were called Chin; and the dominion of its princes was gradually extended to the east and weft. A king of Chin, who makes a figure In the Sháhnámah among the allies of Afrifiyab, was I prefume, a fovereign of the country juft mentioned; and the river of Chin, which the poet frequently hames as the limit of his eaftern geography, feems to have been the Yellow river, which the Chinese introduce at the beginning of their fabulous annals I fhould be tempted to expatiate on fo curious a fubject; but the prefent occafion allows nothing fuperfluous, and permits me only to add, that the Mangukh n died, in the middle of the thirteenth century, before the city of Chin, which was afterwards taken by Kublai, and that the poets of Irán perpetually alJude to the diftricts around it which they celebrate with Chegil and Khoten, for a number of mufk-animals roving on their hills. The territory of Chin, fo called by the old Hindus, by the Perfians, and by the Chinefe (while the Greeks and Arabs were obliged by their defect ive articulation to mifcall it Sín) gave its name to a race of emperors, whofe tyranny made their memory fo unpopular, that the modern inhabitants of China hold the word in abhorrence, and fpeak of themselves as the people of a milder and more virtuous dynasty; but it is highly probable that the whole nation defcended from the Chinas of Menu, and, mixing with the Tartars, by whom the plains of Hunan and the more fouthern provinces were thinly inhabited, formed by degrees the race of men, whom we now fee in poffeffion of the noblest empire in Afia.

"In fupport of an opinion, which I offer as the refult of long and anxious inquiries, I thall regularly pro

ceed to examine the language and letters, religion and philofophy, of the prefent Chinese, and fubjoin fome remarks on their ancient monuments, on their sciences, and on their arts both liberal and mechani、 cal

but their fpoken language, not having been preferved by the ufua! fymbols of articulate founds, muft have been for many ages in a continual flux; their letters, if we may fo call them, are merely the fymbols of ideas; their popular religion was imported from India in an age comparatively modern; and their philofophy feems yet in fo rude a ftate, as hardly to deferve the appellation; they have no ancient mo numents, from which their origin can be traced even by plaufible conjecture; their fciences are wholly exotick; and their mechanical arts have nothing in them characteristick of a particular family; nothing, which any fet of men, in a country fo highly favoured by nature, might not have difcovered and improved. They have indeed, both national mufic and national poetry, and both of them beautifully pathetick; but of painting, fculpture, or architecture, as arts of imagination, they feem (like other Afiaticks) to have no idea. Inftead therefore, of enlarging feparately on each of those heads, fhall briefly inquire, how far the literature and religious practices of China confirm or oppose the propofition, which I have advanced.

"The declared and fixed opinion of M. de Guignes, on the fubject before us is nearly connected with that of the Brahmens; he maintains, that the Chinese were emigrants from Egypt; and the Egyptians, or Ethiopians, (for they were clearly the fame people) had indu bitably a common origin with the old natives of India, as the affinity

of

of their languages, and of their inftitutions, both religious and political, fully evinces; but that China was peopled a few centuries before our era by a colony from the banks of the Nile, though neither Perfiaus nor Arabs, Tartars nor Hindus, ever heard of fuch an emigration, is a paradox, which the bare authority of even of fo learned a man cannot fupport; and, fince reafon grounded on facts can alone decide fuch a queftion, we have a right demand clearer evidence and ftrong er arguments, than any that he has adduced. The hieroglyphicks of Egypt bear, indeed, a strong refemblance to the mythological fculptures and paintings of India, but feem wholly diffimilar to the fymbolical fyftem of the Chinefe, which might eafily have been invented (as they affert) by an individual, and might very naturally have been contrived by the first Chinas or out-caft Hindus, who either never knew, or had forgotten, the alphabetical characters of their wifer ancestors. As to the table and buft of Ifis, they feem to be given up as modern forgeries; but, if they were indifputably genuine, they would be nothing to the purpofe; for the letters on the buft appear to have been defigned as alphabetical; and the fabricator of them (if they really were fabricated in Europe) was uncommonly happy, fince two or three of them are exact ly the fame with thofe on a metal pillar yet ftanding in the north of India. In Egypt, if we can rely on the teftimony of the Greeks, who studied no language but their own, there were two fets of alphabetical characters; the one popular, like the various letters used in our Indian provinces; and the other facerdotal, like the Dévanagari, especially that form of it, which we fee in the. Vé: befides which they had two

da

1791.

forts of facred fculpture; the one fimple, like the figures of Buddha and the three Ramas; and the other, allegorical, like the images of Ganéfa, or divine wisdom, and Ifari, or nature, with all their emblematical accompaniments; but the real character of the Chinese appears wholly diftinct from any Egyptian writing, either myfterious or popular; and, as to the fancy of M. de Guignes, that the complicated fymbols of China were at first no more than Phenician monograms, let us hope, that he has abandoned fo wild a conceit, which he started probably with no other view than to difplay his ingenuity and learning.

We have ocular proof, that the few radical characters of the Chinese were originally (like our aftronomical and chymical fymbols) the pictures or out-lines of vifible objects, or figurative figns for fimple ideas, which they have multiplied by the moft ingenious combinations and the livelieft metaphors; but, as the fyftem is peculiar, I believe, to themfelves and the Japanese, it would be idly oftentatious to enlarge on it at prefent; and, for the reafons already intimated, it neither corroborates nor weakens the opinion, which I endeavour to fupport. The fame may as truly be faid of their fpoken language; for, inde pendently of its conftant fluctuation during a feries of ages, it has the peculiarity of excluding four or five founds, which other nations articulate, and is clipped into monofyllables, even when the ideas expreffed by them, and the written fymbols for thofe ideas, are very complex. This has arifen, I fuppofe, from the fingular habits of the people; for, though their common tongue be fo mufically accented as to form a kind of recitative, yet it wants thofe gram

all human tongues would appear monofyllabick: thus Amita, with an accent on the firit fyllable, means, in the Sanferit language, immeafu rable; and the natives of Bengal pronounce it Omito; but, when the religion of Buddha, the fon of My, was carried hence into China, the people of that country, unable to pronounce the name of their new God, call him Foe, the fon of Mo-ye, and divided his epithet Amita into three tyllables O-mi-to, annexing to them certain ideas of their own, and expreffing them in writing by three diftinct fymbols. We may judge from this inftance, whether a comparison of their fpoken tongue with the dialects of other nations can lead to any certain conclufion as to their origin; yet the inftance, which I have given, fupplies me with an argument from analogy, which I produce as conjectural only, but which appears more and more plaufible, the oftener I confider it. The Buddha of the Hindus is unquestionably the Foe of China; but the great progenitor of the Chinese is alfo named by them Fohi, where the fecond monofyllable fignifies, it seems, a victim: now the ancestor of that military tribe, whom the Hindus call the Chandravanfa, or children of the Moon, was, according to their Puránas or legends, Buddha, or the genius of the planet Mercury, from whom, in the fifth degree, defcended a prince named Druhya; whom his father Yay ti fent in exile to the east of Hinduftán, with this imprecation,

may the progeny be ignorant of "the Veda." The name of the banifhed prince could not be pronounced by the modern Chinese; and, though I dare not conjecture, that the last fyllable of it has been changed into Yao, I may neverthe.

in defcent from Fo-hi, or at least the fifth mortal in the first imperial dynafty; that all Chinese hillory be fore him is confidere i by the Chinese themfelves as poetical or fabulous ; that his father Ti-co, like the Indian king Yayati, was the firft prince who married several women; and that Fo-hi, the head of their race, appeared, fay the Chinese, in a pro. vince of the weft, and held his court in the territory of Chin, where the rovers, mentioned by the Indian legiflator, are fuppofed to have fettled. Another circumstance in the parallel is very remarkable : according to father De Premare, in his tract on Chinese mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the Daughter of Heaven, furnamed Flower-long; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river with a fimilar name, the found herself on a fudden encircled by a rain-bow: foon after which the became pregnant, and at the end of twelve years was delivered of a son radiant as her felf, who among other titles, had that of Súi, or Star of the Year. Now in the mythological fyftem of the Hindus, the nymph Rohini, who prefides over the fourth lunar manfion, was the favourite mistress of . Sóma, or the moon, among whofe numerous epithets we find Cumudanayaca, or delighting in a fpecies of water-flower, that bloffoms at night; and their offspring was Budha, regent of a planet, and called alfo, from the names of his parents, Rauhinéya or Saumya: it is true, that the learned miffionary explains the word Súi by Jupiter; but an exact resemblance between two fuch fables could not have been expected; and it is.fufficient for my purpose, that they feem to have a family likenefs. The God Budha, fay the Indians, married Ilá, whole father was

.

"tions; and far lefs can they, who "adore the Gods with languor and ofcitancy, clearly perceive their fa"cred illapfes." Thefe are imperfect traces indeed, but they are traces, of an athinity between the religion of Menu and that of the Chinas, whom he names among the apoftates from it: M. le Gentil obferv. ed, he fays, a strong resemblance between the funeral rites of the Chinefe and the Sraddha of the Hindus; and M. Bailly, after a learned investigation, concludes, that " even the puerile and abfurd stories of "the Chinefe fabulifts contain a rem"nant of ancient Indian' hiftory, "with a faint sketch of the firft Hindu ages." As the Bauddhas, indeed, were Hindus, it may naturally be imagined, that they carried into China many ceremonies practifed in their own country; but the Bauddhas pofitively forbad the immolation of cattle yet we know, that various animals, even bulls and men, were anciently facrificed by the Chinefe; befides which we discover many fingular marks of relation between them and the old Hindus: as in the remarkable period of four hundred and thirty-two thoufand, and the cycle of fixty, years; in the predilection for the mystical number nine: in many fimilar fafts and great festivals, especially at the folftices

and equinoxes; in the juft-mentioned obfequies confifting of rice and fruits offered to the manes of their ancestors; in the dread of dying. childlefs, left fuch offerings fhould be intermitted; and, perhaps, in their common abhorrence of red objects, which the Indians carried fo far, that Menu himfelf, where he allows a Brahmen to trade, if he cannot otherwife fupport life, abfolutely forbids "his trafficking in

any fort of red cloths, whether "linen or woollen, or made of wo"ven bark." All the circumftances, which have been mentioned under the two heads of literature and religion, feem collectively to prove (as far as fuch a question admits proof) that the Chinese and Hindus were originally the fame people, but having been feparated near four thoufand years, have retained few ftrong features of their ancient coufanguinity, especially as the Hindus have preferved their old language and ritual, while the Chinese very foon loft both, and the Hindus have conftantly intermarried among themfelves, while the Chinese, by a mixture of Tartarian blood from the time of their firft ettablishment, have at length formed a race distinct in appearance both from Indians and Tartars."

“I

Have faid but a word on the famous labyrinth of Crete; but the little I have faid it is incumbent on me to juftify.

Herodotus has left us a de

fcription of that which he had feen in Egypt, near the lake Maris. It confifted of twelve large contiguous palaces, containing three thoufand chambres, fifteen hundred of which

were