first established themselves; but he added, that Maháchina, which was alfo mentioned in his book, extended to the eaftern and fouthern oceans. I believe, nevertheless, that the Chinese empire, as we now call it, was not formed when the laws of MENU were collected; and for this belief, fo repugnant to the general opinion, I am bound to offer my reafons. If the outline of history and chronology for the last two thoufand years be correctly traced, (and we must be hardy scepticks to doubt it) the poems of Ca'LIDA's were compofed before the beginning of our era: now it is clear, from internal and external evidence, that the Rámáyan and Mahábbárat were confiderably older than the produc tions of that poet; and it appears from the style and metre of the Dherma Sáftra revealed by MENU, that it was reduced to writing long before the age of VA'LMIC or VYA'SA, the fecond of whom names it with applaufe: we fhall not, therefore, be thought extravagant, if we place the compiler of thofe laws between a thoufand and fifteen hundred years before CHRIST; efpecially as BUDDHA, whofe age is pretty well afcertained, is not mentioned in them; but, in the twelfth century before our era, the Chinese empire was at least in its cradle. This fact it is neceffary to prove ; and my firft witness is CONFUCIUS himself. I know to what keen fatire I

fhall expofe myself by citing that philofopher, after the bitter farcafms of M. PAUW against him and against the tranflators of his mutilated, but valuable, works: yet I quote without fcruple the book entitled Lún Yu, of which I poffefs the original with a verbal translation, and which I know to be fufficiently authentick for my present purpose: in the second part of it CON-FU-TSU declares, that " Although he, like other men, "could relate, as mere leffons of morality, the "hiftories of the first and second imperial houses,

yet, for want of evidence, he could give no "certain account of them." Now, if the Chinese themselves do not even pretend, that any historical monuments exifted, in the age of CONFUCIUS, preceding the rise of their third dynasty about eleven hundred years before the Chriftian epoch, we may juftly conclude, that the reign of Vu'VAM was in the infancy of their empire, which hardly grew to maturity till some ages after that prince; and it has been afferted by very learned Europeans, that even of the third dynasty, which he has the fame of having raised, no unfufpected memorial can now be produced. It was not till the eighth century before the birth of our Saviour, that a small kingdom was erected in the province of Shen-si, the capital of which ftood nearly in the thirty-fifth degree of northern latitude, and about five degrees to the weft of

Si-gan: both the country and its metropolis were called Chin; and the dominion of its princes was gradually extended to the east and weft. A king of Chin, who makes a figure in the Shabnámab among the allies of AFRA'SIYA'B, was, I prefume, a fovereign of the country juft mentioned; and the river of Chin, which the poet frequently names as the limit of his eastern geography, feems to have been the Yellow River, which the Chinese introduce at the beginning of their fabulous annals: I fhould be tempted to expatiate on fo curious a fubject; but the prefent occafion allows nothing fuperfluous, and permits me only to add, that Mangukbán died, in the middle of the thirteenth century, before the city of Chin, which was afterwards taken by KUBLAI, and that the poets of Iran perpetually allude to the districts around it which they celebrate, with Chegil and Khoten, for a number of mufk-animals roving on their hills. The territory of Chin, fo called by the old Hindus, by the Perfians, and by the Chinese (while the Greeks and Arabs were obliged by their defective articulation to miscal it Sin) gave its name to a race of emperors, whofe tyranny made their memory fo unpopular, that the modern inhabitants of China hold the word in abhorrence, and speak of themselves as the people of a milder and more virtuous dynasty; but it is highly

probable that the whole nation defcended from the Chinas of MENU, and, mixing with the Tartars, by whom the plains of Honan and the more fouthern provinces were thinly inhabited, formed by degrees the race of men, whom we now see in poffeffion of the noblest empire in Afia.

In support of an opinion, which I offer as the refult of long and anxious inquiries, I should regularly proceed to examine the language and letters, religion and philofophy, of the present Chinese, and subjoin some remarks on their ancient monuments, on their fciences, and on their arts both liberal and mechanical: but their spoken language, not having been preserved by the usual fymbols of articulate founds, must have been for many ages in a continual flux; their letters, if we may fo call them, are merely the symbols of ideas; their popular religion was imported from India in an age comparatively modern; and their philofophy feems yet in fo rude a state, as hardly to deserve the appellation; they have no ancient monuments, from which their origin can be traced even by plaufible conjecture; their sciences are wholly exotick; and their mechanical arts have nothing in them characteristick of a particular family; nothing, which any fet of men, in a country fo highly favoured by nature, might not have discovered and improved. They have in

deed, both national musick and national poetry, and both of them beautifully pathetick; but of painting, sculpture, or architecture, as arts of imagination, they seem (like other Afiaticks) to have no idea. Inftead, therefore, of enlarging separately on each of those heads, I shall briefly inquire, how far the literature and religious practices of China confirm or oppose the propofition, which I have advanced.

The declared and fixed opinion of M. DE GUIGNES, on the fubject before us, is nearly connected with that of the Bráhmens: he maintains, that the Chinese were emigrants from Egypt; and the Egyptians, or Ethiopians, (for they were clearly the fame people) had indubitably a common origin with the old natives of India, as the affinity of their languages, and of their inftitutions, both religious and political, fully evinces; but that China was peopled a few centuries before our era by a colony from the banks of the Nile, though neither Perfians nor Arabs, Tartars nor Hindus, ever heard of such an emigration, is a paradox, which the bare au❤ thority even of fo learned a man cannot fupport; and, fince reafon grounded on facts can alone decide fuch a question, we have a right to demand clearer evidence and ftronger arguments, than any that he has adduced. The hierogly phicks of Egypt bear, indeed, a strong resem