the meantime the siege went on with aggravated on one side by obstinacy, e other by revenge. This war between wo northern powers at that time was barbarous; the innocent peasant, and herless virgin, often shared the fate oldier in arms. Marienburgh was my assault; and such was the fury be assailants, that not only the garri" almost all the inhabitants, men, 7, and children, were put to the : at length, when the carnage was twell over, Catharina was found hid

an oven.

he had been hitherto poor, but still re; she was now to conform to her fre, and learn what it was to be a in this situation, however, she bewel with piety and humility; and though nes had abated her vivacity, yet was cheerful. The fame of her merit signation reached even Prince Menthe Russian general; he desired we her, was struck with her beauty,

her from the soldier her master, #aced her under the direction of his ster. Here she was treated with respect which her merit deserved, her beauty every day improved with good fortune.

1

e had not been long in this situation, Peter the Great, paying the Prince it, Catharina happened to come in some dry fruits, which she served d with peculiar modesty. The mighty arch saw, and was struck with her ty. He returned the next day, called the beautiful slave, asked her several stions, and found her understanding en more perfect than her person. He had been forced, when young, to arry from motives of interest; he was resolved to marry pursuant to his own tinations. He immediately inquired be history of the fair Livonian, who was t yet eighteen. He traced her through e vale of obscurity, through all the vicisties of her fortune, and found her truly reat in them all. The meanness of her arth was no obstruction to his design; eir nuptials were solemnized in priate; the Prince assuring his courtiers that Artue alone was the properest ladder to

throne.

From Lien Chi Altangi to Fum Hoam, First President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin in China.

IN every letter I expect accounts of some new revolutions in China, some strange occurrence in the state, or disaster among my private acquaintance. I open every packet with tremulous expectation, and am agreeably disappointed when I find my friends and my country continuing in felicity. I wander, but they are at rest; they suffer few changes but what pass in my own restless imagination: it is only the rapidity of my own motion gives an imaginary swiftness to objects which are in some measure immoveable.

Yet believe me, my friend, that even China itself is imperceptibly degenerating from her ancient greatness: her laws are now more venal, and her merchants are more deceitful than formerly; the very arts and sciences have run to decay. Observe the carvings on our ancient bridges, figures that add grace even to nature: there is not an artist now in all the empire that can imitate their beauty. Our manufacturers in porcelain, too, are inferior to what we once were famous for; and even Europe now begins to excel us. There was a time when China was the receptacle of

strangers; when all were welcome who either came to improve the state, or admire its greatness: now the empire is shut up from every foreign improvement, and the very inhabitants discourage each other from prosecuting their own internal advantages.

Whence this degeneracy in a state so little subject to external revolutions? how happens it that China, which is now more powerful than ever, which is less subject to foreign invasions, and even assisted in some discoveries by her connexions with Europe; whence comes it, I say, that the empire is thus declining so fast into barbarity?

This decay is surely from nature, and not the result of voluntary degeneracy. In a period of two or three thousand years she seems at proper intervals to produce great minds, with an effort resembling that which introduces the vicissitudes of seasons. They rise up at once, continue for an age, enlighten the world, fall like ripened corn, and mankind again gradually relapse into pristine barbarity. We little ones look around, are amazed at the decline, seek after the causes of this invisible decay, attribute to want of encouragement what really proceeds from want of power, are astonished to find every art and every science in the decline, not considering that autumn is over, and fatigued nature again begins to repose for some succeeding effort. Some periods have been remarkable for the production of men of extraordinary stature; others for producing some partícular animals in great abundance; some for excessive plenty; and others again for seemingly causeless famine. Nature, which shows herself so very different in her visible productions, must surely differ also from herself in the production of minds; and while she astonishes one age with the strength and stature of a Milo or a Maximin, may bless another with the wisdom of a Plato, or the goodness of an Antonine.

Let us not, then, attribute to accident the falling off of every nation, but to the natural revolution of things. Often in the darkest ages there has appeared some one man of surprising abilities, who, with all his understanding, failed to bring his

barbarous age into refinement: all kind seemed to sleep, till nature ga general call, and then the whole seemed at once roused at the voice; s triumphed in every country, and brightness of a single genius seems in a galaxy of contiguous glory. Thus the enlightened periods in age have been universal. At the when China first began to emerge barbarity, the Western world was eq rising into refinement; when we ha Yaou, they had their Sesostris. In ceeding ages, Confucius and Pytha seem born nearly together, and a tra philosophers then sprung up as we Greece as in China. The period o newed barbarity began to have an univ spread much about the same time, continued for several centuries, till, i year of the Christian era, 1400, the peror Yonglo arose to revive the lear of the East; while about the same the Medicean family laboured in Ital raise infant genius from the cradle. we see politeness spreading over e part of the world in one age, and barba succeeding in another; at one perio blaze of light diffusing itself over whole world, and at another all mank wrapped up in the profoundest ignoran

1

Such has been the situation of things times past, and such probably it will e be. China, I have observed, has e dently begun to degenerate from its f mer politeness; and were the learning the Europeans at present candidly cc sidered, the decline would perhaps appe to have already taken place. We shou find among the natives of the West, t study of morality displaced for mathem tical disquisition, or metaphysical subtl ties; we should find learning begin 1 separate from the useful duties and co cerns of life, while none ventured. aspire after that character, but they wi know much more than is truly amus or useful. We should find every gra attempt suppressed by prudence, and t rapturous sublimity in writing cooled a cautious fear of offence. We sher find few of those daring spirits who brav venture to be wrong, and who are w ing to hazard much for the sake of grea

uisitions. Providence has indulged the d with a period of almost four hundred s' refinement; does it not now by des sink us into our former ignorance, ing us only the love of wisdom, while eprives us of its advantages?—Adieu.

LETTER LXIV.

To the same.

E princes of Europe have found out a aner of rewarding their subjects who e behaved well, by presenting them hacat two yards of blue riband, which on about the shoulder. They who are wered with this mark of distinction are le knights, and the king himself is ay the head of the order. This is a yingal method of recompensing the important services; and it is very te for kings that their subjects are e with such trifling rewards. a nobleman happen to lose his battle, the king presents him with ards of riband, and he is paid for es of his limb. Should an ambasde spend all his paternal fortune in Bring the honour of his country the king presents him with two of riband, which is to be considered equivalent to his estate. In short, in European king has a yard of blue Teen riband left, he need be under prehensions of wanting statesmen, ris, and soldiers.

nnot sufficiently admire those kingn which men with large patrimonial are willing thus to undergo real ips for empty favours. A person, y possessed of a competent fortune, undertakes to enter the career of on, feels many real inconveniences is station, while it procures him no happiness that he was not possessed fore. He could eat, drink, and before he became a courtier, as , perhaps better, than when invested h his authority. He could command terers in a private station, as well in his public capacity, and indulge home every favourite inclination, ensured and unseen by the people. what real good, then, does an addition fortune already sufficient procure?

Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetites, then precedence might be attended with real amusement.

Was he, by having his one thousand made two, thus enabled to enjoy two wives, or eat two dinners, then indeed he might be excused for undergoing some pain in order to extend the sphere of his enjoyments. But, on the contrary, he finds his desire for pleasure often lessen, as he takes pains to be able to improve it; and his capacity of enjoyment diminishes as his fortune happens to increase.

Instead, therefore, of regarding the great with envy, I generally consider them with some share of compassion. I look upon them as a set of goodnatured, misguided people, who are indebted to us, and not to themselves, for all the happiness they enjoy. For our pleasure, and not their own, they sweat under a cumbrous heap of finery; for our pleasure, the lacquied train, the slowparading pageant, with all the gravity of grandeur, moves in review: a single coat, or a single footman, answers all the purposes of the most indolent refinement as well; and those who have twenty, may be said to keep one for their own pleasure, and the other nineteen merely for ours. So true is the observation of Confucius, "That we take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy, than in endeavouring to think so ourselves."

But though this desire of being seen, of being made the subject of discourse, and of supporting the dignities of an exalted station, be troublesome enough to the ambitious, yet it is well for society that there are men thus willing to exchange ease and safety for danger and a riband. We lose nothing by their vanity, and it would be unkind to endeavour to deprive a child of its rattle. If a duke or a duchess are willing to carry a long train for our entertainment, so much the worse for themselves; if they choose to exhibit in public, with a hundred lacquies and mamelukes in their equipage, for our entertainment, still so much the worse for themselves; it is the spectators alone who give and receive the pleasure; they only are the sweating figures that swell the pageant.

A mandarine, who took much pride in appearing with a number of jewels on every part of his robe, was once accosted by an old sly bonze, who, following him through several streets, and bowing often to the ground, thanked him for his jewels. "What does the man mean?" cried the mandarine. " 'Friend, I never gave thee any of my jewels."-"No," replied the other; "but you have let me look at them, and that is all the use you can make of them yourself; so there is no difference between us, except that you have the trouble of watching them, and that is an employment I don't much desire."Adicu.

LETTER LXV.

To the same.

THOUGH not very fond of seeing a pageant myself, yet I am generally pleased with being in the crowd which sees it: it is amusing to observe the effect which such a spectacle has upon the variety of faces; the pleasure it excites in some, the envy in others, and the wishes it raises in all. With this design I lately went to see the entry of a foreign ambassador, resolved to make one in the mob, to shout as they shouted, to fix with earnestness upon the same frivolous objects, and participate for a while the pleasures and the wishes of the vulgar.

Struggling here for some time, in order to be first to see the cavalcade as it passed, some one of the crowd unluckily happened to tread upon my shoe, and tore it in such a manner, that I was utterly unqualified to march forward with the main body, and obliged to fall back in the rear. Thus rendered incapable of being a spectator of the show myself, I was at least willing to observe the spectators, and limped behind like one of the invalids which follow the march of an army.

In this plight, as I was considering the eagerness that appeared on every face, how some bustled to get foremost, and others contented themselves with taking a transient peep when they could; how some praised the four black servants that were stuck behind one of the equipages, and some the ribands that decorated the

horses' necks in another, my att was called off to an object more ordinary than any I had yet seen. A cobbler sat in his stall by the wa and continued to work, while the passed by, without testifying the s share of curiosity. I own his wa attention excited mine; and as I st need of his assistance, I thought it to employ a philosophic cobbler o occasion. Perceiving my business, fore, he desired me to enter and sit took my shoe in his lap, and beg mend it with his usual indifference taciturnity.

"How, my friend," said I to him, you continue to work, while all thos things are passing by your door?" fine they are, master," returned the col "for those that like them, to be sure what are all those fine things to You don't know what it is to be a cot and so much the better for yourself. bread is baked: you may go and see s the whole day, and eat a warm su when you come home at night; bui me, if I should run hunting after all t fine folk, what should I get by my jou but an appetite, and, God help me! 11 too much of that at home already, with stirring out for it. Your people, who eat four meals a day and a supper at niş are but a bad example to such a one a No, master, as God has called me into world in order to mend old shoes, I h no business with fine folk, and they business with me." I here interrup him with a smile. See this last, maste continues he, "and this hammer; this and hammer are the two best frie I have in this world; nobody else wil my friend, because I want a friend. T great folks you saw pass by just now ha five hundred friends, because they have occasion for them: now, while I stick my good friends here, I am very content but when I ever so little run after si and fine things, I begin to hate my wo I grow sad, and have no heart to me shoes any longer."

This discourse only served to raise m curiosity to know more of a man who nature had thus formed into a philosop I therefore insensibly led him into a his

is adventures. "I have lived," said 'a wandering sort of a life now five fifty years, here to-day, and gone totow; for it was my misfortune, when is young, to be fond of changing.' have been a traveller, then, I pree interrupted I.-"I cannot boast of travelling," continued he, "for I e never left the parish in which I was abut three times in my life, that I can ber; but then there is not a street hole neighbourhood that I have ed in, at some time or another. I began to settle and to take to my cess in one street, some unforeseen rtune, or a desire of trying my luck here, has removed me, perhaps a mile away from my former cuswhile some more lucky cobbler come into my place, and make a ne fortune among friends of my ay: there was one who actually died that I had left worth seven pounds shillings, all in hard gold, which he quilted into the waistband of his

d not but smile at these migrations man by the fireside, and continued to he had ever been married. "Ay, I have, master," replied he, "for sixong years; and a weary life I had Heaven knows. My wife took it er head, that the only way to thrive world was to save money; so, gh our comings-in were but about shillings a week, all that ever she ay her hands upon she used to hide from me, though we were obliged to re the whole week after for it. The first three years we used to quarrel this every day, and I always got the ter; but she had a hard spirit, and still tinued to hide as usual: so that I was st tired of quarrelling and getting the er, and she scraped and scraped at asure, till I was almost starved to death. er conduct drove me at last in despair the alehouse; here I used to sit with ople who hated home like myself, drank de I had money left, and ran in score en anybody would trust me; till at last landlady coming one day with a long when I was from home, and putting into my wife's hands, the length of it

effectually broke her heart. I searched the whole stall, after she was dead, for money; but she had hidden it so effectually, that, with all my pains, I could never find a farthing."

By this time my shoe was mended, and satisfying the poor artist for his trouble, and rewarding him besides for his information, I took my leave, and returned home to lengthen out the amusement his conversation afforded, by communicating it to my friend. —Adieu.

LETTER LXVI.

From Lien Chi Altangi to Hingpo, by the way of Moscow.

GENEROSITY, properly applied, will supply every other external advantage in life, but the love of those we converse with; it will procure esteem, and a conduct resembling real affection; but actual love is the spontaneous production of the mind; no generosity can purchase, no rewards increase, nor no liberality continue it: the very person who is obliged has it not in his power to force his lingering affections upon the object he should love, and voluntarily mix passion with gratitude.

Imparted fortune and well-placed liberality may procure the benefactor goodwill, may load the person obliged with the sense of the duty he lies under to retaliate; this is gratitude, and simple gratitude, untinctured with love, is all the return an ingenuous mind can bestow for former benefits.

But gratitude and love are almost opposite affections. Love is often an involuntary passion placed upon our companions without our consent, and frequently con ferred without our previous esteem. We love some men, we know not why; our tenderness is naturally excited in all their concerns; we excuse their faults with the same indulgence, and approve their virtues with the same applause, with which we consider our own. While we entertain the passion, it pleases us; we cherish it with delight, and give it up with reluctance; and love for love is all the reward we expect or desire.

Gratitude, on the contrary, is never conferred but where there have been previous endeavours to excite it. We consider