<fore him. There was a time, indeed,

when his family deferved their title, but they are long fince degenerated, ⚫ and his ancestors for more than a century have been more folicitous to keep up the breed of their dogs and horfes, than that of their children. This very nobleman, fimple as he feems, is defcended from a race of • ftarefimen and heroes; but unluckily his great grandfather marrying a cookmaid, and the having a trifling paffion for his lord hip's groom, they fomehow cr. f the ftrain, and produced an heir, who took after is mother in his great love to good eating, and his father in a violent affection for borje fefb. Thefe paffions have for fome generations paffed on from father to fon, and are now become the ⚫ characteristics of the family, his prefent lordship being equally remarkable for his kitchen and his table.'

I

But fuch a nobleman,' cried I, del.rves our pity, thus placed in fo hig a phere of life, which only the more expofes to contempt. A king may confer titles, but it is perfonal merit alone that infires refpe&t. fuppofe,' ad ied I, that fuch men are defpifed by their equals, neglected by their inferiors, and con⚫demned to live among involuntary dependants in irksome folitude.'

You are still under a mistake,' replied my companion; for though this nobleman is a stranger to generolity; though he takes twenty opportunities in a day of letting his guests know how much he defpites them; though he is poffeffed neither of tatte, wit, nor wifdom; though incapable of improving others by his converfation, and never known to enrich any by his bou sty; yet for all this, his company is eagerly fought after: he is a lord, and that is as much as most people defire in a companion. Quality and title have fuch ailurements, that hundreds are read to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flatter, to lock little, and to pall every pleafure in confraint, merely to be among the great, though without the least hopes of improving their understanding, or fharing their generofity; they might be happy among their equals, but those

4

are defpifed for company, where they are delpiled in turn. You faw what a crowd of humble coufins, card-ruin・ed beaus, and captains on hal-pay, were wiling to make up this great 'man's retinue down to his countryfeat. Not one of all thefe that could 6 not lead a more comfortable life at home in their little loging of three fhillings a week, with their luke-warm • dinner, feived up between two pewter-plates from a cook's shop. Yet, poor devils, they are willing to undergo the impertinence and pride of their entertainer, merely to be thought to live among the great: they are willing to pass the fummer in bondage, though confcious they are taken down only to approve his lordfh p's tafte upon every occafion, to tag all his stupid obfervations with a very true, to praife his table, and defcant upon his claret and cookery.

I,

6

The pitiful humiliations of the gentlemen you are now defcribing,' faid puts me in mind of a custom among the Tartars of Koreki, not entirely diffimilar to this we are now confidering. The Ruffians, who trade with them, carry thither a kind of muthrooms, which they exchange for furs · or fquirrels, ermines, fables, and foxes. There mushrooms the rich Tartars lay up in large quantities for the winter; and when a nobleman makes a mufh" room featt, all the neighbours around ( are invited. The mushrooms are prepared by boiling, by which the water acquires an intoxicating quality, and is a fort of drink which the Tartars " prize beyond all other. When the < nobility and ladies are affembled, and

the ceremonies ufual between people of distinction over, the mushroom 'broth goes freely round.; they laugh, talk double entendre, grow fuddled, and become excellent company. The poorer fort, who love muthroom broth to distraction as well as the rich, but cannot afford it at the first hand, post themselves on thefe occafions round the huts of the rich, and watch the opportunity of the ladies and gentlemen as they come down to pafs their liquor, and holding a wooden bowl, catch the delicious fluid, very little altered by filtration, being ftill ftrongly tinc

⚫tured

tured with the intoxicating quality. Of this they drink with the utmost fatisfaction, and thus they get as drunk and as jovial as their betters.'

Happy nobility!' cries my companion, who can fear no diminution of refpect, unless by being feized with a ftrangury; and who when most drank are most useful: though we have not this culiom among us, I forefee, that if it were introduced, we might have many a toad-eater in England ready to drink from the wooden bowl on thefe occafions, and to praife the flavour of his lor fhip's iquor. As we have different claffes of gentry, who ⚫ knows but we may fee a lord holding

the bowl to a minifter, a knight hold ing it to his lordship, and a fimple

quire drinking it double diftilled from the loins of knighthood! For my part, I fhall never for the future hear a great man's flatterers haranguing in his praife, that I fhall not fancy I behold the wooden bowl; for I can fee no reason why a man, who can live eafily and happily at home, fhould bear the drudgery of decorum and the impertinence of his entertainer, unless 'intoxicated with a paffion for all that was quality; unless he thought that whatever came from the great was delicious, and had the tincture of the muthroom in it.' Adieu.

I

AM difgufted, O Fum Hoam, even to fickness difgutted. Is it poffible to bear the prefumption of thofe iflanders, when they pretend to inftruct me in the ceremonies of China! They lay it down as a maxim, that every perfon who comes from thence muft exprefs himfelf in metaphor; fwear by Alla, rail against wine, and behave, and talk, and write, like a Turk or Perfian. They make no distinction between our elegant manners, and the voluptuous barbarities of our eastern neighbours. Wherever I come, I raise either diffidence or aftonishment: fome fancy me no Chinefe, becaufe I am formed more like a man than a monfter; and others wonder to find one born five thousand miles from England er dued with common fenie. Strange, fay they, that a man, who has received his education at fuch a ⚫ ditance from Londen, fhould have ⚫ common fenfe! To be born out of England, and yet have common fente! impoffible! He must be fome Englishmin in d vite; his very vifage has nothing of the true exotic barbarity.' I vefterday received an invitation from a laty of diftinction, who it feems had collected all her knowledge of Eaftern manners from htions every day propagated here, under the titles of Etern Tales and Oriental Hitories: he received me very politely, but feemed to wonder that I neglected bringing opinn and a tobacco-box. When chairs were

drawn for the rest of the company, I was affigned my place on a cushion on the floor. It was in vain that I protefted the Chinese used chairs as in Europe; fhe underflood decorums too well to entertain me with the ordinary civilities.

I had fcarce been feated according to her directions, when the footman was ordered to pin a napkin under my chin: this I protetted against, as being no way Chinefe; however, the whole company, who it feems were a club of connoiffeurs, gave it unanimously against me, and the napkin was pinned accordingly.

It was impoffible to be angry with people, who feemed to err only from an excels of politeness, and I fat contented, expecting their importunities were now at an end; but as foon as ever dinner was ferved, the lady demanded whether I was for a plate of Bear's claws, or a flice of Birds-nefis? As thofe were dishes with which I was utterly unacquainted, I was defirous of eating only what I knew, and therefore begged to be helped from a piece of beef that lay on the fide-table. My request at once difconcerted the whole company. A Chineie cat beef! that could never be! there was no local propriety in Chinele bef, whatever there might be in Chinete pheafant. Sir,' fuid my entertainer, I think I have fome reafons to fancy myflf a judge of thele matters: in fort, the Chincie never eat beef; fo that I mult be permitted to recom

men

mend the Pilaw, there was never better dreffed at Pekin; the faffron and rice are well boiled, and the fpices in perfection.'

I had no fooner begun to eat what Iwas laid before me, than I found the whole company as much aftonished as before; it feems I made no use of my chop-fticks. A grave gentleman, whom I take to be an author, harangued very learnedly (as the company feemed to think) upon the ufe which was made of them in China: he entered into a long argument with himself about their first introduction, without once appealing to me, who might be fuppofed beft capable of filencing the enquiry. As the gentleman therefore took my filence for a mark of his own fuperior fagacity, he was refolved to pursue the triumph: he talked of our cities, mountains, and animals, as familiarly as if he had been born in Quamfi, but as erroneously as if a native of the moon; he attempted to prove that I had nothing of the true Chinese cut in my vifage; fhewed that my cheek bones fhould have been higher, and my forehead broader; in fhort, he almost reafoned me out of my country, and effectually perfuaded the raft of the company to be of his opinion.

I was going to expofe his mistakes, when it was infilted that I had nothing of the true Eastern manner in my delivery.

This gentleman's converfation,' fays one of the ladies, who was a great reader, is like our own, mere chit-chat and common fenfe; there is nothing like fenfe in the true Eaftern file, where nothing more is required but fublimi• ty. Oh for an hiftory of Aboulfaouris, the grand voyager; of Genii, Magicians, Rocks, Bags of Bullets, Giants, and Enchanters, where all is great, obfcure, magnificent, and un• intelligible!'—I have written many a fheet of Ealtern tale myself,' interrupts the author; and I defy the feverest critic to say but that I have stuck close to the true manner. I have compar⚫ed a lady's chin to the fnow upon the mountains of Bomek; a foldier's fword, to the clouds that obfcure the face of heaven, If riches are mentioned, I compare them to the flocks that · graze the verdant Teflis; if poverty, to the mifts that veil the brow of Mount Baku. I have used thee and thou upon all occafions; I • have described fallen ftars, and split

ting mountains, not forgetting the little Houries who make a pretty figure in every description. But you fhall hear how I generally begin.—“Eben"ben-bolo, who was the fon of Ban, "was born on the foggy fummits of "Benderabaffi. His beard was whiter "than the feathers which veil the breaft "of the Penguin; his eyes were like "the eyes of doves, when washed by the "dews of the morning; his hair, which "hung like the willow weeping over "the glaffy fream, was fo beautiful "that it seemed to reflect it's own "brightnefs; and his feet were as the "feet of a wild deer which fleeth to the "tops of the mountains." There,

there, is the true Eastern tafte for you! every advance made towards fenfe, is only a deviation from found. Eattern tales fhould always be fonorous, lofty, mufical, and unmeaning.'

I could not avoid fmiling, to hear a native of England attempt to inftru&t me in the true Eaftern idiom; and after he looked round fome time for applaufe, I prefumed to ask him whether he had ever travelled into the Eaft, to which he replied in the negative; I demanded whether he understood Chinese or Arabic, to which alfo he anfwered as before. Then how, Sir,' faid I, can you pretend to determine upon the Eaftern ftile, who are entirely unacquainted with the Eastern writings? Take, Sir, the word of one who is profeffedly a Chinese, and who is actually acquainted with the Arabian writers, that what is palmed upon you daily for an imitation of Eaftein writing, no ways refembles their manner, either in fentiment or diction. In the Eaft, fimiles are feldom ufed, and metaphors almoft wholly unknown; but in China particularly, the very reverse of what you allude to, takes place; a cool phlegmatic method of writing prevails there. The writers of that country, · ever more affiduous to inftru&t than to pleafe, addrefs rather the judgment than the fancy. Unlike many authors of Europe, who have no confideration of the reader's time, they generally leave more to be understood than they exprefs.

Befides, Sir, you must not expect 'from an inhabitant of China the fame ignorance, the fame unlettered fimplicity, that you find in a Turk, Perfian,

" or native of Peru. The Chinese are verfed

H

verfed in the fciences as well as you, and are mafters of feveral arts unknown to the people of Europe. Many of them are instructed not only in their own national learning, but are perfectly well acquainted with the languages and learning of the West. If my word, in fuch a cafe, is not to be taken, confult your own travellers · on this head, who affirm, that the fcholars of Pekin and Siam fuftain theological thefes in Latin-" The "college of Mafprend, which is but a "league from Siam," fays one of your < travellers *, came in a body to fa"lute our ambaffador. Nothing gave me more fincere pleafure than to be"hold a number of priests, venerable "both from age and modefty, followed "by a number of youths of all nations, "Chinefe, Japanefe, Tonquinefe, of "Cochin China, Pegu and Siam, all "willing to pay their refpects in the "most polite manner imaginable. A "Cochin Chinese made an excellent "Latin oration upon this occafion: he "was fucceeded, and even out-done, "by a student of Tonquin, who was as well skilled in the Wettern learn"ing as any scholar of Paris." Now, Sir, if youths, who never ftirred from home, are fo perfectly skilled in your laws and learning, furely more must be expected from one like me, who have travelled fo many thousand

miles, who have converfed familiarly for feveral years with the English factors eftablished at Canton, and the • miffionaries fent us from every part of 'Europe. The unaffected of every

country nearly refemble each other, and a page of our Confucius and of your Tillotson have fcarce any material difference. Paltry affectation, trained allufions, and difgufting finery, are eafily attained by thote who chufe to wear them; and they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance, or of ftupidity, whenever it would endeavour to please.'

I was proceeding in my difcourfe, when, looking round, I perceived the company no way attentive to what I attempted, with fo much earnestness, to enforce. One lady was whispering her that fat next, another was itudying the merits of a fan, a third began to yawn, and the author himself fell faft afleep: I thought it, therefore, high time to make a retreat: nor did the company feem to fhew any regret at my preparations for departure; even the lady who had invited me, with the moft mortifying in enfibility, faw me feize my hat, and rife from my cushion; nor was I invited to repeat my vifit, because it was found that I aimed at appearing rather a reasonable creature, than an outlandish idiot. Adieu.

TH

HE polite arts are in this country fubject to as many revolutions as it's laws or politics; not only the objects of fancy and drefs, but even of delicacy and tatte, are directed by the capricious influence of fashion. I am told there has been a time when poetry was univerfally encouraged by the great, when men of the fift rank not only patronized the poet, but produced the finett inodels for his imitation; it was then the English fent forth thefe glowing thapfodies, which we have fo often read over together with rapture; poems big with all the fublimity of Mentius, and fupport

ed by reafoning as ftrong as that of Zimpo.

The nobility are fond of wisdom, but they are alfo fond of having it without ftudy; to read poetry requir ed thought, and the English nobility were not fond of thinking, they foon therefore placed their affections upon mufic, becaule in this they migh: indulge an happy vacancy, and yet ftill have pretentions to delicacy and taste as before. They foon brought their numerous dependents into an approbation of their pleafures; who in turn led their thou fand imitators to feel or feign a fimili

tude

tude of paffion. Colonies of fingers were now imported from abroad at a vaft expence, and it was expected the Englifh would foon be able to fet examples to Europe: all thefe expectations, however, were foon diffipated; in fpite of the zeal which fired the great, the ignorant vulgar refused to be taught to fing; refused to undergo the ceremonics which were to initiate them in the finging fraternity. Thus the colony from abroad dwindled by degrees; for they were of themselves unfortunately incapable of propagating the breed.

Mufic having thus loft it's fplendour, Painting is now become the fole object of fashionable care; the title of Connoiffeur in that art is at prefent the fafeft paffport in every fashionable fociety; a well-timed fhrug, an admiring attitude, and one or two exotic tones of exclamation, are fufficient qualifications for men of low circumstances to curry favour; even fome of the young nobility are themfelves early inftructed in handling the pencil, while their happy parents, big with expectation, forefee the walls of. every apartment covered with the manufactures of their pofterity.

But many of the English are not content with giving all their time to this art at home; fome young men of diftinction are found to travel through Europe, with no other intent than that of underftanding and collecting pictures; studying feals, and defcribing ftatues: on they travel from this cabinet of curiofities to that gallery of pictures, wafte the prime of life in wonder, skilful in pictures, ignorant in men; yet impoffible to be reclaimed, becaufe their follies take fhelter under the names of Delicacy and Taste.

It is true, Painting fhould have due encouragement, as the painter can undoubtedly fit up our apartments in a much more elegant manner than the upholsterer; but I fhould think a man of fashion makes but an indifferent exchange, who lays out all that time in furnishing his houfe which he fhould have employed in the furniture of his head; a perfon who fhews no other fymptoms of taste than his cabinet or gallery, might as well boaft to me of the furniture of his kitchen.

I know no other motive but vanity that induces the great to teftify fuch an inordinate paffion for pictures; after the

piece is bought, and gazed at eight or ten days fucceffively, the purchafer's pleafure muft furely be over; all the fatisfaction he can then have, is to fhew it to others: he may be confidered as the guardian of a treasure of which he makes no manner of ufe; his gallery is furnished not for himfelf, but the connoiffeur, who is generally fome humble flatterer, ready to feign a rapture he does not feel; and as neceflary to the happinefs of a picture buyer, as gazers are to the magnificence of an Afiatic pro

ceffion.

I have inclofed a letter from a youth of diftinction, on his travels, to his father in England; in which he appears addicted to no vice, feems obedient to his governor, of a good natural difpofition, and fond of improvement; but at the fame time early taught to regard cabinets and galleries as the only proper fchools of improvement, and to confider a skill in pictures as the propereft knowledge for a man of quality."

MY LORD,

WE have been but two days at Ant

werp; wherefore I have fat down as foon as poffible to give you fome account of what we have feen fince our arrival, defirous of letting no opportunity pafs without writing to fo good a father. Immediately upon alighting from our Rotterdam machine, my governor, who is immoderately fond of paintings, and at the fame time an excellent judge, would let no time pafs till we paid our refpects to the church of the Virgin-Mother, which contains treasure beyond eftimation. We took an infinity of pains in knowing it's exact dimenfions, and differed half a foot in our calculation; fo I leave that to fome fucceeding information. I really believe my governor and I could have lived and died there. There is fcarce a pillar in the whole church that is not adorned by a Reubens, a Vander Meuylen, a Vandyke, or a Woverman. What attitudes, carnations, and draperies! I am almost induced to pity the English, who have none of thofe exquifite pieces among them. As we are willing to let flip no opportunity of doing bulinefs, we immediately after went to wait on Mr. Hogendorp, whom you have fo frequently commended for his judicious collection, His cameas are indeed beyond

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