mised to escort both the architect and the

young sculptor. The trio of artists arrived at Eartham on the 13th of April, and, after a day of repose, proceeded to the seacoast, where they all took a lively interest in laying the foundations of a very small, marine villa, in the Hamlet of Felpham. Its proprietor vainly hoped that it might conduce, for many years, to the health and social enjoyments of the party, whose kind hearts gave utterance to the most fervent good wishes on its commencement. How merciful to man is that dispensation of Heaven, which allows him not to see far into futurity.

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"Our architectural ceremony was cheerful scene of social delight, from the hope that all who shared in it, and particularly the two youngest might recollect and revisit the spot with pleasure, through a length of time to come; but what anguish of heart must have seized the joyous group engaged in founding this favourite little structure, had any prescience informed them that all the three artists, taking so kind an interest in the fabrick, would be sunk in the grave within the brief period of six years from its foundation? I am now sitting alone in the dwelling which their kindness has endeared, and which their ingenuity has adorned; and I feel a tender gratification in employing the uncertain remnant of my days on such literary works as may faithfully commemorate the talents and the virtues of those who still speak to me in their works, and here daily remind me both of their genius and their affection."

Some engravings after several pictures of the great artist here described are properly introduced into this record of his life and genius. They are twelve in number, and must not be omitted in our notice; though, in order to convey a cor, rect idea of them to our readers, some first-rate painter should pronounce critically on their merits, and the most skilful engraver must be employed to make the necessary extracts. Among them, we have three likenesses of Romney, taken another copied from a medallion at different ages by himself, and moulded by the young sculptor already mentioned; together with three portraits of lady Hamilton, in the characters of Sensibility, Miranda, and Cassandra, charmingly engraved by Caroline Watson. We much regret that Mr. Hayley has not followed the example set by the biographer of sir Joshua Reynolds, in presenting at one view a ĉatalogue of all Komney's pictures, with a short history of them, and a direction to the several places where they may be viewed at present.

AFTER an embargo of some years continuance, on the literary productions of France, a considerable importation has recently been permitted, or, more properly speaking, perhaps, smuggled, through the ports of Holland, into this interdicted country: and if we may be allowed to form our judgment from the article now before us, as well as from some splendid publications of voyages to, and discoveries of, countries long şince discovered and described, we VOL. II.

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shall run little risk in pronouncing the art of book-making to be quite as well understood in Paris as in London. We hail with pleasure, however, any article, in the shape of literature, which is brought to us from the east; whether of the pure and genuine production of that quarter of the globe, or whether, in its passage through the continent of Europe, it may have suffered some little adulteration in the workshops of the west. Much as we should, of

course, prefer the former, we are not yet become so fastidious as entirely to overlook the latter; among which description, we fear, we must be under the necessity of classing the work of M. de Guignes.

The great empire of China, notwithstanding its numerous and powerful claims to the attention of mankind, in consequence, perhaps, of its peculiarity of situation, and internal polity, remained for ages in almost total obscurity and exclusion from the rest of the civilized world, its existence being scarcely hinted at by ancient writers, and the real character and condition of its multitudinous subjects represented, by the moderns, in terms so incongruous and opposite, as sometimes to excite a doubt on our minds whether they speak of the same people. Long after its first discovery, the predominant opinion ran in favour of all its institutions; and this may easily be accounted for, by taking into consideration the unfavourable circumstances under which the western hemisphere was labouring about that period. The strong impressions which must necessarily have been made on the mind of that man, who, after traversing a dreary succession of wastes, over whose wide extended surface were thinly scattered a few tawny coloured, half naked, and half famished inhabitants, was thrown at once upon a fertile and cultivated region, peopled by a race of men not materially differing from Europeans, many of them comfortably, and some superbly, clothed in vests of costly materials and curious workmanship, and where the multitudes on every side were so vast, that, in speaking of them, he could not bring himself to employ a term expressive of less than millions; the impressions, we say that such an adventure was likely to stamp on the mind of the traveller, would naturally dispose him to relate to his countrymen "a tale of wonder," and we cannot, therefore, be surprised, if, under such cir

cumstances, we occasionally meet with exaggerations in that account of China which is usually attributed to Marco Polo. Those religious men also, who, impelled by a laudable zeal for disseminating the truths of Christianity among the nations of the east, after traversing many a wild waste and sandy desert, entered this flourishing empire at a time when neither the comforts nor the conveniences, much less the elegancies, of life were generally diffused over Europe, and who, at their departure, had seen but little of the world beyond the boundary of their respective convents; such men also might well be excused for any little aberration from the strict line of truth, in their reports respecting a country and people so very different from all to which they had been accustomed. The flattering reception they met with at the court of this extraordinary nation, and the pleasing prospect which presented itself of a plentiful harvest in the field of the gospel, could not fail, in some measure, to influence their minds, and to give their narratives a bias in favour of such a people.

The relations published of the several missions were sought after with great avidity by the learned of Europe; those, in particular, which concerned China, were peculiarly interesting to the philosophers of the age, as describing a people endowed with every moral and social virtue, and enjoying the advantage of civil institutions, whose sole end was that of promoting the general happiness of mankind. The learned Isaac Vossius became such an enthusiast in favour of the Chinese, that he asserted there was nothing valuable on earth that was not to be met with in China, and he lamented exceedingly that he himself had not been born a Chinese! The French academicians extolled to the skies the profound knowledge of this wonderful people in civil polity, in morality, in literature, and all the use

ful arts and sciences; and the laborious encyclopedists considered them as not only superiour, to the rest of Asiatick nations, but at least equal to the most enlightened of Europeans. Nay, the incredulous philosopher of Ferney condescended, in this instance, to swim with the stream, and to prostitute his talents in the propagation of what, in his heart, he could not possibly believe to be true. During this phrensy of the French to establish the superiour excellence of the Chinese, there was some little danger that the Chee-king would have driven the Iliad out of the field, and the Lee-kee have supplanted the sublime morality of the New Testament, whose doctrines it was declared to have anticipated! In short Laotsé was the prince of poets, and Congfoo-tse the first of philosophers.

With few exceptions, this extravagant character maintained its ground for some time in the literary world. The abbé Renaudot, however, in a dissertation on the state of learning among the Chinese, annexed to his "relation of two Mahomedan travellers who visited China in the 9th century," took a very different, and, as has since appeared, a more correct view of the national character. Most of the navigators also, who subsequently called for refreshments, and those who, for purposes of commerce, visited the port of Canton, whether English, French, Dutch, Danes, or Swedes, concurred very generally in representing the Chinese as a people deficient in real science, and totally devoid of every moral principle. But the evidence of such visiters, however, could not in fairness be considered as conclusive; and many doubts yet remained, when the question was taken up by M. Pauw, who, in a work of extraordinary merit, published under the title of Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, discussed, in a very ingenious and satisfactory manner, the pretensions of the Chinese to the supereminent quali

ties which had so generally been ascribed to them. This inquiry seems to have arisen from some learned strictures published in the Memoirs de l'Academie des Inscriptions, most of them by M. de Guignes (the father of the gentleman whose work is now under consideration) the object of which was to prove that the Chinese were originally a colony from Egypt. M. Pauw not only exposed the fallacy of such a conclusion, but incontrovertibly showed that not one single point of resemblance ever existed between the two nations. A performance of so much ability, in which not merely the judgment but the veracity of the missionaries was impeached, could not be silently passed over by the advocates of the Chinese. The abbé Grozier, in his preface to the Histoire Generale de la Chine, accuses the author of wilful misrepresentation, falsehood, and'calumny, and is highly indignant at the effrontery of a German philosopher, who, from his easy chair at Berlin, presumed to pronounce judgment on a distant people whom he never saw. This argument, however, would equally apply to the abbé Grozier's Description generale de la Chine, which is a mere compilation from the accounts furnished by the missionaries, the abbé having no more local information than M. Pauw. The former, who was furnished with abundance of materials, seems deficient in the faculty of discrimination, whilst the latter, with great ingenuity, has sifted the grain from the chaff.

The works regarding China, having been mostly published on the continent, excited but little interest in England. Our connexion with that country was confined to one spot, and our concern limited to one object. We cared little about China so long as it supplied us with Bohea and Souchong. At length, however, an event occurred which drew the attention of the English towards that country. This was the embassy of the

earl of Macartney to the court of Pekin. The national curiosity now became so impatient to be gratified with some account of China and its inhabitants, that a publication, patched up in London from the meagre journal kept by a menial servant of the embassadour, and plentifully interlarded with extracts from Du Halde and Grozier, went through several editions, before the "authentick account" from the secretary of the embassy could make its appearance. Sice that event, our knowledge of China, though still very imperfect, has considerably increased.

The supposed failure of the English, said to be owing to their obstinacy in not submitting to the Chinese ceremony of salutation, was a spur to Mr. Van Braam, the chief of the Dutch factory, to try what might be done by an unconditional submission to all that Chinese etiquette should require. He therefore solicited permission from the council of Batavia to proceed to Pekin; the council, though they approved the proposal, did not consider him as a proper person for the situation of ambassadour, but sent Mr. Titsingh, one of their own members, appointing Mr. Van Braam as his deputy. M. de Guignes, having little employ, as Resident de France à la Chine, offered his services to Mr. Titsingh, who took him under his protection, in the capacity of secretary and assistant interpreter. Of this embassy we have two narratives; the one by Mr. Van Braam, in two very bulky and very stupid quarto volumes, and the work which is now before us, from the pen of M. de Guignes. The account given by Van Braam, though as clumsy a production as ever issued from the literary workshop of a Dutchman, contains some valuable facts; and we are not sorry, on the whole, that his ideas and observations have been laid before the publick, as it is only by a comparison of the descriptions and sentiments of

different writers, that we can hope to obtain any thing like a correct view of nations that are otherwise inaccessible to us. From M. de Guignes, however, we were naturally led to expect a great deal more than from Mr. Van Braam. He had resided among the Chinese for many years; he had studied their language; he was educated, we may say, in the very focus of literature; he travelled under the protection of an ambassadour, to whom he acted occasionally as interpreter; he traversed the whole extent of the empire from north to south, proceeding by land to the capital, and returning by water to Canton; and to sum up all, he has taken twelve years to compose his book. Let us see then how far, under all these advantages, he has realized our expectations.

His book is arranged under three general divisions.

1. Tableau de l'Histoire ancienne de la Chine.

2. Voyage à Peking; and, Retour de Peking.

3. Observations sur les Chinois. The matter contained under the first of these, is little more, in fact, than a precis or abstract from the ponderous work of that indefatigable missionary le pére Mayrac de Mailla, published in twelve quarto volumes by the abbé Grozier, under the title of Histoire generale de la Chine, with occasional extracts from the translation of the Choo-king; yet this transcript occupies no less than two hundred and fifty pages of the first volume. We could have wished that M. de Guignes had been candid enough at least to acknowledge the sources from which he derived the information contained in this superfluous part of his work. In a book of travels announced to the world under this title, we are not prepared to look for a history of the change of dynasties, the succession of the imperial family, and the miraculous circumstances which foretold or accompanied those important

events. We do not mean to depre. ciate the history of China. We consider it, on the contrary, as a curious and valuable record of the transactions of times antecedent to the period from which the earliest European history is dated. We object not to the many miraculous events, and the several instances of the interposition of a supernatural power, which occur in all ancient history. We object only to a mutilated abstract being placed at the head of a work avowedly announced as a book of travels. The Table des Empereurs, exhibiting their names in the characters of the Chinese language, and the Itineraire, which precede this this historical abstract, might quite as well have been omitted, being of little use, except to increase the size of the volume.

The second division of the work occupies the remaining part of the first and one hundred and forty six pages of the second volume. It is a journal of the progress of the embassy to and from the capital, with a detailed account of its proceedings there, and of the feasts and entertainments given on the occasion, at the court of Pekin, and in the gardens of Yuen-min-yuen. Although we cannot compliment M. de Guignes on the clearness and accuracy of his descriptions, or on the depth of his observations and reflections, we are yet inclined to believe that his statement of facts is strictly correct. We believe also that the objects which he has endeavoured to describe are such only as came under his own observation. This part of the work, therefore, we consider as original, interesting, and valuable. It presents to us almost daily notices of the general nature of the surface, the soil, and the productions of the country; it gives us the appearance of the habitations, and the dress of the people; it describes the various modes of travelling; it abounds with complaints of the rogueish tricks of the mandarins; of

the insolence of the common people; of the wretchedness of the Kongquan, or houses of accommodation the scarcity and bad quality of their provisions; the miserable condition of the horses provided for them; and the mean and contemptible carriages and palanquins in which they were conveyed. With an attention rather more minute than was absolutely necessary, M. de Guignes has noted down every bridge, pagoda, triumphal arch, and building of a publick nature, which occurred in the course of each day's journey: and here, by the way, we must be allowed to enter our protest against the general misapplication of the words pagoda and triumphal arch. Use too frequently gives a sanction to abuse, which, however, is but a poor apology for the continuance of errour. The Chinese word ta, or the English tower, might with more propriety, be adopted than the Persick pagod [Boot-kooda] which conveys the erroneous idea of a temple; and as for the objects which M. de Guignes, and all the missionaries before him, have dignified with the name of triumphal arches, they bear so little analogy to buildings of this description, either in form or intention, that there is not even the semblance of a curve in any part of their construction, being invariably a triple rectangular gateway of wood or stone, thrown across a road or street, and bearing an inscription over the central passage to designate their use, which is, generally, to record the integrity of some great mandarin, or the chastity of some antiquated virgin; two characters, which, from the honours thus bestowed upon them, it may be concluded, are not very common among this virtuous people.

We have already observed that the natural productions of the country are not unnoticed by M. de Guignes. They are noticed, however, in so vague and general a manner, as to convey but a small degree of