another produces his powder, makes fome experiinents that refult in nothing, and comes off with admiration and applaufe; a third comes out with the important difcovery of fome new procefs in the skeleton of a mole, and is fet down as the accurate and fenfible; while one ftill more fortunate than the reft, by pickling, potting, and preferving monsters, rifes into unbounded reputation.

The labours of fuch men, inftead of being calculated to amuse the public, are laid out only in diverting each other. The world becomes very little the better or the wifer, for knowing what is the peculiar food of an infect that is itself the food of another, which in its turn is eaten by a third; but there are men who have studied themselves into an habit of inveftigating and admiring fuch minutia. To thefe fuch fubjects are pleafing, as there are fome who contentedly fpend whole days in endeavouring to folve ænigmas, or disentangle the puzzling fticks of children.

But of all the learned, thofe who pretend to inveftigate remote antiquity, have leaft to plead in their own defence, when they carry this paffion to a faulty excefs. They are generally found to fupply by conjecture the want of record, and then by perfeverance are wrought up into a confidence of the truth of opinions, which even to themselves at first appeared founded only in imagination.

The Europeans have heard much of the kingdom of China: its politenefs, arts, commerce, laws, and morals are however but very imperfectly known among them. They have even now in their Indian warehoufe numberlefs utenfils, plants, minerals, and machines, of the use of which they are entirely ignorant; nor can any among them even make a probable guess for what they might have been defigned. Yet though this people be fo ignorant of

VOL. III.

A A

the

the present real state of China, the philofophers I am defcribing have entered into long, learned, laborious difputes about what China was two thoufand years ago. China and European happiness are but little connected even at this day; but European happiness and China two thousand years ago have certainly no connection at all. However, the learned have written on and purfued the fubject through all the labyrinths of antiquity; though the early dews and the tainted gale be paffed away, though no footsteps remain to direct the doubtful chace, yet ftill they run forward, open upon the uncertain fcent, and though in fact they follow nothing, are earneft in the purfuit. In this chace however they all take different ways. One, for example, confidently affures us, that China was peopled by a colony from Egypt. Sefoftris, he obferves, led his army as far as the Ganges; therefore, if he went fo far, he might ftill have gone as far as China, which is but about a thousand miles from thence; therefore he did go to China; therefore China was not peopled before he went there; therefore it was peopled by him. Befides, the Egyptians have pyramids : the Chinese have in like manner their porcelaine tower; the Egyptians used to light up candles upon every rejoicing, the Chinese have lanthorns upon the fame occafion; the Egyptians had their great river, fo have the Chinese; but what ferves to put the matter paft a doubt is, that the antient Kings of China and those of Egypt were called by the fame names. The Emperor Ki is certainly the fame with King Atoes; for, if we only change K into A, and i into toes, we fhall have the name Atoes; and with equal cafe Menes may be proved to be the fame with the Emperor Fu; therefore the Chinese are a colony from Egypt.

But another of the learned is entirely different

from

from the laft; and he will have the Chinese to be a colony planted by Noah juft after the deluge. First, from the vaft fimilitude there is between the name of Fohi, the founder of the Chinese monarchy, and that of Noah, the preferver of the human race: Noah, Fohi, very like each other truly; they have each but four letters, and only two of the four happen to differ. But to ftrengthen the argument, Fohi, as the Chinese chronicle afferts, had no father. Noah, it is true, had a father, as the European Bible tells us; but then, as this father was probably drowned in the flood, it is juft the fame as if he had no father at all; therefore Noah and Fohi are the fame. Juft after the flood the earth was covered with mud; if it was covered with mnd, it must have been incruftated mud; if it was incruftated, it was cloathed with verdure; this was a fine, unembarraffed road for Noah to fly from his wicked children; he therefore did fly from them, and took a journey of two thousand miles for his own amusement; therefore Noah and Fohi are the fame.

Another fect of literati, for they all pafs among the vulgar for very great scholars, affert, that the Chinefe came neither from the colony of Sefoftris, nor from Noah, but are defcended from Magog, Mefhec and Tubal, and therefore neither Sefoftris, nor Noah, nor Fohi are the fame.

It is thus, my friend, that indolence affumes the airs of wifdom, and while it toffes the cup and ball with infantine folly, defires the world to look on, and calls the ftupid paftime philofophy and learning.

Adieu.

LETTER LXXXIX.

FROM THE SAME.

WHEN the men of this country are once turned of thirty, they regularly retire every year at proper intervals to lie in of the spleen. The vulgar, unfurnifhed with the luxurious comforts of the loft cuffion, down bed, and eafy-chair, are obliged when the fit is on them, to nurse it up by drinking, idlenefs and ill-humour. In fuch difpofitions, unhap py is the foreigner who happens to cross them; his long chin, tarnished coat, or pinched hat are fure to receive no quarter. If they meet no foreigner however to fight with, they are in fuch cafes genenerally content with beating each other.

The rich, as they have more fenfibility, are operated upon with greater violence by this diforder. Different from the poor, instead of becoming more infolent, they grow totally unfit for oppofition. A general here, who would have faced a culverin when well, if the fit be on him, shall hardly find courage to fnuff a candle. An admiral, who could have oppofed a broadfide without fhrinking, fhall fit whole days in his chamber, mobbed up in double nightcaps, fhuddering at the intrufive breeze, and diftinguishable from his wife only by his black beard and heavy eye-brows.

In the country this disorder moftly attacks the fair fex, in town it is most unfavourable to the men. A lady, who has pined whole years amidst cooing doves, and complaining nightingales in rural retirement, fhall refume all her vivacity in one night at a city gambling-table; her husband who roared, hunted,

4

hunted, and got drunk at home, fhall grow fplenetic in town in proportion to his wife's good humour. Upon their anival in London they exchange their disorders. In confequence of her parties and excurfions, he puts on the furred cap and fcarlet ftomacher, and perfectly refembles an Indian hufband, who when his wife is fafely delivered, permits her to tranfact bufinefs abroad, while he undergoes all the formality of keeping his bed, and receiving all the condolence in her place.

But those who refide conftantly in town owe this disorder moftly to the influence of the weather. It is impoffible to defcribe what a variety of tranfmutations an Eaft wind will produce; it has been known to change a lady of fafhion into a parlour couch, an alderman into a plate of custards, and a difpenfer of juftice into a rat trap. Even philofophers themselves are not exempt from its influence; it has often converted a poet into a coral and bells, and a patriot fenator into a dumb waiter.

Some days ago I went to vifit the man in black, and entered his house with that chearfulness, which the certainty of a favourable reception always infpires. Upon opening the door of his apartment, I found him with the moft rueful face imaginable, in a morning gown and flannel night-cap, earneftly employed in learning to blow the German flute. Struck with the abfurdity of a man in the decline of life, thus blowing away all his conftitution and fpirits, even without the confolation of being mufical, I ventured to ask what could induce him to attempt learning fo difficult an inftrument fo late in life. To this he made no reply, but groaning, and ftill holding the flute to his lip, continued to gaze at me for fome moments very angrily, and then proceeded to practife his gammut as before. After having produced a variety of the moft hideous tones