CX. On the different fects in England, particu- CXII. A literary conteft of great importance; in CXIII. Against the marriage act. A fable. CXXI. The manner of travellers in their ufual re- YOURS of the 13th inftant, covering two bills, one on Meffrs. R. and D. value 4781. 10s. and the other on Mr. ****, value 2851. duly came to hand, the former of which met with honour, but the other has been trifled with, and I am afraid will be returned protested. The bearer of this is my friend, therefore let him be yours. He is a native of Honan in China, and one who did me fignal fervices when he was a mandarine, and I a factor at Canton. By frequently converfing with the English there, he has learned the language, though he is entirely a ftranger to their manners and cuftoms. I am told he is a philofopher; I am fure he is an honeft man; that to you will be his beft recommendation, next to the confideration of his being the friend of, Sir, Yours, &c. VOL. III. B LETTER LETTER II. Lond. From Lien Chi Altangi to ****, Merchant in Amfterdam. Friend of my heart, MAY the wings of peace rest upon thy dwelling, and the field of confcience preferve thee from vice and mifery! For all thy favours accept my gratitude and esteem, the only tributes a poor philofophic wanderer can return. Sure, fortune is refolved to make me unhappy, when the gives others a power of testifying their friendship by actions, and leaves me only words to exprefs the fincerity of mine. I am perfectly fenfible of the delicacy with which you endeavour to leffen your own merit and my obligations. By calling your late inftances of friendfhip only a return for former favours, you would induce me to impute to your juftice what I owe to your generofity. The fervices I did you at Canton, juftice, humanity, and my office bade me perform; thofe you have done me fince my arrival at Amfterftam, no laws obliged you to, no juftice required, even half your favours would have been greater than my moftfanguine expectations. The fum of money therefore which you privately conveyed into my baggage, when I was leaving Holland, and which I was ignorant of till my_arrival in London, I muft beg leave to return. You have been bred a merchant, and I a fcholar; you confequently love money better than I. You can find pleasure in fuperfluity; I am perfectly content with what is fufficient; take therefore what is yours, it may give you some pleasure, even though you have no occasion to use it; my happiness it cannot improve, for I have already all that I want. My paffage by fea from Rotterdam to England. was more painful to me than all the journies I ever made on land. I have traverfed the immeafurable wilds of Mogul Tartary; felt all the rigours of Siberian fkies; I have had my repofe an hundred times disturbed by invading favages, and have feen, without fhrinking, the defart fands rife like a troubled ocean all around me; against these calamities I was armed with refolution; but in my paffage to England, though nothing occurred that gave the mariners any uneafinefs, to one who was never at sea before, all was a fubject of astonishment and terror. To find the land disappear, to see our thip mount the waves fwift as an arrow from the Tartar bow, to hear the wind howling through the cordage, to feel a ficknefs which depreffes even the spirits of the brave; these were unexpected diftreffes, and confequently affaulted me unprepared to receive them. You men of Europe think nothing of a voyage by fea. With us of China, a man who has been from fight of land is regarded upon his return with admiration. I have known fome provinces where there is not even a name for the ocean. What a strange people therefore am I got amongft, who have founded an empire on this unftable element, who build cities upon billows that rife higher than the mountains of Tipartala, and make the deep more formidable than the wildeft tempeft. Such accounts as thefe, I must confefs, were my firft motives for feeing England. Thefe induced me to undertake a journey of seven hundred painful days, in order to examine its opulence, buildings, fciences, arts and manufactures, on the fpot. Judge then my disappointment on entering London, to fee no figns of that opulence fo much talked of abroad; wherever B 2 wherever I turn, I am prefented with a gloomy folemnity in the houses, the ftreets and the inhabitants; none of that beautiful gilding which makes a principal ornament in Chinese architecture. The ftreets of Nankin are fometimes ftrewed with gold leaf; very different are thofe of London: in the midft of their pavements, a great lazy puddle moves muddily along; heavy-laden machines, with wheels of unwieldy thicknefs, crowd up every paffage; fo that a ftranger, inftead of finding time for obfervation, is often happy if he has time to escape from being crushed to pieces. The houses borrow very few ornaments from architecture; their chief decoration feems to be a paltry piece of painting, hung out at their doors or windows, at once a proof of their indigence and vanity their vanity, in each having one of thofe pictures expofed to public view; and their indigence, in being unable to get them better painted. In this refpect, the fancy of their painters is alfo deplorable. Could you believe it? I have feen five black lions and three blue boars in lefs than the circuit of half a mile; and yet you know that animals of these colours are no where to be found except in the wild imaginations of Europe. From thefe circumftances in their buildings, and from the difmal looks of the inhabitants, I am induced to conclude that the nation is actually poor; and that, like the Perfians, they make a fplendid figure every where but at home. The proverb of Xixofou is, that a man's riches may be feen in his eyes; if we judge of the English by this rule, there is not a poorer nation under the fun. I have been here but two days, fo will not be hafty in my decifions; fuch letters as I fhall write to Fipfihi in Mofcow, I beg you'll endeavour to forward with all diligence; I fhall fend them open, in order that you may take copies or tranflations, as you |