As every thing was fixed by rule in China, for each of these trades a thousand workshops were provided, and in each shop from ten to forty hands were employed under a master, who did not himself work, but merely exercised a general superintendence, and assumed the airs of a gentleman. The ancient laws of the country required every citizen to follow the calling of his father; but permitted him, when he became rich, to discontinue the manual labour, provided he kept up the establishment, and employed persons to work at his paternal trade. There is some resemblance between these incorporated trades under their respective heads, and the Indian guilds, which are described in the Institutes of Menu. We probably see in them the relic of some old sacerdotal constitution, which was relaxed in favour of the tradesmen, when the influence of the priesthood was absorbed in a purely civil jurisdiction. Marco Polo has given us a very particular account of the revenues drawn by the Emperor from the district of Kinsai. They arose from duties on various articles; on salt, which was furnished in great quantities by the district, and on sugar and arrack; from the customs; from a tax on the twelve companies of artisans, perhaps the price they paid for the possession of their corporate privileges and rights; and, lastly, from a tithe of cattle, vegetable produce, and silk. Marco Polo calculates the whole annual return to have amounted to more than 20,000,000 ducats.

The police of Kinsai was strict, and organized with the greatest regularity. Stone buildings were erected for the reception of goods in case of fire; the mention of which circumstance indirectly proves, that the ordinary edifices were constructed of slighter materials. Watchmen patrolled the streets, struck the hours on a gong, assisted in extinguishing fire, and, on-the occurrence of any tumult or insurrection, were called in to act with the military, as a sort of gens d'armerie. At intervals of a mile all over the district, sounding boards were erected on elevated mounds, to act as telegraphs, for the speedy communication of intelligence, and for summoning all the police to bear on a particular point. Persons found lame and sick in the streets were conveyed by these same watchmen to the hospitals, that had been founded and endowed by the ancient sovereigns of the country; and when cured they were obliged to employ themselves in some trade. A similar humane method of providing for the proper treatment of sick and friendless strangers is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus,* on the authority of Megasthenes, as prevailing in the north of India.

* Bibl. Hist. ii. 42.

At Kinsai, every householder was obliged to affix to the door of his dwelling the names of all its inmates, and the number of horses kept. The keepers of inns and hotels were required to enter in a book the names of all who had taken up their quarters with them, specifying the day and hour of their arrival and departure; and a copy of this record was daily transmitted to the police magistrates. With so much wealth, the means of physical enjoyment abounded in the capital of southern China, and the manners of its inhabitants were unwarlike and voluptuous. The islands of an adjoining lake were studded with pleasure-houses, and its waters, on summer afternoons, covered with a multitude of gaily-painted barges. The main street in Kinsai was paved with stones and brick on both sides, and its centre filled with fine gravel, from which the water was artificially drained off. Along this centre the carriages of the rich were continually passing to and fro. Marco Polo has described these vehicles. They were calculated to hold six persons, were covered over at top like an English tilted cart, and furnished with curtains and cushions.*

In tracing the history of civilization, nothing is more interesting than to mark the perpetual recurrence of the universal principles of human nature, under an endless variety of outward forms. Among all nations the employment of some other mode of conveyance than that which nature has furnished in our own legs and feet, seems to have been very early regarded as a mark of rank, and not unfrequently to have given occasion to the title of a particular class. The use of a horse constituted a social distinction, with a corresponding appellation, among the Greeks and Romans, and in the feudal states of modern Europe. Among some tribes of Arabs to go on foot was accounted scandalous, so that when any person of respectability died, his camel was tied to his grave, and there starved to death, that it might rise with him from the dead, and enable him to appear like a gentleman in the other world. At the present day it is the token of gentility in European society to keep a carriage; and the case was apparently the same in China some five or six hundred years ago. In ancient India the circumstances of the country gave a different turn to the same passion. There an elephant was the great object of ambition. It was deemed the proper vehicle for kings;† and Arriant tells us, that there was

*Herodotus has described similar vehicles as used by the ladies of ancient Babylon: ἐπὶ ζευγέων ἐν καμάρῃσι ἐλάσασαι. i. 199.

+ Baσiλikov ŏxnμa, Arrian, Hist. Ind. c. 17.

Ibid. The gradations of rank in India noticed by Arrian in this passage indicate a very luxurious state of society. The next distinction to that of keeping an elephant

no sacrifice the ladies of that country would not make to obtain the distinction of possessing one. Some points of resemblance present themselves between the manners of the ancient Indians and those of the Chinese, resulting, no doubt, from a similar state of civilization,-which may be here briefly noticed. The Chinese are fond of gay and decorated garments, rich brocades, and embroidered silk, adorned with pearls and precious stones. Strabo and Arrian, both following the same authorities, give a similar account of the Indians, particularly the women, and speak of their gold ornaments, their jewels, their ivory earrings, and their delicately textured robes of bright and various hues.* Arrian mentions a whimsical fashion of the Indians something similar to which was in vogue in our own country during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, that of staining their beards of different colours. The Chinese are careful not to expose themselves to the rays of the sun, and ward them off by large parasols and umbrellas. The same expedient for the same purpose is described by Strabo in his account of the Indians. Indeed the parasol held by one servant, or the canopy by two, over the head of an individual, was anciently regarded as a sign of rank, and as such is represented in the bas reliefs still subsisting among the ruins of Persepolis. Strabo further mentions, as a peculiarity of the Indians, that they have no social meals, but sup and dine just when it pleases them. Barrow, in his travels, alludes to the same unamiable practice among the Chinese, and describes an individual retiring to a corner, to enjoy his bowl of soup in solitary selfishness.

Chinese civilization exhibits the realization of a system of gross utilitarianism. Everything is measured in China by its tendency to promote the material well-being of mankind. That precious truth, upon which all that is most excellent and glorious in humanity depends, and which Christianity has first unfolded in all the power and magnitude of its endless applications, that the outward and corporeal life of man is but a disciplinean instrumental process-for developing in all classes of the community, the rich and exhaustless treasures of a moral and spiritual life; that truth seems unknown to the Chinese: and without its influence, what is there in the most perfectly well-ordered society, and in the amplest supply of physical comforts and luxuries, to create true refinement of manners, genuine kindness

was driving four horses, тà télрiña; the third was employing camels; but to use only a single horse was considered quite disreputable, &тuov.

Strabo, xv. p. 1008, Oxf. edit. χρυσοφοροῦσι καὶ διαλίθῳ κόσμῳ χρῶνται, σινδόνας τε φοροῦσιν εὐανθεῖς, καὶ σκιάδια αὐτοῖς ἕπεται.

and nobleness of heart, or comprehensive vigour of understanding? These qualities do not belong to the Chinese as a people, and the reason is obvious. They do not cultivate the material, as a condition, in the present life, of the existence of the spiritual, element of civilization; but, in their system of education, morals, worship, and government, they just allow sufficient scope to the operation of the spiritual, to give its utmost development to the material, element. The value of the mind is estimated by its capacity to serve the body. That this is the character and object of all their institutions is frankly admitted by the two Chinese, who had been educated in Paris, in a curious memoir,* preserved in the voluminous collection of the Jesuits. The admirers of political centralization will find their principles worked out to perfection in the organisation of Chinese society. The individual has no existence and no activity, apart from the sphere assigned, and the impulse given, to him by the state. His will, as a moral agent, is resolved into that of the state. Of course, there are limits beyond which human nature, even in China, will not permit itself to be wronged; and we learn from Mr. Davis, that, at the present day, when abuses have proceeded to a great pitch, public meetings are sometimes held, by advertisement, for the purpose of remonstrating with unjust or obnoxious magistrates. Yet even in this case, what calls forth the demonstration of public spirit is not the impulse of improvement and reform, but annoyance at any deviation from established usage. The civil code of the Chinese is said to be distinguished for its simplicity, clearness, and brevity; the people are made acquainted with its provisions in the discourses periodically addressed to them by the magistrates; and a summary of the penal law is printed in a cheap form for general distribution.†

But these regulations, excellent in themselves, only give increased effect to the despotic spirit of the code itself. It fixes and orders and meddles with everything, penetrates even into the sanctuary of the human bosom, and subjects to its control those higher relations and responsibilities of humanity, which ought to be resigned entirely to the invisible sanctions of conscience. Chinese civilization is based on the universal application of the principle of paternal authority, ascending from the primary elements of domestic relationship, through all the

* Memoires concernant les Chinois, vol. i. p. 10, 11. See an instructive passage quoted by Schlosser (Univer. Hist. p. 94, vol. i.), which concludes with the following words; "Le savoir et le talent ne sont que des mots pour notre ministère, quan l'état n'en retire aucune utilité réelle."

+ Davis, The Chinese, ch. vi.

intermediate grades of social dependence, up to that general obedience which is due from all to the supreme head of the state. Thus the most purely human and natural of all our duties, those duties which a parent owes to his child, and which only the inward spirit of religion and moral feeling can enable him to discharge with efficiency, are classed by the artificial institutions of China with the prescribed functions of a citizen, and parents are actually rewarded or punished by the state for the conduct of their children.

Extraordinary merit is due to Confucius, as the civilizer of a semi-barbarous race. Nevertheless, it may be conjectured, that the peculiar deficiencies, which we have noticed in the institutions of the Chinese, and which appear the more striking, when we compare their institutions with those of Europe, may have arisen from the fact of the legislation of Confucius being too powerful, as it were, for his age, and of his having aimed prematurely to realize a merely relative perfection of manners and society. He has permanently embodied his own conceptions of the true purpose of society in the institutions and through them in the national character of the Chinese, but having by his commanding genius, and the deep sagacity of his arrangements, arrested and fixed the form of society at a particular period of its growth, he has made no provision for a principle of internal development and indefinite progression. We learn from an ancient Chinese work, ascribed to Meng-tsee, or, as the name is latinized by the Jesuits, Mencius,* who was a follower of Confucius and flourished about a hundred years later than his master, that the early state of society in China corresponded very nearly to that which existed in Europe under the feudal system. Five ranks or orders were recognized in the state, mutually dependent, subordinate the one to the other, and with authority and jurisdiction corresponding. Grants of land were made by the crown to the great officers of state, resembling the feifs and benefices of the middle ages. It is curious to remark that the organic movements of society, in the process of formation, should, in ages and countries so remote, have been distinguished by features so nearly similar. Out of this state of things in Europe, a number of corporate interests have evolved themselves, municipal, ecclesiastic, and legislative, which, wherever they have been able to retain their vitality, have presented a check to the all-absorbing centralization of the crown, and, whatever may have been their collateral evils and frequent abuses, and however much they may need the hand of

Referred to by Davis, vol. i. p. 179, 180.