cient 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 manufactures 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 recepticle for 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 rip

ened 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 particular 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 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 mankind seemed to sleep, till Nature gave the general call, and then the whole world seemed at once rouzed at the voice; science triumphed in every coun

try, and the brightness of a single genuis seemed lost in a galaxy of contiguous glory.

Thus the enlightened periods in every age have been universal. At the time when China first began to emerge from barbarity, the western world was equally rising into refinement; when we had our Yaw, they had their Sesostris. In succeeding ages, Confucius and Pythagoras seem born nearly together; and a train of philosophers then sprang up, as well in Greece as in China. The period of renewed barbarity began to have an universal spread much about the same time, and continued for several centuries, till, in the year of the Christian era 1400, the emperor Yonglo arose to revive the learning of the East; while, about the same time, the Medicean family laboured in Italy to raise infant genius from the cradle: thus we see politeness spreading over every part of the world in one age, and barbarity succeeding in another; at one period a blaze of light diffusing itself over the whole world, and at another, all mankind wrapped up in the profoundest ignor

ance.

Such has been the situation of things in times past; and such probably it will ever be. China I have observed, has evidently begun to degenerate from its former politeness; and were the learning of the Europeans at present candidly considered, the decline would perhaps a pear to have already taken place. We should find, a

mong the natives of the west, the study of mo rality displaced for mathematical disquisition, or metaphysical subtleties. We should find learning begin to separate from the useful duties and concerns of life; while none ventured to aspire after that character but they who know much more than is truly amusing or useful. We should find every great attempt suppressed by prudence, and the rapturous sublimity in writing cooled by a cautious fear of offence. We should find few of those daring spirits who bravely venture to be wrong, and who are willing to hazard much for the sake of great acquisitions. Providence has indulged the world with a period of almost four hundred years refinement: does it not now, by degrees, sink us into our former ignorance, leaving us only the love of wisdom, while it deprives us of its advantages?-Adieu.

LETTER LXIV.

From the same.

THE princes of Europe have found out a manner of rewarding their subjects who have behaved well, by presenting them with about two yards of blue ribbon, which is worn about the shoulder. They who are honoured with this mark of distinction are called knights, and the king himself is always the head of the order. This is a very frugal method of recompensing the most import

ed her parent, who was now incapable of supporting herself. While Catharina spun, the old woman would sit by and read some book of devotion. Thus, when the fatigues of the day were over, both would sit down contentedly by the fire-side, and enjoy the frugal meal with vacant festivity.

Though her face and person were models of perfection, yet her whole attention seemed bestowed upon her mind; her mother taught her to read, and an old Lutheran minister instructed her in maxims and duties of religion. Nature had furnished her not only with a ready but a solid turn of thought; not only with a strong but a right understanding. Such truly female accomplishments procured her several solicitations of marriage from the peasants of the country, but their offers were refused; for she loved her mother too tenderly to think of a separation.

Catharina was fifteen when her mother died: she now, therefore, left her cottage, and went to live with the Lutheran minister, by whom she had been instructed from her childhood. In his house she resided in quality of governess to his children; at once reconciling, in her character, unerring prudence with surprising vivacity.

The old man, who regarded her as one of his own children, had her instructed in dancing and music, by the masters who attended the rest of his family. Thus she continued to improve till