Select Reviews, Volume 5

riour offiters passing through, to their gates; but shall be severelypunished if they proceed beyond them. Every individual who does not dismount and make way when he meets an officer of government on the road, shall receive fifty blows. No individual to pass through a barrier, without a license or passport, under pain of eighty blows. If he proceed so far as to have any communication with aliens, he shall suffer death. In Pekin, no person whatever to go abroad after nine o'clock in the evening, or before five in the morning, under pain of fifty blows. The same regulation in all the other cities of the empire, with one degree of less severity

The establishment of a government post has long been known as one of the ancient institutions of China. There are various minute regulations with regard to it in this volume. The rate of travelling with publick despatches is not much less than a hundred miles per day.

Robbery in the night is punished with death; in the day, with a hundred blows, and perpetual banishment. Any attempt to rescue the offender after he is seized, is capital. The pains of stealing rise in proportion to the value taken—from sixty blows of the bamboo, to death; though sir George Staunton says, that this extreme punishment never is inflicted for this offence. S%vindling, or obtaining money on false pretences, punished exactly as theft to the same value; extorting by threats, one degree more severely. Stealing from near relations incurs punishment five degrees less severe than that of common theft. Sir George Staunton attempts to explain this very extraordinary law, by observing, that all the members of a family are considered as having a sort o{ joint interest in their property; so that the domestick thief takes only what is partly his own. Kidnapping, or stealing human creaOjres, punished with a hundred

blows and banishment; if the person be wounded or injured, with death.' Any person entering a house, either by force or by stealth, in the night, may be lawfully killed. There are very seicre itnd extremely anxious penalties against disturbing graves, or exposing dead bodies to any kind of indecent treatment.

Murder is punished with death. Even an intention to commit parricide has the same pain; and, if the parent be actually killed, torture is added. Administering poison is capital, even though it does not kill. Killing in an affray is also capital; if by accident, and quite without intention, the party may redeem his life by a small fine. Physicians who kill by absurd medicines, if without any malicious purpose, may also redeem themselves, but must for ever quit the profession. Husbands may kill persons caught in adultery.

There is a long gradation of punishments in cases of assault, both the pains and the injury being nicely distinguished. Mitigations are also allowed on account of provocation, as may be seen from the following characteristick enactment.

"In the case of a combat between t w» persons; and in the case of several persons engaging in an affray, and promiscuously striking and fighting each other, they shall be punished respectively, according to the blows duly ascertained, and proved, by the examination of the effects, to have been received by their antagonists, except that the punishment of the person or persons who only return the blows received, and have the right and justice of the dispute on his or their side, shall be reduced two degrees in consideration of such favourable circumstances; but this reduction shall not take place in the instance of striking an elder brother or sister, or an uncle; or when inflicting, in any case, a mortal blow.

"As for instance; let Kia and Yee be supposed to quarrel and fight, and that Kin deprives Yee of an eye, and Tee deprives Kia of a tooth; now the injury Bus. tained by Yee is the heaviest, and subjects Kia to the punishment of 100 blows and three years banishment, whilst the lesser injury sustained by Kia subjects Yee to a punishment of 100 blows only: nevertheless, if it appears that Kia only returned the attack, and had the right on his side, his punishment shall be reduced two degrees, and accordingly amount to eighty blows and two years banishment. On the contrary, if Yee only returned the attack, and had the right in the dispute, his punishment shall be reduced two degrees, and amount to 80 blows only; the punishment to which the antagonist is subjected, remaining in either case the same as before." p. 326, 327.

The punishment for striking an individual of the imperial blood is less severe than for striking an officer of the government. Persons inflicting -wounds are liable for their consequences, for twenty, thirty, or fifty days, according to the nature of the injury. If the sufferer die after the legal period, the assailant is not responsible. A slave striking a free man, suffers only one degree more severely than for an assault among equals; and vice versa; though a master may strike his slave with impunity, if it.be done for correction, and do not cut. Striking parents is death in all cases. Wife striking husband is punished three degrees more severely than for a common assault; if she maim him, with death; if he die, with death by torture. If a father kill his child by excessive chastisement, a hundred blows. There is no warrant in the letter of the law for infanticide. If one kill another to revenge the slaughter of a parent, the punishment is only a hundred blows.

The author of all anonymous accusations against others, shall suffer death, although the charge should prove true. False and malicious accusations shall be punished with a pain two degrees more severe than the accused would have undergone, if the charge had been true. This, again, is exemplified by the anxiety of the legislator, through a great variety of imaginary cases. We shall give merely the general rule of equation.

"When any person accuses ahotlicr of two or more offences, whereof the lesser only proves true* and when, in the case of a single offence having been charged by one person against another, the statement thereof is found to exceed the truth; upon either supposition, if the punishment of the falsely alleged, or falsely aggravated offence, had been actually inflicted in consequence of such false accusation; the difference (estimated according to the established mode of computation hereafter exemplified) between the falsely alleged and the actually committed offence, or between the falsely alleged greater, and the truly alleged lesser offence, shall be inflicted on the false accuser; but if punishment, conformably to the nature of the falsely alleged, or falsely aggravated offence, shall not have actually been inflicted, having been prevented by a timely discovery of the falsehood of the accusation, the false accuser shall be permitted to redeem, according to an established scale, the whole of the punishment which would have been due to him in the former case, provided it does not exceed 100 blows; but if it should exceed 100 blows, the 100 blows shall be inflicved, and he shall be only permitted to redeem the excess, p. 366, 367.

There is a very long section on bribery, with a prodigious scale of punishments, as usual, according as the bribe is large or small, or taken for an innocent or a criminal object. The pains range from 60 blows with the bamboo to death; that extreme punishment being inflicted for taking more than 80 ounces of silver [under 30/.] for an unlawful object, and 120 [or 60/.] for a lawful one. Agreeing to take a bribe has the same punishment as actually taking it; offering or giving it a much lighter one; and if asked or extorted by an officer of government, no punishment at all.

Forging an imperial edict is death; or counterfeiting the copper coin, the only proper currency of the empire. There does not appear to be any precise regulation about the forgery of private writings.

Rape is punished with death; adultery among private persons, with 100 blows; but much more severely among persons high in office; formcation, with 70 blows; other offences of a' more detestable nature only with the same punishment.

A person accidentally setting fire to his house, shall receive 40 blows; and if the fire spread to the gate of an imperial palace, shall be put to death. Wilfully setting fire to one's own house, 100 blows; to any other house, publick or private, death. Very severe penalties for neglecting the reparation of roads, bridges, and canals, and for damaging or encroaching on them.

Such are a few of the leading provisions of this oriental code: and defective as it must no doubt appear, in comparison with our own more liberal and indulgent constitutions, we conceive, that even this hasty sketch of its contents will be thought sufficient to justify all that we have said of its excellence, in relation to other Asiatick systems. How far it is impartially enforced, or conscientiously obeyed, we have not, indeed, the means of knowing; and so slight is the connexion between good laws and national morality, that prohibitions often serve only to indicate the prevalence of crimes, and the denunciation of severe punishments to prove their impunity. Of one crime, indeed, and that the most heavily reprobated, perhaps, of any in this code, we know the Chinese to be almost universally guilty; and that is, the-crime of corruption. At Canton, it is believed, our traders have never yet met with any officer of government inaccessible to a bribe; and where this system is universal, it is evident that the very foundations of justice and good government must be destroyed in every department of the state. Of the extent to which falsification may be carried, and of the impunity of which it may be assured by bribery, a notable instance is recorded in the detail published by sir George Staunton, in the appendix, of the circumstances attending the trial and acquittal of an English seaman,.

for killing a Chinese in an affray. The native merchant who had become answerable for the good conduct of the crew, finding it impossible to get the officers to deliver up the man, contrived, by bribes, to the amount, as was reported, of no less than 50,000/. not only to get a whole host of witnesses to swear to a detailed story directly contrary to the truth, but to prevail on the tribunals and chief magistrates, among whom the real state of the fact was notorious, to certify and report it to the supreme government at Pekin, and to pronounce a solemn sentence in conformity to that statement. Such, however, will always be the

fate Of A NATION WITHOUT HONOUR; and this is the grand and peculiar reproach of the singular people we have been contemplating. That noble and capricious principle, which it is as difficult to define, as to refer in all cases to a sure foundation in reason or in morality, is, after all, the true safeguard of national and individual happiness and integrity, as well as of their dignity and greatness. It is found, too, in almost all conditions of society, and in every stage of its progress; among the savages of America, and the bandits of Arabia, as well as among the gentlemen of London or Paris; among Turks, heathens, and Christians; among merchants and peasants; republicans and courtiers; men and children. It is found every where refining and exalting morality; aiding religion, or supplying its place; inspiring and humanizing bravery; fortifying integrity; overawing or tempering oppression; softening the humiliation of poverty, and taming the arrogance of success. A nation is strong and happy exactly in proportion to the spirit of honour which prevails in it; and no nation, ancient or modern, savage or civilized, seems to have been altogether destitute of it, but the Chinese. To what they are indebted for this degrading peculiarity, we shall. not pretend to determine. The despotism of the government; the trading habits of the people; the long peace tliey have enjoyed; and their want of intercourse with other nations, may all have had their share. The fact, however, we take to be undoubted; and it both explains and justifies the chief deformities in the code we have now been considering. If such a code could be imposed by force upon an honourable and generous people, it would be the most base and cruel of all atrocities to impose it. But it is good

enough for a race to whose habits k was originally adapted, and who have quietly submitted to it for two thousand years. When governments begin to think it a duty to exalt and improve the condition of their subjects, the Chinese government will have more to do than any other; but while the object is merely to keep their subjects in order, and to repress private outrages and injuries to individuals, they may boast of having as effectual provisions for that purpose, as any other people.

WE class these publications together, as being a species which characteristick simplicity and the powerful union of musick render

generally acceptable, as well to igh-born dames in bower and hall, as to "the free maids that weave their thread with bones."

The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland, was the venerable bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroick ballads, songs, and pieces of early poets, under the title of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. The plan of the work was adjusted in concert With Mr. Shenstone, but we own we cannot regret that the execution of it devolved upon Dr. Percy alone. It was divided into three volumes, each forming a distinct series of ancient poetry, selected with classical elegance, and interspersed with modern imitations and specimens of lyrick composition. The various subdivisions of the work were prefaced by critical and cu

rious dissertations upon subjects connected with or tending to elucidate the ancient ballads which they preceded. The arrangement of the specimens was so managed as to exhibit the gradation of language, the progress of popular opinions, the manners and customs of former ages, and the obscure passages of our earlier classical poets. The plan of this publication was eminently calculated to remove the principal obstacle which the taste of the period offered to its success. To brine Philosophy from heaven to dwell among men, it was necessary to devest her of some of her more awful attributes, to array her doctrines in familiar language, and render them evident by popular illustration. But Dr. Percy had a different course to pursue when conducting Legendary Lore from stalls, and kitchens, and cottage chimneys, or at best, from the dust, moths, and mould of the Pepysian or Pearsonian collections, to be an inmate of the drawing toam and the study. The attempt was entirely new, and the difficulties attending it arose from the fastidious taste of an age which was accustomed to receive nothing under the denomination of poetry, unrecommended by flowing numbers and elaborate expression. To soften these difficulties Dr. Percy availed himself, :o a considerable extent, of his own poetical talent, to alter, amend, and decorate the rude, popular rhymes which, if given to the publick with scrupulous fidelity, would probably have been rejected with contempt and disgust. It was not then so much the question whether an ancient poem was authentick, according to the letter, as whether it was, or could be rendered, worth reading; and it might be said of Dr. Percy's labours as an editor, nihil quod tetigit non ornavit. It may be asked by the severer antiquary of the present day, why an editor, thinking it necessary to introduce such alterations, in order to bring forth a new, beautiful, and interesting sense from a meagre or corrupted original, did not, in good faith to his readers, acquaint them with the liberties he had taken, and make them judges whether, in so doing, he transgressed lus limits. We answer, that unquestionably such would be the express duty of a modern editor; but such were not the rules of the service when Dr. Percy first opened the campaign. His avowal of alterations, additions, and conjectural emendations, at the bottom of each page, would have only led his readers to infer that his originals were good for nothing; not to mention that a great many of those additions derived their principal merit from being supposed ancient. In short, a certain conformity with the general taste was necessary to introduce a relish for the subject; accuracy, and minute investigation of the original state of the ballads, was likely to follow, and did follow Vol. v r

so soon as the publick ear had been won by the more elegant and polished edition of Dr. Percy. It had been well if the industrious Ritson, and other minute and accurate labourers in the mine of antiquity, had contented themselves with exhibiting specimens of the ore in its original state, without abusing the artist who had made the vein worth digging, by showing to what its produce might be refined.

The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry seem, shortly after their publication, to have exceeded even the expectation of the editor in giving a strong and determined impulse to publick taste and curiosity, the effects of which have only abated within these very few years. Mr. Thomas Evans, bookseller, was the first who endeavoured to avail himself of the taste which they had excited, by publishing the collection of which his son has now given us a second edition.

This publication, although intended as a supplement to the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, cannot be considered as continued upon the same plan. There are no dissertations prefixed, and the preliminary matter which prefaces the ballads, is but meagre. The ballads themselves are chiefly such as the more cautious taste of Dr. Percy had left unpublished, either because their rude structure was incapable of decoration, or because they were so well known as to render decoration unadvisable. The principal source from which they were taken, is a small publication in three vols. 12mo. entitled: "A Collection of old Ballads, corrected from the best and most ancient Copies extant, with Introductions, historical, critical, or humorous: illustrated with copperplates." It is now, we believe, extremely rare, and sells at a price very disproportionate to its size. The volumes appeared separately, and from the edition now before us,