Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

246

sti

as

d

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

4. long in this situation, when ing the prince a visit, Cathe come in with some dry fruits. round with peculiar modesty. march saw, and was struck with 1. turned the next day, called for sked her several questions, and ang even more perfect than her

ved when young to marry from he was now resolved to mar a inclinations. He immediate sory of the fair Livonian, who was

He traced her through the vaje ough all the vicissitudes of her faher truly great in them all. The er birth was no obstruction to his de ptials were solemnized in private: the g his courtiers, that virtue alone wa ladder to a throne.

....we Catharina from the low mud-waled press of the greatest kingdom upan Nor solitary wanderer is now surrounde sers, who find happiness in her smile. She a. cowerly wanted a meal, is now capable of diuty upon whole nations. To her fortune west a part of this pre-eminence, but to ber

Saver after retained those great qualities which aced her on a throne; and while the extra

Ponce, her husband, laboured for the reon of his male subjects, she studied in her esaprovement of her own sex. She altered Jesses, introduced mixed assemblies, insti

tuted

[ocr errors][graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed]

tuted an order of female knighthood; and at length when she had greatly filled all the stations of Empress, friend, wife, and mother, bravely died without regret; regrettted by all. Adieu.

[blocks in formation]

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, first President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China.

IN every letter I expect accounts of some new revolutions in Cihna, some strange occurrence in the state, or disaster 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 rest; they suffer few changes but what pass in my own restless imagination; it is only the rapidity of my own motion gives an imaginary swiftness to objects which are in some measure immoveable.

Yet believe me, my friend, that even China itself is imperceptibly degenerating from her antient greatness; her laws are now more venal, and her merchants are more deceitful than formerly; the very arts and sciences have run to decay. Observe 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

was

was the receptacle of strangers, when all were welcome who either came to improve the state, or admire its greatness; now the empire is shut up from every foreign improvement; and the very inhabitants discourage each other from prosecuting their own internal advantages.

Whence this degeneracy in a state so little subject to external revolutions; how happens it that China, which is now more powerful than ever, which is less subject to foreign invasions, and even assisted in some discoveries by her connexions with Europe; whence comes it, I say, that the empire is thus declining so fast into barbarity.

This decay is surely from nature, and not the result of voluntary degeneracy. In a period of two or three thousand years she seems at proper intervals to produce great minds, with an effort resembling that which introduces the vicissitudes of seasons. They rise up at once, continue for an age, enlighten the world, fall like ripened corn, and mankind agam gradually relapse into pristine barbarity. We little ones look around, are amazed at the decline, seek after the causes of this invisible decay, attribute to want of encouragement what really proceeds from want of power, are astonished to find every art and every science in the decline, not considering that autumn is over, and fatigued Nature again begins to repose for some succeeding effort.

:

Some periods have been remarkable for the production of men of extraordinary stature; others for producing some particular animals in great abundance; some for excessive plenty and others again seemingly causeless famine. Nature which shews herself so very different in her visible productions, must surely differ also from herself in the production of minds; and while she astonishes one age with the

strength

« AnteriorContinuar »