the drudgery of decorum and the impertinence of his entertainer, unless intoxicated with a passion for all that was quality; unless he thought that whatever came from the great was delicious, and had the tincture of the mushroom in it. Adieu.

THE MANNER OF

LETTER XXXIII.

WRITING AMONG THE CHINESE. THE EASTERN TALES OF MAGAZINES &C. RIDICULED.

From the Same.

I am disgusted, O Fum Hoam, even to sickness disgusted. Is it possible to bear the presumption of those islanders, when they pretend to instruct me in the ceremonies of China! They lay it down as a maxim, that every person who comes from thence must express himself in metaphor; swear by Alla, rail against wine, and behave, and talk, and write like a Turk or Persian. They make no distinction between our elegant manners, and the voluptuous barbarities of our eastern neighbours. Wherever I come, I raise either diffidence or astonishment: some fancy me no Chinese, because I am formed more like a man than a monster; and others wonder to find one born five thousand miles from England, endued with common sense. Strange, say they, that a man who has received his education at such a distance from London, should have common sense: to be born out of England, and yet have common sense! Impossible! He must be some Englishman in disguise; his very visage has nothing of the true exotic barbarity.

I yesterday received an invitation from a lady of distinction, who it seems had collected all her knowledge of eastern manners from fictions every day propagated here, under the titles of Eastern Tales, and Oriental Histories: she

received me very politely, but seemed to wonder that I neglected bringing opium and a tobacco-box; when chairs were drawn for the rest of the company, I was assigned my place on a cushion on the floor. It was in vain that I protested the Chinese used chairs as in Europe; she understood decorum too well to entertain me with the ordinary civilities.

I had scarcely been seated according to her directions, when the footman was ordered to pin a napkin under my chin this I protested against, as being no way Chinese; however, the whole company, who it seems were a club of connoisseurs, gave it unanimously against me, and the napkin was pinned accordingly.

It was impossible to be angry with people, who seemed to err only from an excess of politeness, and I sat contented, expecting their importunities were now at an end; but as soon as ever dinner was served, the lady demanded, whether I was for a plate of bear's claws(1) or a slice of birds' nests ? (2) As these were dishes with which I was utterly unacquainted, I was desirous of eating only what I knew, and therefore begged to be helped from a piece of beef that lay on the side table: my request at once disconcerted the whole company. A Chinese eat beef! that could never be! there was no local propriety in Chinese beef, whatever there might be in Chinese pheasant. Sir, said my entertainer, I think I have some reasons to fancy myself a judge of these matters; in short, the Chinese never eat beef; (3) so that I must be permitted to recommend the pilaw. There was

(1) [The paws of these aninmals, which abound in fat, are eaten by the Chinese as a delicacy.—See Chinese, vol. ii. p. 338.1

(2) [This is a dish in which the Chinese are perfect epicures. The substance thus served up is reduced into very thin filaments, transparent as isinglass, and resembling vermicelli.—Ibid. vol. i. p. 323.]

(3) [The general prevalence of Budhism is probably the reason that beef is scarcely ever used by the Chinese. They, however, make no difficulty whatever of dogs, cats, and even rats.-Ibid. vol. i. p. 334.]

never better dressed at Pekin; the saffron and rice are wellboiled, and the spices in perfection.

I had no sooner begun to eat what was laid before me, than I found the whole company as much astonished as before; it seems I made no use of my chop-sticks. A grave gentleman, whom I take to be an author, harangued very learnedly (as the company seemed to think) upon the use which was made of them in China. He entered into a long argument with himself about their first introduction, without once appealing to me, who might be supposed best capable of silencing the enquiry. As the gentleman therefore took my silence for a mark of his own superior sagacity, he was resolved to pursue the triumph : he talked of our cities, mountains, and animals, as familiarly as if he had been born in Quamsi, but as erroneously as if a native of the moon. He attempted to prove that I had nothing of the true Chinese cut in my visage; shewed that my cheek-bones should have been higher, and my forehead broader. In short, he almost reasoned me out of try, and effectually persuaded the rest of the company to be of his opinion.

my coun

I was going to expose his mistakes, when it was insisted, that I had nothing of the true eastern manner in my delivery. "This gentleman's conversation," (says one of the ladies, who was a great reader,) "is like our own, mere chitchat and common sense there is nothing like sense in the true eastern style, where nothing more is required but sublimity. Oh! for a history of Aboulfaouris, the grand voyager, of genii, magicians, rocks, bags of bullets, giants, and enchanters, where all is great, obscure, magnificent, and unintelligible!-I have written many a sheet of eastern tale myself, interrupts the author, and I defy the severest critic to say but that I have stuck close to the true manner. have compared a lady's chin to the snow upon the mountains

I

of Bomek; a soldier's sword, to the clouds that obscure the face of heaven. If riches are mentioned, I compared them to the flocks that graze the verdant Tefflis; if poverty, to the mists that veil the brow of mount Baku. I have used thee and thou upon all occasions; I have described fallen stars, and splitting mountains, not forgetting the little houries, who make a pretty figure in every description. But you should hear how I generally begin: "Ebenben-bolo, who was the son of Ban, was born on the foggy summits of Benderabassi. His beard was whiter than the feathers which veil the breast of the penguin; his eyes were like the eyes of doves, when washed by the dews of the morning; his hair, which hung like the willow weeping over the glassy stream, was so beautiful that it seemed to reflect its own brightness; and his feet were as the feet of a wild deer which fleeth to the tops of the mountains." There, there is the true eastern taste for you; every advance made towards sense is only a deviation from sound. Eastern tales should always be sonorous, lofty, musical, and unmeaning.

I could not avoid smiling to hear a native of England attempt to instruct me in the true eastern idiom; and after he looked round some time for applause, I presumed to ask him, whether he had ever travelled into the east; to which he replied in the negative. I demanded whether he understood Chinese or Arabic; to which also he answered as before. Then how, Sir, said I, can you pretend to determine upon the eastern style, who are entirely unacquainted with the eastern writings? Take, Sir, the word of one who is professedly a Chinese, and who is actually acquainted with the Arabian writers, that what is palmed upon you daily for an imitation of eastern writing, no way resembles their manner, either in sentiment or diction. In the east, similes are seldom used, and metaphors almost wholly unknown; but in China particu

larly, the very reverse of what you allude to takes place: a cool phlegmatic method of writing prevails there. The writers of that country, ever more assiduous to instruct than to please, address rather the judgment than the fancy. Unlike many authors of Europe, who have no consideration of the reader's time, they generally leave more to be understood than they express.

Besides, Sir, you must not expect from an inhabitant of China the same ignorance, the same unlettered simplicity, that you find in a Turk, Persian, or native of Peru. The Chinese are versed in the sciences as well as you, and are masters of several arts unknown to the people of Europe. Many of them are instructed not only in their own national learning, but are perfectly well acquainted with the languages and learning of the West. If my word in such a case is not to be taken, consult your own travellers on this head, who affirm, that the scholars of Pekin and Siam sustain theological theses in Latin. "The college of Masprend, which is but a league from Siam," says one of your travellers,(1) “ came in a body to salute our ambassador. Nothing gave me more sincere pleasure, than to behold a number of priests, venerable both from age and modesty, followed by a number of youths of all nations, Chinese, Japanese, Tonquinese, of Cochin China, Pegu, and Siam, all willing to pay their respects in the most polite manner imaginable. A Cochin Chinese made an excellent Latin oration upon this occasion; he was succeeded, and even out-done, by a student of Tonquin, who was as well skilled in the western learning as any scholar of Paris." Now, Sir, if youths, who never stirred from home, are so perfectly skilled in your laws and learning, surely more must be expected from one like me, who

(1) Journal, ou Suite du Voyage de Siam, en forme de Lettres familières, fait en 1685 et 1686, par N. L. D. C., p. 174. edit. Amsteslod. 1686.