a general term employed by Europeans to denote the sacerdotal orders of China, Japan, Cochin-China, Burmah, &c., but more particularly applied to the priests of the two first-named kingdoms. The bonzes, like the Ca- tholic priests, practise celibacy, and some of them, like the ancient monks, live in monasteries. Some of their orders are remarkably superstitious, and pay homage to symbolic figures, and not unfrequently to hideous idols. Far from enlightening their countrymen, they mystify them by the practice and inculcation of their ridiculous devotions; and being grossly ignorant themselves, they cannot be expected to dispel the thick darkness in the midst of which they live. Some of them lead lives of contemplation and reflection, and if they do no positive good, set a praiseworthy example by the purity of their lives. In the eighteenth century, the philosophes often allegorically designated the clergy of the Latin church under the name of bonzes, whom they repre- sented as intolerant bigots. The allegory, however, was unjust, for the bonzes, though they disdain other forms of worship than their own, bear no personal ill-will to those that practise them. They differ still more from the clergy of most Christian countries in this, that in civil affairs they have neither influence nor authority of any kind.