CHINA is an empire of such antiquity and extent, the laws and customs of the people are so singular, and the population of the country so very great—that it has attracted much of the attention of Europeans ever since it was visited in the 13th 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 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Since the article China in that work was published, the court of Pekin 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 memoir, 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 Grolier 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 dwelled 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. Paul, who hold it indubitable, that they were originally Tartars, descending in wild clans from the fleeces of Imams. And a fourth, at least as dogmatically pronounced as any of the preceding, is that of the Brahmins, who decide, without allowing any appeal from their decision, that the Chinese (for so they are named in Sanskrit) were Hindoos of the military cast, who, abandoning the privileges of their tribe, rambled in different bodies to the north-east of Bengal; 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 peopled 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 Manu, the son of Brahma, 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 Panchala and Odru, those of Dravida and Camba, the Yasodara and Saka, the Paradas and Pabbaras, 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 Sanskrit; that the Chinas of Menu settled in a fine country to the north-east of Gaur, and to the east of Caramag and Nepál; that they had long been, and still are, famed as ingenious artificers; and that they (the Pandits) had themselves been 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 Lán Tú, Confucius declares, that "although he, like other men, could relate, as mere lemons 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 Shen-fu, the capital of which stood nearly in the 35th degree of northern latitude, and about five degrees to the west of Siam. 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 Persians, 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 Chinese people of a milder and more virtuous dynasty: but it is highly probable, that the whole nation descended from the Ghihar of Musul, 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 its 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 Brahmins: '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 officiancy, clearly perceive their sacred illaples.' These (continues the president) are imperfect traces indeed, but they are traces of an affinity between the religion of Menu and that of the Chinese, 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 mythical 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 children, 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 contiguity, especially as the Hindoos have preserved their old language and ritual, while the Chinese very soon lost both; and the Hindoos have 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 claim, 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 witless 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 86th 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 affected 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 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, p. 9, Engel.) 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 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 hardly 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 flooding 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 show that both they and the Hindoos have preferred a traditionary 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, named 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 Tear." In the mythological system of the Hindoos, "the nymph Rohini, who presides over the fourth lunar month, was the favorite mistress of Soma or the Moon, among whose numerous epithets we find Cumudanyaca, or delighting in a species of water-flower that blossoms at night. The offspring of Rohini and Soma was Bumba, regent of a planet; and he married Ila, whose father was preferred in a miraculous ark from an universal deluge." The learned president shows, that, according to the Brahmans, the Chinese descended from Bumba; and he mentions a divine personage connected with the Chinese account of the birth of Fo-hi, whose name was Niu-ya. But if all these circumstances be laid together, it will appear, we think, pretty evident, that the two ancient nations have preferred the same tradition of an universal deluge, and that the Chinese rain-show and Niu-ya, with the Indian Akk, 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 Chinese, how, it may be asked, came these people to drop the mode of writing practised by their ancestors, China, 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 Chinese 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 falling over them. That the Chinese 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 Hindoostan 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 roundness, 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 swiftness, 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 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 burdened 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 founding 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 lessive 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 habit of the people; for though their common tongue be forcibly accented as to form a kind of recitative, yet it wants those grammatical accents without which all human tongues would appear monosyllabic. Thus Amida, with an accent on the fifth syllable, means, in the Sanskrit language, imperishable, and the natives of Bengal pronounce it Omia; but when the religion of Buddha, the son of Mahā, was carried into China, the people of that country, unable to pronounce the name of their new god, called him Fox, the son of Mo-yi; and divided his epithet Amida into three syllables O-mi-to, 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 friend's health, will sometimes say, bow, peo bow? 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 tentes 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 these characters has not been so flux as the sound of words, as appears in the influence 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 confining 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 systematical 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 heart 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 fluent 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 sound, 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 tend 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 full 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 sake 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 masked 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 no 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 well 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 encyclopaedia 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 Encyclopaedia, the population of this vast empire is stated, from M. Grolier, 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 shown that China Proper contains not fewer than 333 millions of inhabitants. As the extent of the country is 1,207,999 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 measurement; and the number of individuals is regularly taken in each division of a district by a rythman, 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 add 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 marriages, 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 population 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 fix 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 expenses. 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 accretion.

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 mandarins, 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 mandarins 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 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 judgment 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 mandarins 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 submitting 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 confident 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 800,000 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 rightly. The pay and allowances of a Chinese horsemanship 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. Besides 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 subdivision. 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 modesty 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, showed 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 expenses 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 dotages 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 omens 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 birthday, at the new and full moon, and probably on other festivals, all the mandarins 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 his person the attribute of ubiquity. Mr Barrow, one of the gentlemen of the embassy, was present at Tien-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 profaners being everywhere attentive to turn their faces towards the capital.

That he who claims adoration in his absence does not appear on his birthday 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-bal in Tartary. "The princes, tributaries, ambassadors, great officers of state, and principal mandarins, 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 glasses 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

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(a) The Chinese court, which considers all other sovereigns as subordinate to their own, exacts from foreign ministers, as well as from natives of the empire, nine prostrations upon their first introduction to the emperor. This demand was made, in the last century, of the Dutch, who instantly complied with it in hopes of obtaining in return some lucrative advantages; and the consequence was, that their ambassador was treated with neglect, and dismissed without promise of the smallest favour. It was likewise made of a Russian ambassador in the present century; but he would not comply with it, until a regular agreement was made for its return, on a like occasion, to his own sovereign. Lord Macartney, who was repeatedly urged to go through the same abject ceremony, displayed such firmness and address, that after much evasion it was at last announced to him, that his imperial majesty would be satisfied with the same form of respectful obedience that the English are in the habit of paying to their own sovereign; and upon these terms his lordship was introduced and graciously received: the minds of men by this apparent worship of a fellow- mortal might not be too quickly effaced; all scenes of sport and gaiety were postponed to the next day, when a variety of entertainments was exhibited in the pre- sence of the emperor, surrounded by his court and tri- butary princes.

Notwithstanding the general veneration of the Chi- nese for the person and government of their emperor, the mandarins asserted that a sect had for ages subsist- ed in the country, whose chief principles were founded on an antipathy to monarchy, and who nourished hopes of at last subverting it. Their meetings were held in the utmost secrecy, and no man avowed any knowledge of them; but a sort of inquisition was said to be esta- blished in order to find them out, and they who were suspected of such sentiments were cut off, or hunted out of society. Should the French declaration of the rights of man, which, through the zeal of its authors, has been translated into one of the languages of India, find its way into China (of which the court is said to be much afraid), it would indeed be a powerful engine in the hands of this secret sect to fap the foundations of the ancient government. The minds of many of the Chinese are far from satisfied with their condition, which lays both their persons and their fortunes at the mercy of the mandarins. No private man in China is exempted from corporal punishment, which may be instantly in- flicted on him at the nod of a magistrate; and when he has occasion to speak to a great mandarin, he is obliged, by the police of the country, to throw himself on his knees, and in that posture to communicate his business. The mandarin himself, on the other hand, lies under the hardship of being frequently responsible for events which he could not control. Upon the general prin- ciple that it is his duty to watch over the morals of the people, he is in many cases considered as a criminal for not preventing crimes which he had not been able to prevent. The mandarins are thus aware of not being guaranteed by good conduct against disgrace; and feeling the cha- grin of insecurity, many of them must doubtless be ripe for a revolt. Fear may keep them quiet during the reign of a sovereign possessed of abilities and vigilance; but the maxims which regulate the imperial succession are such, that a firm confederacy could hardly fail at the death of an emperor to introduce great changes in- to the constitution. The throne of China is neither hereditary nor elective. The choice of a successor is left entirely to the reigning prince, who may exclude, as has been instances, even his own offspring and fami- ly. To prevent commotions and fraud, it is no un- common practice for the emperor, during his lifetime, to declare his successor; for when his succession is set- tled by a written testament, the throne is not always filled by him for whom it was destined. The father of the emperor to whom the British embassy was sent, is said to have obtained possession of the throne by sud- denly entering the palace in the last moments of his predecessor, and substituting his own name in a testa- ment intended for the exaltation of another.

To what has been said in the Encyclopaedia of the re- ligion of the Chinese, we have here very little to add. Various deities are worshipped in the empire by very dif- ferent rites and ceremonies; but there is in China no state religion. None is paid, preferred, or encouraged by it. The emperor is of one faith; many of the mandarins of another; and the majority of the common people of a third, which is that of Fo. The men of letters venerate rather than adore Confucius; and meet to honour and celebrate his memory in halls of a simple but neat construction. The numerous and lower classes of the people are less able than inclined to contribute much towards the erection of large and costly edifices for pub- lic worship; their attention is almost wholly engaged by their household gods; for every house has its altar and its deities.

"No people are, in fact, more superstitious than the common Chinese. Beside the habitual offices of devot- ion on the part of the priests and females, the temples are particularly frequented by the disciples of Fo previ- ously to any undertaking of importance; whether to marry, or go a journey, or conclude a bargain, or change situation, or for any other material event in life, it is necessary first to consult the superintendent deity. This is performed by various methods. Some place a parcel of consecrated sticks, differently marked and numbered, which the consultant, kneeling before the altar, shakes in a hollow bamboo, until one of them falls on the ground; its mark is examined, and referred to a correspondent mark in a book which the priest holds open, and sometimes even it is written upon a sheet of paper pasted upon the inside of the temple. Polygonal pieces of wood are by others thrown into the air. Each side has its particular mark; the side that is uppermost when fallen on the floor is in like manner referred to its correspondent mark in the book or sheet of fate. If the first throw be favourable, the person who made it prostrates himself in gratitude, and undertakes after- wards with confidence the business in agitation. But if the throw should be adverse, he tries a second time, and the third throw determines, at any rate, the ques- tion. In other respects, the people of the present day seem to pay little attention to their priests. The temples are, however, always open for such as choose to consult the decrees of heaven. They return thanks when the oracle proves propitious to their wishes. Yet they oftener cast lots to know the issue of a projected enterprise than supplicate for its being favourable; and their worship consists more in thanksgiving than in prayer.

"The Chinese are seldom said to carry the objects to be obtained by their devotion beyond the benefits of this life. Yet the religion of Fo professes the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and promises happiness to the people on conditions, which were no doubt ori- ginally intended to consist in the performance of moral duties; but in lieu of which are too frequently substi- tuted those of contributions towards the erection or re- pair of temples, the maintenance of priests, and a strict attention to particular observances. The neglect of these is announced as punishable by the souls of the de- faulters falling into the bodies of the meanest animals, in whom the sufferings are to be proportioned to the transgressions committed in the human form."

Though the Chinese artists are very ingenious as mere workmen, there is hardly anything which de- serves the name of science in the whole empire. So little is the study of mathematics cultivated, that there are few shopkeepers in China who can perform the or- dinary operations of arithmetic; but cast up their ac- counts by means of an instrument called Swanpan (See Though the composition of gunpowder was certainly known in China much earlier than in Europe, and though the Chinese had employed it from the beginning in blasting rocks, and in making a vast variety of fire-works; yet Sir George Staunton seems convinced, that they never thought of the invention of guns till they were taught by the Europeans to introduce them into their armies.

The state of physic in this vast country is extremely low, being nowhere taught in public schools or colleges. A young man who wishes to become a physician, has no other way of acquiring medical knowledge than by engaging himself to some practitioner as an apprentice. He has thus the opportunity of seeing his master's practice, of visiting his patients with him, and of learning such parts of his knowledge and secrets as the other chooses to communicate to him. The emoluments of the profession seldom exceed the skill of the practitioner. As many copper coins as scarcely equal to sixpence sterling is said to be the usual fare among the people; and perhaps quadruple among the mandarins. Medicine is not divided in China into distinct branches as in most parts of Europe. The same person acts as physician, surgeon, and apothecary. The surgical part of the profession is still more backward than the others. Amputation, in cases of compound fracture and gangrene, is utterly unknown; and death is the speedy consequence of such accidents. The Chinese method of inoculation, which was introduced into the empire about the beginning of the tenth century of our era, is as follows: When the disease breaks out in any district, the physicians of the place carefully collect a quantity of ripe matter from putrefaction of the proper sort; which being dried and pulverized, is closely shut up in a porcelain jar, so as to exclude from it the atmospheric air; and in this manner it will retain its properties for many years. When the patient has been duly prepared by medicines, generally of an aperient kind, and strictly dieted for a short time, a lucky day is chosen to sprinkle a little of the variolous powder upon a small piece of fine cotton wool, and to insert it into the nostrils of the patient.

No male physician is allowed to attend a pregnant woman, and still less to practise midwifery; in the indelicacy of which both sexes seem to agree in China. There are books written on that art for the use of female practitioners, with drawings of the state and position of the infant at different periods of gestation; together with a variety of directions and prescriptions for every supposed case that may take place; the whole mixed with a number of superstitious observances.

Many practitioners of physic take the advantage, as elsewhere, of the obscurity in which that art is involved, and of the ignorance and credulity of the people, to gain money by the sale of nostrums and secrets of their own. They distribute hand bills, setting forth the efficacy of their medicines, with attested cures annexed to them. And there is one fact which boldly arrogates to itself the possession of a medical secret not to die! To those who had all the enjoyments of this life, there remained unaccomplished no other with than that of remaining forever in it. And accordingly several sovereigns of China have been known to cherish the idea of the possibility of such a medicine. They had put themselves, in full health, under the care of those religious empirics, and took large draughts of the boasted beverage of immortality. The composition did not consist of merely harmless ingredients; but probably of such extracts and proportions of the poppy, and of other substances and liquors, as occasioning a temporary exaltation of the imagination, passed for an indication of its vivifying effects. Thus encouraged, they had recourse to frequent repetitions of the dose, which brought on quickly languor and debility of spirits; and the deluded patients often became victims to deceit and folly in the flower of their age.

There are in China no professors of the sciences connected with medicine. The human body is never, unless privately, dissected there. Books, indeed, with drawings of its internal structure are sometimes published; but these are extremely imperfect, and consulted, perhaps, oftener to find out the name of the spirit under whose protection each particular part is placed, than for observing its form and situation.

It is a matter of doubt, whether natural history, natural philosophy, or chemistry, be, as sciences, much more improved than anatomy in China. There are several treatises, indeed, on particular subjects in each. The Chinese likewise possess a very voluminous Encyclopedia, containing many facts and observations relative to them; but from the few researches which the gentlemen of the embassy had leisure or opportunity to make during their short visit to the country, they perceived no traces of any general system or doctrine by which separate facts or observations were connected and compared, or the common properties of bodies ascertained by experiment; or where kindred arts were conducted on similar views, or rules framed, or deductions drawn from analogy, or principles laid down to constitute a science.

Of all people the Chinese are perhaps the most eager in their curiosity about foreigners coming among them, and the most indifferent about the countries of such foreigners. They have been always in the habit of confining their ideas to their own country, emphatically styled the middle kingdom. No Chinese ever thinks of quitting it, except a few of desperate fortunes residing near the sea-coast, or sea-faring men, who form a class, in a great measure, apart from society. Even foreign commodities consumed in China remind them only of Canton, whence they received them, as if produced in it; and these commodities they consider, perhaps properly, as of no real benefit to the empire. Regions out of Asia are scarcely mentioned in their books, or noticed in their distorted maps; and the great body of the people would be little gratified with accounts of such regions, which did not contain tales of wonders not performed at home, or of powers exerted beyond the ordinary boundaries of nature.