It is with a heart full of sorrow, my dear Altangi, that I must inform you, that what the world calls happiness must now be yours no longer. Our great emperor's displeasure at your leaving China, contrary to the rules of our government and the immemorial custom of the empire, has produced the most terrible effects. Your wife, daughter, and the rest of your family, have been seized by his order, and appropriated to his use; all, except your son, are now the peculiar property of him who possesses all: him I have hidden from the officers employed for this purpose; and even at the hazard of my life I have concealed him. The youth seems obstinately bent on finding you out, wherever you are; he is determined to face every danger that opposes his pursuit. Though yet but fifteen, all his father's virtues and obstinacy sparkle in his eyes, and mark him as one destined to no mediocrity of fortune.

You see, my dearest friend, what mprudence has brought thee to: from oplence, a tender family, surrounding friends, and your master's esteem, it has reduced thee to want, persecution, and, still worse, to our mighty monarch's displeasure. Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue; nor is there on earth a more powerful advocate for vice than poverty. As I shall endeavour to guard thee from the one, so guard thyself from the other; and still think of me with affection and esteem.-Farewell.

LETTER VII.

From Lien Chi Altangi to Fum Hoam, First President of the Ceremonial Academy in China. [The Editor thinks proper to acquaint the reader, that the greatest part of the following Letter seems to him to be little more than a rhapsody of sentences borrowed from Confucius, the Chinese philosopher.]

A WIFE, a daughter, carried into captivity to expiate my offence-a son, scarce yet arrived at maturity, resolving to encounter every danger in the pious pursuit of one who has undone him,-these indeed are circumstances of distress: though my tears were more precious than the gem of Golconda, yet would they fall upon such an occasion.

But I submit to the stroke of Heaven: I hold the volume of Confucius in my hand,

and, as I read, grow humble, and patien and wise. We should feel sorrow, Sy he, but not sink under its oppression. T heart of a wise man should resemble mirror, which reflects every object withe being sullied by any. The wheel of fortu turns incessantly round; and who can s within himself, I shall to-day be upp most? We should hold the immutat mean that lies between insensibility a anguish; our attempts should not be extinguish nature, but to repress it ; not stand unmoved at distress, but endeavo to turn every disaster to our own advanta Our greatest glory is, not in never fallin but in rising every time we fall.

I fancy myself at present, O thou revere disciple of Tao, more than a match for that can happen. The chief business my life has been to procure wisdom, a the chief object of that wisdom was to happy. My attendance on your lectur my conferences with the missionaries Europe, and all my subsequent adventu upon quitting China, were calculated increase the sphere of my happiness, my curiosity. Let European travell cross seas and deserts merely to meas the height of a mountain, to describe cataract of a river, or tell the commodit which every country may produce: m chants or geographers, perhaps, may t profit by such discoveries; but what vantage can accrue to a philosopher fr such accounts, who is desirous of und standing the human heart, who se to know the men of every country, y desires to discover those differences wh result from climate, religion, educati prejudice, and partiality.

I should think my time very ill bestow were the only fruits of my adventures consist in being able to tell, that a tra man of London lives in a house three ti as high as that of our great Emperor; the ladies wear longer clothes than men; that the priests are dressed in col which we are taught to detest; and their soldiers wear scarlet, which is us the symbol of peace and innoce How many travellers are there who fine their relations to such minute useless particulars! For one who e into the genius of those nations with w

has conversed,-who discloses their urals, their opinions, the ideas which ey entertain of religious worship, the ingrues of their ministers, and their skill sciences,-there are twenty who only ention some idle particulars, which can of no real use to a true philosopher. 11 their remarks tend neither to make ceives nor others more happy; they › way contribute to control their passions, hear adversity, to inspire true virtue, or ise a detestation of vice.

Men may be very learned, and yet very wrable; it is easy to be a deep geomeira, or a sublime astronomer, but very at to be a good man. I esteem, ore, the traveller who instructs the at but despise him who only indulges gnation. A man who leaves home himself and others, is a philoso; ba: he who goes from country to try, guided by the blind impulse of arity, is only a vagabond. From Zerdown to him of Tyana, I honour Te great names who endeavoured to he world by their travels: such men rer wiser as well as better the farther departed from home, and seemed kerivers, whose streams are not only inel, but refined, as they travel from

deviations which they make from us, from whom all other nations derive their politeness, as well as their original.

In spite of taste, in spite of prejudice, I now begin to think their women tolerable. I can now look on a languishing blue eye without disgust, and pardon a set of teeth, even though whiter than ivory. I now begin to fancy there is no universal standard for beauty. The truth is, the manners of the ladies in this city are so very open, and so vastly engaging, that I am inclined to pass over the more glaring defects of their persons, since compensated by the more solid yet latent beauties of the mind. What though they want black teeth, or are deprived of the allurements of feet no bigger than their thumbs, yet still they have souls, my friend; such souls-so free, so pressing, so hospitable, and so engaging! I have received more invitations in the streets of London from the sex in one night, than I have met with at Pekin in twelve revolutions of the moon.

Every evening, as I return home from my usual solitary excursions, I am met by several of these well-disposed daughters of hospitality, at different times, and in different streets, richly dressed, and with minds not less noble than their appearance. You know that nature has indulged me with a person by no means agreeable; yet are they too generous to object to my homely appearance; they feel no repugnance at my broad face and flat nose; they perceive me to be a stranger, and that alone is a sufficient recommendation. They even seem to think it their duty to do the honours of the country by every act of complaisance in their power. One takes me under the arm, and in a manner forces me along; another catches me round the neck, and desires to partake in this office of hospitality; while a third, kinder still, invites me to refresh my spirits with wine. Wine is, in England, reserved only for the rich; yet here even wine is given away to the stranger.

A few nights ago, one of these generous creatures, dressed all in white, and flaunting like a meteor by my side, forcibly attended me home to my own apartment. She seemed charmed with the elegance of the furniture, and the convenience of my

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situation; and well indeed she might, for I have hired an apartment for not less than two shillings of their money every week. But her civility did not rest here; for, at parting, being desirous to know the hour, and perceiving my watch out of order, she kindly took it to be repaired by a relation of her own, which, you may imagine, will save some expense; and she assures me that it will cost her nothing. I shall have it back in a few days, when mended, and am preparing a proper speech, expressive of my gratitude on the occasion: "Celestial excellence!" I intend to say, "happy I am in having found out, after many painful adventures, a land of innocence, and a people of humanity: I may rove into other climes, and converse with nations yet unknown; but where shall I meet a soul of such purity as that which resides in thy breast! Sure thou hast been nurtured by the bill of the Shin Shin, or sucked the breasts of the provident Gin Hiung. The melody of thy voice could rob the Chong Fou of her whelps, or inveigle the Boh that lives in the midst of the waters. Thy 'servant shall ever retain a sense of thy favours; and one day boast of thy virtue, sincerity, and truth, among the daughters of China."-Adieu.

LETTER IX.

To the same.

I HAVE been deceived! She whom I fancied a daughter of paradise, has proved to be one of the infamous disciples of Han! I have lost a trifle; I have gained the consolation of having discovered a deceiver. I once more, therefore, relax into my former indifference with regard to the English ladies; they once more begin to appear disagreeable in my eyes. Thus is my whole time passed in forming conclusions which the next minute's experience may probably destroy; the present moment becomes a comment on the past, and I improve rather in humility than wisdom.

Their laws and religion forbid the English to keep more than one woman; I therefore concluded, that prostitutes were banished from society. I was deceived; every man here keeps as many wives as he can maintain the laws are cemented with blood, praised and disregarded. The very

Chinese, whose religion allows him wives, takes not half the liberties of English in this particular. Their laws be compared to the books of the Sybil they are held in great veneration, but dom read, or seldomer understood; those who pretend to be their guardi dispute about the meaning of man them, and confess their ignorance of oth The law, therefore, which commands t to have but one wife, is strictly obse only by those for whom one is more sufficient, or by such as have not m to buy two. Ás for the rest, they vi it publicly, and some glory in its violat They seem to think, like the Persians, they give evident marks of manhood increasing their seraglio. A mandar therefore, here generally keeps four wi a gentleman three, and a stage-player t As for the magistrates, the country just and squires, they are employed first in bauching young virgins, and then pun ing the transgression.

From such a picture you will be ap conclude, that he who employs four la for his amusement has four times as m constitution to spare as he who is tented with one; that a mandarine is m cleverer than a gentleman, and a gentle than a player; and yet it is quite the verse: a mandarine is frequently suppo on spindle shanks, appears emaciated luxury, and is obliged to have recours variety, merely from the weakness, not vigour, of his constitution, the numbe his wives being the most equivocal sy tom of his virility.

Besides the country squire, there is another set of men whose whole emp ment consists in corrupting beauty: the silly part of the fair sex call amial the more sensible part of them, howe give them the title of abominable. will probably demand, what are the tal of a man thus caressed by the majorit the opposite sex? what talents or beauty is he possessed of, superior to rest of his fellows? To answer you dire he has neither talents nor beauty; but he is possessed of impudence and assid With assiduity and impudence, mea ages, and all figures, may commence mirers. I have even been told of

o made professions of expiring for love, en all the world could perceive they re going to die of old age: and, what more surprising still, such battered ax are generally most infamously sucsful

A fellow of this kind employs three ars every morning in dressing his head, which is understood only his hair. He is a professed admirer, not of any rticular lady, but of the whole sex. He is to suppose every lady has caught Id every night, which gives him an portunity of calling to see how she does e text morning.

He is, upon all occasions, to show himIf in very great pain for the ladies: if a dy drops even a pin, he is to fly in order present it.

He never speaks to a lady without adng his mouth to her ear, by which he erly addresses more senses than one. La proper occasions, he looks excesve teader. This is performed by laying $ and upon his heart, shutting his eyes, ading his teeth.

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Hs excessively fond of dancing it with the ladies, by which is only eat walking round the floor eight or ten with his hat on, affecting great ty, and sometimes looking tenderly 115 partner.

Be never affronts any man himself, and resents an affront from another. He has an infinite variety of small talk all occasions, and laughs when he athing more to say.

ch is the killing creature who pross himself to the sex till he has undone ; all whose submissions are the effects gn, and who, to please the ladies, But becomes himself a lady.

LETTER X.

To the same.

ZAVE hitherto given you no account try journey from China to Europe-of vels through countries where nature tin primeval rudeness, where she forth her wonders in solitude-counI from whence the rigorous climate, weeping inundation, the drifted desert, bowling forest, and mountains of imarable height, banish the husbandman

and spread extensive desolation-countries where the brown Tartar wanders for a precarious subsistence, with an heart that never felt pity, himself more hideous than the wilderness he makes.

You will easily conceive the fatigue of crossing vast tracts of land, either desolate, or still more dangerous by its inhabitants, the retreat of men who seem driven from society, in order to make war upon all the human race; nominally professing a subjection to Muscovy or China, but without any resemblance to the countries on which they depend.

After I had crossed the Great Wall, the first objects that presented themselves were the remains of desolated cities, and all the magnificence of venerable ruin. There were to be seen temples of beautiful structure, statues wrought by the hand of a master, and around, a country of luxuriant plenty; but not one single inhabitant to reap the bounties of nature. These were prospects that might humble the pride of kings, and repress human vanity. I asked my guide the cause of such desolation. These countries, says he, were once the dominions of a Tartar prince; and these ruins, the seat of arts, elegance, and ease. This prince waged an unsuccessful war with one of the emperors of China; he was conquered, his cities plundered, and all his subjects carried into captivity. Such are the effects of the ambition of kings! Ten dervises, says the Indian proverb, shall sleep in peace upon a single carpet, while two kings shall quarrel, though they have kingdoms to divide them. Sure, my friend, the cruelty and the pride of man have made more deserts than Nature ever made: she is kind, but man is ungrateful!

Proceeding in my journey through this pensive scene of desolated beauty, in a few days I arrived among the Daures, a nation still dependent on China. Xaizigar is their principal city, which, compared with those of Europe, scarcely deserves the name. The governors, and other officers, who are sent yearly from Pekin, abuse their authority, and often take the wives and daughters of the inhabitants to themselves. The Daures, accustomed to base submission, feel no resentment at these injuries, or stifle what they feel. Custom and