a name given to the magistrates and governors of provinces in China, who are chosen out of the most learned men, and whose government is always at a great distance from the place of their birth. Mandarin is also a name given by the Chinese to the learned language of the country; for besides the language peculiar to every province, there is one common to all the learned in the empire, which is in China what Latin is in Europe: this is called the mandarin tongue, or the language of the court.