for a superior reward, of taking down the names of are flattered, so it may be a glorious incentive to good men, to make room for others of equivocal character, nor ever profane the sacred walls with pageants that posterity can not know, or shall blush to own. LETTER XIII. From the Same. those who are now capable of enjoying it. It is the duty of every good government to turn this monumental pride to its own advantage; to become strong in the aggregate from the weakness of the individual. If none but the truly great have a place in this awful repository, a temple like this will give the finest lessons of morality, and be a strong incentive to true ambition. I am told, that none have a place here but characters of the most I always was of opinion, that sepulchral honours of this kind should be considered as a national concern, and not trusted to the care of the priests of any country, how respectable soever; but from the conduct of the reverend personages, whose disinterested patriotism I shall shortly be able to distinguished merit." The man in black seemed discover, I am taught to retract my former senti- impatient at my observations, so I discontinued my ments. It is true, the Spartans and the Persians remarks, and we walked on together to take a view made a fine political use of sepulchral vanity; they of every particular monument in order as it lay. permitted none to be thus interred, who had not As the eye is naturally caught by the finest obfallen in the vindication of their country. A monu-jects, I could not avoid being particularly curious ment thus became a real mark of distinction; it about one monument, which appeared more beaunerved the hero's arm with tenfold vigour, and he tiful than the rest: that, said I to my guide, I take fought without fear who only fought for a grave. to be the tomb of some very great man. By the Farewell. peculiar excellence of the workmanship, and the magnificence of the design, this must be a trophy raised to the memory of some king, who has saved his country from ruin, or lawgiver who has reduced his fellow-citizens from anarchy into just subjection. It is not requisite, replied my comI AM just returned from Westminster Abbey, panion, smiling, to have such qualifications in the place of sepulture for the philosophers, heroes, order to have a very fine monument here. More and kings of England. What a gloom do monu- humble abilities will suffice. What! I suppose, mental inscriptions, and all the venerable remains then, the gaining two or three battles, or the taking of deceased merit, inspire! Imagine a temple half a score of towns, is thought a sufficint qualimarked with the hand of antiquity, solemn as reli- fication? Gaining battles, or taking towns, regious awe, adorned with all the magnificence of plied the man in black, may be of service; but a barbarous profusion, dim windows, fretted pillars, gentleman may have a very fine monument here long colonades, and dark ceilings. Think, then, without ever seeing a battle or a siege. This, what were my sensations at being introduced to then, is the monument of some poet, I presume, of such a scene. I stood in the midst of the temple, one whose wit has gained him immortality? No, and threw my eyes round on the walls, filled with sir, replied my guide, the gentleman who lies here the statues, the inscriptions, and the monuments of never made verses; and as for wit, he despised it the dead. in others, because he had none himself. Pray tell Alas! I said to myself, how does pride attend me then in a word, said I peevishly, what is the the puny child of dust even to the grave! Even great man who lies here particularly remarkable humble as I am, I possess more consequence in the for? Remarkable, sir! said my companion; why present scene than the greatest hero of them all: sir, the gentleman that lies here is remarkable, they have toiled for an hour to gain a transient im- very remarkable—for a tomb in Westminster Abmortality, and are at length retired to the grave, bey. But, head my ancestors! how has he got where they have no attendant but the worm, none here? I fancy he could never bribe the guardians to flatter but the epitaph. of the temple to give him a place. Should he not As I was indulging such reflections, a gentleman be ashamed to be seen among company, where even dressed in black, perceiving me to be a stranger, moderate merit would look like infamy? I supcame up, entered into conversation, and politely pose, replied the man in black, the gentleman was offered to be my instructor and guide through the rich, and his friends, as is usual in such a case, temple. If any monument, said he, should par- told him he was great. He readily believed them; ticularly excite your curiosity, I shall endeavour to the guardians of the temple, as they got by the satisfy your demands. I accepted with thanks the self-delusion, were ready to believe him too; so he gentleman's offer, adding, that "I was come to ob- paid his money for a fine monument; and the serve the policy, the wisdom, and the justice of the workman, as you see, has made him one the English, in conferring rewards upon deceased most beautiful. Think not, however, that this merit. If adulation like this (continued I) be pro- gentleman is singular in his desire of being buried perly conducted, as it can no ways injure those who among the great; there are several others in the temple, who, hated and shunned by the great while must pay first. I was surprised at such a demand; alive, have come here, fully resolved to keep them and asked the man, whether the people of England company now they are dead. kept a show? whether the paltry sum he demanded As we walked along to a particular part of the was not a national reproach? whether it was not temple, There, says the gentleman, pointing with more to the honour of the country to let their maghis finger, that is the poet's corner; there you see nificence or their antiquities be openly seen, than the monuments of Shakspeare, and Milton, and thus meanly to tax a curiosity which tended to Prior, and Drayton. Drayton! I replied; I never their own honour? As for your questions, replied heard of him before: but I have been told of one the gate-keeper, to be sure they may be very right, Pope; is he there? It is time enough, replied my because I don't understand them; but, as for that guide, these hundred years; he is not long dead; there threepence, I farm it from one,-who rents people have not done hating him yet. Strange, it from another,-who hires it from a third,—who cried I, can any be found to hate a man, whose life leases it from the guardians of the temple, and we was wholly spent in entertaining and instructing all must live. I expected, upon paying here, to see his fellow-creatures? Yes, says my guide, they something extraordinary, since what I had seen for hate him for that very reason. There are a set of nothing filled me with so much surprise: but in men called answerers of books, who take upon them this I was disappointed; there was little more to watch the republic of letters, and distribute re- within than black coffins, rusty armour, tattered putation by the sheet; they somewhat resemble the standards, and some few slovenly figures in wax. eunuchs in a seraglio, who are incapable of giving I was sorry I had paid, but I comforted myself by pleasure themselves, and hinder those that would. considering it would be my last payment. A perThese answerers have no other employment but son attended us, who, without once blushing, told to cry out Dunce, and Scribbler; to praise the a hundred lies: he talked of a lady who died by dead, and revile the living; to grant a man of confessed abilities some small share of merit ; to applaud twenty blockheads in order to gain the repution of candour; and to revile the moral character of the man whose writings they can not injure. kings of England were crowned: you see also a Such wretches are kept in pay by some mercenary bookseller, or more frequently the bookseller himself takes this dirty work off their hands, as all that is required is to be very abusive and very dull. Every poet of any genius is sure to find such ene mies; Has this been the case with every poet I see here? cried I. Yes, with every mother's son of them, replied he, except he happened to be born a mandarine. If he has much money, he may buy reputation from your book-answerers, as well as a monument from the guardians of the temple. But are there not some men of distinguished taste, as in China, who are willing to patronise men of merit, and soften the rancour of malevolent dulness? pricking her finger; of a king with a golden head, and twenty such pieces of absurdity. Look ye there, gentlemen, says he, pointing to an old oak chair, there's a curiosity for ye; in that chair the stone underneath, and that stone is Jacob's pillow. I could see no curiosity either in the oak chair or the stone: could I, indeed, behold one of the old kings of England seated in this, or Jacob's head laid upon the other, there might be something curious in the sight; but in the present case there was no more reason for my surprise, than if I should pick a stone from their streets, and call it a curiosity, merely because one of the kings happened to tread upon it as he passed in a procession. Very From hence our conductor led us through several dark walks and winding ways, uttering lies, talking to himself, and flourishing a wand which he held in his hand. He reminded me of the black magicians of Kobi. After we had been almost fatigued with a variety of objects, he at last desired me to consider attentively a certain suit of armour, which seemed to show nothing remarkable. This armour, said he, belonged to General Monk. I own there are many, replied the man in black; surprising that a general should wear armour. but, alas sir, the book-answerers crowd about And pray, added he, observe this cap, this is Genethem, and call themselves the writers of books; and ral Monk's cap. Very strange indeed, very the patron is too indolent to distinguish: thus poets strange, that a general should have a cap also! are kept at a distance, while their enemies eat up Pray, friend, what might this cap have cost oriall their rewards at the mandarine's table. ginally? That, sir, says he, I don't know; but this Leaving this part of the temple, we made up to cap is all the wages I have for my trouble. A very an iron gate, through which my companion told small recompense truly, said I. Not so very small, me we were to pass in order to see the monuments replied he, for every gentleman puts some money of the kings. Accordingly I marched up without into it, and I spend the money. What, more mofurther ceremony, and was going to enter, when a ney! still more money! Every gentleman gives person, who held the gate in his hand, told me I something, sir. I'll give thee nothing, returned I; the guardians of the temple should pay you your Pray speak a little Chinese: I have learned some wages, friend, and not permit you to squeeze thus of the language myself. Lord! have you nothing from every spectator. When we pay our money pretty from China about you; something that one at the door to see a show, we never give more as does not know what to do with? I have got twenty we are going out. Sure, the guardians of the tem- things from China that are of no use in the world. ple can never think they get enough. Show me Look at those jars, they are of the right pea-green. the gate; if I stay longer, I may probably meet with these are the furniture." Dear madam, said I, more of those ecclesiastical beggars. Thus leaving the temple precipitately, I returned to my lodgings, in order to ruminate over what was great, and to despise what was mean in the occurrences of the day. LETTER XIV. From the Same. these, though they may appear fine in your eyes are but paltry to a Chinese; but, as they are useful utensils, it is proper they should have a place in every apartment. Useful! sir, replied the lady; sure you mistake, they are of no use in the world. What! are they not filled with an infusion of tea as in China? replied I. Quite empty and useless, upon my honour, sir. Then they are the most cumbrous and clumsy furniture in the world, as nothing is truly elegant but what unites use with beauty. I protest, says the lady, I shall begin to I was some days ago agreeably surprised by a suspect thee of being an actual barbarian. I supmessage from a lady of distinction, who sent me pose you hold my two beautiful pagods in conword, that she most passionately desired the plea- tempt. What! cried I, has Fohi spread his gross sure of my acquaintance; and, with the utmost superstitions here also! Pagods of all kinds are impatience, expected an interview. I will not deny, my aversion. A Chinese traveller, and want taste! my dear Fum Hoam, but that my vanity was raised it surprises me. Pray, sir, examine the beauties at such an invitation: I flattered myself that she of that Chinese temple which you see at the end had seen me in some public place, and had cón- of the garden. Is there any thing in China more ceived an affection for my person, which thus in- beautiful? Where I stand, I see nothing, madam, duced her to deviate from the usual decorums of at the end of the garden, that may not as well be the sex. My imagination painted her in all the bloom of youth and beauty. I fancied her attended by the Loves and Graces; and I set out with the most pleasing expectations of seeing the conquest I had made. called an Egyptian pyramid as a Chinese temple; for that little building in view is as like the one as t'other. What! sir, is not that a Chinese temple? you must surely be mistaken. Mr. Freeze, who designed it, calls it one, and nobody disputes When I was introduced into her apartment, my his pretensions to taste. I now found it vain to expectations were quickly at an end; I perceived contradict the lady in any thing she thought fit to a little shrivelled figure indolently reclined on a advance; so was resolved rather to act the disciple sofa, who nodded by way of approbation at my ap- than the instructor. She took me through several proach. This, as I was afterwards informed, was rooms all furnished, as she told me, in the Chinese the lady herself, a woman equally distinguished for manner; sprawling dragons, squatting pagods, and rank, politeness, taste, and understanding. As I clumsy mandarines, were stuck upon every shelf: was dressed after the fashion of Europe, she had in turning round, one must have used caution not taken me for an Englishman, and consequently sa- to demolish a part of the precarious furniture. luted me in her ordinary manner: but when the In a house like this, thought I, one must live footman informed her grace that I was the gentle- continually upon the watch; the inhabitant must reman from China, she instantly lifted herself from semble a knight in an enchanted castle, who ex the couch, while her eyes sparkled with unusual pects to meet an adventure at every turning. But, vivacity. "Bless me! can this be the gentleman madam, said I, do not accidents ever happen to all that was born so far from home? What an unu- this finery? Man, sir, replied the lady, is born to sual share of somethingness in his whole appear- misfortunes, and it is but fit I should have a share. ance! Lord, how I am charmed with the outlandish Three weeks ago, a careless servant snapped off cut of his face! how bewitching the exotic breadth the head of a favourite mandarine: I had scarce of his forehead! I would give the world to see him done grieving for that, when a monkey broke a in his own country dress. Pray turn about, sir, beautiful jar; this I took the more to heart, as the and let me see you behind. There, there's a tra- injury was done me by a friend! However, I survell'd air for you! You that attend there, bring up vived the calamity; when yesterday crash went a plate of beef cut into small pieces; I have a violent half a dozen dragons upon the marble hearthstone ⚫ passion to see him eat. Pray, sir, have you got and yet I live; I survive it all: you can't conceive your chop-sticks about you? It will be so pretty to what comfort I find under afflictions from philososee the meat carried to the mouth with a jerk. phy. There is Seneca and Bolingbroke, and some others, 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, tired of acting with dissimulation, and willing to indulge my meditations in solitude, I took leave just as the servant was bringing in a plate of beef, pursuant to the directions of his mistress. LETTER XV From the same. Adieu. it may frequently happen, that while we whip pigs to death, or boil live lobsters, we are putting some old acquaintance, some near relation, to excruciating tortures, and are serving him up to the very table 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 hundred different animals, and his cooks had a hundred different ways of dressing it, to solicit even THE better sort here pretend to the utmost compassion for animals of every kind: to hear them 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- her 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 satisfy his hunger, but his vanity? I was first any fondness for its short-lived prisoner, except a hunted to death, and my flesh scarce thought worman and a cat. thy 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 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 LETTER XVI. 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. 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 meet with the Kunokephaloi, who inhabit those regions that border on Ethiopia; they live by hunting; they can not speak, but whistle; their chins resemble a serpent's head; their hands are armed with long sharp claws; their breast resembles 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 their figure, excessively delicate; not even an alderman's wife, or Chinese mandarine, can excel them in this particular. These people, continues our faithful bishop, never refuse wine; love roast and boiled meat: they are particularly curious in having their meat well dressed, and spurn at it if in the least tainted. When the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt (says he a little farther on) those men with dogs' heads taught grammar and music. For men who had no voices to teach music, and 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 nose, eyes, and mouth on their breasts; or, as others will have it, placed on their shoulders." scribe. A Christian doctor, in one of his principal performances,* 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. 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 antipathy to the human form, and were resolved to make a new figure of their own: but let us do them 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 |