fides, he infifts that the knowledge of the principles of aftronomy in China, is by no means of an ancient date, notwithftanding al Mr. Bailli's boafted affertions on that head; he particularly infils that, under the dynafty of Hans, they were ignorant of the true figure of the earth, obftinately maintaining that the earth was fquare, which muft neceffarily be the occa fion of endless abfurdities in aftronomical theories; and that, even fo late as in 1505, they had no idea whatever either of the latitude or longitude of their chief towns. P, 5 of the Prelin inary Difcourfe.

Although we believe this latter opinion, like fome others in this publication, not to be quite exact; and conceive that the author has not done entire juftice to the claims of the Chinefe, we are far from acceding to the romantic statements of the Jefuits, in favour of the antiquity of fcience in China. Their defcent from the barbarous Scythians, which argument we are inclined decidedly to efpoufe, in oppofition to that which aims to derive them from the Egyptians, forbad them, prior to their connection with the people of the western empire of Afia, to enter deeply into the abftract fpeculative sciences; but agriculture, the mechanical arts, and thofe connected with commerce, were, undoubtedly, very early cultivated in China, Of genius and invention they poffefs but a small fhare; induftry feems to be the leading feature of the nation. Hence the rich variety of their manufactures in filk and cotton, and the elegance of the cabinet and porcelain, which are thence exported to every nation of the world. The intercourfe which the Arabians, Perfians, and Indians, induced by the valuable productions of their country, affiduously kept up with this reluctant race, on the eastern verge of Afia, tended to improve them in the nobler walks of fcience; but their miferable ideas of the geography of the globe, and of their relative fituation upon it, afford unanfwerable proof of the flender progrefs made by them in thofe fciences which are intimately connected with aftronomy. In our opinion, the principal argument against the propofition of De Guignes may be derived from that very circumftance which led Mr. Needham to confider the inhabitants of China, as allied to the Egyptians; we mean that of their language, which, notwithflanding his ftrange mistake, is effentially different. For the language of the Chinese is wholly monafyllabic, while that of the Egyptians confifted of many fyllables; the latter had an alphabetic character *, the former had not.

*See Ludolphi Comment. Copt. p. 73.

Amidt much felf-fufficiency; opinions very haftily, if not falfely, adopted; and great pretenfions to profound knowledge, on fubjects where profound knowledge cannot poffibly, at this remote period, be expected, or acquired, the refearches of Mr. De Pauw have the merit of great ingenuity and acuteness: but bear the ftamp of a mind more replete with the fire of genius, than the coolness of deliberate inveftigation and matuted judgment. One apology, and that not a trifling or weak one, may be urged for the errors of this work, which is, that the original publication, of which an English verfion is here prefented to the reader by Captain Thomfon, was edited, at Paris, in 1773; for fuch is the date of our French edition, fince which period a more immediate connection, in the way of commerce, as well as more extenfive enquiry, have made us better acquainted with the real hiftory of that fecluded empire, than Europeans were before. Though this book has long been known to readers of French, we thall take the opportunity of this tranflation to notice fome curious particulars.

The first volume is divided into two parts, and various fubordinate fections. They treat concerning the condition of the women, and the population of Egypt and China; concerning the diet of thofe two nations, the fate of painting and feulpture among them, and the Orientals in general, and their advance in chemistry. In the firft part, after proving that nothing can be more diffimilar than the treatment of women in the two countries, the author introduces the following account of the general practice of infanticide in China, which, we hope, for the honour of human nature, has no foundation in truth.

"The Chinese have been very far from finding the just bounds of parental authority; and it does not appear, indeed, that they ever made it the object of any researches. Befides the right of felling, they are invested by their legiflators with the power of life and death over their children, to authorife the different modes of committing infanticide.

"Sometimes the new-born children are dispatched by the midwives in a bason of warm water, and fomething is always paid for this execution; at others they are thrown into the river, tied to an empty gourd, which keeps them floating for a confiderable time without expiring. Their cries are then fufficient to make human nature fhudder, but fuch fcenes are too frequent in China to occafion the fmalleft impreffion. According to a third mode, they are expofed in the fireets, where, every morning, particularly at Pekin, numbers of dirt-carts are ready to convey them away. They are then thrown on dung-hills, and left uncovered, that the Mahometans, if they think fit, may preferve fome of their lives. But before the arrival of the machines destined for their removal, it frequently happens that many

have been devoured by dogs, and ftill more by the numerous herds of fwine, fo common in all the towns of China.

"No example of fuch atrocity is to be found among all the an thropophagi of America. The Jefuits pretend, that, in three years, they counted nine thoufand feven hundred and two children, thrown on the lay-ftalls in this manner. But they did not include fuch as had been trodden to death by horfes and mules, nor those drowned in the canals, nor those devoured in the streets, nor those strangled at their birth, nor those faved by the Mahometans, nor those who had no Jefuits prefent to count them." P. 62.

Concerning the population of the Chinese, he obferves,

"If China were regularly inhabited, without having either fo many thieves, begging monks, eunuchs, or flaves, the human fpecies muft foon increafe aftonishingly, from the fecundity of the women in the fouthern provinces, and the nature of the climate in general. So many inconveniencies, and fome of them far from trifling, have not prevented population from amounting, according to fome calculators, to eighty-two millions. This eftimate moft probably is exaggerated; but fuppofing it to be juft, China is ftill much lefs peopled, in proportion to its fize, than Germany. It would be abfurd not to pay attention to the difference of extent in the two countries, when the one does not in reality exceed the fixth part of the other. As in China nothing is ufed for fuel but foffil coal, called mow-y, it feems natural to fuppofe that fuch a country might admit of more inhabitants than others, where wood alone is employed, and confequently much foil covered with forefts. In Scotland, and round Liège, the fields are tilled above the very coal-pits; but this advantage does not feem to have influenced the population of China, where, in almost all the governments, vaft diftricts, of more than fixty miles in length, remain totally uncultivated; and a smaller extent might more than fuffice for wood, if nothing befides could be found for fuel." P. 84.

Concerning the extent and population of Egypt, we believe him in the right when he afferts it to have been greatly magnified by the ancients.

"Mr. D'Anville, in his Memoirs on ancient and modern Egypt, affures us, that by a calculation made on his maps, he finds that all the furface of that country capable of tillage, never exceeded two thoufand, or at most twenty-one hundred fquare leagues, of twenty-five to a degree; and thus, in his opinion, Egypt was only equivalent to the twelfth part of France. But every reasonable perfon will allow, that this fuppofition is not at all juft; because it admits only of the fertile part of Egypt, and includes the whole of France in general. The fo refts, the heaths, the fand-hills, and barren wilds near Bourdeaux, fhould at least have been excepted, as they are in no respect preferable to the higher parts of Thebais, where the Bedouin Arabs find fome fcanty pafturage for their horfes.

"From all these facts we perceive how prodigiously the extent and population of Egypt have been exaggerated; but more particularly

by Mr. Goguet, who fuppofes it to have contained twenty-feven millions of inhabitants under the Pharaohs. Ancient and modern history are full of fuch extravagancies; and, in proportion as they are deftroyed, new truths fpring up in their ftead.

By the utmoft efforts of induftry, the ancient Egyptians rendered nearly two thousand two hundred and fifty square leagues productive; including the Oafts and fome elevated fpots, like thofe around Alabaftranspolis, fixty miles diftant from the Nile, where the ruins of that place are ftill visible: from this must be deducted the fites of towns, the fields fown with flax, and other fecondary objects of tillage; but the maintenance of the facred animals does not appear of fsufficient confequence to be mentioned. Yet, as in warm countrics the earth produces much, and people eat little, one fquare league may fuffice for a greater number than in cold climates, where the foil is lefs fertile, and the inhabitants require more food. Thus Egypt might anciently have contained four millions of inhabitants; and we must confider as inadmiffible all that has been advanced on that matter by Diodorus Siculus, and the Jew Flavius Jofephus. Population diminished there under the Perfians, who governed always with a rod of iron; and still more when the latter Ptolemies ruined, in one dav, what had cost years of care to the three first Lagidæ, who indeed deferved to be called kings. But all their fucceffors were robbers, or idiots, who neglected every thing, even to keep in repair the canals of the Nile, which the Romans, as foon as they conquered Egypt, reftored to their former ftate, and rendered the country more fertile than it had been under the reign of Cleopatra, or her father Auletes, who was the model of bad princes." P. 95.

From the differtation on the diet of the two nations, much curious information may be gleaned, proving how religioutly attentive the Orientals, the priesthood especially, were to purity, both in their perfons, and the regimen obferved by them. From the rigid laws of the Egyptians in this refpect, he derives thofe of the Levitical code and of Pythagoras. We muft here obferve, that this fceptical author, through his whole work, invariably confiders the Jews as far more indebted to the Egyptians than to any rays of divine information, for their facred and civil inftitutions. He, in particular, inftances their dread of the leprofy, and their abhorrence of fwine, as congenial, and proceeding from the fame fource. Again the great efleem for pigeons, entertained by the Jews, is allerted, p. 105,to have fprung from the conftant ufe of that bird at the table of the Pharaohs, as a prefervative againft leprofy; and the faft of forty days, alike obferved by Hebrew and Coptic devotees, are explained by reference to the like number of days observed by the votaries of Ifis. We merely notice thefe things to guard our readers against the effects of our philofopher's prejudiced statements. Not lefs in their food, than in every other

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article before recited, do the Chinefe differ from the ancient Egyptians. The following paragraph is fo decifive on this point, that we fhall take leave of the fubject by citing it.

"The Chinese never had any dietetic regimen prefcribed by law, and confecrated by religion. With them, the flesh of no animal was ever prohibited, and they are ignorant of all diftinction relative to fish with or without fcales. They feem to have neither repugnance norhorror for any kind of food: they eat rats, bats, owls, florks, cats, badgers, dogs, and cows, which were confidered as an abomination among the Egyptians. Rice, indeed, is the principal food of the common people, in the greater part of the provinces. The other aliments moft ufed are fruits, herbs, fish, ducks, and, above all, fwine. The latter are different from thofe of Europe, and the reft of Afia, if we except the kingdom of Siam, where the Chinese breed has multiplied greatly, and whence it has been transported into fome iflands of the Indian Archipelago, and even to America. Although these animals are lefs inclined than ours to wallow conftantly in the mire, their great number would certainly infect the Chinese towns, where they run about in herds, if the cultivators in the neighbourhood did not take care to clean the ftreets. As they are fed chiefly with fish in the maritime provinces, their flefh becomes frequently oily, and is fuppofed to increase the diforders of the eyes among the Chinefe. Thus a regimen could not have been without good effects, particularly as both men and women were subject to a species of contagious leprofy, confidered by the laws as one of the caufes fufficient to diffolve legitimate matrimony. This proves that their phyficians have never been capable of curing that indifpofition; otherwife they would not have confidered a tranfient evil as fufficient to destroy what was intended to be a perpetual union." P. 164.

We come now to confider the remaining fubjects treated of in this volume, the ftate of painting, fculpture, and chemistry, among these two nations, and the Orientals, in general. To form any judgment of their proficiency in thefe arts, we must turn back the eye of obfervation over a dreary defart of two thousand years, and contemplate with attention and wonder the few remaining monuments, in thofe lines of genius which ftill furvive the wrecks of time. 'Tis in the lofty temples and grottos of the Thebais, where the air is infected with no foggy correting vapours producing nitre, where little or no rain falls to penetrate the fiffures which time has made in those prodigies of human labour, and where earthquakes and tempefts feldom defolate the country, that thofe monuments principally remain, and thofe vivid colours ftill glow. The red, the blue, and the golden tints which adorn thofe roofs, appear to travellers as bright as ever. The peculiar brilliancy of thofe colours, after the lapfe of fo many centuries, our author conceives to arife from their being applied to the edifices, in all their natural pu