rogues, and the other half to be blockheads; the latter half may be divided into two claffes, the goodnatured blockhead and the fenfible; the one, through an eafinefs of temper, is always liable to be ill-ufed; the other, through an excefs of vanity, is frequently expofed to be wretched. Mutual confidence and real friendship are very pretty words, but feldom carry any meaning; no man will entertain an opinion of another, which is oppofite to his own intereft; and a nod from a great man, or a file from a ftrumpet, will fet a couple of blockheads by the ears, who a moment before would have ventured their lives for each other's reputation." Lord Peterborough dined with me yetlerday. I have a high idea of the goodness of this nobleman's heart, though it may be brought as a proof against my favourite fyftem; but he is of a turn fo exceffively romantic, that I cannot be equally prejudiced in favour of his understanding. I have no notion of a man's perpetually expofing himself to unneceffary dangers for the mere fake of being talked of; or, through a ridiculous thirft for military glory, venturing a life which fhould be preferved for the service of his prince, and the intereft of his country. My motive for faying this you know is neither founded upon pique, nor directed by ill-nature. My lord is a man for whom I have the most perfect regard, and my efteem alone is the reafon why I may be fo extremely fenfible of his errors. I saw Addison this morning Somehow or other, Pope, I can by no means think that man an excellent poet; his profe is very well-but there is a heavinefs about his verfification, which is totally inconfiftent with elegance and fpirit, and which, though it may in the thoughts of fome people carry much judgmeut, is in my opinion a proof of very little genius. I am far, you know, from being fond of eternal epithets in poetry, or endlefs endeavours at fublimity of expreflion; but I would have it exalted a little above profe in the moft humble fpecies, and carry an air of fome dignity and importance. Trivial as the remark may appear, it was very well for a boy of fourteen, who was reading Cato, and coming to that tag which is fo highly celebrated by fome of the author's friends; "So the pure limpid ftream when foul with ftains ;" the lad burst into a fit of laughing, and cried, Here is a bull! who ever thought that a ftream could be pure and limpid, yet at the fame time foul with stains? I could not help joining the laugh at the archness of the boy's obfervation, tho' the criticism might feem too low for judgments of more expe rience and maturity.-But why do I entertain a fellow of your abilities in this manner, who are fo greatly a fuperior mafter of the fubject.. I am fomehow fond of fcribling, and become trifling for the fake of fpinning out a letter.If poffible, I fhall take an airing down your way on Saturday, and pray let me have a little leg of lamb, with fome fpinnage and plain butter, to regale on. Where I dine in town they starve me with luxury; and I have fat at many a table where I had not a bit of any thing to eat, because I had too 03 much wuch of every thing. You and I can go down to the bottom of the garden, and manage a bottle or two of that excellent ale after dinner, and enjoy what you are goodnaturedly pleased to call, "The feast of reason, and the flow " of foul." Farewel, dear Pope, And believe me to be your own, A differtation on the language and characters of the Chinese. ge IN acountry fo extenfive as China, which is nearly equal to all Europe, it may well be fuppofed there are fpoken more languages than one*. But that which is moft nerally used throughout the empire, is what is called (but improperly) the Mandarine language, as if it were peculiar to the magiftrates and the court. The Chinese call it quâne, that is common, becaufe this is the language moft commonly spoken in China. In the northern provinces it is the mother tongue, the very peasants speak no other; and it is ufed by all the better kind of people every where elfe. Although corrupt dialects of this are current in fome of the provinces, and though a language radically different is ufed by the vulgar in others, yet the quane, or Mandarine language, is chiefly to be understood whenever mention is made of the Chinese tongue. This language is so very contracted as to contain but about 350 words †, all of one fyllable: but then each of these words is pronounced with fuch various modulations, and hath fo many different meanings, that it becomes more copious than one could imagine, and enables them to exprefs themfelves on the common occafions of life tolerably well. The Chinese never apply this, nor any of their oral languages, to the purposes of literature, for which they are all of them utterly unfit. This is wholly managed by their written characters without any intervention of words or founds at all. Their written characters are to the Chinese what words or founds are to other nations, immediate reprefentatives of ideas. For an alphabet of letters, expreffing the fimple founds into which all words may be refolved, has never been adopted by the Chinese nation. Whether this happy art of writing by an alphabet was the invention of unaffifted reafon, or the refuit of divine infruction, as fome learned men have not unreasonably conjectured; it feems too refined and artificial to have been the firft expedient of untutored man. If we reflect a moment, we shall be convinced, that men must have acquired a habit of reafoning, as well as a deep infight into the nature of fpeech, before they could think of refolving words into all the fimple founds of which they are compofed, and of inventing a particular mark for each distinct found. A favage would have no idea that the word STRONG, for inftance, which he pronounces at once, fhould confift of fix fimple founds, S.T.R.O.N.G: and that a particular mark is to be invented for each of these; from a combination of which the word is to be expreffed in writing. He would be more apt to fubftitute fome one fimple mark that should exprefs the whole word at once. And if the Hift. de l'Acad. Infcript. 4to. tom. 5. 1729. p. 303. Sinic. p. 5. (According to P. Du Halde, 330 words.) † Bayeri Gram. word word fignified any corporeal fubftance, what would be so natural as an imitation of its figure? Nay, it is probable the first attempts at writing would altogether confift of fuch figures. For, fo long as men lived in a state of wild nature, their abstract ideas would doubtlefs be very few; corporeal objects would naturally employ their whole attention; in certain rude imitations of which the whole of their literature would be apt to confift. The first and most obvious kind of writing, then, must be by way of picture, or hieroglyphic. And in feveral nations this will be found to have prevailed, in a greater or lefs degree of improvement, in proportion, as they have more or lefs emerged from their original ignorance and barbarity. love of uniformity, and, as literature improved, the more frequent occafion to exprefs abftracted ideas, would naturally cause an exclufion of the former. In this ftate is the prefent literature of China. Where although arbitrary characters have entirely fupplanted picture or hieroglyphic, they ftill exhibit fome veftiges of that more ancient way of writing, fufficient to convince us that the first attempts of the Chinese were of that kind. This plainly appears in the characters ufed to exprefs the fun and the moon these we are affured were at first thus naturally represented, O Ge the fun, and D Yue the moon, which, in conformity with their angular way of writing, are at prefent Ge and Yue +. The first inventors of writing in China, not having hit upon an alphabet of letters expreffive of their oral language; by degrees fupplied the want of it with these arbitrary characters: and their fucceffors, ignorant of any other kind of writing, beftowed their whole attention to cultivate and improve thefe, till at length they have formed them into a complete language, fufficient for all the purpofes of literature. Picture or hieroglyphic in its rudeft form may be feen in the wild attempts of fome of the favages of North America* : in a more improved state in the writings of the Mexicans; of which fome curious fpecimens are fill preferved in the Bodleyan library. These however seem to be little more than mere pictures: but, as no abstracted idea can be reprefented in picture, a fmall degree of mental improvement would foon convince This language being wholly admen of the infufficiency of thefe, dreffed to the eye, and having no and this would lead them, either affinity with their tongue, as fpok to intermix with their pictures ar- en; the latter hath ftill continued bitrary figns, or to give to them in its original, rude, uncultivated arbitrary meanings; and this ap- ftate; while the former hath re pears to be the cafe in the hiero. ceived all poffible improvements. glyphics of the Egyptians. Thofe The Chinese tongue is barren and figns, once admitted, would foon contracted, wholly confifting of a take the lead, and pictures would few undeclinable and uncompoundwholly give place to characters. ed monofyllablest the Chinese The conveniency of difpatch, the characters, on the contrary, are a* See baron La-Hontan's travels. Eng. Lond. 1703. vol.2.p 86. † P. Magalhaëns Hift. of Chin, Chap. 4. p. 69. P. Du Halde, tom. 2. p. 257. $ P.Du Halde tom. 2. p. 233. : 04 mazingly mazingly numerous and complicated nor does the Greek language itself exhibit words that are compounded with more fpirit and ingenuity, than are fome of thefe characters. Thefe are the repofitories and vehicles of all the eloquence, learning and knowledge of the Chinefe: which are fo interwoven with these characters, that to lay them now afide and to adopt an alphabet only expreffive of their oral language, would be at once to diveft themfelves of their learning, eloquence and knowledge, and to reduce themselves to their primitive ignorance. This may ferve as an anfwer to fuch writers as inconfiderately object to the Chinese, their chufing to retain their own arbitrary characters, rather than to adopt an elementary alphabet like other nations. Could they indeed, when they parted with their characters, receive a new language, copious as the Greek, or precife and accurate as fome of the modern ones, they would be gainers by the exchange. But the Chinefe oral language, in its prefent uncultivated fate, is (as was faid) unfit for literature, and hence all their proceffes, pleadings and judicial examinations, are wholly tranfact ed by petition and memorial: a method of proceeding beft fuited to the taciturnity of this phlegmatic people. I faid above, the Chinese would be gainers by fuch an exchange; for after all that can be urged in favour of their characters, to them is probably owing the flow progrefs the fciences have made in China, notwithstanding they have been cultivated fo many thousand years. The finest and most vi gorous part of human life is fpent by the Chinese in learning to read and write. And though in learning to read and write, they learn at the fame time all the arts and fciences, yet before they are mafters of the learning already known, the time is paft for making new difcoveries, and they have no longer leifure nor ability to aim at great improvements. After men are paffed a certain time of life the fpirit of enquiry is dulled and blunted; and they are rather tempted to go on in the beaten round their predecessors have used before them, than to venture_on untrodden paths of literature. The Chinese way of writing then, is in this refpect inferior to ours, that it does not fo foon fur nish them with the knowledge and learning already provided to their hands. It requires fo much more time and pains for them to climb to the top of the edifice, that when once they have arrived there, they have lefs time or ability to rife it higher. The literature of the Chine fe is, we fee, more likely to remain what it is, than to be improved by new acquifitions: and fo peculiarly circumftanced are these people, that it does not feem to be in their power to remedy the inconveni-. ence. What man, or body of men is equal to the task of newforming a language? And until the Chinese are provided with a new vehicle for their literature, how is it poffible for them to lay afide that in which it is conveyed at prefent? Such an alteration in the language must be made at once, for fo long as the Chinese cultivate their written characters, they have no inducement to im See Lord Anfon's Voyage by Walter, &c. prove or adorn their oral tongue; and they will fo long be tempted to neglect it. We fee then, the difficulties they lie under, fuppofing they were fenfible of the difadvantage to which they are fubjected in this refpect: but this is by no means the cafe, for their national pride prevents them from entertaining the leaft fufpicion that their own literature is not the moft perfect of the kind; and the ignorance and inferiority of fuch of their neighbours as ufe alphabets of letters, no way tends to give them favourable impreffions of their importance. The miffionaries have, it is true, convinced them that the fciences have arrived to greater perfection in Europe than in China: but they have by no means brought them to acknowledge that this was owing to the different nature of their writing: or, if they had, how could they help themfelves, unless with the European alphabets they could alfo adopt fome European language. The difadvantage the Chinese lie under in the manner we have already feen, is fo great, that we need not aggravate it by groundlefs fears that their literature will ever be loft it is confeffed the Egyptian hieroglyphics are become inexplicable, and it is acknowledged that the characters of the Chinese could never be decyphered, fhould the meaning of them once ceafe to be known; a miffortune to which alphabets of letters are not fo liable but the Chinese characters feem to run no danger of this kind: the know-ledge of them is not confined to a fmall body of men, and those carful to conceal their meaning from others, as was the cafe in Egypt. The Chinese characters lie open to all: all are invited by every prevailing inducement to study them: all poffible helps are contrived to facilitate and perpetuate the knowledge of them: thousands of volumes on all fubjects are written in them and dictionaries, vocabularies, and grammars without number have been made to explain them. Having fubfifted fo many thousand years under fo many domeftic revolutions and foreign conquefts: having furvived as well the neglects of barbarous invaders, as the profcriptions of domeftic tyrants, it is probable they will fubfift to the remoteft times. They and their government seem in all refpects co-eval: they both began, and will probably both expire together: but, if we may judge from the experience of four thoufand years, this will hardly happen before the end of time. It is not my intention here to enter into the minutie of the Chinefe literature: be it fufficient to obferve, that as the words of an oral language are reducible to a few fimple primitive founds, fo the Chinefe characters amidst all their various and infinite combinations are to be reduced to nine or ten fimple ftrokes† : And as all tongues confift of primitive words and derivative, fo thefe characters are fome radical and fimple, others derived and compounded. Again, The Mogul and Indian nations to the west, and the Tartars to the north of China ufe alphabets. + Bayer Gram. Sin, p. 103.-P. Du Halde and others reckon the primitive ftrokes to be fix. as |