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'bility of fortune; but during this fit of morality, left my reader fhould fleep, I'll take a nap myself, and when I awake tell him my

dream.

I imagined the Thames was frozen over, and I ftood by it's fide. Several booths were erected upon the ice, and I was told by one of the fpectators, that FASHION FAIR was going to begin. He added, that every author who would carry his works there, might probably find a very good reception. I was refolved however to obferve the humours of the place in fafety from the fhore, fenfible that ice was at beft precarious, and having been always a little cowardly in my fleep.

Several of my acquaintance feemed much more hardy than I, and went over the ice with intrepidity. Some carried their works to the fair on fledges, fome on carts, and those which were more voluminous, were conveyed in waggons. Their temerity astonished me. I knew their cargoes were heavy, and expected every moment they would have gone to the bottom. They all entered the fair, however, in fafety; and each foon after returned to my great furprize, highly fatisfied with his entertainment, and the bargains he had brought

away.

The fuccefs of fuch numbers at laft began to operate upon me. If thefe,' cried I, meet with favour and safety, fome luck may, perhaps, for once attend the unfortunate. I am refolved to make a new adventure. The furniture, frippery, and fire-works of China, have long been fashionably bought up. I'll try the fair with a small cargo of Chinese morality. If the Chinese have contributed to vitiate our taste, I'll try how far they can help to improve our underftanding. But as others have driven into the market in waggons, I'll cautiously begin by venturing with a wheel-barrow.' Thus refolved, I baled up my goods, and fairly ventured; when, upon juft entering the fair, I fancied the ice that had fupported an hundred waggons before, cracked under me, and wheel-barrow and all went to the bottom.

Upon awaking from my reverie, with the fright, I cannot help withing that the pains taken in giving this correfpondence an English drefs, had been employed in contriving new political fyftems, or new plots for farces. I might then have taken my ftation in the world, either as a poet or a philofopher, and made one in thofe little focieties where men club to raife each others reputation. But at prefent I belong to no particular clafs. I refemble one of thofe folitary animals, that has been forced from it's foreft to gratify human curiofity. My earlieft with was to escape unheeded through life; but I have been fet up for halfpence, to fret and scamper at the end of my chain. Though none are injured by my rage, I am naturally too favage to court any friends by fawning; too obstinate to be taught new tricks; and too improvident to mind what may happen: I am appeared, though not contented. Too indolent for intrigue, and too timid to push for favour, I am-But what fignifies what I am.

A

Ελπὶς καὶ σὺ τύχη, μέγα χαίρετε· τὸν λιμένο Ευρον,

Οὐδὲν ἐμοί χ ̓ ὑμῖν· παίζετε τὰς μετ' ἐμέ.

THE

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MERCHANT IN AM

calling your late instances of friendship only a return for former favours, you would induce me to impute to your justice what I owe to your generofity.

The fervices I did you at Canton, justice, humanity, and my office, bade me perform; thofe you have done me fince my arrival at Amfterdam, no laws obliged you to, no justice required, even half your favours would have been greater than my most fanguine expectations.

The fum of money therefore which you privately conveyed into my bagA 2

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gage, when I was leaving Holland, and which I was ignorant of till my arrival in London, I muft beg leave to return. You have been bred a merchant, and I a fcholar; You confequently love money better than I. You can find pleafure in fuperfluity, I am perfectly content with what is fufficient; take therefore what is yours, it may give you fome pleafure, even though you have no occafion to use it; my happinefs it cannot improve, for I have already all that I

want.

My paffage by fea from Rotterdam to England, was more painful to me than all the journies I ever made on land. I have traverfed the immeafurable wilds of Mogul Tartary; felt all the rigours of Siberian fkies; I have had my repofe an hundred times difturbed by invading favages, and have seen without fhrinking the defart fands rife like a troubled ocean all around me; against thefe calamities I was armed with refolution; but in my paffage to England, though nothing occurred that gave the mariners any uneafinefs, to one who was never at fea before, all was a fubject of aftonishment and terror. To find the land difappear, to see our fhip mount the waves fwift as an arrow from the Tartar bow, to hear the wind howling through the cordage, to feel a fickness which depreffes even the fpirits of the brave; thefe were unexpected diftreffes, and confequently affaulted me unprepared to receive them.

You men of Europe think nothing of a voyage by fea. With us of China, a man who has been from fight of land is regarded upon his return with admiration. I have known fome provinces where there is not even a name for the ocean. What a strange people therefore am I got amongit, who have founded an empire on this unftable element, who build cities upon billows that rife higher than the mountains of Tipartala, and make the deep more formidable than the wildeft tempeft.

Such accounts as thefe, I must confefs, were my first motives for feeing England. These induced me to undertake a journey of seven hundred painful days, in order to examine it's opulence, buildings, fciences, arts and manufactures, on the fpot. Judge then my difap.

pointment, on entering London, to fee no figns of that opulence so much talked of abroad; wherever I turn, I am prefented with a gloomy folemnity in the houses, the streets and the inhabitants; none of that beautiful gilding which makes a principal ornament in Chinele architecture. The streets of Nankin are fometimes ftrewed with gold leaf; very different are those of London: in the midst of their pavements, a great lazy puddle moves muddily along heavy laden machines with wheels of unweildy thicknefs crowd up every paffage; fo that a stranger, instead of finding time for obfervation, is often happy if he has time to efcape from being crushed to pieces.

The houses borrow very few ornaments from architecture; their chief decoration feems to be a paltry piece of painting, hung out at their doors or windows, at once a proof of their indigence and vanity. Their vanity, in each having one of thofe pictures expofed to public view; and their indigence, in being unable to get them better painted. In this refpect, the fancy of their painters is alfo deplorable. Could you

believe it? I have feen five black lions and three blue boars in less than the circuit of half a mile; and yet you know that animals of these colours are no where to be found except in the wild imaginations of Europe.

From thefe circumstances in their buildings, and from the difmal looks of the inhabitants, I am induced to conclude that the nation is actually poor; and that, like the Perfians, they make a fplendid figure every where but at home. The proverb of Xixofou is, That a man's riches may be feen in his eyes'; if we judge of the English by this rule, there is not a poorer nation under the fun.

I have been here but two days, fo will not be hafty in my decifions; fuch letters as I fhall write to Fipfihi in Mofcow, I beg you will endeavour to forward with all diligence; I fhall fend them open, in order that you may take copies or tranflations, as you are equally verfed in the Dutch and Chinese languages. Dear friend, think of my abfence with regret, as I fincerely regret yours; even while I write, I lament our feparation. Farewell.

LETTER

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FROM LIEN CHI ALTANGI, TO THE CARE OF FIPSIHI, RESIDENT IN MOSCOW; TO BE FORWARDED BY THE RUSSIAN CARAVAN TO FUM HOAM, FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE CEREMONIAL ACADEMY AT PEKIN IN CHINA.

HINK not, O thou guide of my my respect, or interpofing tracklefs defarts blot your reverend figure from my memory. The farther I travel, I feel the pain of feparation with stronger force; thofe ties that bind me to my native country, and you, are still unbroken. By every remove, I only drag a greater length of chain.

Could I find ought worth tranfmitting from fo remote a region as this to which I have wandered, I fhould gladly fend it; but instead of this, you must be contented with a renewal of my former profeffions, and an imperfect account of a people with whom I am as yet but fuperficially acquainted. The remarks of a man who has been but three days in the country can only be thofe obvious circumftances which force themfelves upon the imagination: I confider myfelf here as a newly-created being introduced into a new world; every object ftrikes with wonder and furprife. The imagination ftill unfated, feems the only active principle of the mind. The moft trifling occurrences give pleasure, till the glofs of novelty is worn away. When I have ceafed to wonder, I may poffibly grow wife; I may then call the reafoning principle to my aid, and compare thofe objects with each other, which were before examined without reflection.

Behold me then in London, gazing at the ftrangers, and they at me; it feems they find fomewhat abfurd in my figure; and had I been never from home, it is poffible I might find an infinite fund of ridicule in theirs; but by long travelling I am taught to laugh at folly alone, and to find nothing truly ridiculous but villainy and vice.

When I had juft quitted my native country, and croffed the Chinese wall, I fancied every deviation from the cuftoms and manners of China was a departing from nature: I fmiled at the blue lips and red foreheads of the Ton

guefe; and could hardly contain when

horns, The Oftiacs powdered with red earth; and the Calmuck beauties tricked out in all the finery of theep fkin appeared highly ridiculous; but I foon perceived that the ridicule lay not in them but in me; that I falfely condemned others of abfurdity, because they happened to differ from a standard originally founded in prejudice or partiality.

I find no pleafure, therefore, in taxing the English with departing from nature in their external appearance, which is all I yet know of their character; it is poffible they only endeavour to improve her fimple plan, fince every extravagance in drefs proceeds from a defire of becoming more beautiful than nature made us; and this is fo harmlefs a vanity, that I not only pardon but approve it: a defire to be more excellent than others, is what actually makes us fo; and as thoufands find a livelihood in fociety by fuch appetites, none but the ignorant inveigh against them.

You are not infenfible, moft reverend Fum Hoam, what numberless trades, even among the Chinefe, fubfift by the harmless pride of each other. Your nofe-borers, feet-fwathers, tooth-stainers, eye brow pluckers, would all want bread, fhould their neighbours want vanity. These vanities, however, employ much fewer hands in China than in England; and a fine gentleman, or a fine lady, here dreffed up to the fafhion, feems fcarcely to have a fingle limb that does not fuffer fome diftortions from art.

To make a fine gentleman, feveral trades are required, but chiefly a barber: you have undoubtedly heard of the Jewish champion, whofe ftrength lay in his hair one would think that the English were for placing all wisdom there: to appear wife, nothing more is requifite here than for a man to borrow hair from

the

the heads of his neighbours, and clap it like a bush on his own: the diftributors of law and phyfic stick on fuch quantities, that it is almost impoffible, even in idea, to diftinguish between the head and the hair.

Those whom I have been now defcribing, affect the gravity of the lion: thofe I am going to defcribe, more refemble the pert vivacity of fmaller animals.

The barber, who is still master of the ceremonies, cuts their hair close to the crown; and then with a compofition of meal and hog's lard, plaifters the whole in fuch a manner, as to make it impoffible to diftinguish whether the patient wears a cap or a plaifter; but to make the picture more perfectly ftriking, conceive the tail of fome beast, a greyhound's tail, or a pig's tail, for inftance, appended to the back of the head, and reaching down to that place where tails in other animals are generally feen to begin; thus betailed and bepowdered, the man of tafte fancies he improves in beauty, dreffes up his hardfeatured face in fmiles, and attempts to look hideously tender. Thus equipped, he is qualified to make love, and hopes for fuccefs more from the powder on the outfide of his head, than the sentiments within.

Yet, when I confider what fort of a creature the fine lady is, to whom he is fuppofed to pay his addreffes, it is not ftrange to find him thus equipped in order to please. She is herself every whit as fond of powder, and tails, and hog's lard, as he to speak my fecret fentiments, most reverend Fuin, the ladies here are horridly ugly; I can hardly endure the fight of them; they no way refemble the beauties of China: the Europeans have a quite different idea of beauty from us; when I reflect on the fmall-footed perfections of an Eaftern beauty, how is it poffible I fhould have eyes for a woman whofe feet are ten inches long. I fhall never forget the beauties of my native city of Nanfew. How very broad their faces; how very fhort their nofes; how very little their eyes; how very thin their lips; how

verv black their teeth; the fnow on the tops of Bao is not fairer than their cheeks; and their eye-brows are small as the line by the pencil of Quamfi Here a lady with fuch perfections would be frightful; Dutch and Chinese beauties, indeed, have some resemblance, but English women are entirely different; red cheeks, big eyes, and teeth of a most odious whitenefs, are not only feen here, but wished for; and then they have fuch masculine feet, as actually serve some for walking!

Yet, uncivil as Nature has been, they feem refolved to outdo her in unkindness; they ufe white powder, blue powder, and black powder, for their hair; and a red powder for the face on fome parti

cular occafions.

They like to have the face of various colours, as among the Tartars of Koreki, frequently sticking on, with spittle, little black patches on every part of it, except on the tip of the nofe, which ĺ have never seen with a patch. You will have a better idea of their manner of placing thefe fpots, when I have finished a map of an English face patched up to the fashion, which fhall fhortly be fent to encrease your curious collection of paintings, medals, and monsters.

But what furprizes me more than all the reft, is, what I have juft now been credibly informed by one of this country: 'Moft ladies here,' fays he,' have

two faces; one face to fleep in, and another to fhew in company: the first is generally referved for the husband and family at home, the other put on to please strangers abroad; the family face is often indifferent enough, but ⚫ the out-door one looks something better; this is always made at the toilet, where the looking-glafs and toad-eater fit in council, and fettle the complexion of the day.'

I cannot afcertain the truth of this remark; however, it is actually certain, that they wear more cloaths within doors than without; and I have seen a lady who seemed to fhudder at a breeze in her own apartment, appear half naked in the streets. Farewell.

LETTER

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