Eastern tales should always be sonorous, lofty, musical, and unmeaning

I could not avoid smiling to hear a native of England attempt to instruct me in the true eastern idiom; and after he looked round some time for applause, I presumed to ask him, whether he had ever travelled into the East; to which he replied in the negative. I demanded whether he understood Chinese or Arabic; to which also he replied as before. Then how, sir, said I, can you pretend to determine upon the eastern style, who are entirely unacquainted with the eastern writings? Take, sir, the word of one who is professedly a Chinese, and who is actually acquainted with the Arabian writers, that what is palmed upon you daily for an imitation of eastern writing, no way resembles their manner, either in sentiment or diction. In the East, similes are seldom used, and metaphors almost wholly unknown; but in China particularly, the very reverse of what you allude to takes place: a cool phlegmatic method of writing prevails there. The writers of that country, ever more assiduous to instruct than to please, address rather the judgment than the fancy. Unlike many authors of Europe, who have no consideration of the reader's time, they generally leave more to be understood than they express.

Besides, sir, you must not expect from an inhabitant of China the same ignorance, the same unlettered simplicity, that you find in a Turk, Persian, or native of Peru. The Chinese are versed in the sciences as well as you, and are masters of several arts unknown to the people of Europe. Many of them are instructed not only in their own national learning, but are perfectly well acquainted with the languages and learning of the West. If my word in such a case is not to be taken, consult your own travellers on this head, who affirm, that the scholars of Pekin and Siam sustain theological theses in Latin. "The college of Masprend,

which is but a league from Siam," says one of your travellers,* came in a body to salute our ambassador. Nothing gave me more sincere pleasure, than to behold a number of priests, venerable both from age and modesty, followed by a number of youths of all nations, Chinese, Japanese, Tonquinese, of Cochin China, Pegu, and Siam, all willing to pay their respects in the most polite manner imaginable. A Cochin Chinese made an excellent Latin oration upon this occasion; he was succeeded, and even outdone, by a student of Tonquin, who was as well skilled in the western learning as any scholar in Paris." Now, sir, if youths who never stirred from home, are so perfectly skilled in your laws and learning, surely more must be expected from one like me, who have travelled so many thousand miles; who have conversed familiarly for several years with English factors established at Canton, and the missionaries sent us from every part of Europe. The unaffected of every country nearly resemble each other; and a page of our Confucius and of your Tillotson have scarcely any material difference. Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and dis gusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; and they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance, or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please.

I was proceeding in my discourse, when, looking round, I perceived the company no way attentive to what I attempted, with so much earnestness, to enforce. One lady was whispering her that sat next, another was studying the merits of a fan, a third began to yawn, and the author himself fell fast asleep. I thought it, therefore, high time to make a retreat; nor did the company seem to show any regret at my preparations for departure even the lady who had invited me, with the most mortifying insensibility saw me seize my hat and rise from my cushion; nor

* Journal, ou Suite du Voyage de Siam, en forme de Lettres familières, fait en 1685 et 1686, par N. L. D. C., p. 174. edit. Amsteslod. 1686.

was I invited to repeat my visit, because it was found that I aimed at appearing rather a reasonable creature, than an outlandish idiot. Adieu.

LETTER XXXIV.

OF THE PRESENT RIDICULOUS PASSION OF THE NOBILITY FOR

PAINTING.

To the same.

The polite arts are in this country subject to as many revolu tions as its laws or politics: not only the objects of fancy and dress, but even of delicacy and taste, are directed by the capricious influence of fashion. I am told there has been a time when poetry was universally encouraged by the great; when men of the first rank not only patronized the poet, but produced the finest models for his imitation. It was then the English sent forth those glowing rhapsodies, which we have so often read over together with rapture; poems big with all the sublimity of Mencius, and supported by reasoning as strong as that of Zimpo.

The nobility are fond of wisdom, but they are also fond of having it without study; to read poetry required thought, and

* [“ Ranking next to Confucius (similis aut secundus) is the celebrated Mencius, so called by the Jesuits, from his Chinese name, Meng-tse. He lived about a century after his great predecessor, whose doctrines he still farther illustrated and promoted, and left behind him the fourth of the sacred books, bearing his own name. Mencius lived to the age of eighty-four. Keatsing, an emperor of the Ming dynasty, made one of his real or supposed descendants in the fifty-sixth generation, a member of the Hânlin college. If,' as Dr. Morrison observes, the persons who now profess to be the posterity of Confucius and Mencius be really so, their families are probably the most ancient in the world.' It would be difficult to find even a Welsh pedigree to compete with them.-Chinese vol. ii. p. 55]

the English nobility are not fond of thinking: they soon there fore placed their affections upon music, because in this they might indulge a happy vacancy, and yet still have pretensions to delicacy and taste as before. They soon brought their numerous dependents into an approbation of their pleasures; who in turn led their thousand imitators to feel or feign similitude of passion. Colonies of singers were now imported from abroad at a vast expense, and it was expected the English would soon be able to set examples to Europe. All these expectations, however, were soon dissipated. In spite of the zeal which fired the great, the ignorant vulgar refused to be taught to sing; refused to undergo the ceremonies which were to initiate them in the singing fraternity thus the colony from abroad dwindled by degrees; for they were of themselves unfortunately incapable of propagating the breed.

Music having thus lost its splendor, painting is now become the sole object of fashionable care. The title of connoisseur in that art is at present the safest passport in every fashionable society; a well-timed shrug, an admiring attitude, and one or two exotic tones of exclamation, are sufficient qualifications for men of low circumstances to curry favor. Even some of the young nobility are themselves early instructed in handling the pencil, while their happy parents, big with expectation, foresee the walls of every apartment covered with the manufactures of their posterity.

But many of the English are not content with giving all their time to this art at home; some young men of distinction are found to travel through Europe, with no other intent than that of understanding and collecting pictures, studying seals, and describing statues. On they travel from this cabinet of curiosities to that gallery of pictures; waste the prime of life in wonder; skilful in pictures, ignorant in men; yet impossible to be re

claimed, because their follies take shelter under the names of delicacy and taste.

It is true, painting should have due encouragement; as the painter can undoubtedly fit up our apartments in a much more elegant manner than the upholsterer ;* but I should think a man of fashion makes but an indifferent exchange, who lays out all that time in furnishing his house, which he should have employed in the furniture of his head. A person who shows no other symptoms of taste than his cabinet or gallery, might as well boast to me of the furniture of his kitchen.

I know no other motive but vanity, that induces the great to testify such an inordinate passion for pictures: after the piece is bought, and gazed at eight or ten days successively, the purchaser's pleasure must surely be over; all the satisfaction he can then have is to show it to others; he may be considered as the guardian of a treasure of which he makes no manner of use; his gallery is furnished, not for himself, but the connoisseur, who is generally some humble flatterer, ready to feign a rapture he does not feel, and as necessary to the happiness of a picture-buyer, as gazers are to the magnificence of an Asiatic procession.

I have inclosed a letter from a youth of distinction, on his travels, to his father in England; in which he appears addicted to no vice, seems obedient to his governor, of a good natural disposition, and fond of improvement; but at the same time, early taught to regard cabinets and galleries as the only proper schools of improvement, and to consider a skill in pictures as the properest knowledge for a man of quality.

* [The estimate formed of painting in this passage, and in the whole letter, is very low for a poet-if, indeed, poetry and painting have any necessary connection in the mind. Examples to the contrary are numerous; but Goldsmith had the courage to express what many others no doubt think. At a subsequent period he confessed his ignorance of the art.]