwise it may perhaps cause the chimney to smoke; but when it is very near the fire, the heat of the fire will enable the current of rising smoke to overcome the obstacle which this slope will oppose to its ascent, which it could not do so easily were the slope situated at a greater distance from the burning fuel.

Fig. 5, 6, and 7, show a plan, elevation, and section of a fire-place constructed or altered upon this principle.—The wall of the chimney in front at $a$, fig. 7. being

only four inches thick, four inches more added to it for chimney. the width of the throat would have left the depth of the fire-place measured upon the hearth $bc$ only eight inches, which would have been too little;—a niche $c$ and $e$ was therefore made in the new back of the fire-place for receiving the grate, which niche was six inches deep in the centre of it, below 13 inches wide, (or equal in width to the grate,) and 23 inches high; finishing above with a semicircular arch, which, in its highest part, rose seven inches above the upper part of the grate.—The door-way for the chimney-sweeper, which begins just above the top of the niche, may be seen distinctly in both the figures 6 and 7.—The space marked $g$, fig. 7. behind this door-way, may either be filled with loose bricks, or may be left void.—The manner in which the piece of stone $f$, fig. 7. which is put under the mantle of the chimney to reduce the height of the opening of the fire place, is rounded off on the inside in order to give a fair run to the column of smoke in its ascent through the throat of the chimney, is clearly expressed in this figure. The plan fig. 5. and elevation fig. 6. show how much the width of the opening of the fire-place in front is diminished, and how the coverings in the new fire-place are formed.

A perfect idea of the form and dimension of the fire-place in its original state, as also after its alteration, may be had by a careful inspection of these figures.

In chimneys, like that represented in figure 8, where the jambs $A$ and $B$ project far into the room, and where the front edge of the marble slab $o$, which forms the coving, does not come so far forward as the front of the jambs, the workmen in constructing the new coverings are very apt to place them,—not in the line $cA$, which they ought to do,—but in the line $co$, which is a great fault.—The coverings of a chimney should never range behind the front of the jambs, however those jambs may project into the room;—but it is not absolutely necessary that the coverings should make a finish with the internal front corners of the jambs, or that they should be continued from the back $r$, quite to the front of the jambs at $A$.—They may finish in front at $a$ and $b$; and small corners $A$, $o$, $a$, may be left for placing the shovels, tongs, &c.

Were the new coving to range with the front edge of the old coving $o$, the obliquity of the new coving would commonly be too great;—or the angle $dco$ would exceed 135 degrees, which it never should do,—or at least never by more than a very few degrees. No inconvenience of any importance will arise from making the obliquity of the coverings less than what is here recommended; but many cannot fail to be produced by making it much greater.

These extracts, which we have made so liberally from Count Rumford's essay on chimney fire-places, will be sufficient, we hope, to bring fully within the comprehension of those who are acquainted with pneumatics, and pneumatic chemistry the principles on which chimneys and fire-places should be constructed; but such as are in a great measure strangers to these sciences will do well to consult the essay itself. With a benevolence which does him honour, the ingenious author has expressed a wish that his doctrines on this important subject may be widely propagated; and to encourage artists to study them, he has declared to the public in general, that "as he does not intend to take out himself, on

Chimney-sweepers—or to suffer others to take out, any patent for any invention of his which may be of public utility, all persons are at full liberty to imitate them, and vend them, for their own emolument, when and where, and in any way they may think proper."

Chimney-sweepers are a class of men who earn their subsistence by clearing chimneys of soot, which occasions them to smoke. While chimneys continued to be built in so simple a manner, and of such a width as they are still observed to be in old houses, they were so easily cleaned that this service could be performed by a servant with a wisp of straw, or a little brushwood fastened to a rope; but after the flues, in order to save room, were made narrower, or when several flues were united together, the cleaning of them became so difficult, that they required boys, or people of small size, accustomed to that employment. The first chimney-sweepers in Germany came from Savoy, Piedmont, and the neighbouring territories. These for a long time were the only countries where the cleaning of chimneys was followed as a trade; and hence Professor Beckmann concludes with great probability, that chimneys were invented in Italy. The Lotharingians, however, undertook the business of chimney-sweeping also; on which account the duke of Lotharingia was styled the imperial fire-master. The first Germans who condescended to clean chimneys were miners; and the chimney-sweepers in that empire still procure their boys from the forest of Hartz, where the greatest mines are wrought. Very lately, and perhaps at present, the greater part of the chimney-sweepers in Paris were Savoyards, many of them not above eight years of age, who, for the paltry sum of five sous, which they were obliged to share with their avaricious master, would scramble, at the hazard of their lives, through a narrow funnel fifty feet in length, and with their befooms clean it from soot and dirt. At what precise period chimney-sweeping became a trade in England and Scotland, we have not been able to learn; but among us, as well as elsewhere, young boys are employed in this business, who are said to be very harshly treated by fellows who stole them from the doors of cottages in the country. That children have been sometimes kidnapped by chimney-sweepers, we can have no doubt; but that the practice is frequent, we do not believe. We think however that the business might be wholly abolished; for a narrow funnel might certainly, if not very crooked, be swept by a bundle of straw or brushwood fastened to a rope, as well as one that is wider; and the bricks which separate the contiguous flues we know to be less injured by this method of sweeping, when cautiously gone about, than by sending boys up the chimneys.

On the 4th of July 1796, letters patent were granted to Daniel Davis, of the parish of St Giles Middlesex, for his invention of a machine, by which he proposes to sweep and cleanse chimneys, and extinguish chimneys on fire, without any person going up the same, as is now the practice. The machine consists of an apparatus of rack-work, of various lengths, which, by means of a hand-turn, is made to ascend the chimney. The lengths of the rack-work are joined together by means of mortices and tenons, with a spring which holds them fast. In each length is a joint, by which the rack-work will accommodate itself to angles or turns in the flues. To the first or uppermost length

is affixed a brush of hair, or wire, or sponge, or other elastic substance, as the occasion may require.

This invention is doubtless well calculated to answer the purpose intended, and may perhaps be the means of diminishing the number of those objects of misery, the unfortunate chimney-sweepers.

CHINA is an empire of such antiquity and extent, the laws and customs of the people are so singular, and the populousness of the country so very great—that it has attracted much of the attention of Europeans ever since it was visited in the 12th century by Marco Polo the Venetian traveller. Of such a country it would be unpardonable not to give some account in a work of this nature; but we have not, in truth, much to add to what has been said of China and the Chinese in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Since the article CHINA in that work was published, the court of Peking has indeed been visited by an embassy from Great Britain, and the origin of the people, as well as the antiquity of their empire, has been investigated by Sir William Jones with his usual diligence; but from his memoirs, published in the second volume of the Asiatic Researches, and from Sir George Staunton's account of the embassy, there is not much to be extracted which would be either amusing or instructive to our readers.

We have already observed, from Grosier and others, that the Chinese not only lay claim to the highest antiquity, but even contend that their first emperor was the first man. Both these positions are controverted by Sir William Jones, who, though he allows the Chinese empire to be very ancient when compared with the oldest European state, is yet decidedly of opinion that it was not founded at an earlier period than the 12th century before the Christian era; and that the people, so far from being aborigines, are a mixed race of Tartars and Hindoos. He begins his investigation with asking, "Whence came the singular people who long had governed China, before they were conquered by the Tartars? On this problem (says he) four opinions have been advanced, and all rather peremptorily asserted than supported by argument and evidence. By a few writers it has been urged, that the Chinese are an original race, who have dwelt for ages, if not from eternity, in the land which they now possess. By others, and chiefly by the missionaries, it is insisted that they sprung from the same stock with the Hebrews and the Arabs. A third assertion is that of the Arabs themselves, and of M. Pauw, who hold it indubitable, that they were originally Tartars, descending in wild clans from the steeps of Imaus. And a fourth, at least as dogmatically pronounced as any of the preceding, is that of the Brahmans, who decide, without allowing any appeal from their decision, that the Chinese (or so they are named in Sanscrit) were Hindoos of the military cast, who, abandoning the privileges of their tribe, rambled in different bodies to the north-east of Bengal; and forgetting by degrees the rites and the religion of their ancestors, established separate principalities, which were afterwards united in the plains and valleys which are now possessed by them."

Of these opinions, Sir William having very completely demolished the first three, proceeds to establish the fourth, which he considers as interesting as well as new in Europe. In the Sanscrit institutes of civil and religious duties, revealed, as the Hindoos believe, by Menu the

the son of Brâhma, we find (says he) the following curious passage: "Many families of the military class, having gradually abandoned the ordinances of the Veda, and the company of Brahmans, lived in a state of degradation; as the people of Pundrava and Odra, those of Dravira and Camboja, the Tavanas and Sacus, the Paradas and Pablawas, the CHINAS, and some other nations." A full comment on this text (continues the president) would be superfluous; but since the testimony of the Indian author, who, though not a divine personage, was certainly a very ancient lawyer, moralist, and historian, is direct and positive, disinterested and unsuspicious, it would decide the question before us if we could be sure that the word China signifies a Chinese." Of this fact Sir William Jones took the very best methods to be satisfied. He consulted a number of Pandits separately, who all assured him that the word China has no other signification in Sanscrit; that the Chinas of MENU settled in a fine country to the north-east of Gaur, and to the east of Camarup and Nepal; that they had long been, and still are, famed as ingenious artificers; and that they (the Pandits) had themselves seen old Chinese idols, which bore a manifest relation to the primitive religion of India. He then laid before one of the best informed Pandits a map of Asia; and when his own country was pointed out to him, the Pandit immediately placed his finger on the north-western provinces of China, as the place where he said the Chinas of MENU first established themselves.

In the opinion of Sir William Jones, this is complete evidence that the Chinese are descended from an Indian race; but he does not believe that the Chinese empire, as we now call it, was formed when the laws of MENU were collected; and for his calling this fact in question, he offers reasons, which to us are perfectly satisfactory. By a diligent and accurate comparison of ancient Sanscrit writings, he has been able to fix the period of the compilation of those laws at between 1000 and 1500 years before Christ; but by the evidence of Confucius himself, he proves, that if the Chinese empire was formed, it could be only in its cradle in the 12th century before our era. In the second part of the work, intitled Lún Tzu, Confucius declares, that "although he, like other men, could relate, as mere lessons of morality, the histories of the first and second imperial houses, yet, for want of evidence, he could give no certain account of them." Now, says Sir William, if the Chinese themselves do not pretend that any historical monument existed in the age of Confucius preceding the rise of their third dynasty, about 1100 years before the Christian epoch, we may justly conclude, that their empire was then in its infancy, and did not grow to maturity till some ages afterwards. Nay, he is inclined to bring its origin still lower down. "It was not, says he, till the eighth century before the birth of our Saviour, that a small kingdom was erected in the province of Shensi, the capital of which stood nearly in the 35th degree of northern latitude, and about five degrees to the west of Sigan. That country and its metropolis were both called Chin; and the dominion of its princes was gradually extended to the east and west. The territory of Chin, so called by the old Hindoos, by the Perians, and by the Chinese, gave its name to a race of emperors, whose tyranny made their memory so unpopular, that the modern inhabitants of China hold the

word in abhorrence, and speak of themselves as the people of a milder and more virtuous dynasty; but it is highly probable, that the whole nation descended from the Chinas of MENU, and mixing with the Tartars, by whom the plains of Honan and the more southern provinces were thinly inhabited, formed by degrees the race of men whom we now see in possession of the noblest empire in Asia."

In support of this opinion, which the accomplished author offers as the result of long and anxious inquiries, he observes, that the Chinese have no ancient monuments from which their origin can be traced, even by plausible conjecture; that their sciences are wholly exotic; that their mechanic arts have nothing in them which any set of men, in a country so highly favoured by nature, might not have discovered and improved; that their philosophy seems yet in so rude a state as hardly to deserve the appellation; and that their popular religion was imported from India in an age comparatively modern. He then institutes a comparison between the mythology of the Chinese and that of the Hindoos; of which the result is, that the former people had an ancient system of ceremonies and superstitions which has an apparent affinity with some parts of the oldest Indian worship. "They believed in the agency of genii or tutelary spirits, presiding over the stars and the clouds; over lakes and rivers, mountains, valleys, and woods; over certain regions and towns; over all the elements, of which, like the Hindoos, they reckoned five; and particularly over fire, the most brilliant of them. To those deities they offered victims on high places. And the following passage from one of their sacred books, says Sir William, is very much in the style of the Brahmans: "Even they who perform a sacrifice with due reverence, cannot perfectly assure themselves that the divine spirits accept their oblations; and far less can they, who adore the gods with languor and officiousness, clearly perceive their sacred il-lapses." These (continues the president) are imperfect traces indeed, but they are traces of an affinity between the religion of MENU and that of the Chinas, whom he names among the apostates from it; and besides them, we discover many other very singular marks of relation between the Chinese and the old Hindoos.

"This relation (he thinks) appears in the remarkable period of 432,000, and the cycle of 60 years, in the predilection for the mystical number nine; in many similar facts and great festivals, especially at the solstices and equinoxes; in the obsequies, consisting of rice and fruits offered to the manes of their ancestors; in the dread of dying childless, lest such offerings should be intermitted; and perhaps in their common abhorrence of red objects, which the Indians carried so far, that MENU himself, where he allows a Brahman to trade, if he cannot otherwise support life, absolutely forbids his trading in any sort of red cloths, whether linen, or woollen, or made of woven bark. In a word, says Sir William Jones, all the circumstances which have been mentioned seem to prove (as far as such a question admits proof), that the Chinese and Hindoos were originally the same people; but having been separated near 4000 years, they have retained few strong features of their ancient consanguinity, especially as the Hindoos have preserved their old language and ritual, while the Chinese very soon lost both; and the Hindoos have constantly

constantly intermarried among themselves, while the Chinese, by a mixture of Tartarian blood from the time of their first establishment, have at length formed a race distinct in appearance both from Indians and Tartars."

Sir George Staunton, who accompanied the Earl of Macartney on his embassy to the emperor of China, does not indeed directly controvert this reasoning; but overlooking it altogether, gives to the Chinese a much higher antiquity than Sir William Jones is inclined to allow them. Taking it for granted that their cycle is their own, and that it is not the offspring of astronomical science, but of repeated observations, he seems to give implicit credit to those annals of the empire which almost every other writer has considered as fabulous.

"Next to the studies which teach the economy of life, the Chinese (says he) value most the history of the events of their own country, which is, to them, the globe; and of the celestial movements which they had an opportunity of observing at the same time." In regard to the former, he tells us, that "from about three centuries before the Christian era the transactions of the Chinese empire have been regularly, and without any intervening chasm, recorded both in official documents and by private contemporary writers. Nowhere had history become so much an object of public attention, and nowhere more the occupation of learned individuals. Every considerable town throughout the empire was a kind of university, in which degrees were conferred on the proficient in the history and government of the state. Historical works were multiplied throughout. The accounts of recent events were exposed to the correction of the witnesses of the facts, and compilations of former transactions to the criticisms of rival writers." In regard to the latter, the movements of the heavenly bodies, he thinks that in no country are there stronger inducements or better opportunities to watch them than in China; and hence he infers, that the cycle of sixty years is of Chinese formation. "In a climate (says he) favourable to astronomy, the balance of hours beyond the number of days during which the sun appeared to return opposite to, and to obscure, or to mix among the same fixed stars, might be ascertained in a short time; and occasioned the addition of a day to every fourth year, in order to maintain regularity in the computation of time, in regard to the return of the seasons; but many ages must have past before a period could have been discovered, in which the unequal returns of the sun and moon were so accurately adjusted, that at its termination the new and full moons should return, not only to the same day, but within an hour and a half of the time they had happened, when the period commenced. The knowledge of such a period or cycle could be obtained only by a multiplicity of careful and accurate observations. Many revolutions of those great luminaries must have been completed, and numberless conjunctions have past over, before their returns could be ascertained to happen in the same day, at the end of nineteen years. The small difference of time between the returning periods of this cycle, was partly lessened by the intervention of another of 60 years, or of 720 revolutions of the moon, which, with the settled intercalation of 22 lunations, were at first supposed to bring a perfect coincidence of the relative positions of the sun and moon: but even according to this period, every new year was made constantly to recede, in a very small degree, which

the Chinese corrected afterwards from time to time. This cycle answered a double purpose, one as an era for chronological reckoning, and the other as a regulating period for a luni-solar year. Each year of the cycle is distinguished by the union of two characters, taken from such an arrangement of an unequal number of words placed in opposite columns, that the same two characters cannot be found again together for sixty years. The first column contains a series of ten words, the other twelve; which last are, in fact, the same that denote the twelve hours or divisions of the day, each being double the European hour. The first word or character of the first series or column of ten words, joined to the first word of the second series or column of twelve, marks the first year of the cycle; and so on until the first series is exhausted, when the eleventh word of the second series, combined with the first of the first series, marks the eleventh year of the cycle; and the twelfth or last of the second series, joined with the second of the first series, serves for denoting the twelfth year. The third of the first series becomes united in regular progression with the first of the second series, to mark the thirteenth year; and proceeding by this rule, the first character in the first and in the second series cannot come again together for sixty years, or until the first year of the second cycle. The Christian year 1797 answers to the 54th year of the 68th Chinese cycle, which ascertains its commencement to have been 2277 years before the birth of Christ; unless it be supposed that the official records and public annals of the empire, which bear testimony to it, should all be falsified, and that the cycle when first established should have been antedated; which is indeed as little probable as that the period, for example, of the Olympiads should be asserted to have commenced many ages prior to the first Olympic games."

This is a very positive decision against the opinion of a man whose talents and knowledge of oriental learning were such as to give to his opinions on such subjects the greatest weight. If the statements and reasonings of Sir George Staunton be accurate, the Chinese empire must have subsisted at least 3000 years before the Christian era; for he says expressly, that many ages must have elapsed before the commencement of that cycle, which, according to him, commenced 2277 years before the birth of Christ. But surely Confucius was as well acquainted with the ancient annals of his own country, and the credibility which is due to them, as any man of the present age, whether Chinese or European; and we have seen, that he considered none of them as authentic which relate events previous to the 11th century before our era. Even this is by much too early a period at which to rely upon them with implicit confidence, if it be true, as Sir George informs us, that the transactions of the empire have been regularly recorded only from about three centuries before the birth of Christ. With respect to the cycle, there is every probability that it was derived from India, where we know that astronomy has been cultivated as a science from time immemorial, and where, we have shewn in another place, that the commencement of the cycle was actually antedated (see PHILOSOPHY, n° 9. Encycl.) We have therefore no hesitation in preferring Sir William Jones's opinion of the origin of the Chinese empire to Sir George Staunton's; not merely because we believe the

the former of these gentlemen to have been more conversant than the latter with Chinese literature, but because we think his reasoning more consistent with itself, and his conclusion more consonant to that outline of chronology, which, as he observes, has been so correctly traced for the last 2000 years, that we must be hardy sceptics to call it in question.

There is another point very nearly related indeed to this, about which these two learned men likewise differ. Sir George Staunton informs us, that "no accounts of a general deluge are mentioned in Chinese history." Sir William Jones, on the other hand, in the discourse already quoted, says, "I may assure you, after full inquiry and consideration, that the Chinese, like the Hindoos, believe this earth to have been wholly covered with water, which, in works of undisputed authenticity, they describe as flowing abundantly, then subsiding, and separating the higher from the lower age of mankind." To which of these authors shall we give credit? The high antiquity which Sir George Staunton assigns to the Chinese empire, rendered it necessary for the persons from whom he drew his information to get quit by any means of an universal deluge. The system of Sir William Jones left him at liberty to admit or reject that event according to evidence; and in addition to the authentic records to which he appeals, he quotes a mythological fable of the Chinese, and another of the Hindoos, which, though he lays not upon them any great stress, appear to us, when compared together, not only to corroborate his opinion respecting the descent of the Chinese, but likewise to shew that both they and the Hindoos have preserved a traditional account of the deluge very similar to that which is given by Moses. The Chinese fable is this: "The mother of FO-HI was the daughter of Heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the brink of a river with a similar name, she found herself on a sudden encircled with a rainbow; soon after which she became pregnant, and at the end of twelve years was delivered of a son, radiant as herself, who, among other titles, had that of Sui, or the Star of the Year." In the mythological system of the Hindoos, "the nymph ROHINI, who presides over the fourth lunar mansion, was the favourite mistress of SOMA or the Moon, among whose numerous epithets we find Cumdanayoca, or delighting in a species of water-flower that blossoms at night. The offspring of ROHINI and SOMA was BUDHA, regent of a planet; and he married ILA, whose father was preserved in a MIRACULOUS AXX from an universal deluge." The learned president shews, that, according to the Brahmins, the Chinese descended from BUDHA; and he mentions a divine personage connected with the Chinese account of the birth of FO-HI, whose name was NIU-VA. But if all these circumstances be laid together, it will appear, we think, pretty evident, that the two ancient nations have preserved the same tradition of an universal deluge, and that the Chinese RAINBOW and NIU-VA, with the Indian AXX, point to the flood of NOAH.

To Sir William Jones's derivation of the Chinese from the Hindoos, the state of their written language may occur as an objection; for since it is certain that alphabetical characters were in use among the Hindoos before the period at which he places the emigration of the Chinas, how, it may be asked, came these people to

drop the mode of writing practised by their ancestors, and to adopt another so very inconvenient as that which the Chinese have used from the foundation of their empire? The force of this objection, however, will vanish, when it is remembered that the Chinas were of the military cast; that they had gradually abandoned the ordinances of the Veda, and were in consequence degraded; and that they rambled from their native country in small bodies. We do not know that the military cast among the Hindoos was ever much devoted to letters; there is the greatest reason to believe that a degraded cast would neglect them; and it is certain that small bodies of men, wandering in deserts, would have their time and their attention completely occupied in providing for the day that was passing over them. That the Chinas should have forgotten the alphabetical characters of the Hindoos is therefore so far from being an objection to Sir William Jones's account of their descent from that people, that it is the natural consequence of the manner in which he says they rambled from Hindostan to the northern provinces of what now constitutes the Chinese empire.

Of the origin of the characters which are used by this singular people, the illustrious president of the Asiatic Society gives the following account from a Chinese writer named LI YANG PING. "The earliest of them were nothing more than the outlines of visible objects, earthly and celestial; but as things merely intellectual could not be expressed by those figures, the grammarians of China contrived to represent the various operations of the mind by metaphors drawn from the productions of nature. Thus the idea of roughness and of rotundity, of motion and rest, were conveyed to the eye by signs representing a mountain, the sky, a river, and the earth. The figures of the sun, the moon, and the stars, differently combined, stood for smoothness and splendour, for any thing artfully wrought, or woven with delicate workmanship. Extension, growth, increase, and many other qualities, were painted in characters taken from the clouds, from the firmament, and from the vegetable part of the creation. The different ways of moving, agility and slowness, idleness and diligence, were expressed by various insects, birds, fishes, and quadrupeds. In this manner passions and sentiments were traced by the pencil, and ideas not subject to any sense were exhibited to the sight; until by degrees new combinations were invented, new expressions added, the characters deviated imperceptibly from their primitive shape, and the Chinese language became not only clear and forcible, but rich and elegant in the highest degree."

Of this language, both as it is spoken and written, Sir George Staunton has given an account so clear and scientific, that it will undoubtedly place him high among the most eminent philologists of the 18th century. As there is nothing relating to the Chinese more wonderful than their language, which is very little understood in Europe, we shall lay before our readers a pretty copious abstract of what he says on the subject, referring them for further information to his account of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China.

"In the Chinese tongue (says Sir George) the sounds of several letters in most alphabets are utterly unknown, and the organs of a native advanced in life cannot pronounce them. In endeavouring to utter the

China. sounds of B, D, R, and X, for instance, he substitutes some other sounds to which the same organ has been accustomed; L for R, and, as we have reason to think from some expressions of Sir William Jones's, F for B. The nice distinctions between the tones and accents of words nearly resembling each other in sound, but varying much in sense, require a nicety of ear to distinguish, and of vocal powers to render them exactly. Synonymous words are therefore frequently introduced in Chinese dialogue to prevent any doubt about the intended sense; and if in an intricate discussion any uncertainty should still remain as to the meaning of a particular expression, recourse is had to the ultimate criterion of tracing with the finger in the air, or otherwise, the form of the character, and thus ascertaining at once which was meant to be expressed. In a Chinese sentence there is no marked distinction of substantives, adjectives, or verbs; nor any accordance of gender, number, and case. A very few particles denote the past, the present, and the future; nor are those auxiliaries employed when the intended time may be otherwise inferred with certainty. A Chinese who means to declare his intention of departing to-morrow, never says that he will depart to-morrow; because the expression of the morrow is sufficient to ascertain that his departure must be future. The plural number is marked by the addition of a word, without which the singular always is implied. Neither the memory nor the organs of speech are burthened with the pronunciation of more sounds to express ideas than are absolutely necessary to mark their difference. The language is entirely monosyllabic. A single syllable always expresses a complete idea. Each syllable may be founded by an European consonant preceding a vowel, sometimes followed by a liquid. Such an order of words prevents the harshness of succeeding consonants sounding ill together; and renders the language as soft and harmonious as the Italian is felt to be, from the rarity of consonants, and the frequency of its vowel terminations.

"The names or sounds, by which men may be first supposed to have distinguished other animals, when occasion offered to designate them in their absence, were attempts at an imitation of the sounds peculiar to those beings; and still, in Chinese, the name, for example, of a cat, is a pretty near resemblance of its usual cry. It occurred as naturally to endeavour, in speaking, to imitate the voice, if practicable, as it was in writing to sketch a rude figure of the object of description. It is observable, that the radical words of most languages, separated from the servile letters, which mark their inflections, according to their conjugations or declensions, are monosyllabic. A part of each radical word is retained in composition to denote the meaning and etymology of the compound, which thus becomes polysyllabic; but the Chinese grammarians, aware of the inconvenience resulting from the length and complication of sounds, confined all their words, however significant of combined ideas, to single sounds; and retained only in writing, some part at least of the form of each character denoting a simple idea, in the compound characters conveying complex ideas."

This is a very plausible, and perhaps the true, account of the monosyllabic form of the Chinese language; but it is proper to state the different account which is given of this peculiarity by Sir William Jones. "It

has arisen, according to him, from the singular habits of the people; for though their common tongue be so musically accented as to form a kind of recitative, yet it wants those grammatical accents without which all human tongues would appear monosyllabic. Thus Amita, with an accent on the first syllable, means, in the Sanscrit language, immeasurable, and the natives of Bengal pronounce it Omita; but when the religion of BUDDHA, the son of MAYA, was carried into China, the people of that country, unable to pronounce the name of their new god, called him FOS, the son of MO YE; and divided his epithet Amita into three syllables O-MI-YO, annexing to them certain ideas of their own, and expressing them in writing by three distinct symbols. Hence it is that they have clipped their language into monosyllables, even when the ideas expressed by them, and the written symbols for those ideas, are very complex."

"In the Chinese language Sir George Staunton informs us that there is a certain order, or settled syntax, in the succession of words in the same sentence; a succession fixed by custom, differently in different languages, but founded on no rule or natural order of ideas, as has been sometimes supposed; for though a sentence consists of several ideas, to be rendered by several words, these ideas all exist and are connected together in the same instant; forming a picture or image, every part of which is conceived at once. The formation of Chinese sentences is often the simplest and most artless possible, and such as may naturally have occurred at the origin of society. To interrogate, for example, is often at least to require the solution of a question, whether the subject of doubt be in a particular way or the contrary; and accordingly a Chinese inquiring about his friends health, will sometimes say, bou, poo bou? The literal meaning of which words is, "well, not well?" A simple character repeated stands sometimes for more than one of the objects which singly it denotes, and sometimes for a collective quantity of the same thing. The character of moo singly is a tree, repeated is a thicket, and tripled is a forest.

"In Chinese there are scarcely fifteen hundred distinct sounds. In the written language there are at least eighty thousand characters or different forms of letters, which number divided by the first gives nearly fifty tenses or characters upon an average to every sound expressed; a disproportion, however, that gives more the appearance than the reality of equivocation and uncertainty to the oral language of the Chinese.

"The characters of the Chinese language were originally traced, in most instances, with a view to express either real images, or the allegorical signs of ideas: a circle, for example, for the sun, and a crescent for the moon. A man was represented by an erect figure, with lines to mark the extremities. It was evident that the difficulty and tediousness of imitation will have occasioned soon a change to traits more simple and more quickly traced. Of the entire figure of a man, little more than the lower extremities only continue to be drawn, by two lines forming an angle with each other. A faint resemblance, in some few instances, still remains of the original forms in the present hieroglyphic characters; and the gradation of their changes is traced in several Chinese books. Not above half a dozen of the present characters consist each of a single line; but most

of them consist of many, and a few of so many as seventy different strokes. The form of those characters has not been so flux as the sound of words, as appears in the instance of almost all the countries bordering on the Chinese Sea or Eastern Asia, where the Chinese written, but not the oral language, is understood; in like manner, as one form of Arabic figures to denote numbers, and one set of notes for music, are uniform and intelligible throughout Europe, notwithstanding the variety of its languages.

"A certain order or connection is to be perceived in the arrangement of the written characters of the Chinese; as if it had been formed originally upon a system to take place at once, and not grown up, as other languages, by slow and distant intervals. Upwards of two hundred characters, generally consisting each of a few lines or strokes, are made to mark the principal objects of nature, somewhat in the manner of Bishop Wilkin's divisions, in his ingenious book on the subject of universal language, or real character. These may be considered as the genera or roots of language, in which every other word or species, in a systematic sense, is referred to its proper genus. The heart is a genus, of which the representation of a curve line approaches somewhat to the form of the object; and the species referable to it include all the sentiments, passions, and affections, that agitate the human breast. Each species is accompanied by some mark denoting the genus or heart. Under the genus hand are arranged most trades and manual exercises. Under the genus word every sort of speech, study, writing, understanding, and debate. A horizontal line marks a unit; crossed by another line it stands for ten, as it does in every nation which repeats the units after that number. The five elements, of which the Chinese suppose all bodies in nature to be compounded, form so many genera, each of which comprehends a great number of species under it. As in every compound character or species, the abridged mark of the genus is discernible by a student of that language, in a little time he is enabled to consult the Chinese dictionary, in which the compound characters or species are arranged under their proper genera. The characters of these genera are placed at the beginning of the dictionary, in an order which, like that of the alphabet, is invariable, and soon becomes familiar to the learner. The species under each genus follow each other, according to the number of strokes of which each consists, independently of the one or few which serve to point out the genus. The species wanted is thus soon found out. Its meaning and pronunciation are given through other words in common use; the first of which denotes its signification and the other its sound. When no one common word is found to render exactly the same found, it is communicated by two words with marks, to inform the inquirer that the consonant of the first word and the vowel of the second joined together form the precise sound wanted.

"The composition of many of the Chinese characters often displays considerable ingenuity, and serves also to give an insight into the opinions and manners of the people. The character expressive of happiness includes abridged marks of land, the source of their physical, and of children that of their moral, enjoyments. This character, embellished in a variety of ways, is hung up almost in every house. Sometimes written by the

hand of the emperor, it is sent by him as a compliment, which is very highly prized, and such as he was pleased to send to the ambassador.

"Upon the formation, changes, and allusions of compound characters, the Chinese have published many thousand volumes of philological learning. Nowhere does criticism more abound, or is more strict. The introduction or alteration of a character is a serious undertaking, and seldom fails to meet with opposition. The most ancient writings of the Chinese are still classical amongst them. The language seems in no instance to have been derived from or mixed with any other. The written seems to have followed the oral language soon after the men who spoke it were formed into a regular society. Though it is likely that all hieroglyphical languages were originally founded on the principles of imitation, yet in the gradual progress towards arbitrary forms and sounds, it is probable that every society deviated from the originals in a different manner from the others; and thus for every independent society there arose a separate hieroglyphic language. As soon as a communication took place between any two of them, each would hear names and sounds not common to both; each reciprocally would mark down such names in the sounds of its own characters, bearing, as hieroglyphics, a different sense. In that instance, consequently, those characters cease to be hieroglyphics, and were merely marks of sound. If the foreign sounds could not be expressed but by the use of a part of two hieroglyphics, in the manner mentioned to be used sometimes in Chinese dictionaries, the two marks joined together become in fact a syllable. If a frequent intercourse should take place between communities speaking different languages, the necessity of using hieroglyphics merely as marks of sound would frequently recur. The practice would lead imperceptibly to the discovery that, with a few hieroglyphics, every sound of the foreign language might be expressed; and the hieroglyphics which answered best this purpose, either as to exactness of sound or simplicity of form, would be selected for this particular use; and serving as so many letters, would form in fact together what is called an alphabet. Thus, the passage from hieroglyphic to alphabetic writing may naturally be traced, without the necessity of having recourse to divine instruction, as some learned men have conjectured, on the ground that the art of writing by an alphabet is too refined and artificial for untutored reason."

"The Chinese printed character is the same as is used in most manuscripts, and is chiefly formed of straight lines in angular positions, as most letters are in Eastern tongues, especially the Sanscrit; the characters of which, in some instances, admit of additions to their original form, producing a modification of the sense. A running hand is used by the Chinese only on trivial occasions, or for private notes, or for the ease and expedition of the writer; and differs from the other as much as an European manuscript does from print. There are books with alternate columns of both kinds of writing for their mutual explanation to a learner.

"The principal difficulty in the study of Chinese writings arises from the general exclusion of the auxiliary particles of colloquial language, that fix the relation between indeclinable words, such as are all those of the Chinese language. The judgment must be constantly exercised

exercised by the student, to supply the absence of such assistance. That judgment must be guided by attention to the manners, customs, laws, and opinions of the Chinese, and to the events and local circumstances of the country, to which the allusions of language perpetually refer. If it in general be true, that a language is difficult to be understood in proportion to the distance of the country where it is spoken, and that of him who endeavours to acquire it, because in that proportion the allusions to which language has continually recourse are less known to the learner, some idea may be conceived of the obstacles which an European may expect to meet in reading Chinese, not only from the remoteness of situation, but from the difference between him and the native of China in all other respects. The Chinese characters are in fact sketches or abridged figures, and a sentence is often a string of metaphors. The different relations of life are not marked by arbitrary sounds, simply conveying the idea of such connection; but the qualities naturally expected to arise out of such relations become frequently the name by which they are respectively known. Kindred, for example, of every degree is thus distinguished with a minuteness unknown in other languages. That of China has distinct characters for every modification known by them of objects in the physical and intellectual world. Abstract terms are so otherwise expressed by the Chinese than by applying to each the name of the most prominent objects to which it might be applied, which is likewise indeed generally the case of other languages. Among the Latins the abstract idea of virtue, for example, was expressed under the name of valour or strength (virtus), being the quality most esteemed among them, as filial piety is considered to be in China. The words of an alphabetic language being formed of different combinations of letters or elemental parts, each with a distinct sound and name, whoever knows and combines these together, may read the words without the least knowledge of their meaning; not so hieroglyphic language, in which each character has indeed a sound annexed to it, but which bears no certain relation to the unnamed lines or strokes of which it is composed. Such character is studied and best learned by becoming acquainted with the idea attached to it; and a dictionary of hieroglyphics is less a vocabulary of the terms of one language with the correspondent terms in another, than an encyclopædia containing explanations of the ideas themselves represented by such hieroglyphics. In such sense only can the acquisition of Chinese words be justly said to engross most of the time of men of learning among them. The knowledge of the sciences of the Chinese, however imperfect, and of their most extensive literature, is certainly sufficient to occupy the life of man. Enough, however, of the language is imperceptibly acquired by every native, and may, with diligence, be acquired by foreigners for the ordinary concerns of life; and further improvements must depend on capacity and opportunity."

Next to the singular structure of the oral and written language of the Chinese, there is perhaps nothing in their history more surprising to a native of Europe than the number of the people, and the means by which they contrive to procure subsistence, without foreign trade, in a country so crowded, and at the same time not everywhere of a fertile soil. In the Encyclopædia, the population of this vast empire is stated, from M.

Grosier, at 200 millions: but great as this is, when compared with the population of every other extensive country, it appears to be far short of the truth. Sir George Staunton has published a statement, taken from one of the public offices in the capital, and given by a great and respectable mandarin to Lord Macartney, in which it is shewn that China Proper contains not fewer than 333 millions of inhabitants. As the extent of the country is 1,297,999 square miles, there are of course very near 260 inhabitants to every square mile; and of these miles a very considerable proportion consists of nothing but barren rocks. That this account is accurate there can be little doubt; for the extent of the provinces was ascertained by astronomical observations, as well as by admeasurement; and the number of individuals is regularly taken in each division of a district by a tything-man, or every tenth master of a family. These returns are collected by officers resident so near as to be capable of correcting any gross mistake, and are all lodged in the great register of Pekin.

For this excessive population our author satisfactorily accounts. Celibacy, says he, is rare in China, even in the military profession; the marriages are prolific as well as early, and the influence of the patriarchal system, to be explained afterwards, is such, that a man's children adds to his wealth. It is reckoned a discredit to be without offspring; and they who have none adopt others, who become theirs exclusively. In case of marriage, should a wife prove barren, a second may be espoused in the lifetime of the first. The opulent, as in most parts of the East, are allowed, without reproach, to keep concubines, of whom the children are considered as being those of the legitimate wife, and partake in all the rights of legitimacy. "Accidents sometimes of extraordinary drought, and sometimes of excessive inundations, occasionally produce famine in particular provinces, and famine disease; but there are few drains from moral causes either of emigration or foreign navigation. The number of manufactures, whose occupations are not always favourable to health, whose constant confinement to particular spots, and sometimes in a close or tainted atmosphere, must be injurious, and whose residence in towns exposes them to irregularities, bears but a very small proportion to that of husbandmen in China. In general there seems to be no other bounds to Chinese populousness than those which the necessity of subsistence may put to it. These boundaries are certainly more enlarged than in other countries. The whole surface of the empire is, with trifling exceptions, dedicated to the production of food for man alone. There is no meadow, and very little pasture; nor are fields cultivated in oats, beans, or turnips, for the support of cattle of any kind. Few parks or pleasure grounds are seen, excepting those belonging to the emperor. Little land is taken up for roads, which are few and narrow, the chief communication being by water. There are no commons, or lands suffered to lie waste by the neglect, or the caprice, or for the sport of great proprietors. No arable land lies fallow. The soil, under a hot and fertilizing sun, yields annually, in most instances, double crops, in consequence of adapting the culture to the soil, and of supplying its defects by mixture with other earths, by manure, by irrigation, by careful and judicious industry of every kind. The labour of man is little diverted from that industry

to minister to the luxuries of the opulent and powerful, or in employments of no real use. Even the soldiers of the Chinese army, except during the short intervals of the guards which they are called to mount, or the exercises, or other occasional services which they perform, are mostly employed in agriculture. The quantity of subsistence is increased also, by converting more species of animals and vegetables to that purpose than is usual in other countries. And even in the preparation of their food the Chinese have economy and management."

The government of China is despotic; and it is a curious spectacle to behold so large a proportion of the whole human race, connected together in one great system of polity, submitting quietly, and through so considerable an extent of country, to one great sovereign; and uniform in their laws, their manners, and their language, but differing essentially in each of these respects from every other portion of mankind; and neither desirous of communicating with nor forming any designs against the rest of the world. To produce such a phenomenon, many causes must be combined; but perhaps the principal are to be found in the patriarchal system already mentioned, in the laws and customs of the empire, and in the belief that the emperor is the vicegerent of heaven, and guided in all his actions by divine inspiration.

The patriarchal system is founded upon that filial piety which the philosophers of China have uniformly represented as the greatest of human virtues. These sages, while they successfully inculcated this duty, have left parental affection to its own natural influence; and hence in China parents are less frequently neglected than infants are exposed. The laws of the empire, to corroborate the disposition to filial obedience, furnish an opportunity for punishing any breach of it, by leaving a man's offspring entirely within his own power; and hence it is, that with the poor, marriage, as we have said, is a measure of prudence; because the children, particularly the sons, are bound to maintain their parents.

A Chinese dwelling is generally surrounded by a wall six or seven feet high. Within this inclosure a whole family, of three generations, with all their respective wives and children, will frequently be found. One small room is made to serve for the individuals of each branch of the family, sleeping in different beds, divided only by mats hanging from the ceiling. One common room is used for eating.

The prevalence of this custom, of retaining the several branches of a family under the same roof, is attended with important effects. It renders the younger temperate and orderly in their conduct under the authority and example of the older; and it enables the whole to subsist, like soldiers in a mess, with more economy and advantage. As the venerable patriarch of each habitation presides over his descendants with the authority of a magistrate; so the different orders of magistrates are, in their different districts and provinces, looked up to with the veneration due from children to their parents, while the emperor is revered as the grand patriarch of the whole empire.

Another thing which contributes much to the permanency of the government and the internal quiet of the empire is, that in China there is less inequality in the fortunes than in the conditions of men. The ancient

annals of the empire testify, that for a long period of time, the earth, like the other elements of nature, was enjoyed by its inhabitants almost in common. Their country was divided into small equal districts; every district was cultivated conjointly by eight labouring families, which composed each hamlet; and they enjoyed all the profit of their labours, except a certain share of the produce reserved for public expences. It is true, indeed, that after a revolution, deplored in all the Chinese histories, which happened prior to the Christian era, the usurper granted all the lands away to the partners of his victories, leaving to the cultivators of the soil a small pittance only out of the revenue which it yielded. Property in land also became hereditary; but in process of time, the most considerable domains were subdivided into very moderate parcels by the successive distribution of the possessions of every father equally among all his sons; the daughters being always married without dower. It very rarely happened that there was but an only son to enjoy the whole property of his deceased parents; and it could scarcely be increased by collateral succession.

From the operations of all those causes, there was a constant tendency to level wealth; and few could succeed to such an accumulation of it as to render them independent of any efforts of their own for its increase. Besides, wealth alone confers in China but little importance, and no power; nor is property, without office, always perfectly secure. There is no hereditary dignity, which might accompany, and give it pre-eminence and weight. The delegated authority of government often leans more heavily on the unprotected rich than on the poor, who are less objects of temptation. And it is a common remark among the Chinese, that fortunes, either by being parcelled out to many heirs, or by being lost in commercial speculations, gaming, or extravagance, or extorted by oppressive mandarines, seldom continue to be considerable in the individuals of the same family beyond the third generation. To ascend again the ladder of ambition, it is necessary, by long and laborious study, to excel in the learning of the country, which alone qualifies for public employments.

There are properly but three classes of men in China: men of letters, from whom the mandarines are taken; cultivators of the ground; and mechanics, including merchants. In Pekin alone is conferred the highest degree of literature upon those who, in public examinations, are found most able in the sciences of morality and government as taught in the ancient Chinese writers; with which studies the history of their country is intimately blended. Among such graduates all the civil offices in the state are distributed by the emperor; and they compose all the great tribunals of the empire. The candidates for those degrees are such as have succeeded in similar examinations in the principal city of each province. Those who have been chosen in the cities of the second order, or chief town of every district in the province, are the candidates in the provincial capital. They who fail in the first and second classes have still a claim on subordinate offices, proportioned to the class in which they had succeeded. Those examinations are carried on with great solemnity, and apparent fairness. Military rank is likewise given to those who are found upon competition to excel in the military art, and in warlike exercises. This distribution

of offices contributes greatly to the peace of the empire; for the people cheerfully submit to the authority of those whom they believe to be placed over them by merit alone, and love that constitution which brings within the reach of the meanest subject, who has talents and industry, the highest station next to the supreme.

"The great tribunals are situated, for the sake of convenience, near the southern gate of the imperial palace at Pekin. To them accounts of all the transactions of the empire are regularly transmitted. They are councils of reference from the emperor, to whom they report every business of moment, with the motives for the advice which they offer on the occasion. There is a body of doctrine composed from the writings of the earliest ages of the empire, confirmed by subsequent lawgivers and sovereigns, and transmitted from age to age with increasing veneration, which serves as rules to guide the judgement of those tribunals. This doctrine seems, indeed, founded on the broadest basis of universal justice, and on the purest principles of humanity.

"His Imperial majesty generally conforms to the suggestions of those tribunals. One tribunal is directed to consider the qualifications of the different mandarines for different offices, and to propose their removal when found incapable or unjust. One has for object the preservation of the manners or morals of the empire, called by Europeans the tribunal of ceremonies, which it regulates on the maxim, that exterior forms contribute not a little to prevent the breach of moral rules. The most arduous and critical is the tribunal of censors; taking into its consideration the effect of subsisting laws, the conduct of the other tribunals, of the princes and great officers of state, and even of the emperor himself. There are several subordinate tribunals; such as those of mathematics, of medicine, of public works, of literature and history. The whole is a regular and consistent system, established at a very early period, continued with little alterations through every dynasty, and revived after any interruption from the caprice or passions of particular princes. Whatever deviation has been made by the present family on the throne, arises from the admission of as many Tartars as Chinese into every tribunal. The opinions of the former are supposed always to preponderate; and many of them are indeed men of considerable talents and strength of mind, as well as polished manners. They are, however, in general, fitter for military than civil offices. The hardy education, the rough manners, the active spirit, the wandering disposition, the loose principles, and the irregular conduct, of the Tartar, fit him better for the profession, practice, and pursuits of war, than the calm, regulated, and domestic habits of the Chinese. Warriors seem naturally the offspring of Tartary, as literati are of China; and accordingly, the principal military commands are conferred on natives of the former country, as, with many exceptions indeed, the chief civil offices are on those of the latter.

A military mandarin, who was much with Lord Macartney, and was himself a distinguished officer, asserted, that, "including Tartars, the total of the army in the pay of China amounted to 1,000,000 infantry, and 300,000 cavalry. From the observations made by the embassy in the course of their travels through the empire, of the garrisons in the cities of the several orders, and of the military posts at small distances from

each other, there appeared nothing unlikely in the calculation of the infantry; but they met few cavalry. If the number mentioned really do exist, a great proportion of them must have been in Tartary, or on some service distant from the route of the embassy.

"Of the troops, especially cavalry, a vast number are Tartars, who have a higher pay than their Chinese fellow-soldiers. The principal officers of confidence in the army are Tartars also. None of either nation are received into the service but such as are healthy, strong, and lightly. The pay and allowances of a Chinese horseman are three Chinese ounces, heavier than European ounces, and three tenths of an ounce, of silver, and fifteen measures or rations (the weight not mentioned) of rice every lunar month. A Tartar horseman, seven similar ounces of silver, and 20 measures of rice for the same period. A Chinese foot soldier has one ounce and six tenths of an ounce of silver, and ten measures of rice; and a Tartar of the same description has two ounces of silver, and ten measures of rice every lunar month. The emperor furnishes the arms, accoutrements, and the upper garment, to all the soldiers. Beside their ordinary pay and allowances, they also receive donations from the emperor on particular occasions; as when they marry, and when they have male children born. On the death of their parents they obtain 'a gift of consolation;' as do their families when the soldiers themselves die.

"The public revenues of China Proper are said to be little less than 200,000,000 of ounces of silver, which may be equal to about 66,000,000 of pounds sterling; or about three times those of France before the late subversion. From the produce of the taxes all the civil and military expenses, and the incidental and extraordinary charges are first paid upon the spot out of the treasuries of the respective provinces where such expenses are incurred; and the remainder is remitted to the Imperial treasury at Pekin. This surplus amounted, in the year 1792, to the sum of 36,614,328 ounces of silver, or 12,204,776 pounds sterling, according to an account taken in round numbers. In case of insurrections, or other occurrences requiring extraordinary expenses, they are generally levied by additional taxes on the provinces adjacent to the scene of action, or connected with the occasion of the expense.

"In the administration of the vast revenue of the state, the opportunities of committing abuses are not often neglected; as may be inferred from the frequent confiscation to the emperor in consequence of such transgressions. It is indeed affirmed, that much corruption and oppression prevail in most of the public departments, by which considerable fortunes are acquired, notwithstanding the modicum of the public salaries."

With such a standing army and so vast a revenue, it will no longer appear wonderful that one man should govern with despotic sway even the immense multitude of people who inhabit the empire of China, especially trained up as those people are in habits of filial submission to their superiors. But there are some circumstances in the system of Chinese policy, not yet mentioned, which contribute perhaps more than even these habits and that power to preserve the stability of the government. The emperor reserves to himself alone the right of relieving the wants of the poor, produced by famine or any other unforeseen calamity. On such occasions he

he always comes forward. He orders the public granaries to be opened; remits the taxes to those who are visited with misfortune; affords assistance to enable them to retrieve their affairs; and appears to his subjects as standing almost in the place of Providence in their favour. He is perfectly aware by how much a stronger chain he thus maintains his absolute dominion, than the mere dread of punishment would afford. The emperor, to whom the British embassy was sent, shewed himself so jealous of retaining the exclusive privilege of benevolence to his subjects, that he not only rejected, but was offended at, a proposal once made to him by some considerable merchants, to contribute towards the relief of a suffering province; whilst he scrupled not, at the same time, to accept the donation of a rich widow towards the expences of a war in which he was engaged.

This veneration, excited towards the emperor by his apparent benevolence, is increased by an opinion zealously instilled into the people, that he has the faculty of predicting future events of the greatest importance. The Chinese, given up to the dogmas of judicial astrology, are firmly persuaded that eclipses of the sun and moon have a powerful influence on the operations of nature and the transactions of mankind; and the periods of their occurrence become, of course, objects of attention and solicitude. The government of the country, ever anxious to establish its authority in the general opinion of its superior wisdom and constant care for the welfare of the people, employs the European missionaries at Pekin (for it is doubtful if any one of the natives has so much science) to calculate eclipses, and then announces them to the people with that solemnity which is fitted to ensure veneration for the superintending power whence such knowledge is immediately derived to them. Eclipses of the sun, in particular, are considered as ominous of some general calamity; and as great pains are taken to inspire them with a belief that their prosperity is owing to the wisdom and virtues of their sovereign, so they are tempted to attribute to some deficiency on his part whatever they think portentous. To this prejudice the emperor finds it prudent to accommodate his conduct. He never ventures on any undertaking of importance at the approach of a solar eclipse, but affects to withdraw himself from the presence of his courtiers, to examine strictly into his late administration of the empire, in order to correct any error, for the commission of which the eclipse may have been an admonition. On these occasions he invites his subjects to give him freely their advice: but it is plain that advice must be offered with great deference to a being for whose admonition the motions of the sun and moon are believed to be regulated; and while such notions are implicitly admitted, the person of the Chinese emperor, as well as his authority, must be looked upon by his subjects as something more than human.

This is in fact the case. He is not only approached in person with testimonies of the utmost respect, but is adored when absent with all the rites and ceremonies which are used by the Chinese in the worship of their divinities. On his birth-day, at the new and full moon, and probably on other festivals, all the mandarines resident in the neighbourhood of any of his numerous palaces assemble about noon, and repairing to the palace, solemnly prostrate themselves nine times before the throne, their foreheads striking the floor each time; whilst incense is burning on tripods on each side of it, and offerings are made, on an altar before it, of tea and fruits to the spirit of the absent emperor. Over the throne are seen the Chinese characters of glory and perfection; and the name of the Deity is given to the emperor, who is considered by his votaries as possessing in some sense the attribute of ubiquity. Mr Barrow, one of the gentlemen of the embassy, was present at Tuen-min-yuen, one of the imperial palaces, when these idolatrous rites of adoration were performed, and he was assured that they took place on that day in all parts of the empire, the prostrators being everywhere attentive to turn their faces toward the capital.

That he who claims adoration in his absence does not appear on his birth-day to receive the compliments of his subjects, will not surprise the reader. The manner in which that festival is celebrated at the palace, where the emperor happens to be resident, is thus described by Sir George Staunton, who witnessed this more than august ceremony at the palace of Zhe-hal in Tartary. "The princes, tributaries, ambassadors, great officers of state, and principal mandarines, were assembled in a vast hall; and upon particular notice, were introduced into an inner building, bearing, at least, the semblance of a temple. It was chiefly furnished with great instruments of music, among which were sets of cylindrical bells, suspended in a line from ornamented frames of wood, and gradually diminishing in size from one extremity to the other, and also triangular pieces of metal arranged in the same order as the bells. To the sound of these instruments a slow and solemn hymn was sung by eunuchs, who had such a command of their voices as to resemble the effect of the musical classes at a distance. The performers were directed, in gliding from one tone to another, by the striking of a shrill and sonorous cymbal; and the judges of music among the gentlemen of the embassy were much pleased with their execution. The whole had indeed a grand effect. During the performance, and at particular signals, nine times repeated, all the persons prostrated themselves nine times, except the ambassador and his suite, who made a profound obeisance (A). But he whom it was meant to honour, continued, as if it were in imitation of the Deity, invisible the whole time."

That the awful impression meant to be made upon the