merit deferved, while her beauty every day improved with her good fortune. She had not been long in this fituation, when Peter the Great paying the prince a vifit, Catharina happened to come in with fome dry fruits, which the ferved round with peculiar modefty. The mighty monarch faw, and was ftruck with her beauty. He returned the next day, called for the beautiful flave, asked her feveral questions, and found her understanding even more perfect than her perfon. He had been forced when young to marry from motives of intereft, he was now refolved to marry pursuant to his own inclinations. He immediately enquired the hiftory of the fair Livonian, who was not yet eighteen. He traced her through the vale of obfcurity through all the viciffitudes of her fortune, and found her truly great in them all. The meanness of her birth was no obftruction to his defign; their nuptials were folemnized in private: the Prince affuring his courtiers, that virtue alone was the propereft ladder to a throne. We now fee Catharina from the low mud-walled cottage Emprefs of the greatest kingdom upon earth. The poor folitary wanderer is now furrounded by thousands, who find happiness in her fmile. She, who formerly wanted a meal, is now capable of diffufing plenty upon whole nations. To her fortune fhe owed a part of this pre-eminence, but to her virtues more. She ever after retained thofe great qualities which firft placed her on a throne; and while the extraordinary Prince, her husband, laboured for the reformation of his male fubjects, fhe ftudied in her turn the improvement of her own fex. She altered their dreffes, introduced mixed affemblies, insti tuted tuted an order of female knighthood; and at length when she had greatly filled all the ftations of Emprefs, friend, wife, and mother, bravely died without regret; regretted by all. Adieu. LETTER LXII. From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, first prefident of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China. IN every letter I expect accounts of fome new re volutions in China, fome ftrange occurrence in the ftate, or difafter among my private acquaintance. I open every pacquet with tremulous expectation, and am agreeably disappointed when I find my friends and my country continuing in felicity. I wander, but they are at reft; they fuffer few changes but what pafs in my own reftlefs imagination; it is only the rapidity of my own motion gives an imaginary fwiftnefs to objects which are in fome meafure im moveable. Yet believe me, my friend, that even China itself is imperceptibly degenerating from her antient greatnefs; her laws are now more venal, and her merchants are more deceitful than formerly; the very arts and sciences have run to decay. Obferve the carvings on our antient 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 porcelaine too are inferior to what we once were famous for; and even Europe now begins to excel us. There was a time when China -2 was was the receptacle of ftrangers, when all were welcome who either came to improve the ftate, or admire its greatness; now the empire is fhut up from every foreign improvement; and the very inhabitants difcourage each other from profecuting their own internal advantages. Whence this degeneracy in a ftate fo little subject to external revolutions; how happens it that China, which is now more powerful than ever, which is lefs fubject to foreign invafions, and even affifted in fome difcoveries by her connexions with Europe; whence comes it, I fay, that the empire is thus declining so faft into barbarity. This decay is furely from nature, and not the refult of voluntary degeneracy. In a period of two or three thousand years the feems at proper intervals to produce great minds, with an effort refembling that which introduces the viciffitudes of feafons. They rife up at once, continue for an age, enlighten the world, fall like ripened corn, and mankind again gradually relapfe into priftine barbarity. We little ones look around, are amazed at the decline, seek after the caufes of this invifible decay, attribute to want of encouragement what really proceeds from want of power, are aftonifhed to find every art and every science in the decline, not confidering that autumn is over, and fatigued Nature again begins to repofe for fome fucceeding effort. Some periods have been remarkable for the production of men of extraordinary ftature; others for producing fome particular animals in great abundance; fome for exceffive plenty; and others again feemingly causeless famine. Nature which thews herfelf to very different in her visible productions, muft furely differ alfo from herself in the production of minds; and while fhe aftonishes one age with the ftrength ftrength and ftature of a Milo or a Maximin, may blefs another with the wifdom 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 fome one man of furprizing abilities, who, with all his understanding, failed to bring his barbarous age into refinement: all mankind feemed to fleep, till Nature gave the general call, and then the whole world feemed at once rouzed at the voice; fcience triumphed in every country, and the brightnefs of a fingle genius feemed loft in a galaxy of contiguous glory. Thus the enlightened periods in every age have been univerfal. At the time when China firft began to emerge from barbarity, the Weftern world was equally rifing into refinement; when we had our Yau, they had their Sefoftris. In fucceeding ages Confucius and Pythagoras feem born nearly together, and a train of philofophers then fprung up as well in Greece as in China. The period of renewed barbarity begun to have an univerfal fpread much about the fame time, and continued for feveral centuries, till in the year of the chriftian æra 1400, the emperor Yonglo arofe, to revive the learning of the Eaft; while about the fame time the Medicean family laboured in Italy to raise infant genius from the cradle thus we fee politenefs fpreading over every part of the world in one age, and barbarity fucceeding in another; at one period a blaze of light diffuting itself over the whole world, and at another all mankind wrapped up in the profoundest ignorance. Such has been the fituation of things in times paft; and fuch probably it will ever be. China, I have obferved, has evidently begun to degenerate from its former politenefs; and were the learning of the the Europeans at prefent candidly confidered, the decline would perhaps appear to have already taken place. We fhould find among the natives of the Weft the ftudy of morality difplaced for mathematical difquifition, or metaphyfical fubtleties; 1hould find learning begin to feparate 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 amufing or useful. We fhould find every great attempt fuppreffed by prudence, and the rapturous fublimity 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 fake of great acquifitions. Providence has indulged the world with a period of almoft four hundred years refinement; does it not now by degrees fink us into our former ignorance, leaving us only the love of wifdom, while it deprives us of its advantages? Adieu. LETTER LXIII. FROM THE SAME. THE princes of Europe have found out a manner of rewarding their fubjects who have behaved well, by prefenting them with about two yards of blue ribbon, which is worn about the fhoulder. They who are honoured with this mark of diftinction are called knights, and the King himself is always the head of the order. This is a very frugal method of recompenfing the most important fervices; and it is very fortunate |