uthers, who guide me through life, and teach me to punishment; but are previously condemned to sufsupport its calamities.-I could not but smile at a fer all the pains and hardships inflicted upon them woman who makes her own misfortunes, and then by man, or by each other, here. If this be the case, deplores the miseries of her situation. Wherefore, it may frequently happen, that while we whip pigs tired of acting with dissimulation, and willing to to death, or boil live lobsters, we are putting some indulge my meditations in solitude, I took leave just old acquaintance, some near relation, to excruciatas the servant was bringing in a plate of beef, pur-ing tortures, and are serving him up to the very table suant to the directions of his mistress. Adieu. LETTER XV From the same. where he was once the most welcome companion. "Kabul," says the Zendevesta, "was born on the rushy banks of the river Mawra; his possessions were great, and his luxuries kept pace with the affluence of his fortune; he hated the harmless brahmins, and despised their holy religion; every day his table was decked out with the flesh of a THE better sort here pretend to the utmost com- hundred different animals, and his cooks had a passion for animals of every kind: to hear them hundred different ways of dressing it, to solicit even speak, a stranger would be apt to imagine they satiety. could hardly hurt the gnat that stung them; they "Notwithstanding all his eating, he did not arseem so tender and so full of pity, that one would rive at old age; he died of a surfeit, caused by intake them for the harmless friends of the whole temperance: upon this, his soul was carried off, in creation; the protectors of the meanest insect or order to take its trial before a select assembly of reptile that was privileged with existence. And the souls of those animals which his gluttony had yet (would you believe it?) I have seen the very caused to be slain, and who were now appointed men who have thus boasted of their tenderness, at his judges. the same time devouring the flesh of six different "He trembled before a tribunal, to every memanimals tossed up in a fricassee. Strange contra- ber of which he had formerly acted as an unmerriety of conduct! they pity, and they eat the ob- ciful tyrant; he sought for pity, but found none jects of their compassion! The lion roars with ter- disposed to grant it. Does he not remember, cries ror over its captive; the tiger sends forth its hideous the angry boar, to what agonies I was put, not to shriek to intimidate its prey; no creature shows any fondness for its short-lived prisoner, except a man and a cat. satisfy his hunger, but his vanity? I was first hunted to death, and my flesh scarce thought worthy of coming once to his table. Were my advice followed, he should do penance in the shape of a hog, which in life he most resembled. Man was born to live with innocence and simplicity, but he has deviated from nature; he was born to share the bounties of heaven, but he has "I am rather, cries a sheep upon the bench, for monopolized them; he was born to govern the brute having him suffer under the appearance of a lamb; creation, but he is become their tyrant. If an epi- we may then send him through four or five transcure now shall happen to surfeit on his last night's migrations in the space of a month. Were my feast, twenty animals the next day are to undergo voice of any weight in the assembly, cries a calf, the most exquisite tortures, in order to provoke his he should rather assume such a form as mine; 1 appetite to another guilty meal. Hail, O ye simple, was bled every day, in order to make my flesh honest brahmins of the East; ye inoffensive friends white, and at last killed without mercy. Would it of all that were born to happiness as well as you; not be wiser, cries a hen, to cram him in the shape you never sought a short-lived pleasure from the of a fowl, and then smother him in his own blood, miseries of other creatures! You never studied the as I was served? The majority of the assembly tormenting arts of ingenious refinement; you never were pleased with this punishment, and were gosurfeited upon a guilty meal! How much more purifi- ing to condemn him without further delay, when ed and refined are all your sensations than ours! you the ox rose up to give his opinion: I am informed, distinguish every element with the utmost precision; says this counsellor, that the prisoner at the bar a stream untasted before is new luxury, a change has left a wife with child behind him. By my knowof air is a new banquet, too refined for Western ledge in divination, I foresee that this child will be imaginations to conceive. a son, decrepit, feeble, sickly, a plague to himself, Though the Europeans do not hold the transmi- and all about him. What say you, then, my comgration of souls, yet one of their doctors has, with panions, if we condemn the father to animate the great force of argument, and great plausibility of body of his own son; and by this means make him reasoning, endeavoured to prove, that the bodies feel in himself those miseries his intemperance must of animals are the habitations of demons and wicked otherwise have entailed upon his posterity? The spirits, which are obliged to reside in these prisons whole court applauded the ingenuity of his torture; till the resurrection pronounces their everlasting they thanked him for his advice. Kabul was LETTER XVI. driven once more to revisit the earth; and his soul creates another nation of Cyclops, the Arimaspians in the body of his own son, passed a period of thirty who inhabit those countries that border on the vears, loaded with misery, anxiety, and disease." Caspian Sea. This author goes on to tell us of a people of India, who have but one leg and one eye, and yet are extremely active, run with great swiftness, and live by hunting. These people we scarcely know how to pity or admire: but the men whom Pliny calls Cynamolci, who have got the heads of dogs, really deserve our compassion; instead of language, they express their sentiments by barking, Solinus confirms what Pliny mentions; and Simon Mayole, a French bishop, talks of them as of particular and familiar acquaintances. After passing the deserts of Egypt, says he, we From the same. I KNOW not whether I am more obliged to the Chinese missionaries for the instruction I have received from them, or prejudiced by the falsehoods they have made me believe, By them I was told that the Pope was universally allowed to be a man, and placed at the head of the church; in England, | however, they plainly prove him to be a whore in man's clothes, and often burn him in effigy as an impostor. A thousand books have been written on either side of the question: priests are eternally disputing against each other; and those mouths that want argument are filled with abuse, Which party must I believe, or shall I give credit to neither? When I survey the absurdities and falsehoods with which the books of the Europeans are filled, I thank Heaven for having been born in China, and that I have sagacity enough to detect imposture. meet with the Kunokephaloi, who inhabit those regions that border on Ethiopia; they live by hunting; they can not speak, but whistle; their armed with long sharp claws; their breast resemchins resemble a serpent's head; their hands are bles that of a greyhound; and they excel in swiftness and agility. Would you think it, my friend, that these odd kind of people are, notwithstanding man's wife, or Chinese mandarine, can excel them their figure, excessively delicate; not even an alderin this particular. These people, continues our faithful bishop, never refuse wine; love roast and ing their meat well dressed, and spurn at it if in boiled meat: they are particularly curious in havthe least tainted. When the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt (says he a little farther on) those men For men who had no voices to teach music, and with dogs' heads taught grammar and music. who could not speak, to teach grammar, is, I confess, a little extraordinary. Did ever the disciples of Fohi broach any thing more ridiculous? The Europeans reproach us with false history and fabulous chronology: how should they blush to see their own books, many of which are written by the doctors of their religion, filled with the most monstrous fables, and attested with the utmost solemnity. The bounds of a letter do not permit me to mention all the absurdities of this kind, which in my reading I have met with. I shall confine myself to the accounts which some of their Hitherto we have seen men with heads strangelettered men give of the persons of some of the inly deformed, and with dogs' heads; but what would habitants on our globe: and not satisfied with the you say if you heard of men without any heads at all? most solemn asseverations, they sometimes pre-Pomponius Mela, Solinus, and Aulus Gellius, detend to have been eye-witnesses of what they describe them to our hand: "The Blemiæ have a A Christian doctor, in one of his principal per-will have it, placed on their shoulders." nose, eyes, and mouth on their breasts; or, as others formances, says, that it was not impossible for a whole nation to have but one eye in the middle of the forehead. He is not satisfied with leaving it in doubt; but in another work,† assures us, that the fact was certain, and that he himself was an eye-witness of it. When, says he, I took a journey into Ethiopia, in company with several other servants of Christ, in order to preach the gospel there, I beheld, in the southern provinces of that country, a nation which had only one eye in the midst of their foreheads. scribe, You will no doubt be surprised, reverend Fum, with this author's effrontery; but, alas! he is not alone in this story: he has only borrowed it from several others who wrote before him. Solinus Augustin. de Civit. Dei, lib. xvi. p. 422. † Augustin ad fratres in Eremo, Serm. xxxvii, One would think that these authors had an anmake a new figure of their own: but let us do them tipathy to the human form, and were resolved to justice. Though they sometimes deprive us of a leg, an arm, a head, or some such trifling part of the body, they often as liberally bestow upon us something that we wanted before. Simon Mayole seems our particular friend in this respect; if he has denied heads to one part of mankind, he has given tails to another. He describes many of the English of his time, which is not more than a hundred years ago, as having tails. His own words are as follow: In England there are some families which have tails, as a punishment for deriding an Augustin friar sent by St. Gregory, and who preached in Dorsetshire. They sewed the tails of different animals to his clothes; but soon they found that those tails entailed on them and their posteri-| The pretext of the war is about some lands a ty for ever. It is certain that the author had some thousand leagues off: a country cold, desolate, and ground for this description. Many of the English hideous; a country belonging to a people who were wear tails to their wigs to this very day, as a mark, in possession for time immemorial. The savages I suppose, of the antiquity of their families, and of Canada claim a property in the country in disperhaps as a symbol of those tails with which they were formerly distinguished by nature. You see, my friend, there is nothing so ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. The writers of books in Europe seem to think themselves authorized to say what they please; and an ingenious philosopher among them* has openly asserted, that he would undertake to persuade the whole republic of readers to believe, that the sun was neither the cause of light nor heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side. Farewell. LETTER XVII. From the same. pute; they have all the pretensions which long possession can confer. Here they had reigned for ages without rivals in dominion, and knew no enemies but the prowling bear or insidious tiger; their native forests produced all the necessaries of life, and they found ample luxury in the enjoyment. In this manner they might have continued to live to eternity, had not the English been informed that those countries produced furs in great abundance. From that moment the country became an object of desire: it was found that furs were things very much wanted in England; the ladies edged some of their clothes with furs, and muffs were worn both by gentlemen and ladies. In short, furs were found indispensably necessary for the happiness of the state; and the king was consequently petitioned to grant, not only the country of Canada, but all the savages belonging to it, to the subjects of England, in order to have the people supplied with proper quantities of this necessary commodity. WERE an Asiatic politician to read the treaties of peace and friendship that have been annually making for more than a hundred years among the So very reasonable a request was immediately inhabitants of Europe, he would probably be sur- complied with, and large colonies were sent abroad prised how it should ever happen that Christian to procure furs, and take possession. The French, princes could quarrel among each other. Their who were equally in want of furs (for they were compacts for peace are drawn up with the utmost as fond of muffs and tippets as the English), made precision, and ratified with the greatest solemnity; the very same request to their monarch, and met to these each party promises a sincere and in-with the same gracious reception from their king, violable obedience, and all wears the appearance of who generously granted what was not his to give. open friendship and unreserved reconciliation. Wherever the French landed they called the counYet, notwithstanding those treaties, the people try their own; and the English took possession of Europe are almost continually at war. There wherever they came, upon the same equitable preis nothing more easy than to break a treaty ratified tensions. The harmless savages made no opposiin all the usual forms, and yet neither party be the tion; and, could the intruders have agreed together, aggressor. One side, for instance, breaks a trifling they might peaceably have shared this desolate article by mistake; the opposite party, upon this, country between them; but they quarrelled about makes a small but premeditated reprisal; this brings the boundaries of their settlements, about grounds on a return of greater from the other; both sides and rivers to which neither side could show any complain of injuries and infractions; war is de- other right than that of power, and which neither clared; they beat; are beaten; some two or three could occupy but by usurpation. Such is the conhundred thousand men are killed; they grow tired; test, that no honest man can heartily wish success leave off just where they began; and so sit coolly to either party. down to make new treaties. The war has continued for some time with va- The English and French seem to place them-rious success. selves foremost among the champion states of rious; but the English have of late dispossessed Europe. Though parted by a narrow sea, yet are them of the whole country in dispute. Think not, they entirely of opposite characters; and from their however, that success on one side is the harbinger vicinity are taught to fear and admire each other. of peace; on the contrary, both parties must be They are at present engaged in a very destructive heartily tired, to effect even a temporary reconciliawar, have already spilled much blood, are excessive- tion. It should seem the business of the victorious ly irritated, and all upon account of one side's de- party to offer terms of peace; but there are many siring to wear greater quantities of furs than the in England who, encouraged by success, are for other. • Fontenelle. still protracting the war. The best English politicians, however, are sensible, that to keep their present conquests would be rather a surdei. than an advantage to them; rather| There seems very little difference between a diminution of their strength than an increase of Dutch bridegroom and a Dutch husband. Both power. It is in the politic as in the human consti- are equally possessed of the same cool unexpecting tution: if the limbs grow too large for the body, serenity; they can see neither Elysium nor Paratheir size, instead of improving, will diminish the dise behind the curtain; and Yiffrow is not more vigour of the whole. The colonies should always a goddess on the wedding-night, than after twenty bear an exact proportion to the mother country; years matrimonial acquaintance. On the other hand when they grow populous, they grow powerful, many of the English marry in order to have one and by becoming powerful, they become inde- happy month in their lives; they seem incapable pendent also; thus subordination is destroyed, and of looking beyond that period; they unite in hopes a country swallowed up in the extent of its own of finding rapture, and disappointed in that, disdominions. The Turkish empire would be more dain ever to accept of happiness. From hence we formidable, were it less extensive; were it not for see open hatred ensue; or what is worse, concealed those countries which it can neither command, nor disgust under the appearance of fulsome endeargive entirely away; which it is obliged to protect, ment. Much formality, great civility, and studied but from which it has no power to exact obedience. compliments are exhibited in public; cross looks, Yet, obvious as these truths are, there are many sulky silence, or open recrimination, fill up their Englishmen who are for transplanting new colo- hours of private entertainment. nies into this late acquisition, for peopling the de- Hence I am taught, whenever I see a newserts of America with the refuse of their country- married couple more than ordinarily fond before men, and (as they express it) with the waste of an faces, to consider them as attempting to impose exuberant nation. But who are those unhappy upon the company or themselves; either hating creatures who are to be thus drained away? Not each other heartily, or consuming that stock of love the sickly, for they are unwelcome guests abroad as in the beginning of their course, which should well as at home; nor the idle, for they would serve them through their whole journey. Neither starve as well behind the Apalachian mountains side should expect those instances of kindness as in the streets of London. This refuse is composed of the laborious and enterprising, of such men as can be serviceable to their country at home, of men who ought to be regarded as the sinews of the people, and cherished with every degree of political indulgence. And what are the commodities which this colony, when established, are to Choang was the fondest husband, and Hansi, produce in return? why, raw silk, hemp, and to- the most endearing wife in all the kingdom of Kobacco. England, therefore, must make an ex- rea: they were a pattern of conjugal bliss ; the in change of her best and bravest subjects for raw habitants of the country around saw, and envied silk, hemp, and tobacco; her hardy veterans and their felicity; wherever Choang came, Hansi was honest tradesmen must be trucked for a box of sure to follow; and in all the pleasures of Ha:isi, snuff and a silk petticoat. Strange absurdity! Choang was admitted a partner. They walked Sure the politics of the Daures are not more strange hand in hand wherever they appeared, showing who sell their religion, their wives, and their liber-every mark of mutual satisfaction, embracing, ty, for a glass bead, or a paltry penknife. Fare- kissing, their mouths were forever joined, and, to well. LETTER XVII. From the Same. which are inconsistent with true freedom or hap piness to bestow. Love, when founded in the heart, will show itself in a thousand unpremeditated sallies of fondness; but every cool deliberate exhibition of the passion, only argues little understanding, or great insincerity. speak in the language of anatomy, it was with them one perpetual anastomosis. Their love was so great, that it was thought nothing could interrupt their mutual peace; when an accident happened, which, in some measure, THE English love their wives with much pas-diminished the husband's assurance of his wife's sion, the Hollanders with much prudence; the fidelity; for love so refined as his was subject to a English, when they give their hands, frequently thousand little disquietudes. give their hearts; the Dutch give the hand but Happening to go one day alone among the tombs keep the heart wisely in their own possession. that lay at some distance from his house, he there The English love with violence, and expect vio- perceived a lady dressed in the deepest mourning lent love in return; the Dutch are satisfied with (being clothed all over in white), fanning the wet the slightest acknowledgment, for they give little away. The English expend many of the matrimonial comforts in the first year; the Dutch frugally husband out their pleasures, and are always constant because they are always indifferent. clay that was raised over one of the graves with a large fan which she held in her hand. Choang, who had early been taught wisdom in the school of Lao, was unable to assign a cause for her present employment: and coming up civilly demanded the reason. Alas! replied the lady, her eyes law for his interment. In the meantime, Hansi bathed in tears, how is it possible to survive the and the young disciple were arrayed in the most loss of my husband, who lies buried in this grave! magnificent habits; the bride wore in her nose he was the best of men, the tenderest of husbands; jewel of immense price, and her lover was dressed with his dying breath he bid me never marry again in all the finery of his former master, together with till the earth over his grave should be dry; and here a pair of artificial whiskers that reached down to you see me steadily resolving to obey his will, and his toes. The hour of their nuptials was arrived; endeavouring to dry it with my fan. I have employed two whole days in fulfilling his commands, and am determined not to marry till they are punctually obeyed, even though his grave should take up four days in drying. the whole family sympathized with their approaching happiness; the apartments were brightened up with lights that diffused the most exquisite perfume, and a lustre more bright than noon-day. The lady expected her youthful lover in an inner Choang, who was struck with the widow's beau- apartment with impatience; when his servant, apty, could not, however, avoid smiling at her haste proaching with terror in his countenance, informed to be married; but concealing the cause of his her, that his master was fallen into a fit which mirth, civilly invited her home, adding, that he had would certainly be mortal, unless the heart of a man a wife who might be capable of giving her some lately dead could be obtained, and applied to his consolation. As soon as he and his guest were re-breast. She scarcely waited to hear the end of his turned, he imparted to Hansi in private what he story, when tucking up her clothes, she ran with a had seen, and could not avoid expressing his unea- mattock in her hand to the coffin where Choang siness, that such might be his own case if his dear-lay, resolving to apply the heart of her dead husest wife should one day happen to survive him. band as a cure for the living. She therefore struck rified at the sight, Hansi dropped the mattock, and Choang walked out, astonished at his own situation, his wife's unusual magnificence, and her more amazing surprise. He went among the apartments, unable to conceive the cause of so much It is impossible to describe Hansi's resentment at the lid with the utmost violence. In a few blows so unkind a suspicion. As her passion for him the coffin flew open, when the body, which to all was not only great, but extremely delicate, she em- appearance had been dead, began to move. Terployed tears, anger, frowns, and exclamations, to chide his suspicions; the widow herself was inveighed against; and Hansi declared, she was resolved never to sleep under the same roof with a wretch, who, like her, could be guilty of such barefaced inconstancy. The night was cold and stormy; splendour. He was not long in suspense before however, the stranger was obliged to seek another lodging, for Choang was not disposed to resist, and Hansi would have her way. his domestics informed him of every transaction since he first became insensible. He could scarcely believe what they told him, and went in pursuit of Hansi herself, in order to receive more certain information, or to reproach her infidelity. But she prevented his reproaches: he found her weltering in blood; for she had stabbed herself to the heart, being unable to survive her shame and disappointment. The widow had scarcely been gone an hour, when an old disciple of Choang's whom he had not seen for many years, came to pay him a visit. He was received with the utmost ceremony, placed in the most honourable seat at supper, and the wine began to circulate with great freedom. Choang and Hansi exhibited open marks of mutual tender- Choang, being a philosopher, was too wise to ness, and unfeigned reconciliation; nothing could make any loud lamentations: he thought it best to equal their apparent happiness; so fond a husband, bear his loss with serenity; so, mending up the old so obedient a wife, few could behold without re- coffin where he had lain himself, he placed his gretting their own infelicity: when, lo! their hap-faithless spouse in his room; and, unwilling that piness was at once disturbed by a most fatal acci- so many nuptial preparations should be expended dent. Choang fell lifeless in an apoplectic fit upon in vain, he the same night married the widow the floor. Every method was used, but in vain, for with the large fan. his recovery. Hansi was at first inconsolable for As they both were apprised of the foibles of each his death: after some hours, however, she found other beforehand, they knew how to excuse them spirits to read his last will. The ensuing day, she after marriage. They lived together for many began to moralize and talk wisdom; the next day, years in great tranquillity, and not expecting rapture, made a shift to find contentment. Farewell. she was able to comfort the young disciple, and, on the third, to shorten a long story, they both agreed to be married. LETTER XIX. To the Same. There was now no longer mourning in the apartments; the body of Choang was now thrust into an old coffin, and placed in one of the meanest rooms, there to lie unattended until the time prescribed by companion through Westminster Abbey, came yes. THE gentleman dressed in black, who was my |