gaze upon the wall as usual, when, in less than half an hour more, ho! but he retired out of the room with another. He is, indeed, a most agreeable creature.

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When he came to take his leave, the whole ceremony began afresh; papa would see him to the door, but the colonel swore he would rather see the earth turned upside down than permit him to stir a single step, and papa was at last obliged to comply. As soon as he was got to the door, papa went out to see him on horseback: here they continued half an hour bowing and cringing, before one would mount or the other go in, but the colonel was at last victorious. He had scarce gone an hundred paces from the house, when papa running out hallooed after him, "A good journey!" upon which the colonel returned, and would see papa into his house before ever he would depart. He was no sooner got home than he sent me a very fine present of duck eggs painted of twenty different colours. His generosity, I own, has won me. I have ever since been trying over the eight letters of good fortune, and have great hopes. All I have to apprehend is, that after he has married me, and that I am carried to his house close shut up in my chair, when he comes to have the first sight of my face, he may shut me up a second time, and send me back to papa. However I shall appear as fine as possible: mamma and I have been to buy the clothes for my wedding. I am to have a new fong whang2 in my hair, the beak of which will reach down to my nose; the milliner from whom we bought that and our ribands cheated us as if she had no conscience, and so to quiet mine I cheated her. All this is fair you know. I remain, my dear Yaya, your ever faithful, "YAOUA."

1

"The pa-kua, or eight mystical diagrams of Fo-hy." These, Sir J. F. Davis says (Chinese,' 1836, vol. ii., p. 135), "cut in stone or metal, are often worn as charms."-ED.

2 The foong hoang, or Chinese phoenix, an ornament of gold and jewels. See DAVIS's Chinese, vol. i., p. 337 (edit. 1836); also the story of Prince Bonbenin-bonbobbin-bonbobbinet and his White Mouse, in Letter XLVIII.-ED.

LETTER XL.

From Lien Chi Altangi to Fum Hoam.

THE ENGLISH STILL HAVE POETS, THOUGH NOT

VERSIFIERS.

1

You have always testified the highest esteem for the English poets, and thought them not inferior to the Greeks, Romans, or even the Chinese, in the art. But it is now thought, even by the English themselves, that the race of their poets is extinct; every day produces some pathetic exclamation upon the decadence of taste and genius. Pegasus," say they, "has slipped the bridle from his mouth, and our modern bards attempt to direct his flight by catching him by the tail."

Yet, my friend, it is only among the ignorant that such discourses prevail; men of true discernment can see several poets still among the English, some of whom equal, if not surpass, their predecessors. The ignorant term that alone poetry which is couched in a certain number of syllables in every line, where a vapid thought is drawn out into a number of verses of equal length, and perhaps pointed with rhymes at the end. But glowing sentiment, striking imagery, concise expression, natural description, and modulated periods, are full[y] sufficient entirely to fill up my idea of this art, and make way to every passion.

If my idea of poetry, therefore, be just, the English are not at present so destitute of poetical merit as they seem to imagine. I can see several poets in disguise among them, men furnished with that strength of soul, sublimity of sentiment, and grandeur of expression, which constitute the character. Many of the writers of their modern odes, sonnets, tragedies, or rebuses, it is true, deserve not the name, though they have done nothing but clink rhymes and measure syllables for years together:

1 Dated May 26, 1760, in the Public Ledger.—ED.

their Johnsons and Smolletts' are truly poets; though, for ought I know, they never made a single verse in their whole lives.

In every incipient language, the poet and the prose writer are very distinct in their qualifications: the poet ever proceeds first; treading unbeaten paths, enriching his native sounds, and employed in new adventures. The other follows with more cautious steps, and though slow in his motions, treasures up every useful or pleasing discovery. But when once all the extent and the force of the language is known, the poet then seems to rest from his labour, and is at length overtaken by his assiduous pursuer. Both characters are then blended into one: the historian and orator catch all the poet's fire, and leave him no real mark of distinction, except the iteration of numbers regularly returning. Thus, in the decline of ancient European learning, Seneca, though he wrote in prose, is as much a poet as Lucan, and Longinus, though but a critic, more sublime than Apollonius.

From this, then, it appears that poetry is not discon-' tinued, but altered among the English at present; the outward form seems different from what it was, but poetry still continues internally the same: the only question remains, whether the metric feet used by the good writers of the last age, or the prosaic numbers employed by the good writers of this, be preferable. And here the practice of the last age appears to me superior. They submitted to the restraint of numbers and similar sounds; and this restraint, instead of diminishing, augmented the force of their sentiment and style. Fancy restrained may be compared to a fountain, which plays highest by diminishing the aperture. Of the truth of this maxim in every language, every fine writer is perfectly sensible from his own experience, and yet to explain the reason would be per

1 Of course Goldsmith must have known that Johnson had published his London' in 1738, and his Vanity of Human Wishes' in 1749, and that Smollett. had published his 'Tears of Scotland' in 1746. By making his Chinese, however, acquainted with Johnson and Smollett as eminent writers, and yet ignorant of their poetry, he very cleverly insinuates that the poetical work of these authors was already almost forgotten.-ED.

haps as difficult as to make a frigid genius profit by the discovery.

There is still another reason in favour of the practice of the last age, to be drawn from the variety of modulation. The musical period in prose is confined to a very few changes; the numbers in verse are capable of infinite variation. I speak not now from the practice of modern verse writers, few of whom have any idea of musical variety, but run on in the same monotonous flow through the whole poem; but rather from the example of their former poets, who were tolerable masters of this variety, and also from a capacity in the language of still admitting various unanticipated music.

Several rules have been drawn up for varying the poetic measure, and critics have elaborately talked of accents and syllables; but good sense and a fine ear, which rules can never teach, are what alone can in such a case determine. The rapturous flowings of joy, or the interruptions of indignation, require accents placed entirely different, and a structure consonant to the emotions they would express. Changing passions, and numbers changing with those passions, make the whole secret of Western as well as Eastern poetry. In a word, the great faults of the modern professed English poets are, that they seem to want numbers which should vary with the passion, and are more employed in describing to the imgination than striking at the heart.

LETTER XLI.

To the Same.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE CONGREGATION IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH AT PRAYERS.

SOME time since I sent thee, O holy disciple of Confucius, an account of the grand abbey, or mausoleum, of the kings and heroes of this nation: I have since been introduced to a temple, not so ancient, but far superior in beauty and magnificence. In this, which is the most considerable of

in

the empire, there are no pompous inscriptions, no flattery paid the dead, but all is elegant and awfully simple. There are, however, a few rags hung round the walls, which have, at a vast expense, been taken from the enemy in the present war. The silk of which they are composed, when new, might be valued at half a string of copper money China; yet this wise people fitted out a fleet and an army in order to seize them, though now grown old, and scarcely capable of being patched up into a handkerchief. By this conquest, the English are said to have gained, and the French to have lost, much honour. Is the honour of European nations placed only in tattered silk?

In this temple I was permitted to remain during the whole service; and were you not already acquainted with the religion of the English, you might, from my description, be inclined to believe them as grossly idolatrous as the disciples of Lao. The idol which they seem to address, strides like a colossus over the door of the inner temple, which here, as with the Jews, is esteemed the most sacred part of the building. Its oracles are delivered in a hundred various tones, which seem to inspire the worshippers with enthusiasm and awe: an old woman, who appeared to be the priestess, was employed in various attitudes, as she felt the inspiration. When it began to speak, all the people remained fixed in silent attention, nodding assent, looking approbation, appearing highly edified by those sounds which to a stranger might seem inarticulate and unmeaning.

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When the idol had done speaking, and the priestess had locked up its lungs with a key, observing almost all the company leaving the temple, I concluded the service was over, and taking my hat, was going to walk away with the crowd, when I was stopped by the man in black, who assured me that the ceremony had scarcely yet begun! What!" cried I," do I not see almost the whole body of the worshippers leaving the church? Would you persuade me that such numbers who profess religion and morality, would, in this shameless manner, quit the temple before the service was concluded? You surely mistake: not even the Kalmucks would be guilty of such an indecency, though all the object of their worship was but a