it was expected that his station in life would have lessened the ignominy of his punishment; however, he was arraigned, condemned, and underwent the same degrading death with the meanest malefactor. It was well considered that virtue alone is true nobility; and that he whose actions sink him even beneath the vulgar, has no right to those distinctions which should be the rewards only of merit: it was perhaps considered that crimes were more heinous among the higher classes of people, as necessity exposes them to fewer temptations.

person of the

Over all the East, even China not excepted, same quality guilty of such a crime might, by giving up a share of his fortune to the judge, buy off his sentence. There are several countries, even in Europe, where the servant is entirely the property of his master; if a slave kills his lord, he dies by the most excruciating tortures; but if the circumstances are reversed, a small fine buys off the punishment of the offender. Happy the country where all are equal, and where those who sit as judges have too much integrity to receive a bribe, and too much honor to pity, from a similitude of the prisoner's title or circumstances with their own! Such is England; yet think not that it was always equally famed for this strict impartiality. There was a time, even here, when title softened the rigors of the law, when dignified wretches were suffered to live, and continue for years an equal disgrace to justice and nobility.

To this day, in a neighboring country, the great are often most scandalously pardoned for the most scandalous offences. A person is still alive among them who has more than once deserved the most ignominious severity of justice His being of the blood royal, however, was thought a sufficient atonement for his being a disgrace to humanity. This remarkable personage took pleasure in shooting at the passengers below, from the top

* [The Prince of Charolais.]

of his palace; and in this most princely amusement he usually spent some time every day. He was at length arraigned by the friends of a person whom in this manner he had killed, was found guilty of the charge, and condemned to die. His merciful monarch pardoned him in consideration of his rank and quality. The unrepenting criminal soon after renewed his usual enter tainment, and in the same manner killed another man. He was a second time condemned; and, strange to think, a second time received his majesty's pardon! Would you believe it? A third time the very same man was guilty of the very same offence; a third time, therefore, the laws of his country found him guiltyI wish for the honor of humanity I could suppress the rest-a third time he was pardoned! Will you not think such a story too extraordinary for belief? will you not think me describing the savage inhabitants of Congo? Alas! the story is but too true, and the country where it was transacted, regards itself as the politest in Europe! Adieu.

LETTER XXXIX.

DESCRIPTION OF TRUE POLITENESS. TWO LETTERS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, BY LADIES FALSELY THOUGHT POLITE AT HOME.

From Lien Chi Altangi to ****, Merchant in Amsterdam. Ceremonies are different in every country; but true politeness is every where the same. Ceremonies, which take up so much of our attention, are only artificial helps which ignorance assumes, in order to imitate politeness, which is the result of good sense and good-nature. A person possessed of those qualities, though he had never seen a court, is truly agreeable; and if without them would continue a clown, though he had been all his life a gentleman usher.

How would a Chinese, bred up in the formalities of an East ern court, be regarded, should he carry all his good manners beyond the Great Wall? How would an Englishman, skilled in all the decorums of Western good-breeding, appear at an Eastern entertainment? would he not be reckoned more fantastically savage than his unbred footman?

Ceremony resembles that base coin which circulates through a country by the royal mandate; it serves every purpose of real money at home, but is entirely useless if carried abroad: a person who should attempt to circulate his native trash in another country, would be thought either ridiculous or culpable. He is truly well-bred who knows when to value and when to despise those national peculiarities, which are regarded by some with so much observance: a traveller of taste at once perceives that the wise are polite all the world over, but that fools are polite only at home.

I have now before me two very fashionable letters upon the same subject, both written by ladies of distinction; one of whom leads the fashion in England, and the other sets the ceremonies of China: they are both regarded in their respective countries by all the beau monde, as standards of taste, and models of true politeness, and both give us a true idea of what they imagine elegant in their admirers: which of them understands true politeness, or whether either, you shall be at liberty to determine. The English lady thus writes to her female confidant:

BELINDA TO CHARLOTTE.

So

"As I live, my dear Charlotte, I believe the colonel will carry it at last; he is a most irresistible fellow, that is flat. well dressed, so neat, so sprightly, and plays about one so agreea bly, that I vow, he has as much spirits as the marquis of Monkeyman's Italian greyhound I first saw him at Ranelagh; he

shines there he is nothing without Ranelagh, and Ranelagh nothing without him. The next day he sent a card and compliments, desiring to wait on mamma and me to the music subscription. He looked all the time with such irresistible impudence, that positively he had something in his face gave me as much pleasure as a pair-royal of naturals in my own hand. He waited on mamma and me the next morning to know how we got home: you must know the insidious devil makes love to us Loth. Rap went the footman at the door; bounce went my heart: I thought he would have rattled the house down. Chariot drove up to the window, with his footmen in the prettiest iveries: he has infinite taste, that is flat. Mamma has spent all the morning at her head; but for my part, I was in an undress to receive him; quite easy, mind that; no way disturbed at his approach: mamma pretended to be as degagée as I, and yet I saw her blush in spite of her. Positively he is a most killing devil! We did nothing but laugh all the time he staid with us; I never heard so many very good things before: at first he mistook mamma for my sister; at which she laughed: then he mistook my natural complexion for paint; at which I laughed; and then he showed us a picture in the lid of his snuff-box, at which we all laughed. He plays picquet so very ill, and is so very fond of cards, and loses with such a grace, that positively he has won me; I have got a cool hundred, but have lost my heart. I need not tell you that he is only a colonel of the train-bands. I am, dear Charlotte, yours for ever, BELINDA."

The Chinese lady addresses her confidant, a poor relation of the family, upon the same occasion; in which she seems to understand decorums even better than the western beauty. You, who have resided so long in China, will readily acknowledge the picture to be taken from nature; and, by being acquainted with the Chinese customs, will better apprehend the lady's meaning.

YAOUA TO YAYA.

"Papa insists upon one, two, three, four hundred taels from the colonel, my lover, before he parts with a lock of my hair! Oh, how I wish the dear creature may be able to produce the money, and pay papa my fortune. The colonel is reckoned the politest man in ail Shensi. The first visit he paid at our house, mercy! what stooping, and cringing, and stopping, and fidgeting, and going back, and creeping forward, there was between him. and papa; one would have thought he had got the seventeen books of ceremonies all by heart. When he was come into the hall he flourished his hands three times in a very graceful manner. Papa, who would not be outdone, flourished his four times; upon this the colonel began again, and both thus continued flourishing for some minutes in the politest manner imaginable. I was posted in the usual place behind the screen, where I saw the whole ceremony through a slit. Of this the colonel was sensible, for papa informed him. I would have given the world to have shown him my little shoes, but had no opportunity. It was the first time I had ever the happiness of seeing any man but рара, and I vow, my dear Yaya, I thought my three souls would actually have fled from my lips. Oh! but he looked most charmingly ; he is reckoned the best-shaped man in the whole province; for he is very fat and very short; but even those natural advantages are improved by his dress, which is fashionable past description. His head was close shaven, all but the crown, and the hair of that was braided into a most beautiful tail, that reached down to his heels, and was terminated by a bunch of yellow roses. Upon

[In China the ordinary ceremony among equals is to join the closed hands and lift them two or three times towards the head, saying, Haou; tsing, tsing; that is, Are you well? hail! hail']

[In a Chinese novel called Hung-how-Mung, or "The Red Chamber Dreams," translated by Mr. Davis, is the following description of a Chinese