Imagens da página
PDF
ePub
[merged small][ocr errors]

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.

66

66

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.". "Very surprising that a general should wear armour !"-"And pray," added he, 'observe this cap; this is General Monk's cap."- 'Very strange indeed, very strange, that a general should have a cap also! Pray, friend, what might this cap have cost originally?"-"That, sir," says he, "I don't know; but this cap is all the wages I have for my trouble. "A very small recompense, truly," said I.-"Not so very small," replied he, "for every gentleman puts some money into it, and I spend the money. -"What, more money! still more money!"-"Every gentleman gives something, sir."-"I'll give thee nothing," returned I; "the guardians of the temple should pay you your wages, friend, and not permit you to squeeze thus from every spectator. When we pay our money at the door to see a show, we never give more as we are going out. Sure, the guardians A perof the temple can never think they get enough. Show me the gate; if I stay longer, I may probably meet with more of those ecclesiastical beggars.'

I

Leaving this part of the temple, we made up to an iron gate, through which my companion told me we were to pass, in order to see the monuments of the kings. Accordingly, I marched up without further ceremony, and was going to enter, when a person who held the gate in his hand told me I must pay first. I was surprised at such a demand; and asked the man, whether the people of England kept a show ?-whether the paltry sum he demanded was not a national reproach? whether it was not more to the honour of the country to let their magnificence or their antiquities be openly seen, than thus meanly to tax a curiosity which tended to their own honour?—“Ás for your questions," replied the gate-keeper, "to be sure they may be very right, because I don't understand them; but, as for that there threepence, I farm it from one-who rents it from another-who hires it from a third-who leases it from the guardians of the temple and we all must live." expected, upon paying here, to see something extraordinary, since what I had seen for nothing filled me with so much surprise: but in this I was disappointed; there was little more within than black coffins, rusty armour, tattered standards, and some few slovenly figures in wax. I was sorry I had paid, but I comforted myself by considering it would be my last payment. son attended us who without once blushing told an hundred lies: he talked of a lady who died by 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 kings of England were crowned: you see also a 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;

:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

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.

To the same.

I WAS some days ago agreeably surprised by a message from a lady of distinction, who sent me word, that she most passionately desired the pleasure of my acquaint

sex.

ance, and with the utmost impatience expected an interview. I will not deny, my dear Fum Hoam, but that my vanity was raised at such an invitation: I flattered myself that she had seen me in some public place, and had conceived an affection for my person, which thus induced her to deviate from the usual decorums of the 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. When I was introduced into her apartment, my expectations were quickly at an end: I perceived a little shrivelled figure indolently reclined on a sofa, who nodded, by way of approbation, at my approach. This, as I was afterwards informed, was the lady herself,- -a woman equally distinguished for rank, politeness, taste, and understanding. As I was dressed after the fashion of Europe, she had taken me for an Englishman, and consequently saluted me in her ordinary manner: but when the footman informed her grace that I was the gentleman from China, she instantly lifted herself from the couch, while her eyes sparkled with unusual vivacity. me! can this be the gentleman that was born so far from home? What an unusual share of somethingness in his whole appearance! Lord, how I am charmed with the outlandish cut of his face! how bewitching the exotic breadth of his forehead! I would give the world to see him in his own country dress. Pray, turn about, sir, and let me see you behind. There, there's a travelled air for you! You that attend there, bring up a plate of beef cut into small pieces; I have a violent passion to see him eat. Pray, sir, have you got your chopsticks about you? It will be so pretty to see the meat carried to the mouth with a jerk. Pray, speak a little Chinese: I have learned some of the language myself. Lord! have you nothing pretty from China about you; something that one does not know what to do with? I have got twenty things from China that are of no use in the world. Look at those jars; they are of the right pea-green: these are the furniture!" "Dear madam,” said I, "these, though they may appear fine in your eyes,

"Bless

66

[ocr errors]

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 suspect thee of being an actual barbarian. I suppose you hold my two beautiful pagods in contempt.

"" 66

[ocr errors]

"What!" cried I, "has Fohi spread his gross superstitions here also! Pagods of all kinds are my aversion."--" A Chinese, a traveller, and want taste! It surprises me. Pray, sir, examine the beauties of that Chinese temple which you see at the end of the garden. Is there anything in China more beautiful?"—" Where I stand, I see nothing, madam, at the end of the garden, that may not as well be 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 his pretensions to taste.' I now found it vain to contradict the lady in anything she thought fit to advance; so was resolved rather to act the disciple than the instructor. She took me through several rooms, all furnished, as she told me, in the Chinese manner; sprawling dragons, squatting pagods, and clumsy mandarines were stuck upon every shelf: in turning round, one must have used caution not to demolish a part of the precarious furniture.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In a house like this, thought I, one must live continually upon the watch; the inhabitant must resemble a knight in an enchanted castle, who expects to meet an adventure at every turning. 'But, madam," said I, "do not accidents ever happen to all this finery?”—“ Man, sir, replied the lady, “is born to misfortunes; and it is but fit I should have a share. Three weeks ago, a careless servant snapped off the head of a favourite mandarine: I had scarce done grieving for that,

[ocr errors]

:

when a monkey broke a beautiful jar; this I took the more to heart, as the injury was done me by a friend! However, I survived the calamity; when yesterday crash went half a dozen dragons upon the marble hearthstone and yet I live; I survive it all: you can't conceive what comfort I find under afflictions from philosophy. There is Seneca, and Bolingbroke, and some others, who guide me through life, and teach me to support its calamities." I could not but smile at a woman who makes her own misfortunes, and then 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. -Adieu.

LETTER XV.

To the same.

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 could hardly hurt the gnat that stung them; they seem so tender, and so full of pity, that one would take them for the harmless friends of the whole creation, the protectors of the meanest insect or reptile that was privileged with existence. And yet (would you believe it?) I have seen the very men who have thus boasted of their tenderness, at the same time devouring the flesh of six different animals tossed up in a fricassee. Strange contrariety of conduct! they pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion! The lion roars with terror over its captive; the tiger sends forth its hideous shriek to intimidate its prey; no creature shows any fondness for its short-lived prisoner, except a man and a cat.

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 monopolized them; he was born to govern the brute creation, but he is become their tyrant. If an epicure now shall happen to surfeit on his last night's feast, twenty animals the next day are to undergo the most exquisite tortures, in order to provoke his appetite to another

guilty meal. Hail, O ye simple, honest brahmins of the East! ye inoffensive friends of all that were born to happiness as well as you! You never sought a shortlived pleasure from the miseries of other creatures! You never studied the tormenting arts of ingenious refinement; you never surfeited upon a guilty meal! How much more purified and refined are all your sensations than ours! You distinguish every element with the utmost precision: a stream untasted before is a new luxury, a change of air is a new banquet, too refined for Western imaginations to conceive.

Though the Europeans do not hold the transmigration of souls, yet one of their doctors has, with great force of argument and great plausibility of reasoning, endeavoured to prove that the bodies of animals are the habitations of demons and wicked spirits, which are obliged to reside in these prisons till the resurrection pronounces their everlasting punishment; but are previously condemned to suffer all the pains and hardships inflicted upon them by man, or by each other, here. If this be the case, 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 same table where he was once the most welcome companion.

66

was

"Kabul," says the Zendavesta, 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 an hundred different animals, and his cooks had an hundred different ways of dressing it, to solicit even satiety. Notwithstanding all his eating, he did not arrive at old age; he died of a surfeit caused by intemperance: upon this his soul was carried off, in order to take its trial before a select assembly of the souls of those animals which his gluttony had caused to be slain, and who were now appointed his judges.

66

'He trembled before a tribunal, to every member of which he had formerly acted as an unmerciful tyrant: he sought for

pity, but found none disposed to grant it. 'Does he not remember,' cries the angry boar, to what agonies I was put, not to satisfy his hunger, but his vanity? I was first hunted to death, and my flesh scarce thought worthy of coming once to his table. Were my advice followed, he should do penance in the shape of an hog, which in life he most resembled.'

"I am rather,' cries a sheep upon the bench, 'for having him suffer under the appearance of a lamb; we may then send him through four or five transmigrations in the space of a month.'- Were my voice of any weight in the assembly,' cries a calf, 'he should rather assume such a form as mine; I was bled every day, in order to make my flesh white, and at last killed without mercy.'-'Would it not be wiser,' cries a hen, to cram him in the shape of a fowl, and then smother him in his own blood, as I was served?' The majority of the assembly were pleased with this punishment, and were going to condemn him without further delay, when the ox rose up to give his opinion,- 'I am informed,' says this counsellor, that the prisoner at the bar has left a wife with child behind him. By my knowledge in divination, I foresee that this child will be a son, decrepit, feeble, sickly, a plague to himself and all about him. What say you, then, my companions, if we condemn the father to animate the body of his own son; and by this means make him feel in himself those miseries his intemperance must otherwise have entailed upon his posterity?' The whole court applauded the ingenuity of his torture: they thanked him for his advice. Kabul was driven once more to revisit the earth; and his soul, in the body of his own son, passed a period of thirty years, loaded with misery, anxiety, and disease."

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

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.

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 lettered men give of the persons of some of the inhabitants on our globe: and, not satisfied with the most solemn asseverations, they sometimes pretend to have been eye-witnesses of what they describe.

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.

[ocr errors]

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 creates another nation of Cyclops, the Arimaspians, who inhabit those countries that border on the Caspian Sea. This author goes on to tell us of a 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 scarce 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 met with the Kunokephaloi, who inhabit those regions that border on Ethiopia: they live by hunting; they cannot 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, "these 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 anything more ridiculous?

66

Hitherto we have seen men with heads strangely deformed, and with dogs' heads; but what would you say if you heard of men without any heads at all? Pomponius Mela, Solinus, and Aulus Gellius describe them to our hand: "The Blemia have a nose, eyes, and mouth on their breast; or, as others will have it, placed on their shoulders."

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 more than an 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 those tails entailed upon them and their posterity for ever." It is certain that the author had some ground for this description. Many of the English wear tails to their wigs to this very day; as a mark, I suppose, of the antiquity of their families, and perhaps as a symbol of those tails with which they were formerly distinguished by nature.

You see, my friend, there is nothing so ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. The writers of books in Europe seem to think themselves authorized to say what they please; and an ingenious philosopher among them has openly asserted, that he would undertake to persuade the whole republic of readers to believe, that the sun was neither the cause of light nor heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.-Farewell.

LETTER XVII.

To the same.

WERE an Asiatic politician to read the treaties of peace and friendship that have been annually making for more than an hundred years among the inhabitants of Europe, he would probably be surprised how it should ever happen that Christian princes could quarrel among each other. Their compacts for peace are drawn up with the utmost precision, and ratified with the greatest solemnity: to these each party promises a sincere and inviolable obedience, and all wears the appearance of open friendship and unreserved reconciliation.

Yet, notwithstanding those treaties, the people of Europe are almost continually

« AnteriorContinuar »