Empire consists of fifteen several Kingdoms which at least have been so of old tho now governed as Provinces by their several Vice-roys who yet live in Greatness Splendor and Riches equal to great and Sovereign Kings In the whole Kingdom are one hundred and forty five capital Cities of mighty extent and magnificent Building and one thousand three hundred twenty and one lesser Cities but all walled round The number of Villages is infinite and no Country in the known World so full of Inhabitants nor so improved by Agriculture by infinite growth of numerous Commodities by Canals of incredible length conjunctions of Rivers convenience of Ways for the transportation of all sorts of Goods and Commodities from one Province to another so as no Country has so great trade tho till very lately they never had any but among themselves and what there is now foreign among them is not driven by the Chineses going out of their Country to manage it but only by their permission of the Portugueses and Dutch to come and trade in some skirts of their Southern Provinces For Testimonies of their Greatness I shall only add what is agreed of their famous Wall and of their City Peking The Stone-wall which divides the Northern parts of China from Tartary is reckoned by some twelve by others nine hundred miles long running over Rocks and Hills through Marishes and Deserts and making way for Rivers by mighty Arches It is forty five foot high and twenty foot thick at the bottom divided at certain spaces by great Towers It was built above two thousand years ago but with such admirable Architecture that where some Gaps have not been broken down by the Tartars upon their Irruptions the rest is still as intire as when it was first built The King that raised this Wall appointed a Million of Soldiers who were listed and paid for the defence of it against the Tartars and took their turns by certain numbers at certain times for the guard of this Frontier The Imperial City of Peking is nothing so large as several other Cities of China whereof Nanking is esteemed the greatest but is a regular Four-Square the Wall of each side is six Miles in length In each of these sides are three Gates and on each side of each Gate are great Palaces or Forts for the Guards belonging to them which are a thousand Men to each Gate The Streets run quite cross with a thro View and Passage from each Gate to that which is over against it in the opposite side and these Streets are ranged full of stately Houses The Palace of the Emperor is three Miles in Compass consisting of three Courts one within the other whereof the last where the Emperor lodges is four hundred paces square The other two are filled with His Domesticks Officers and Guards to the number of sixteen thousand Persons Without these Courts are large and delicious Gardens many artificial Rocks and Hills Streams of Rivers drawn into several Canals faced with square Stone and the whole atchieved with such admirable Invention Cost and Workmanship that nothing ancient or modern seems to come near it and all served with such Magnificence order and Splendour that the Audience of a Foreign Ambassadour at Peking seems a sight as Great and Noble as one of the Triumphs at Rome As other Nations are usually distinguished into Noble and Plebeian so that of China may be distinguish'd into Learned and Illiterate The last makes up the Body or Mass of the People who are govern'd the first comprehends all the Magistrates that govern and those who may in time or course succeed them in the Magistracy for no other than the Learned are ever employed in the Government nor any in the greatest Charges that are not of those Ranks or Degrees of Learning that make them termed Sages or Philosophers or Doctors among them But to comprehend what this Government of China is and what the Persons employed in it there will be a necessity of knowing what their Learning is and how it makes them fit for Government very contrary to what ours in Europe is observed to do and the reason of such different effects from the same Cause The two great Heroes of the Chinese Nation were Fohu and Confuchu whose Memories have always continued among them Sacred and Adored Fohu lived about four thousand years ago and was the first Founder of their Kingdom the progress whereof has ever since continued upon their Records so clear that they are esteemed by the Missionary Jesuits unquestionable and infallible For after the Death of every King the Successor appoints certain Persons to write the Memorable Actions of His Predecessors Reign and of these an Epitome is afterwards drawn and entred into their Registers Fohu first reduced them from the common Original Lives of Mankind introduced Agriculture Wedlock distinction of Sexes by different Habits Laws and Orders of Government He invented Characters and left several short Tables or Writings of Astronomy or Observations of the Heavens of Morality of Physick and Political Government The Characters He used seem to have been parly strait Lines of different Lengths and distinguish'd by different points and partly Hieroglyphicks and these in time were followed by Characters of which each expressed one word In these several ways were for many Centuries composed many Books among the Chineses in many sorts of Learning especially Natural and Moral Philosophy Astronomy Astrology Physick and Agriculture Something above two thousand years ago lived Confuchu the most learned wise and vertuous of all the Chineses and for whom both the King and Magistrates in His own age and all of them in the Ages since seem to have had the greatest Deference that has any where been rendred to any Mortal Man He writ many Tracts and in them digested all the Learning of the Ancients even from the first Writing or Tables of Fohu at least all that He thought necessary or useful to Mankind in their personal civil or political Capacities which were then received and since prosecuted with so great Esteem and Veneration that none has questioned whatever He writ but admitted it as the truest and best Rules of Opinion and Life so that 't is enough in all Argument That Confuchu has said it Some time after lived a King who to raise a new Period of Time from His own Name and Reign endeavoured to abolish the Memory of all that had passed before Him and caused all Books to be burnt except those of Physick and Agriculture Out of this ruin to Learning escaped either by chance or some private Industry the Epitomes or Registers of the several successions of their Kings since Fohu and the works of Confuchu or at least a part of them which have lately in France been printed in the Latin Tongue with a learned Preface by some of the Missionary Jesuits under the Title of the Works of Confutius After the death of this Tyrannous and Ambitious King These Writings came abroad and being
the oldest Books we have are still in their kind the best The two most ancient that I know of in Prose among those we call prophane Authors are Aesop's Fables and Phalaris's Epistles both living near the same time which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras As the first has been agreed by all Ages since for the greatest Master in his kind and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his Original so I think the Epistles of Phalaris to have more Race more Spirit more Force of Wit and Genius than any others I have ever seen either antient or modern I know several Learned Men or that usually pass for such under the Name of Criticks have not esteemed them Genuine and Politian with some others have attributed them to Lucian But I think he must have little skill in Painting that cannot find out this to be an Original such diversity of Passions upon such variety of Actions and Passages of Life and Government such Freedom of Thought such Boldness of Expression such Bounty to his Friends such Scorn of his Enemies such Honor of Learned Men such Esteem of Good such Knowledg of Life such Contempt of Death with such Fierceness of Nature and Cruelty of Revenge could never be represented but by him that possessed them and I esteem Lucian to have been no more Capable of Writing than of Acting what Phalaris did In all one Writ you find the Scholar or the Sophist and in all the other the Tyrant and the Commander The next to these in Time are Herodotus Thucidides Hypocrates Plato Xenophon and Aristotle of whom I shall say no more than what I think is allowed by all that they are in their several kinds inimitable So are Caesar Salust and Cicero in theirs who are the Antientest of the Latin I speak still of Prose unless it be some little of old Cato upon Rustick Affairs The Height and Purity of the Roman Style as it began towards the Time of Lucretius which was about that of the Jugurthin War so it ended about that of Tyberius and the last strain of it seems to have been Velleius Paterculus The Purity of the Greek lasted a great deal longer and must be allowed till Trajan's Time when Plutarch wrote Whose Greek is much more estimable than the Latin of Tacitus his Contemporary After this last I know none that deserves the Name of Latin in comparison of what went before them especially in the Augustan Age If any 't is the little Treatise of Minutius Foelix All Latin Books that we have till the end of Trajan and all Greek till the end of Marcus Antoninus have a true and very esteemable value All written since that time seem to me to have little more than what comes from the Relation of Events we are glad to know or the Controversy of Opinions in Religion or Laws wherein the busie World has been so much imployed The great Wits among the moderns have been in my Opinion and in their several kinds of the Italians Boccace Machiavel and Padre Paolo Among the Spaniards Cervantes that writ Don Quixot and Guevara Among the French Rablais and Montagne Among the English Sir Philip Sydney Bacon and Selden I mention nothing of what is written upon the Subject of Divinity wherein the Spanish and English Pens have been most Conversant and most Excelled The modern French are Voiture Rochfaucalt's Memoirs Bussy's Amours de Gaul with several other little Relations or Memoirs that have run this Age which are very Pleasant and Entertaining and seem to have Refined the French Language to a degree that cannot be well exceeded I doubt it may have happened there as it does in all Works that the more they are filed and polished the less they have of weight and of strength and as that Language has much more fineness and smoothness at this time so I take it to have had much more force spirit and compass in Montagne's Age. Since those accidents which contributed to the Restoration of Learning almost extinguished in the Western Parts of Europe have been observed it will be just to mention some that may have hindred the advancement of it in proportion to what might have been expected from the mighty growth and Progress made in the first Age after its Recovery One great reason may have been that very soon after the entry of Learning upon the Scene of Christendom another was made by many of the New-Learned Men into the inquiries and contests about Matters of Religion the Manners and Maxims and Institutions introduced by the Clergy for seven or eight Centuries past The Authority of Scripture and Tradition Of Popes and of Councils Of the antient Fathers and of the later School-Men and Casuists Of Ecclesiastical and Civil Power The humour of ravelling into all these mystical or entangled Matters mingling with the Interests and Passions of Princes and of Parties and thereby heightened or inflamed produced infinite Disputes raised violent Heats throughout all Parts of Christendom and soon ended in many Defections or Reformations from the Roman Church and in several New Institutions both Ecclesiastical and Civil in diverse Countries which have been since Rooted and Established in almost all the North-West Parts The endless Disputes and litigious Quarrels upon all these Subjects favoured and encouraged by the Interests of the several Princes engaged in them either took up wholly or generally employed the Thoughts the Studies the Applications the Endeavours of all or most of the finest Wits the deepest Scholars and the most Learned Writers that the Age produced Many excellent Spirits and the most penetrating Genys that might have made admirable Progresses and Advances in many other Sciences were sunk and over whelmed in the abyss of Disputes about Matters of Religion without ever turning their Looks or Thoughts any other way To these Disputes of the Pen succeeded those of the Sword and the ambition of Great Princes and Ministers mingled with the Zeal or covered with the Pretences of Religion has for a Hundred Years past infested Christendom with almost a perpetual Course or Succession either of Civil or of Foreign Wars the noise and disorders whereof have been ever the most capital Enemies of the Muses who are seated by the antient Fables upon the top of Parnassus that is in a place of safety and of quiet from the reach of all noises and disturbances of the Regions below Another circumstance that may have hindered the advancement of Learning has been a want or decay of Favour in Great Kings and Princes to encourage or applaud it Upon the first return or recovery of this fair Stranger among us all were fond of seeing her apt to applaud her she was lodged in Palaces instead of Cells and the greatest Kings and Princes of the Age took either a pleasure in courting her or a vanity in admiring her and in favouring all her Train The Courts of Italy and Germany of England of France of Popes and of Emperors thought themselves
the only Remainders of the Ancient Chinese Learning were received with general Applause or rather Veneration Four Learned Men having long addicted themselves to the Study of these Books writ four several Tracts or Comments upon them and one of the succeeding Kings made a Law that no other Learning should be taught studied or exercised but what was extracted out of these five Books and so Learning has ever since continued in China wholly confined to the Writings of these five Men or rather to those of their Prince of Philosophers the great and renowned Confutius The Sum of His Writings seems to be a Body or Digestion of Ethicks that is of all Moral Vertues either Personal Oeconomical Civil or Political and framed for the Institution and Conduct of Mens Lives their Families and their Governments but chiefly of the last the bent of His thoughts and reasonings running up and down this Scale that no People can be happy but under good Governments and no Governments happy but over good Men and that for the Felicity of Mankind all Men in a Nation from the Prince to the meanest Peasant should endeavour to be good and wise and vertuous as far as His own Thoughts the Precepts of others or the Laws of His Country can instruct Him The chief Principle He seems to lay down for a Foundation and builds upon is That every Man ought to study and endeavour the improving and perfecting of His own Natural Reason to the greatest height He is capable so as He may never or as seldom as can be err and swerve from the Law of Nature in the course and conduct of His Life That this being not to be done without much thought enquiry and dilgence makes Study and Philosophy necessary which teaches Men what is good and what is bad either in its own Nature or for theirs and consequently what is to be done and what to be avoided by every Man is His several Station or Capacity That in this perfection of Natural Reason consists the perfection of Body and Mind and the utmost or supream Happiness of Mankind That the means and rules to attain this perfection are chiefly not to will or desire any thing but what is consonant to this Natural Reason nor any thing that is not agreeable to the good and happiness of other men as well as our own To this end is prescribed the constant course and practice of the several Vertues known and agreed so generally in the World among which Courtesy or Civility and Gratitude are Cardinal with them In short the whole scope of all Confutius has writ seems aimed only at teaching Men to live well and to govern well how Parents Masters and Magistrates should rule and how Children Servants and Subjects should obey All this with the many particular Rules and Instructions for either personal oeconomical or political Wisdom and Vertue is discoursed by Him with great Compass of Knowledge Excellence of Sense Reach of Wit and illustrated with Elegance of Stile and Aptness of Similitudes and Examples as may be easily conceived by any that can allow for the lameness and shortness of Translations out of Language and Manners of writing infinitely differing from ours So as the Man appears to have been of a very extraordinary Genius of mighty Learning admirable Vertue excellent Nature a true Patriot of His Country and Lover of Mankind This is the Learning of the Chineses and all other sorts are either disused or ignoble among them all that which we call Scholastick or Polemick is unknown or unpractised and serves I fear among us for little more than to raise Doubts and Disputes Heats and Feuds Animosities and Factions in all Controversies of Religion or Government Even Astrology and Physick and Chymistry are but ignoble Studies tho there are many among them that excel in all these and the Astrologers are much in vogue among the Vulgar as well as their Predictions The Chymists apply themselves chiefly to the search of the universal Medicine for health and length of Life pretending to make Men Immortal if they can find it out The Physicians excel in the knowledge of the pulse and of all simple Medicines and go little further but in the first are so skilful as they pretend not only to tell by it how many hours or days a sick Man can last but how many years a Man in perfect seeming health may live in case of no accident or violence And by Simples they pretend to relieve all Diseases that Nature will allow to be cured They never let blood but say if the Pot boils too fast there is no need of lading out any of the water but only of taking away the fire from under it and so they allay all heats of the blood by abstinence diet and cooling herbs But all this Learning is ignoble and Mechanical among them and the Confutian only essential and incorporate to their Government into which none enters without having first passed thro the several Degrees To attain it is first necessary the knowledg of their Letters or Characters and to this must be applied at least ten or twelve years study and diligence and twenty for great perfection in it For by all I can gather out of so many Authors as have written of China they have no Letters at all but only so many Characters expressing so many Words These are said by some to be sixty by others eighty and by others sixscore thousand and upon the whole their writing seems to me to be like that of Short-hand among us in case there were a different Character invented for every word in our Language Their Writing is neither from the left hand to right like the European nor from right to left like the Asiatick Languages but from top to bottom of the paper in one strait line and then beginning again at the top till the side be full The Learning of China therefore consists first in the Knowledge of their Language and next in the Learning Study and Practice of the Writings of Confutius and His four great Disciples and as every Man grows more perfect in both these so He is more esteemed and advanced nor is it enough to have read Confutius unless it be discovered by retaining the principal parts of Him in their memories and the practice of Him in their lives The Learned among them are promoted by three Degrees The first may resemble that of Sophisters in our Colleges after two or three years standing and this Degree is conferred by publick Examiners appointed for that purpose who go thro the chief Cities of each Province once a year and upon scrutiny admit such of the Candidates as they approve to this Degree register their Names and give them a Badge belonging to this first form of the Learned The second Degree is promoted with more form and performed once in three years in a great College built for that purpose in the chief City of each Kingdom By several Examiners appointed by