more wit than others, and so stare, in what beauty! O Ciel! what taste! order to look smart. de ma vie! what grandeur! was ever people like ourselves? we are the na of men, and all the rest no better two-legged barbarians." I know not how it happens, but there appears a sickly delicacy in the faces of their finest women. This may have introduced the use of paint, and paint produces wrinkles; so that a fine lady shall look like a hag at twenty-three. But as, in some measure, they never appear young, so it may be equally asserted, that they actually think themselves never old; a gentle miss shall prepare for new conquests at sixty, shall hobble a rigadoon when she can scarce walk out without a crutch; she shall affect the girl, play her fan and her eyes, and talk of sentiments, bleeding hearts, and expiring for love, when actually dying with age. Like a departing philosopher, she attempts to make her last moments the most brilliant of her life. Their civility to strangers is what they are chiefly proud of; and, to confess sincerely, their beggars are the very politest beggars I ever knew: in other places a traveller is addressed with a piteous whine, or a sturdy solemnity, but a French beggar shall ask your charity with a very genteel bow, and thank you for it with a smile and shrug. Another instance of this people's breeding I must not forget. An Englishman would not speak his native language in a company of foreigners, where he was sure that none understood him; a travelling Hottentot himself would be silent if acquainted only with the language of his country; but a Frenchman shall talk to you whether you understand his language or not; never troubling his head whether you have learned French, still he keeps up the conversation, fixes his eye full in your face, and asks a thousand questions, which he answers himself, for want of a more satisfactory reply. But their civility to foreigners is not half so great as their admiration of themselves. Everything that belongs to them and their nation is great, magnificent beyond expression, quite romantic! every garden is a paradise, every hovel a palace, and every woman an angel. They shut their eyes close, throw their mouths wide d cry out in a rapture, "Sacre! I fancy the French would make the cooks in the world if they had but n as it is, they can dress you out five ferent dishes from a nettle-top, seven! a dock-leaf, and twice as many fro frog's haunches: these eat prettily ent when one is a little used to them, are of digestion, and seldom overload stomach with crudities. They sel dine under seven hot dishes: it is indeed, with all this magnificence, seldom spread a cloth before the gu but in that I cannot be angry with th since those who have got no linen their backs may very well be excused wanting it upon their tables. Even religion itself loses its solem among them. Upon their roads, at al every five miles distance, yon see image of the Virgin Mary, dressed in grim head-cloths, painted cheeks, an old red petticoat; before her a la is often kept burning, at which, with saint's permission, I have frequer lighted my pipe. Instead of the Virg you are sometimes presented with a c cifix, at other times with a wooden Savia fitted out in complete garniture, w sponge, spear, nails, pincers, hamm bees'-wax, and vinegar-bottle. Some these images, I have been told, came do from heaven; if so, in heaven they ha but bungling workmen. In passing through their towns y frequently see the men sitting at the do knitting stockings, while the care of cul vating the ground and pruning the va falls to the women. This is, perhaps, t reason why the fair sex are granted som peculiar privileges in this country; p ticularly, when they can get horses, i riding without a side-saddle. But I begin to think you may find description pert and dull enough; perhap it is so; yet, in general, it is the mane in which the French usually describe foreigners; and it is but just to force a of that ridicule back upon them, wit they attempt to lavish on others.-Ade LETTER LXXIX. To the same. HE two theatres which serve to amuse e citizens here are again opened for e winter. The mimetic troops, different om those of the state, begin their camaign when all the others quit the field; ad at a time when the Europeans cease > destroy each other in reality, they are atertained with mock battles upon the tage. The dancing master once more shakes as quivering feet; the carpenter prepares paradise of pasteboard; the hero reohes to cover his forehead with brass, the heroine begins to scour up her per tail, preparative to future opera; in short, all are in motion, from theatrical letter carrier, in yellow es, to Alexander the Great that s on a stool. the theatre in order to be instructed as well as amused. I smile to hear the assertion. If I ever go to one of their playhouses, what with trumpets, hallooing behind the stage, and bawling upon it, I am quite dizzy before the performance is over. If I enter the house with any sentiments in my head, I am sure to have none going away, the whole mind being filled with a dead march, a funeral procession, a cat-call, a jig, or a tempest. There is, perhaps, nothing more easy than to write properly for the English theatre; I am amazed that none are apprenticed to the trade. The author, when well acquainted with the value of thunder and lightning; when versed in all the mystery of scene-shifting and trapdoors; when skilled in the proper periods to introduce a wire-walker or a waterfall; when instructed in every actor's peculiar talent, and capable of adapting his speeches to the supposed excellence; when thus instructed, he knows all that can give a modern audience pleasure. One player shines in an exclamation, another in a groan, a third in a horror, a fourth in a start, a fifth in a smile, a sixth faints, and a seventh fidgets round the stage with peculiar vivacity; that piece, therefore, will succeed best, where each has a proper opportunity of shining: the actor's business is not so much to adapt himself to the poet, as the poet's to adapt himself to the actor. Beth houses have already commenced lamities. War, open war, and no quarter ved or given! Two singing women, heralds, have begun the contest; the e town is divided on this solemn ocn; one has the finest pipe, the other finest manner; one curtsies to the nd, the other salutes the audience a smile; one comes on with modesty hasks, the other with boldness which ts, applause; one wears powder, the er has none; one has the longest waist, the other appears most easy: all, all portant and serious; the town as yet severes in its neutrality; a cause of moment demands the most mature beration; they continue to exhibit, it is very possible this contest may rinue to please to the end of the season. But the generals of either army have, I am told, several reinforcements to nd occasional assistance. If they proace a pair of diamond buckles at one base, we have a pair of eyebrows that an match them at the other. If we out-present knowledge of the audience, the b them in our attitude, they can overcome by a shrug; if we can bring more hildren on the stage, they can bring more ards in red clothes, who strut and oalder their swords to the astonishment (every spectator. They tell me here, that people frequent The great secret, therefore, of tragedywriting at present is a perfect acquaintance with theatrical ah's and oh's; a certain number of these, interspersed with gods! tortures! racks! and damnation! shall distort every actor almost into convulsions, and draw tears from every spectator; a proper use of these will infallibly fill the whole house with applause. But, above all, a whining scene must strike most forcibly. I would advise, from my two favourite players of the town to introduce a scene of this sort in every play. Towards the middle of the last act I would have them enter with wild looks and outspread arms: there is no necessity for speaking, they are only to groan at each other; they must vary the tones of exclamation and despair through the whole theatrical gamut, wring their figures into every shape of distress, and, when their calamities have drawn a proper quantity of tears from the sympathetic spectators, they may go off in dumb solemnity at different doors, clapping their hands, or slapping their pocket-holes: this, which may be called a tragic pantomime, will answer every purpose of moving the passions as well as words could have done, and it must save those expenses which go to reward an author. All modern plays that would keep the audience alive must be conceived in this manner; and, indeed, many a modern play is made up on no other plan. This is the merit that lifts up the heart, like opium, into a rapture of insensibility, and can dismiss the mind from all the fatigue of thinking this is the eloquence that shines in many a long-forgotten scene, which has been reckoned excessively fine upon acting; this the lightning that flashes no less in the hyperbolical tyrant, who breakfasts on the wind, than in little Norval, as harmless as the babe unborn. -Adieu. LETTER LXXX. To the same. I HAVE always regarded the spirit of mercy which appears in the Chinese laws with admiration. An order for the execution of a criminal is carried from court by slow journeys of six miles a day, but a pardon is sent down with the most rapid dispatch. If five sons of the same father be guilty of the same offence, one of them is forgiven, in order to continue the family, and comfort his aged parents in their decline. Similar to this, there is a spirit of mercy breathes through the laws of England, which some erroneously endeavour to suppress; the laws, however, seem unwilling to punish the offender, or to furnish the officers of justice with every means of acting with severity. Those who arrest debtors are denied the use of arms; the nightly watch is permitted to repress the disorders of the drunken citizens only with clubs; justice, in such a case, seems Wie her terrors, and permits some offenders to escape rather than load with a punishment disproportioned t crime. Thus it is the glory of an English that he is not only governed by laws that these are also tempered by mer country restrained by severe laws those, too, executed with severity ( Japan), is under the most terrible sp of tyranny; a royal tyrant is gen dreadful to the great, but numerous } laws grind every rank of people chiefly those least able to resist op sion,-the poor. It is very possible thus for a peop become slaves to laws of their own e ing, as the Athenians were to tha Draco. "It might first happen," say historian, "that men with peculiar ta for villainy attempted to evade the nances already established; their pract therefore, soon brought on a new levelled against them; but the degree of cunning which had taught knave to evade the former statutes, ta him to evade the latter also; he flex new shifts, while justice pursued with ordinances; still, however, he kept proper distance, and whenever one cr was judged penal by the state, he committing it, in order to practise & unforbidden species of villainy. Thus criminal against whom the threateni were denounced always escaped fi while the simple rogue alone felt rigour of justice. In the meantime, pe laws became numerous; almost ev person in the state, unknowingly, different times offended, and was ev moment subject to a malicious pro-e tion." In fact, penal laws, instead preventing crimes, are generally enact after the commission; instead of repte ing the growth of ingenious vill only multiply deceit, by putting it up new shifts and expedients of practis with impunity. Such laws, therefore, resemble # guards which are sometimes imposs upon tributary princes, apparently, deed, to secure them from danger, but, i reality, to confirm their captivity. Penal laws, it must be allowed, sca property in a state, but they also dis #sonal security in the same proportion: tre is no positive law, how equitable ver, that may not be sometimes capable injustice. When a law enacted to ke theft punishable with death happens be equitably executed, it can at best ly guard our possessions; but when, favour or ignorance, justice prounces a wrong verdict, it then attacks lives, since, in such a case, the whole mmunity suffers with the innocent vicn: if, therefore, in order to secure the fects of one man, I should make a law hich should take away the life of other, in such a case, to attain a smaller I am guilty of a greater evil; to tre society in the possession of a bauble, reder a real and valuable possession recarious. And indeed the experience fary age may serve to vindicate the Bercon. No law could be more just that called lesa majestatis, when e was governed by emperors: it nt reasonable, that every conspiracy st the administration should be leted and punished yet what terrible ters succeeded in consequence of actment! proscriptions, stranglings, nings, in almost every family of Ention; yet all done in a legal way, criminal had his trial, and lost his y a majority of witnesses. ad such will ever be the case, where shments are numerous, and where a vicious, but above all, where a nary magistrate is concerned in execution: such a man desires to Denal laws increased, since he too ently has it in his power to turn into instruments of extortion; in hands, the more laws, the wider ns, not of satisfying justice, but of ling avarice. A mercenary magistrate, who is reErded in proportion, not to his integrity, to the number he convicts, must be a son of the most unblemished character, he will lean on the side of cruelty; when once the work of injustice is un, it is impossible to tell how far it proceed. It is said of the hyena, , naturally, it is no way ravenous; but en once it has tasted human flesh, it comes the most voracious animal of the forest, and continues to persecute mankind ever after. A corrupt magistrate may be considered as a human hyæna: he begins, perhaps, by a private snap, he goes on to a morsel among friends, he proceeds to a meal in public, from a meal he advances to a surfeit, and at last sucks blood like a vampire. Not into such hands should the administration of justice be entrusted, but to those who know how to reward as well as to punish. It was a fine saying of Nangfu the emperor, who, being told that his enemies had raised an insurrection in one of the distant provinces, "Come, then, my friends," said he, "follow me, and I promise you that we shall quickly destroy them." He marched forward, and the rebels submitted upon his approach. All now thought that he would take the most signal revenge, but were surprised to see the captives treated with mildness and humanity. "How!" cries his first minister, "is this the manner in which you fulfil your promise? your royal word was given that your enemies should be destroyed, and behold you have pardoned all, and even caressed some!""I promised," replied the emperor with a generous air, "to destroy my enemies; I have fulfilled my word, for see they are enemies no longer; I have made friends of them." This, could it always succeed, were the true method of destroying the enemies of a state; well it were, if rewards and mercy alone could regulate the commonwealth: but since punishments are sometimes necessary, let them at least be rendered terrible, by being executed but seldom; and let Justice lift her sword rather to terrify than revenge.—Adieu. LETTER LXXXI. To the same. I HAVE as yet given you but a short and imperfect description of the ladies of England. Woman, my friend, is a subject not easily understood, even in China; what, therefore, can be expected from my knowledge of the sex, in a country where they are universally allowed to be riddles, and I but a stranger? To confess a truth, I was afraid to begin the description, lest the sex should undergo some new revolution before it was finished; and my picture should thus become old before it could well be said to have ever been new. To-day they are lifted upon stilts; to-morrow they lower their heels, and raise their heads: their clothes at one time are bloated out with whalebone; at present they have laid their hoops aside, and are become as slim as mermaids. All, all is in a state of continual fluctuation, from the mandarine's wife who rattles through the street in her chariot, to the humble sempstress who clatters over the pavement in iron-shod pattens. What chiefly distinguishes the sex at present is the train. As a lady's quality or fashion was once determined here by the circumference of her hoop, both are now measured by the length of her tail. Women of moderate fortunes are contented with tails moderately long; but ladies of true taste and distinction set no bounds to their ambition in this particular. I am told the lady mayoress, on days of ceremony, carries one longer than a bellwether of Bantam, whose tail, you know, is trundled along in a wheelbarrow. Sun of China, what contradictions do we find in this strange world! not only the people of different countries think in opposition to each other, but the inhabitants of a single island are often found inconsistent with themselves. Would you believe it? this very people, my Fum, who are so fond of seeing their women with long tails, at the same time dock their horses to the very rump! But you may easily guess, that I am no ways displeased with a fashion which tends to increase a demand for the commodities of the East, and is so very beneficial to the country in which I was born. Nothing can be better calculated to increase the price of silk than the present manner of dressing. A lady's train is not bought but at some expense, and after it has swept the public walks for a very few evenings, is fit to be worn no longer more silk must be bought in order to repair the breach, and some ladies of peculiar economy are thus found : to patch up their tails eight or ten in a season. This unnecessary cons tion may introduce poverty here, bu we shall be the richer for it in Chi The Man in Black, who is a pro enemy to this manner of ornamentu tail, assures me there are num" inconveniences attending it, and t lady dressed up to the fashion is as a cripple as any in Nankin. Bi chief indignation is levelled at thos dress in this manner, without a F fortune to support it. He assure that he has known some who would a tail though they wanted a petti and others, who, without any other tensions, fancied they became merely from the addition of three s fluous yards of ragged silk. "I kr thrifty good woman," continues he, thinking herself obliged to carry a like her betters, never walks from without the uneasy apprehension of ing it out too soon: every excursion makes gives her new anxiety; and train is every bit as importunate, wounds her peace as much, as the bla we sometimes see tied to the tail of a Nay, he ventures to affirm, that a 1 may often bring a lady into the 1 critical circumstances: "for, shoul rude fellow," says he, "offer to come to ravish a kiss, and the lady attemp avoid it, in retiring she must necess tread upon her train, and thus fall f upon her back; by which means, e one knows-her clothes may be spoile The ladies here make no scruple laugh at the smallness of a Chr slipper; but I fancy our wives in Ch would have a more real cause of laugh could they but see the immoderate len of an European train. Head of Coninc to view a human being crippling her with a great unwieldy tail for our dr sion. Backward she cannot go for she must move but slowly; and if e she attempts to turn round, it must be a circle not smaller than that descr by the wheeling crocodile, when it wo face an assailant. And yet to think all this confers importance and may to think that a lady acquires addi respect from fifteen yards of trail |