LETTER LXIII.

THE RISE OR THE DECLINE OF LITERATURE NOT DEPENDENT ON MAN, BUT RESULTING FROM THE VICISSITUDES OF NATURE.

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, &c.

In every letter I expect accounts of some new revolutions in China, some strange occurrence in the state, or disaster among my private acquaintance. I open every packet with tremulous expectation, and am agreeably disappointed when I find my friends and my country continuing in felicity. I wander, but they are at rest; they suffer few changes but what pass in my own restless imagination; it is only the rapidity of my own motion, that gives an imaginary swiftness to objects which are in some measure immovable.*

Yet believe me, my friend, that even China itself is imperceptibly degenerating from her ancient greatness: her laws are now more venal, and her merchants are more deceitful than formerly; the very arts and sciences have run to decay. Observe the carvings on her ancient bridges; figures that add grace even to nature. There is not an artist now in all the empire that can imitate their beauty. Our manufactures in porcelain, too, are inferior to what we once were famous for; and even Europe now begins to excel us. There was a time when China was the receptacle of strangers; when all were welcome who either came to improve the state, or admire its greatness: now, the empire is shut up from every foreign improvement, and the very inhabitants dis

*["Before my brother Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severe studies among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at rest.”—Goldsmith to D. Hodson, Esq., Dec. 27, 1757. See Life, ch vi.]

courage each other from prosecuting their own internal advantages.

Whence this degeneracy in a state so little subject to external revolutions? how happens it that China, which is now more powerful than ever, which is less subject to foreign invasions, and even assisted in some discoveries by her connections with Europe; whence comes it, I say, that the empire is thus declining so fast into barbarity?

This decay is surely from nature, and not the result of voluntary degeneracy. In a period of two or three thousand years she seems at proper intervals to produce great minds, with an effort resembling that which introduces the vicissitudes of seasons. They rise up at once, continue for an age, enlighten the world, fall like ripened corn, and mankind again gradually relapse into pristine barbarity. We little ones look around, are amazed at the decline, seek after the causes of this invisible decay, attribute to want of encouragement what really proceeds from want of power, are astonished to find every art and every science in the decline, not considering that autumn is over, and fatigued nature begins to repose for some succeeding effort.

Some periods have been remarkable for the production of men of extraordinary stature, others for producing some particular animals in great abundance; some for excessive plenty, and others again seemingly causeless famine. Nature, which shows herself so very different in her visible productions, must surely differ also from herself in the production of minds, and while she astonishes one age with the strength and stature of a Milo* or a Maximin,†

*[The celebrated athlete of Crotona, who is said to have borne a bullock four years old on his shoulders. The fate of Milo is told in two lines by Ros

Wedg'd in that timber which he strove to rend."

+[Caius Julius Verus Maximinus, assassinated by his own soldiers before the

may bless another with the wisdom of a Plato, or the goodness of an Antonine.

Let us not, then, attribute to accident the falling off of every nation, but to the natural revolution of things. Often in the darkest ages there has appeared some one man of surprising abil ities, who, with all his understanding, failed to bring his barbarous age into refinement; all mankind seemed to sleep, till nature gave the general call, and then the whole world seemed at once roused at the voice; science triumphed in every country, and the brightness of a single genius seemed lost in a galaxy of contiguous glory.

Thus, the enlightened periods in every age have been universal. At the time when China first began to emerge from barbarity, the western world was equally rising into refinement; when we had our Yaou, they had their Sesostris. In succeeding ages, Confucius and Pythagoras seem born nearly together, and a train

*

walls of Aquileia, A. D. 278, is represented by historians as having been eight feet in height, and sufficiently strong to break, with a blow of his fist, the teeth in a horse's mouth, and to cleave young trees with his hand.

*[Yaou, the pattern of all Chinese emperors, is said to have commenced his reign 2357 years before Christ. According to the Shoo-king (one of the five canonical works), he commissioned Hi and Ho, and other eminent astronomers, to observe the revolutions of the heavens, and to proclaim to the people the periods of the different seasons; and, by the assistance of these learned men, he fixed the length of the year at 365 days, and at 366 in every fourth year. See Chinese, vol. i. p. 171.]

†The actions and conquests of Sesostris are recorded by Herodotus, l. ii. c. 102. He is said to have caused the kings he vanquished to draw him in his chariot. Pope has given him a niche in the Temple of Fame

"High on his car Sesostris struck my view,
Whom sceptred slaves in golden harness drew;
His hands a bow and pointed jav'lin hold;

His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gold."]

["The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious in the world. After a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and princes of Europe are lost in the darkness of the middle ages; but, in the vast equality of the empire of China, the posterity of Confucius have maintained, above two thousand two hundred years, this peaceful honor and perpetual suc

of philosophers then sprung up as well in Greece as in China. The period of renewed barbarity began to have a universal spread much about the same time, and continued for several centurres, till in the year of the Christian era 1400, the emperor Yong-lo* arose, to revive the learning of the east; while, about the same time, the Medicean family labored in Italy to raise infant genius from the cradle.† Thus we see politeness spreading over every part of the world in one age, and barbarity succeeding in another; at one period a blaze of light diffusing itself over the whole world, and at another, all mankind wrapped up in the profoundest ignorance.

Such has been the situation of things in times past; and such probably it will ever be. China, I have observed, has evidently begun to degenerate from its former politeness; and were the learning of the Europeans at present candidly considered, the decline would perhaps appear to have already taken place. We should find among the natives of the west, the study of morality displaced for mathematical disquisition, or metaphysical subtleties; we should find learning begin to separate from the useful duties and concerns of life, while none ventured to aspire after that character, but they who know much more than is truly amusing or useful.

cession. The chief of the family is still revered by the sovereign and the people, as the lively image of the wisest of mankind."-Gibbon, Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 3.]

* [Yong-lo ascended the throne, A. D. 1400. On his accession, the capital was transferred to Pekin. It was in his reign that Timour, or Tamerlane, died on his way to the conquest of China.]

t["But see! each Muse, in LEO's golden days,

Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays,

Rome's ancient Genius, o'er its ruins spread,

Shakes off the dust, and rears his rev'rend head.

Then Sculpture and her sister arts revive;

Stones leap'd to form, and rocks began to live:
With sweeter notes each rising temple rung;
A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung."-Pope.]

We should find every great attempt suppressed by prudence, and the rapturous sublimity in writing cooled by a cautious fear of offence. We should find few of those daring spirits, who bravely ventured to be wrong, and who are willing to hazard much for the sake of great acquisitions. Providence has indulged the world with a period of almost four hundred years' refinement: does it not now by degrees sink us into our former ignorance, leaving us only the love of wisdom, while it deprives us of its advantages? Adieu.

LETTER LXIV.

THE GREAT EXCHANGE HAPPINESS FOR SHOW.-THEIR FOLLY IN

THIS RESPECT OF USE TO SOCIETY.

From the same.

The princes of Europe have found out a manner of rewarding their subjects who have behaved well, by presenting them with about two yards of blue ribbon, which is worn about the shoulder. They who are honored with this mark of distinction are called knights, and the king himself is always the head of the order. This is a very frugal method of recompensing the most important services; and it is very fortunate for kings, that their subjects are satisfied with such trifling rewards. Should a nobleman happen to lose his leg in a battle, the king presents him with two yards of ribbon, and he is paid for the loss of his limb. Should an ambassador spend all his paternal fortune in supporting the honor of his country abroad, the king presents him with two yards of ribbon, which is to be considered as an equivalent to his estate. In short, while a European king has a yard of blue or green ribbon left, he need be under no apprehension of wanting statesmen, generals, and soldiers.