the ufurper granted all the lands away to the partners of his victories, leaving to the cultivators of the foil a fmail pittance only, out of the revenue which it yielded. Property in land alfo became hereditary; but in procefs of time the moft confiderable domains were fubdivided into very moderate parcels by the fucceffive diftribution of the poffeffions of every father equally among all his fons: the daughters being always married without dower. It very rarely happened that there was but an only fon to enjoy the whole property of his deceafed parents; and it could fcarcely be increased by collateral fucceffion. For the habits of the country, as well as the dictates of nature, led moft men there to marry early. It was reckoned a difcredit to be without offspring. They who had none, adopted thofe of others, who became theirs exclufively. In cafe of marriage, fhould a wife prove barren, a fecond might be efpoufed in the life-time of the first. The opulent were allowed, as in moft parts of the Eaft, to keep concu bines without reproach. The children of fuch were confidered as being thofe of the legitimate wife, towards whom they were bred in fentiments of duty and affection; and they partook in all the rights of legitimacy.

"From the operations of all those caufes, there was a conftant tendency to level wealth: and few could fucceed to fuch an accumulation of it as to render them independent of any efforts of their own for its increate. Befides, wealth alone confers in China but little importance, and no power: nor is property, without office, always perfectly fe cure. There is no hereditary dignity, which might accompany, and give it pre-eminence and weight.

The delegated authority of govern ment often leans more heavily on the unprotected rich, than on the poor, who are lefs objects of tempt. ation. And it is a common remark among the Chinese, that for times either by being parcelled out to many heirs, or by being loft in commercial fpeculations, gaming, or extravagance, or extorted by oppreffive mandarines, feldom continue to be confiderable in the individuals of the fame family beyond the third generation. To afcend again the ladder of ambition, it is neceffary, by long and laborious study, to excel in the learning of the country, which alone qualifies for public employments.

"There are properly but three claffes of men in China. Men of letters, from whom the mandarines

are

taken; cultivators of the ground; and mechanics, includ ing merchants. In Pekin alone is conferred the highest degree of literature upon those who, in public examinations,are found most able in the fciences of morality and govern ment, as taught in the ancient Chinefe writers; with which ftudies, the history of their country is inti. mately blended. Among fuch graduates all the civil offices in the state are distributed by the emperor; and they compofe all the great tribunals of the empire. The candidates for thofe degrees, are fuch as have fucceeded in fimilar examinations in the principal city of each province. Thofe who have been chofen in the cities of the fecond order, or chief town of every diftrict in the province, are the candidates in the provincial capital. They who fail in the first and fecond claffes have still a claim on fubordinate offices, proportioned to the clafs in which they had fucceeded. Thofe examinations are

carried

carried on with great folemnity, and apparent fairness. Military rank is likewife given to thofe who are found, upon competition, to excel in the military art, and in warlike exercises.

"The great tribunals are fituat ed, for the fake of convenience, near the fouthern gate of the imperial palace at Pekin. To them, accounts of all the tranfactions of the empire are regularly tranfmitted. 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 occafion. There is a body of doctrine compofed from the writings of the earliest ages of the empire, confirmed by fubfequent law givers and fovereigns, and tranfmitted from age to age with increafing veneration, which ferves as rules to guide the judgment of thofe tribunals. This doctrine feems in deed founded on the broadeft bafis of universal juftice, and on the pureft principles of humanity.

"His imperial majesty generally conforms to the fuggeftions of thofe tribunals. One tribunal is directed to confider the qualifications of the different mandarines for different offices, and to propofe their removal when found incapable or unjuft. One has for object, the prefervation 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 cenfors; taking into its confideration the effect of fubfifting laws, the conduct of the other tribunals, of the princes and great officers of state, and even of the emperor himself. There are feveral fubordinate tribunals, fuch

as those of mathematics, of medicine, of public works, of literature and history. The whole is a regu lar and confiftent fyftem, established at a very early period, contine, ed with little alterations through every dynafty, and revived, after any interruption from the caprice or paffions of particular princes. Whatever deviation had been made by the prefent family on the throne, arifes from the admiffion of as many Tartars as Chinese into every tribunal. The opinions of the former are fuppofed always to preponderate. Many of them, indeed, are men of confiderable talents, and strength of mind, as well as polifhed manners. The old viceroy of Pe-che-lee is of a Tartar race.

"The estimated population of Pekin was carried in the last century, by the jefuit Grimaldi, as quoted by Gemelli Carreri, to fixteen millions. Another miffionary reduces at least that of the Tartar city, to one million and a quarter. According to the beft information given to the embaffy, the whole was about three millions. The low houfes of Pekin feem scarcely fufficient for fo vaft a population; but very little room is occupied by a Chinese family, at least in the middling and lower claffes of life. In their houfes there are no fuperfluous apartments. A Chinefe dwel ling is generally furrounded by a wall, fix or feven feet high. Within this inclofure, a whole family, of three generations, with all their re fpective wives and children, will frequently be found. One fmall room is made to ferve for the individuals of each branch of the family, fleeping in different beds, divided only by mats hanging from the ceiling. One common room is used for eating.

"The prevalence of this custom

of

of retaining the several branches of a family under the fame 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 fubfiit, like foldiers in a mefs, with more economy and advantage. Notwithftanding this arrangement, the labouring poor are reduced to the ufe of vegetable food, with a very rare and fcanty relifh of any animal fubftance; the price of labour being generally found to bear as fmall a proportion every where to the rate demanded for provifions, as the common people will confent to Luffer.

"The crowds of people at Pekin do not prevent it from being healthy. The Chinese live, indeed, much in the open air, increafing or diminishing the quantity of their apparel according to the weather. The atmosphere is dry, and does not engender putrid diforders; and exceffès productive of them feldom are committed.

"Great order is preferved among fuch multitudes; and the commiffion of crimes is rare. Every tenth housekeeper, fomewhat in the manner of the ancient tithing-men in England, is answerable for the conduct of the nine neighbouring families, as far as he may be fuppofed capable of controlling it. The po lice is obferved with particular ftrictness within the walls. The city partakes of the regularity and interior fafety of a camp; but is fubject alfo to its constraints. In the fuburbs only, public women are registered and licenfed. They are not indeed very numerous, being proportioned to the fmall number of fingle men, and of husbands abfent from their families, to be found in the metropolis.

"The early marriages of men ist eafy circumstances have been already mentioned; with the poor, marriage is a measure of prudence, becaule the children, particularly the fons, are bound to maintain their parents. Whatever is ftrongly recommended and generally prac tifed, is at length confidered as a kind of religious duty; and this union, as fuch, takes place whenever there is the leaft profpect of fubfiftence for a future family. That profpect, however, is not always realized; and children born without means being had of providing for them, are sometimes aban doned by the wretched authors of their being. It must have been the moft dire and abfolute neceffity which led to this unnatural and fhocking act, when first it was committed. It was reconciled afterwards in fome meafure, to the mind, by fuperftition coming in aid to render it a holy offering to the fpirit of the adjoining river, in which the infant was thrown, with a gourd fufpended from its neck, to keep it from immediate drowning.

The philofophers of China, who have with equal ability and effect inculcated the maxims of fi lial piety, have left in great mea fure, the parental affection to its own natural influence, which does not always maintain its empire as effectually as fentiments enforced by early and repeated precept. Thus, in China, parents are lefs frequently neglected than infants are expofed. The laws of the em pire, to corroborate the difpofition to filial obedience, furnish an opportunity for punishing any breach of it, by leaving a man's offspring entirely within his power; and ha bit seems to have familiarised a notion that life only becomes truly precious, and inattention to it cri

minal, after it has continued long enough to be endowed with a mind and fentiment; but that mere dawning existence may be fuffered to be loft without fcruple, though it cannot without reluctance.

"Female infants are, for the most part, chofen as the lefs evil for this cruel facrifice, because daughters are confidered more properly to belong to the families into which they pafs by marriage; while the fons continue the fupport and comfort of their own. Thofe infants are expofed immediately on the birth, and before the countenance is animated, or the features formed, to catch the affections rifing in the parent's breaft. A faint hope, at leaft, is generally enter tained, that they may yet be preferved from untimely death, by the care of those who are appointed by the government to collect thefe miferable objects, for the purpofe of providing for fuch as are found alive; and for burying those who already had expired."

"The Chinese appear indeed to have ftrong claims to the credit of having been indebted only to them. felves for the invention of the tools neceffary in the primary and neceffary arts of life. The learned and attentive traveller will have obferved, in relation to common tools, fuch as, for example, the plane and anvil, that whether in India or in Europe, in ancient or modern times, they are found to have been fabricated in the fame precife form, fcarcely ever differing, except perhaps in the roughnefs of the materials, or of the make, and all denoting a common origin, being almost a fervile imitation of each other. In China alone, thofe tools have fomething peculiar in their conftruction, fome difference, often indeed flight; but al

ways clearly indicating that, whe ther better or worfe fitted for the fame purposes, than those in use in other countries, the one did not ferve as a model for the other. Thus, for example, the upper furface of the anvil, elsewhere flat and fomewhat inclined, is among the Chinese fwelled into a convex form.

In the forges near Pekin, on the road to Zhehol, where this particularly was obferved, another alfo attracted the attention of the traveller. The bellows used by the common fmiths of Europe are vertical. The blaft is impelled, partly by the weight of the machine, rendered heavy for that purpofe; but it is opened or raised by mufcular exertion overcoming the gravity ufeful in the former inftance; and, during that operation, the blaft is difcontinued. But the Chinese bellows are horizontal. The workman is not aided at any one time by the weight of the machine, but he is not burdened with it at another. It is an advantage that the labour should thus be equable and never exceffive. The bellows are made in the form of a box, of which a moveable door is fo clofely fitted, as when drawn back to create a vacuum in the box, into which, in confequence, the air rufhing with impetuolity, through an opening guarded by a valve, produces a blast through an oppofite aperture. The fame is continued when the door is pushed forward to the oppofite extremity of the box; the space within it be ing diminished, and the air compreffed, a part of it is forced out through the fame aperture. When, inftead of a moveable door, a piston is placed within it, the air is compreffed between the pifton and both extremities of the box alter

nately,

་

nately, and forced out upon the fame principle in both operations. This double or perpetual bellows, is worked with equal eafe, and with double the effect of the common or fingle bellows. A model of the Chinese bellows, not easily intelligible by defcription, has been brought to England, and will be fubmitted to the curious.

"The common plane of the Chinefe carpenter is, like the anvil, diftinguished by fome minute particulars which characterise it to be original. It differs not only in the way of fixing the chifel in it, but in the manner in which it is used. The ends of the frame itself serve, elfewhere, for handles by which the tool is held, and applied to the wood of which the furface is to be made smooth; but to the Chinese plane are fixed particular handles acrofs the frame, by which the fame purpose is effected perhaps with greater eafe.

"The hiftories of the first remote ages of Chinefe tranfactions attribute the most useful inventions in fociety to the first or oldest monarchs of the country. It is much more probable that they were the gradual refult of the efforts of feveral obfcure individuals, who felt, in the courfe of their own labours, and endeavoured to fupply, the want of fuch mechanical affiflance; and that fubfequent hiftorians, not able to trace the real inventors, substituted the names of the encouragers or promoters of those arts. There is, however, reafon to believe that not only the inventions of fuft neceffity, but thofe of decoration and refinement, were known among the Chinese in remote antiquity. The annals of the empire bear teftimony to the fact, and it is confirmed by a confideiation of the natural progrefs of

thofe inventions, and of the state of Chinefe artists at this time. In the firft difcovery and establishment of an art, it is practised awkwardly, even with the help of tools; and in this ftate it is fuppofed to be long ftationary, until at length it advances to its fecond period, when it becomes improved, and the artist is enabled to avail himself to the ut most of every tool and machine that can affiff him. The laft period of perfection is that in which the artift is become so dexterous, as to complete his work with few, or awkward tools, and with little or no affiftance. And fuch is the character of the Chinese potter, weaver, worker in the precious metals, and in ivory, and of most others in the feveral trades commonly practifed in the country. And fuch attainment is, no doubt, the utmost effort of the art, and the strongest teft of a very ancient poffeffion of it.

"It is not furprising that the method of making gunpowder, and of printing, fhould be discovered by the Chinese long before they were known to Europeans. WithTM regard to the first, in whatever country nature creates nitre (one of the chief ingredients for making gunpowder) in the greatest plenty, there its deflagrating quality is most likely to be first observed; and a few experiments founded on that obfervation, will lead to the compofition that produces fuch fudden and violent effects. Nitro is the natural and daily produce of China and India, and there, accordingly, the knowledge of gunpowder feems to be coeval with that of the most distant hiftoric events. Among the Chinese, it has been applied at all times to ufeful purposes, fuch as blasting rocks, and removing great obftruc