adorned with Chinese manufactures: but these times were comparatively modern; and, even if we should admit, that the Eighùris, who are faid to have been governed for a period of two thousand years by an Idecùt, or sovereign of their own race, were in fome very early age a literary and polished nation, it would prove nothing in favour of the Huns, Turcs, Mongals, and other favages to the north of Pekin, who feem in all ages, before MUHAMMED, to have been equally ferocious and illiterate.

Without actual infpection of the manufcripts, that have been found near the Cafpian, it would be impoffible to give a correct opinion concerning them; but one of them, defcribed as written on blue filky paper in letters of gold and filver not unlike Hebrew, was probably a Tibetian compofition of the fame kind with that, which lay near the fource of the Irtih, and of which CASSIANO I believe, made the firft accurate version: another, if we may judge from the description of it, was probably modern Turkish; and none of them could have been of great antiquity.

IV. From ancient monuments, therefore, we have no proof, that the Tartars were themfelves well-inftructed, much lefs that they inftructed the world; nor have we any stronger reafon to conclude from their general man

ners and character, that they had made an early proficiency in arts and Sciences: even of poetry, the most universal and most natural of the fine arts, we find no genuine fpecimens afcribed to them, except fome horrible warfongs expreffed in Perfian by ALr of Yezd, and poffibly invented by him. After the conquest of Perfia by the Mongals, their princes, indeed, encouraged learning, and even made aftronomical obfervations at Samarkand; as the Turcs became polished by mixing with the Perfians and Arabs, though their very nature, as one of their own writers confeffes, had before been like an incurable distemper, and their minds clouded · with ignorance: thus alfo the Mancheu monarchs of China have been patrons of the learned and ingenious, and the Emperor TIEN-LONG is, if he be now living, a fine Chinese poet. In all these instances the Tartars have refembled the Romans, who, before they had fubdued Greece, were little better than tigers in war, and Fauns or Sylvans in fcience and art.

Before I left Europe, I had insisted in conversation, that the Tuzuc, tranflated by Major DAVY, was never written by TAIMU'R himself, at least not as CESAR wrote his commentaries, for one very plain reason, that no Tartarian king of his age could write at all; and, in fupport of my opinion, I had cited IBNU ARABSHA'H, who,

though juftly hoftile to the favage, by whom his native city, Damafcus, had been ruined, yet praises his talents and the real greatness of his mind, but adds: "He was wholly illiterate; he "neither read nor wrote any thing; and he "knew nothing of Arabick; though of Perfian, Turkifb, and the Mogul dialect, he knew as "much as was fufficient for his purpose, and no

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more: he used with pleasure to hear histories "read to him, and fo frequently heard the same "book, that he was able by memory to correct "an inaccurate reader." This paffage had no effect on the tranflator, whom great and learned men in India bad affured, it seems, that the work was authentick, by which he meaned compofed by the conqueror himself: but the great in this country might have been unlearned, or the learned might not have been great enough to answer any leading question in a manner that opposed the declared inclination of a British inquirer; and, in either cafe, fince no witnesses are named, fo general a reference to them will hardly be thought conclufive evidence. On my part, I will name a Mufelman, whom we all know, and who has enough both of greatness and of learning to decide the queftion both impartially and fatisfactorily: the Nawwab MOZAFFER JANG informed me of his own accord, that no man of sense in Hindustan believed the work to have

been composed by TAIMU'R, but that his favourite, furnamed HINDU SHAH, was known to have written that book and others afcribed to his patron, after many confidential discourses with the Emir, and, perhaps, nearly in the Prince's words as well as in his perfon; a story, which ALI' of Yezd, who attended the court of TAIMU'R, and has given us a flowery panegyrick instead of a history, renders highly probable, by confirming the latter part of the Arabian account, and by total filence as to the literary productions of his master. It is true, that a very ingenious but indigent native, whom DAVY fupported, has given me a written memorial on the subject, in which he mentions TAIMU'R as the author of two works in Turkish; but the credit of his information is overfet by a ftrange apocryphal story of a king of Yemen, who invaded, he says, the Emir's dominions, and in whofe library the manuscript was afterwards found, and tranflated by order of ALI SHIR, firft minifter of TAIMU'R's grandfon; and Major DAVY himself, before he departed from Bengal, told me, that he was greatly perplexed by finding in a very accurate and old copy of the Tuzuc, which he defigned to republish with confiderable additions, a particular account, written unquestionably by TAIMUR, of his own death. No evidence, therefore, has been adduced to shake my opinion,

that, the Moguls and Tartars, before their conqueft of India and Perfia, were wholly unlettered; although it may be poffible, that, even without art or science, they had, like the Huns, both warriours and lawgivers in their own country fome centuries before the birth of CHRIST.

If learning was ever anciently cultivated in the regions to the north of India, the feats of it, I have reason to suspect, must have been Eighùr, Cashghar, Khatà, Chin, Tancut, and other countries of Chinese Tartary, which lie between the thirtyfifth and forty-fifth degrees of northern latitude; but I fhall, in another difcourfe, produce my reafons for fuppofing, that those very countries were peopled by a race allied to the Hindus, or enlightened at least by their vicinity to India and China; yet in Tancut, which by fome is annexed to Tibet, and even among its old inhabitants, the Seres, we have no certain accounts of uncommon talents or great improvements: they were famed, indeed, for the faithful discharge of moral duties, for a pacifick difpofition, and for that longevity, which is often the reward of patient virtues and a calm temper; but they are faid to have been wholly indifferent, in former ages, to the elegant arts and even to commerce; though FADLU'LLAH had been informed, that, near the clofe of the thirteenth century, many