[645]He who first shall crown thy labours, Gama.—Pedro de Cabral, of whom see the preface.[646]Ceylon.[647]Some Macon's orgies.—Macon, a name of Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed.[648]The tomb where Thomas sleeps.—There is (to talk in the Indian style)a casteof gentlemen, whose hearts are all impartiality and candour to every religion, except one, the most moral which ever the world heard of. A tale of a Brahmin, or a priest of Jupiter, would to them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an apostle—— Common sense, however, will prevail; and the episode of St. Thomas will appear to the true critic equal in dignity and propriety.To renew and complete the labours of the apostle, the messenger of Heaven, is the great design of the hero of the poem, and of the future missions, in consequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.The Christians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival ofGama, we have already mentioned. The Jesuit missionaries have given most pompous accounts of the Christian antiquities of India and China. When the Portuguese arrived in India, the head of the Malabar Christians, named Jacob, styled himself Metropolitan of India and China. And a Syriac breviary{*} of the Indian Christians offers praise to God for sending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a foundation near Sigansu, metropolis of the province of Xensi, was found a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and some Syriac characters, containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Christian religion, "that it was brought from Judea; that having been weakened, it was renewed under the reign of the great Tam" (cir.A.D.630). But the Christians, say the Jesuits, siding with the Tartars, cir.A.D.1200, were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, observing some ruins near Peking, was told by the people, that 200 years before, a holy man who worshipped Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, lived there; and being murdered, was thrown into a river, but his body would not sink; and soon after the city was destroyed by an earthquake. The same Jesuit found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Christianity, which they said were preached to their fathers, by John, the disciple of Thomas. In 1635, some heathens, by night passing through a village in the province of Fokien, saw some stones which emitted light, under which were found the figure of crosses. From China, St. Thomas returned to Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated on the sea near the coast. The king endeavoured to bring it ashore, but all the force of men and elephants was in vain. St. Thomas desired leave to build a church with it, and immediately dragged it to shore with a single thread. A church was built, and the king baptized. This enraged the Brahmins, the chief of whom killed his own son, and accused Thomas of the murder. But the saint, by restoring the youth to life, discovered the wickedness of his enemies. He was afterwards killed by a lance while kneeling at the altar; after, according to tradition, he had built 3300 stately churches, many of which were rebuilt, cir. 800, by an Armenian named Thomas Cananeus. In 1533, the body of the apostle, with the head of the lance beside him, was found in his church by D. Duarte de Meneses; and in 1558 was, by D. Constantine de Braganza, removed to Goa. To these accounts, selected from Faria y Sousa, let two from Osorius be added. When Martin Alonzo de Souza was viceroy, some brazen tables were brought to him, inscribed with unusual characters, which were explained by a learned Jew, and imported that St. Thomas had built a church at Meliapore. And by an account sent to Cardinal Henrico, by the Bishop of Cochin, in 1562, when the Portuguese repaired the ancient chapel of St. Thomas,{**} there was found a stone cross with several characters on it, which the best antiquarians could not interpret, till at last a Brahmin translated it, "That in the reign of Sagam, Thomas was sent by the Son of God, whose disciple he was, to teach the law of heaven in India; that he built a church, and was killed by a Brahmin at the altar."{*} The existence of this breviary is a certain fact. These Christians had the Scripture also in the Syriac language.{**} This was a very ancient building, in the very first style of Christian churches. The Portuguese have now disfigured it with their repairs and new buildings.A view of Portuguese Asia, which must include the labours of the Jesuits, forms a necessary part in the comment on the Lusiad: this note, therefore, and some obvious reflections upon it, are in place. It is as easy to bury an inscription and find it again, as it is to invent a silly tale; but, though suspicion of fraud on the one hand, and silly absurdity on the other, lead us to despise the authority of the Jesuits, yet one fact remains indisputable. Christianity had been much better known in the East, several centuries before, than it was at the arrival ofGama. Where the name was unknown, and where the Jesuits were unconcerned, crosses were found. The long existence of the Christians of St. Thomas in the midst of a vast pagan empire, proves that the learned of that kingdom must have some knowledge of their doctrines. And these facts give countenance to some material conjectures concerning the religion of the Brahmins.[649]When now the chief who wore the triple thread.—Of this, thus Osorius: "Terna fila ab humero dextero in latus finistrum gerunt, ut designent trinam in natura divina rationem.—They (the Brahmins) wear three threads, which reach from the right shoulder to the left side, as significant of the trinal distinction in the Divine Nature." That some sects of the Brahmins wear a symbolical tessera of three threads is acknowledged on all hands; but, from whatever the custom arose, it is not to be supposed that the Brahmins, who have thousands of ridiculous contradictory legends, should agree in their accounts or explanations of it. They have various accounts of a Divine Person having assumed human nature. And the god Brahma, as observed by Cudworth, is generally mentioned as united in the government of the universe with two others, sometimes of different names. They have also images with three heads rising out of one body, which they say represent the Divine Nature.{*} But are there any traces of these opinions in the accounts which the Greek and Roman writers have given us of the Brahmins? And will the wise pay any credit to the authority of those books which the public never saw, and which, by the obligation of their keepers, they are never to see; and some of which, by the confession of their keepers, since the appearance of Mohammed, have been rejected? The Platonic idea of a trinity of divine attributes was well known to the ancients, yet perhaps the Athanasian controversy offers a fairer field to the conjecturist. That controversy for several ages engrossed the conversation of the East. All the subtilty of the Greeks was called forth, and no speculative contest was ever more universally or warmly disputed; so warmly, that it is a certain fact that Mohammed, by inserting into his Koran some declarations in favour of the Arians, gained innumerable proselytes to his new religion. Abyssinia, Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Armenia were perplexed with this unhappy dispute, and from the earliest times these countries have had a commercial intercourse with India. The number, blasphemy, and absurdity of the Jewish legends of the Talmud and Targums, bear a striking resemblance to the holy legends of the Brahmins. The Jews also assert the great antiquity of their Talmudical legends. Adam, Enoch, and Noah are named among their authors; but we know their date; Jerusalem, ere their birth, was destroyed by Titus. We also know, that the accounts which the Greek writers give of the Brahmins fall infinitely short of those extravagances which are confessed even by their modern admirers. And Mohammedanism does not differ from Christianity, more than the account which even these gentlemen give, does from that of Porphyry. That laborious philosopher, though possessed of all the knowledge of his age, though he mentions their metempsychosis and penances, has not a word of any of their idols, or the legends of Brahma or his brothers. On the contrary, he represents their worship as extremely pure and simple. Strabo's account of them is similar. And Eusebius has assured us they worshipped no images.{**} Yet, on the arrival of the modern Europeans in India, innumerable were their idols; and all the superstition of ancient Egypt, in the adoration of animals and vegetables, seemed more than revived by the Brahmins. Who that considers this striking alteration in their features, can withhold his contempt when he is told of the religious care with which these philosophers have these four thousand years preserved their sacred rites.{*} To these undoubted facts the author will not add the authority of a Xavier, who tells us, that he prevailed upon a Brahmin to explain to him some part of their hidden religion; when to his surprise, the Indian, in a low voice, repeated the Ten Commandments.{**} ...χιλιάδες πολλὰι τῶν λεγομένων Βραχμάνων, ὅιτινες κατὰ παραδισόν τῶν προγόνων καὶ νόμων, οὐτε φονεύουσιν, ΟΥΤΕ ΞΟΑΝΑ ΣΕΒΟΝΤΑΙ.—Euseb.Prep. Evan. lib. 6, c. 10, p. 275. Ed. Paris, 1628.[650]Thee, Thomas, thee, the plaintive Ganges mourn'd.—The versification of the original is here exceedingly fine. Even those who are unacquainted with the Portuguese may perceive it."Choraraóte Thomé, o Gange, o Indo,Choroute toda a terra, que pizaste;Mas mais te choráo as almas, que vestindoSe hiáo dà Santa Fê, que lhe ensinaste;Mas os anjos do ceo cantando, & rindo,Te recebem na gloria que ganhaste."[651]Like him, ye Lusians, simplest Truth pursue.—It is now time to sum up what has been said of the labours of the Jesuits. Diametrically opposite to this advice was their conduct in every Asiatic country where they pretended to propagate the gospel. Sometimes we find an individual sincere and pious, but the great principle which always actuated them as a united body was the lust of power and secular emolument, the possession of which they thought could not be better secured than by rendering themselves of the utmost importance to the see of Rome. In consequence of these principles, wherever they came their first care was to find what were the great objects of the fear and adoration of the people. If the sun was esteemed the giver of life, Jesus Christ was the Son of that luminary, and they were his younger brethren, sent to instruct the ignorant. If the barbarians were in dread of evil spirits, Jesus Christ came on purpose to banish them from the world, had driven them from Europe,{*} and the Jesuits were sent to the East to complete his unfinished mission. If the Indian converts still retained a veneration for the powder of burned cow-dung, the Jesuits made the sign of the cross over it, and the Indian besmeared himself with it as usual. Heaven, or universal matter, they told the Chinese, was the God of the Christians, and the sacrifices of Confucius were solemnized in the churches of the Jesuits. This worship of Confucius, Voltaire, with his wonted accuracy, denies. But he ought to have known that this, with the worship oftien, or heaven, had been long complained of at the court of Rome (see Dupin), and that after the strictest scrutiny the charge was fully proved, and Clement XI., in 1703, sent Cardinal Tournon to the small remains of the Jesuits in the East with a papal decree to reform these abuses. But the cardinal, soon after his arrival, was poisoned in Siam by the holy fathers. Xavier, and the other Jesuits who succeeded him, by the dexterous use of the great maxims of their master Loyola,Omnibus omnia, et omnia munda mundis, gained innumerable proselytes. They contradicted none of the favourite opinions of their converts, they only baptized, and gave them crucifixes to worship, and all was well. But their zeal in uniting to the see of Rome the Christians found in the East descended to the minutest particulars. And the native Christians of Malabar were so violently persecuted as heretics that the heathen princes took arms in their defence in 1570 (see Geddes, Hist. Malabar), and the Portuguese were almost driven from India. Abyssinia, by the same arts, was steeped in blood, and two or three Abyssinian emperors lost their lives in endeavouring to establish the pope's supremacy. An order at last was given from the throne to hang every missionary, without trial, wherever apprehended, the emperor himself complaining that he could not enjoy a day in quiet for the intrigues of the Romish friars. In China, also, they soon rendered themselves insufferable. Their skill in mathematics and the arts introduced them to great favour at court, but all their cunning could not conceal their villainy. Their unwillingness to ordain the natives raised suspicions against a profession thus monopolized by strangers; their earnest zeal in amassing riches, and their interference with, and deep designs on, secular power (the fatal rock on which they have so often been shipwrecked), appeared, and their churches were levelled with the ground. About 90,000 of the new converts, together with their teachers, were massacred, and their religion was prohibited. In Japan the rage of government even exceeded that of China, and in allusion to their chief object of adoration, the cross, several of the Jesuit fathers were crucified by the Japanese, and the revival of the Christian name was interdicted by the severest laws. Thus, in a great measure, ended in the East the labours of the society of Ignatius Loyola, a society which might have diffused the greatest blessings to mankind, could honesty have been added to their great learning and abilities. Had that indefatigable zeal which laboured to promote the interests of their own brotherhood and the Roman see been employed in the real interests of humanity and civilization, the great design of diffusing the law of Heaven, challenged by its author as the purpose of the Lusiad, would have been amply completed, and the remotest hordes of Tartary and Africa ere now had been happily civilized. But though the Jesuits have failed, they have afforded a noble lesson to mankind."Though fortified with all the brazen moundsThat art can rear, and watch'd by eagle eyes,Still will some rotten part betray the structureThat is not bas'd on simple honesty."{*} This trick, it is said, has been played in America within these twenty years, where the notion of evil spirits gives the poor Indians their greatest misery. The French Jesuits told the Six Nations, that Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and had driven all evil demons from France; that he had a great love for the Indians, whom he intended also to deliver, but taking England in his way, he was crucified by the wicked Londoners.[652]The dying.—The innumerable superstitions performed on the banks of the river Ganges, afford a pitiable picture of the weakness of humanity. The circumstances here mentioned are literally true. It is no uncommon scene for the English ships to be surrounded with the corpses which come floating down this hallowed stream.[653]Pegu, whose sons (so held old faith) confess'dA dog their sire.—The tradition of this country boasted this infamous and impossible original. While other nations pretend to be descended of demi-gods, the Peguans were contented to trace their pedigree from a Chinese woman and a dog; the only living creatures which survived a shipwreck on their coast.—See Faria.[654]A pious queen their horrid rage restrain'd.—Thus in the original:"Aqui soante arame no instrumentoDa géraçáo costumáo, o que usaráoPor manha da Raynha, que inventandoTal uso, deitou fóra o error nefando."[655]And 'mid white whirlpools down the ocean driven.—See the same account of Sicily, Virg. Æn. iii.[656]Ophir its Tyrian name.—Sumatra has been by some esteemed the Ophir of the Holy Scriptures; but the superior fineness of the gold of Sofala, and its situation, favour the claim of that Ethiopian isle.—See Bochart. Geog. Sacr.[657]And thousands more.—The extensive countries between India and China, where Ptolemy places his man-eaters, and where Mandevylle found "men without heads, who saw and spoke through holes in their breasts," continues still very imperfectly known. The Jesuits have told many extravagant lies of the wealth of these provinces. By the most authentic accounts they seem to have been peopled by colonies from China. The religion and manufactures of the Siamese, in particular, confess the resemblance. In some districts, however, they have greatly degenerated from the civilization of the mother country.[658]And gnaw the reeking limbs.—Much has been said on this subject, some denying and others asserting the existence of anthropophagi or man-eaters. Porphyry (de Abstin. i. 4 § 21{*}) says that the Massagetæ and Derbices (people of north-eastern Asia), esteeming those most miserable who died of sickness, when their parents and relations grew old, killed and ate them, holding it more honourable thus to consume them than that they should be destroyed by vermin. St. Jerome has adopted this word for word, and has added to it an authority of his own: "Quid loquar," says he, (Adv. Jov. l. 2, c. 6), "de cæteris nationibus; cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus, et cum per sylvas porcorum greges et armentorum, pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates, et fæminarum papillas solere abscindere, et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari?" Mandevylle ought next to be cited. "Aftirwarde men gon be many yles be see unto a yle that men clepen Milhe: there is a full cursed peple: thei delyten in ne thing more than to fighten and to fie men, and to drynken gladlyest mannes blood, which they clepen Dieu."—P. 235. Yet, whatever absurdity may appear on the face of these tales; and what can be more absurd than to suppose that a few wild Scots or Irish (for the name was then proper to Ireland), should so lord it in Gaul, as to eat the breasts of the women and the hips of the shepherds? Yet, whatever absurdities our Mandevylles may have obtruded on the public, the evidence of the fact is not thereby wholly destroyed. Though Dampier and other visitors of barbarous nations have assured us that they never met with any man-eaters, and though Voltaire has ridiculed the opinion, yet one may venture the assertion of their existence, without partaking of a credulity similar to that of those foreigners, who believed that the men of Kent were born with tails like sheep (see Lambert's Peramb.), the punishment inflicted upon them for the murder of Thomas à Becket. Many are the credible accounts, that different barbarous nations used to eat their prisoners of war. According to the authentic testimony of the best Portuguese writers, the natives of Brazil, on their high festivals, brought forth their captives, and after many barbarous ceremonies, at last roasted and greedily devoured their mangled limbs. During his torture the unhappy victim prided himself in his manly courage, upbraiding their want of skill in the art of tormenting, and telling his murderers that his belly had been the grave of many of their relations. Thus the fact was certain long before a late voyage discovered the horrid practice in New Zealand. To drink human blood has been more common. The Gauls and other ancient nations practised it. When Magalhaens proposed Christianity to the King of Subo, a north-eastern Asiatic island, and when Francis de Castro discovered Santigana and other islands, a hundred leagues north of the Moluccas, the conversion of their kings was confirmed by each party drinking of the blood of the other. Our poet Spenser tells us, in his View of the State of Ireland, that he has seen the Irish drink human blood, particularly, he adds, "at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, who was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartering and suck up all the blood that run thereout, saying, that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly." It is worthy of regard that the custom of marking themselves with hot irons, and tattooing, is characteristic both of the Guios of Camoëns and of the present inhabitants of New Zealand. And if, as its animals indicate, the island of Otaheite was first peopled by a shipwreck, the friendship existing in a small society might easily obliterate the memory of one custom, while the less unfriendly one of tattooing was handed down, a memorial that they owed their origin to the north-eastern parts of Asia, where that custom particularly prevails.{*}Ιστοροῦνται γοῦν Μασσαγέται καὶ Δέρβυκες ἁθλιωτάτους ἡγεῖσθαι τῶν οἱκείων τοὺς ἀυτομάτους τελευτήσαντας· διὸ καὶ φθάσαντες καταθύουσιν καὶ ἐστιῶνται τῶν φιλτάτων τοὺς γεγηρακότας.[659]Other worlds the souls of beasts receive.—That Queen Elizabeth reigned in England, is not more certain than that the most ignorant nations in all ages have had the idea of a state after death. The same faculty which is conscious of existence whispers the wish for it; and, so little acquainted with the deductions of reasoning have some tribes been, that not only their animals, but even the ghosts of their domestic utensils have been believed to accompany them to the islands of the blessed. Long ere the voice of philosophy was heard, the opinion of an after state was popular in Greece. The works of Homer bear incontestable evidence of this. And there is not a feature in the history of the human mind better ascertained, than that no sooner did speculation seize upon the topic, than belief declined, and, as the great Bacon observes, the most learned, became the most atheistical ages. The reason of this is obvious. While the human mind is all simplicity, popular opinion is cordially received; but, when reasoning begins, proof is expected, and deficiency of demonstration being perceived, doubt and disbelief naturally follow. Yet, strange as it may appear, if the writer's memory does not greatly deceive him, these certain facts were denied by Hobbes. If he is not greatly mistaken, that gentleman, who gave a wretched, a most unpoetical translation of Homer, has so grossly misunderstood his author, as to assert that his mention of a future state was not in conformity to the popular opinion of his age, but only his own poetical fiction. He might as well have assured us, that the sacrifices of Homer had never any existence in Greece. But, as no absurdity is too gross for some geniuses, our murderer of Homer, our Hobbes, has likewise asserted, that the belief of the immortality of the human soul was the child of pride and speculation, unknown in Greece till long after the appearance of the Iliad.[660]Oh gentle Mecon.—It was on the coast of Cochin-China, at the mouth of this river, the Maekhaun, or Camboja of modern writers, that Camoëns suffered the unhappy shipwreck which rendered him the sport of fortune during the remainder of his life. The literal rendering of the Portuguese, which Mickle claims the liberty of improving, is, "On his gentle, hospitable bosom shall he receive the song, wet from woful, unhappy shipwreck, escaped from destroying tempests, from ravenous dangers, the effect of the unjust sentence upon him whose lyre shall be more renowned than enriched."—Ed.[661]Here ere the cannon's rage in Europe roar'd.—According to Le Comte's memoirs of China, and those of other travellers, the mariner's compass, fire-arms, and printing were known in that empire, long ere the invention of these arts in Europe. But the accounts of Du Halde, Le Comte, and the other Jesuits, are by no means to be depended on. It was their interest (in order to gain credit in Europe and at the court of Rome) to magnify the splendour of the empire where their mission lay, and they have magnified it into romance itself. It is pretended, that the Chinese used fire-arms in their wars with Zenghis Khan, and Tamerlane; but it is also said that the Sogdians used cannon against Alexander. The mention of any sulphurous composition in an old writer is, with some, immediately converted into a regular tire of artillery. The Chinese, indeed, on the first arrival of Europeans, had a kind of mortars, which they called fire-pans, but they were utter strangers to the smaller fire-arms. Verbiest, a Jesuit, was the first who taught them to make brass cannon, set upon wheels. And, even so late as the hostile menace which Anson gave them, they knew not how to level, or manage, their ordnance to any advantage. Their printing is, indeed, much more ancient than that of Europe, but it does not deserve the same name, the blocks of wood with which they stamp their sheets being as inferior to as they are different from the movable types of Europe. The Chinese have no idea of the graces of fine writing; here, most probably, the fault exists in their language; but the total want of nature in their painting, and of symmetry in their architecture, in both of which they have so long been experienced, afford a heavy accusation against their genius. But, in planning gardens, and in the art of beautifying the face of their country, they are unequalled. Yet, even in their boasted gardening their genius stands accused. The art of ingrafting, so long known to Europe, is still unknown to them. And hence their fruits are vastly inferior in flavour to those of the western world. The amazing wall of defence against the Tartars, though 1500 miles in extent, is a labour inferior to the canals, lined on the sides with hewn stone, which everywhere enrich, and adorn their country; some of which reach 1000 miles, and are of depth to carry vessels of burthen. These grand remains of antiquity prove that there was a time when the Chinese were a much more accomplished people than at present. Though their princes for many centuries have discovered no such efforts of genius as these, the industry of the people still remains, in which they rival, and resemble, the Dutch. In every other respect they are the most unamiable of mankind. Amazingly uninventive, for, though possessed of them, the arts have made no progress among the Chinese these many centuries: even what they were taught by the Jesuits is almost lost. So false in their dealings, they boast that none but a Chinese can cheat a Chinese. The crime which disgraces human nature, is in this nation of atheists, and most stupid of all idolaters, common asthat charter'd libertine, the air. Destitute, even in idea, of that elevation of soul which is expressed by the best sense of the word piety, in the time of calamity whole provinces are desolated by self-murder; an end, as Hume says, of some of the admired names of antiquity, not unworthy of so detestable a character. And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart, the most dastardly cowardice completes the description of that of the Chinese.Unimproved as their arts is their learning. Though their language consists of few words, it is almost impossible for a stranger to attain the art of speaking it. And what a European learns ere he is seven years old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. In place of our 24 letters, they have more than 60,000 marks, which compose their writings: and their paucity of words, all of which may be attained in a few hours, requires such an infinite variety of tone and action, that the slightest mistake in modulation renders the speaker unintelligible. And in addressing a great man, in place of "my Lord," you may call him abeast, the word being the some, all the difference consisting in the tone of it. A language like this must ever be a bar to the progress and accomplishments of literature. Of medicine they are very ignorant. The ginseng, which they pretended was a universal remedy, is found to be a root of no singular virtue. Their books consist of odes without poetry, and of moral maxims, excellent in themselves, but without investigation or reasoning. For, to philosophical discussion and metaphysics they seem utterly strangers; and, when taught mathematics by the Jesuits, their greatest men were lost in astonishment. Whatever their political wisdom has been, at present it is narrow and barbarous. Jealous lest strangers should steal their arts—arts which are excelled at Dresden, and other parts of Europe—they preclude themselves from the great advantages which arise from an intercourse with civilized nations. Yet, in the laws which they impose on every foreign ship which enters their ports for traffic, they even exceed the cunning and avarice of the Dutch. In their internal policy the military government of Rome under the emperors is revived, with accumulated barbarism. In every city and province the military are the constables and peace officers. What a picture is this! Nothing but Chinese or Dutch industry could preserve the traffic and population of a country under the control of armed ruffians. But, hence the emperor has leisure to cultivate his gardens, and to write despicable odes to his concubines.Whatever was their most ancient doctrine, certain it is that the legislators who formed the present system of China presented to their people no other object of worship thanTien Kamti, the material heavens and their influencing power; by which an intelligent principle is excluded. Yet, finding that the human mind in the rudest breasts is conscious of its weakness, and prone to believe the occurrences of life under the power of lucky or unlucky observances, they permitted their people the use of sacrifices to those Lucretian gods of superstitious fear. Nor was the principle of devotion, imprinted by Heaven in the human heart, alone perverted; another unextinguishable passion was also misled. On tablets, in every family, are written the names of the last three of their ancestors, added to each, "Here rests his soul:" and before these tablets they burn incense, and pay adoration. Confucius, who, according to their histories, had been in the West about 500 years before the Christian era, appears to be only the confirmer of their old opinions; but the accounts of him and his doctrine are involved in uncertainty. In their places of worship, however, boards are act up, inscribed, "This is the seat of the soul of Confucius," and to these, and their ancestors, they celebrate solemn sacrifices, without seeming to possess any idea of the intellectual existence of the departed soul. The Jesuit Ricci, and his brethren of the Chinese mission,very honestlytold their converts, thatTienwas the God of the Christians, and that the label of Confucius was the term by which they expressed His divine majesty. But, after a long and severe scrutiny at the court of Rome, Tien was found to signify nothing more thanheavenlyoruniversal matter, and the Jesuits of China were ordered to renounce this heresy. Among all the sects who worship different idols in China, there is only one which has any tolerable idea of the immortality of the soul; and among these, says Leland, Christianity at present obtains some footing. But the most interesting particular of China yet remains to be mentioned. Conscious of the obvious tendency, Voltaire and others have triumphed in the great antiquity of the Chinese, and in the distant period they ascribe to the creation. But the bubble cannot bear the touch. If some Chinese accounts fix the era of creation 40000 years ago, others are contented with no less than 884953. But who knows not that every nation has its Geoffry of Monmouth? And we have already observed the legends which took their rise from the Annus Magnus of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers, an apparent revolution of the stars, which in reality has no existence. To the fanciful who held this Annus Magnus, it seemed hard to suppose that our world was in its first revolution of the great year, and to suppose that many were past was easy. And, that this was the case, we have absolute proof in the doctrines of the Brahmins, who, though they talk of hundreds of thousands of years which are past, yet confess, that this, the fourth world, has not yet attained its 6000th year. And much within this compass are all the credible proofs of Chinese antiquity comprehended. To three heads all three proofs are reduceable—their form of government, which, till the conquest of the Tartars in 1644, bore the marks of the highest antiquity; their astronomical observations; and their history.Simply and purely patriarchal, every father was the magistrate in his own family; and the emperor, who acted by his substitutes, the Mandarins, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most passive submission to authority thus branched out was inculcated by Confucius, and their other philosophers, as the greatest duty of morality. But, if there is an age in sacred or profane history where the manners of mankind are thus delineated, no superior antiquity is proved by the form of Chinese government. Their ignorance of the very ancient art of ingrafting fruit-trees, and the state of their language (like the Hebrew in its paucity of words), a paucity characteristic of the ages when the ideas of men required few syllables to clothe them, prove nothing farther than the early separation of the Chinese colony{*} from the rest of mankind; nothing farther, except that they have continued till very lately without any material intercourse with the other nations of the world.{*} The Chinese colony! Yes, let philosophy smile; let her talk of the different species of men which are found in every country; let her brand as absurd the opinion of Montesquieu, which derives all the human race from one family. Let her enjoy her triumph. Peace to her insolence, peace to her dreams and her reveries. But let common sense be contented with the demonstration (See Whiston, Bentley, etc.) that a creation in every country is not wanted, and that one family is sufficient in every respect for the purpose. If philosophy will talk of black and white men as different in species, let common sense ask her for a demonstration, that climate and manner of life cannot produce this difference; and let her add, that there is the strongest presumptive experimental proof that the difference thus happens. If philosophy draw her inferences from the different passions of different tribes; let common sense reply, that stripped of every accident of brutalization and urbanity, the human mind in all its faculties, all its motives, hopes and fears, is most wonderfully the same in every age and country. If philosophy talk of the impossibility of peopling distant islands and continents from one family, let common sense tell her to read Bryant's Mythology. If philosophy asserts that the Kelts wherever they came found aborigines, let common sense reply, there were tyrants enough almost 2000 years before their emigrations, to drive the wretched survivors of slaughtered hosts to the remotest wilds. She may also add, that many islands have been found which bore not one trace of mankind, and that even Otaheite bears the evident marks of receiving its inhabitants from a shipwreck, its only animals being the hog, the dog, and the rat. In a word, let common sense say to philosophy, "I open my egg with a pen-knife, but you open yours with the blow of a sledge hammer."A continued succession of astronomical observations, for 4000 years, was claimed by the Chinese, when they were first visited by the Europeans. Voltaire, thatson of truth, has often with great triumph mentioned the indubitable proofs of Chinese antiquity; but at these times he must have received his information from the same dream which told him that Camoëns accompanied his friendGamain the voyage which discovered the East Indies. If Voltaire and his disciples will talk of Chinese astronomy, and the 4000 years antiquity of its perfection, let them enjoy every consequence which may possibly result from it. But let them allow the same liberty to others. Let them allow others to drawtheirinferences from a few stubborn facts, facts which demonstrate the ignorance of the Chinese in astronomy. The earth, they imagined, was a great plain, of which their country was the midst; and so ignorant were they of the cause of eclipses, that they believed the sun and moon were assaulted, and in danger of being devoured by a huge dragon. The stars were considered as the directors of human affairs, and thus their boasted astronomy ends in that silly imposition, judicial astrology. Though they had made some observations on the revolutions of the planets, and though in the emperor's palace there was an observatory, the first apparatus of proper instruments ever known in China was introduced by Father Verbiest. After this it need scarcely be added, that their astronomical observations which pretend an antiquity of 4000 years, are as false as a Welch genealogy, and that the Chinese themselves, when instructed by the Jesuits, were obliged to own that their calculations were erroneous and impossible. The great credit and admiration which their astronomical and mathematical knowledge procured to the Jesuits, afford an indubitable confirmation of these facts.Ridiculous as their astronomical, are their historical antiquities. After all Voltaire has said of it, the oldest date to which their history pretends is not much above 4000 years. During this period 236 kings have reigned, of 22 different families. The first king reigned 100 years, then we have the names of some others, but without any detail of actions, or that concatenation of events which distinguishes authentic history. That mark of truth does not begin to appear for upwards of 2000 years of the Chinese legends. Little more than the names of kings, and these often interrupted with wide chasms, compose all the annals of China, till about the period of the Christian era. Something like a history then commences, but that is again interrupted by a wide chasm, which the Chinese know not how to fill up otherwise, than by asserting that a century or two elapsed in the time, and that at such a period a new family mounted the throne. Such is the history of China, full brother in every family feature to those Monkish tales, which sent a daughter of Pharoah to be queen of Scotland, which sent Brutus to England, and a grandson of Noah to teach school among the mountains in Wales.[662]Immense the northern wastes their horrors spread.—Tartary, Siberia, Samoyada, Kamtchatka, etc. A short account of the Grand Lama of Thibet Tartary shall complete our view of the superstitions of the East. While the other pagans of Asia worship the most ugly monstrous idols, the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living god. He sits cross-legged on his throne, in the great temple, adorned with gold and diamonds. He never speaks, but sometimes elevates his hand in token that he approves of the prayers of his worshippers. He is a ruddy well-looking young man, about 25 or 27, and is the most miserable wretch on earth, being the mere puppet of his priests, who dispatch him whenever age or sickness make any alteration in his features; and another, instructed to act his part, is put in his place. Princes of very distant provinces send tribute to this deity and implore his blessing, and, as Voltaire has merrily told us, think themselves secure of benediction if favoured with something from his godship, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed cow-dung of the Brahmins.[663]How bright a silver mine.—By this beautiful metaphor (omitted by Castera) Camoëns alludes to the great success, which in his time attended the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. James I. sent an embassy to the sovereign, and opened a trade with this country, but it was soon suffered to decline. The Dutch are the only Europeans who now traffic with the Japanese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the Japanese are much the same as their neighbours of China. And in the frequency of self-murder, says Voltaire, they vie with their brother islanders of England.[664]The ground they touch not.—These are commonly called the birds of Paradise. It was the old erroneous opinion that they always soared in the air, and that the female hatched her young on the back of the male. Their feathers bear a mixture of the most beautiful azure, purple, and golden colours, which have a fine effect in the rays of the sun.[665]From hence the pilgrim brings the wondrous tale.—Streams of this kind are common in many countries. Castera attributes this quality to the excessive coldness of the waters, but this is a mistake. The waters of some springs are impregnated with sparry particles, which adhering to the herbage, or the clay, on the banks of their channel, harden into stone, and incrust the original retainers.[666]Here from the trees the gum.—Benzoin, a species of frankincense. The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the rock oil, petroleum, a black fetid mineral oil, good for bruises and sprains.[667]Wide forests there beneath Maldivia's tide.—A sea plant, resembling the palm, grows in great abundance in the bays about the Maldivian islands. The boughs rise to the top of the water, and bear a kind of apple, called the coco of Maldivia, which is esteemed an antidote against poison.[668]The tread of sainted footstep.—The imprint of a human foot is found on the high mountain, called the Pic of Adam. Legendary tradition says, that Adam, after he was expelled from Paradise, did penance 300 years on this hill, on which he left the print of his footstep. This tale seems to be Jewish, or Mohammedan; for the natives, according to Captain Knox (who was twenty years a captive in Ceylon), pretend the impression was made by the god Budha, when he ascended to heaven, after having, for the salvation of mankind, appeared on the earth. His priests beg charity for the sake of Budha, whose worship they perform among groves of the Bogahah-tree, under which, when on earth, they say he usually sat and taught.[669]And lo, the Island of the Moon.—Madagascar is thus named by the natives.[670]The kingfishers.[671]Now to the West, by thee, great chief, is given.—The sublimity of this eulogy on the expedition of the Lusiad has been already observed. What follows is a natural completion of the whole; and, the digressive exclamation at the end excepted, is exactly similar to the manner in which Homer has concluded the Iliad.[672]Near either pole.—We are now presented with a beautiful view of the American world. Columbus discovered the West Indies before, but not the continent till 1498—the year afterGamasailed from Lisbon.
[645]He who first shall crown thy labours, Gama.—Pedro de Cabral, of whom see the preface.
[645]He who first shall crown thy labours, Gama.—Pedro de Cabral, of whom see the preface.
[646]Ceylon.
[646]Ceylon.
[647]Some Macon's orgies.—Macon, a name of Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed.
[647]Some Macon's orgies.—Macon, a name of Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed.
[648]The tomb where Thomas sleeps.—There is (to talk in the Indian style)a casteof gentlemen, whose hearts are all impartiality and candour to every religion, except one, the most moral which ever the world heard of. A tale of a Brahmin, or a priest of Jupiter, would to them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an apostle—— Common sense, however, will prevail; and the episode of St. Thomas will appear to the true critic equal in dignity and propriety.To renew and complete the labours of the apostle, the messenger of Heaven, is the great design of the hero of the poem, and of the future missions, in consequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.The Christians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival ofGama, we have already mentioned. The Jesuit missionaries have given most pompous accounts of the Christian antiquities of India and China. When the Portuguese arrived in India, the head of the Malabar Christians, named Jacob, styled himself Metropolitan of India and China. And a Syriac breviary{*} of the Indian Christians offers praise to God for sending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a foundation near Sigansu, metropolis of the province of Xensi, was found a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and some Syriac characters, containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Christian religion, "that it was brought from Judea; that having been weakened, it was renewed under the reign of the great Tam" (cir.A.D.630). But the Christians, say the Jesuits, siding with the Tartars, cir.A.D.1200, were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, observing some ruins near Peking, was told by the people, that 200 years before, a holy man who worshipped Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, lived there; and being murdered, was thrown into a river, but his body would not sink; and soon after the city was destroyed by an earthquake. The same Jesuit found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Christianity, which they said were preached to their fathers, by John, the disciple of Thomas. In 1635, some heathens, by night passing through a village in the province of Fokien, saw some stones which emitted light, under which were found the figure of crosses. From China, St. Thomas returned to Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated on the sea near the coast. The king endeavoured to bring it ashore, but all the force of men and elephants was in vain. St. Thomas desired leave to build a church with it, and immediately dragged it to shore with a single thread. A church was built, and the king baptized. This enraged the Brahmins, the chief of whom killed his own son, and accused Thomas of the murder. But the saint, by restoring the youth to life, discovered the wickedness of his enemies. He was afterwards killed by a lance while kneeling at the altar; after, according to tradition, he had built 3300 stately churches, many of which were rebuilt, cir. 800, by an Armenian named Thomas Cananeus. In 1533, the body of the apostle, with the head of the lance beside him, was found in his church by D. Duarte de Meneses; and in 1558 was, by D. Constantine de Braganza, removed to Goa. To these accounts, selected from Faria y Sousa, let two from Osorius be added. When Martin Alonzo de Souza was viceroy, some brazen tables were brought to him, inscribed with unusual characters, which were explained by a learned Jew, and imported that St. Thomas had built a church at Meliapore. And by an account sent to Cardinal Henrico, by the Bishop of Cochin, in 1562, when the Portuguese repaired the ancient chapel of St. Thomas,{**} there was found a stone cross with several characters on it, which the best antiquarians could not interpret, till at last a Brahmin translated it, "That in the reign of Sagam, Thomas was sent by the Son of God, whose disciple he was, to teach the law of heaven in India; that he built a church, and was killed by a Brahmin at the altar."{*} The existence of this breviary is a certain fact. These Christians had the Scripture also in the Syriac language.{**} This was a very ancient building, in the very first style of Christian churches. The Portuguese have now disfigured it with their repairs and new buildings.A view of Portuguese Asia, which must include the labours of the Jesuits, forms a necessary part in the comment on the Lusiad: this note, therefore, and some obvious reflections upon it, are in place. It is as easy to bury an inscription and find it again, as it is to invent a silly tale; but, though suspicion of fraud on the one hand, and silly absurdity on the other, lead us to despise the authority of the Jesuits, yet one fact remains indisputable. Christianity had been much better known in the East, several centuries before, than it was at the arrival ofGama. Where the name was unknown, and where the Jesuits were unconcerned, crosses were found. The long existence of the Christians of St. Thomas in the midst of a vast pagan empire, proves that the learned of that kingdom must have some knowledge of their doctrines. And these facts give countenance to some material conjectures concerning the religion of the Brahmins.
[648]The tomb where Thomas sleeps.—There is (to talk in the Indian style)a casteof gentlemen, whose hearts are all impartiality and candour to every religion, except one, the most moral which ever the world heard of. A tale of a Brahmin, or a priest of Jupiter, would to them appear worthy of poetry. But to introduce an apostle—— Common sense, however, will prevail; and the episode of St. Thomas will appear to the true critic equal in dignity and propriety.
To renew and complete the labours of the apostle, the messenger of Heaven, is the great design of the hero of the poem, and of the future missions, in consequence of the discoveries which are the subject of it.
The Christians of St. Thomas, found in Malabar on the arrival ofGama, we have already mentioned. The Jesuit missionaries have given most pompous accounts of the Christian antiquities of India and China. When the Portuguese arrived in India, the head of the Malabar Christians, named Jacob, styled himself Metropolitan of India and China. And a Syriac breviary{*} of the Indian Christians offers praise to God for sending St. Thomas to India and China. In 1625, in digging for a foundation near Sigansu, metropolis of the province of Xensi, was found a stone with a cross on it, full of Chinese, and some Syriac characters, containing the names of bishops, and an account of the Christian religion, "that it was brought from Judea; that having been weakened, it was renewed under the reign of the great Tam" (cir.A.D.630). But the Christians, say the Jesuits, siding with the Tartars, cir.A.D.1200, were extirpated by the Chinese. In 1543, Fernand Pinto, observing some ruins near Peking, was told by the people, that 200 years before, a holy man who worshipped Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, lived there; and being murdered, was thrown into a river, but his body would not sink; and soon after the city was destroyed by an earthquake. The same Jesuit found people at Caminam who knew the doctrines of Christianity, which they said were preached to their fathers, by John, the disciple of Thomas. In 1635, some heathens, by night passing through a village in the province of Fokien, saw some stones which emitted light, under which were found the figure of crosses. From China, St. Thomas returned to Meliapore in Malabar, at a time when a prodigious beam of timber floated on the sea near the coast. The king endeavoured to bring it ashore, but all the force of men and elephants was in vain. St. Thomas desired leave to build a church with it, and immediately dragged it to shore with a single thread. A church was built, and the king baptized. This enraged the Brahmins, the chief of whom killed his own son, and accused Thomas of the murder. But the saint, by restoring the youth to life, discovered the wickedness of his enemies. He was afterwards killed by a lance while kneeling at the altar; after, according to tradition, he had built 3300 stately churches, many of which were rebuilt, cir. 800, by an Armenian named Thomas Cananeus. In 1533, the body of the apostle, with the head of the lance beside him, was found in his church by D. Duarte de Meneses; and in 1558 was, by D. Constantine de Braganza, removed to Goa. To these accounts, selected from Faria y Sousa, let two from Osorius be added. When Martin Alonzo de Souza was viceroy, some brazen tables were brought to him, inscribed with unusual characters, which were explained by a learned Jew, and imported that St. Thomas had built a church at Meliapore. And by an account sent to Cardinal Henrico, by the Bishop of Cochin, in 1562, when the Portuguese repaired the ancient chapel of St. Thomas,{**} there was found a stone cross with several characters on it, which the best antiquarians could not interpret, till at last a Brahmin translated it, "That in the reign of Sagam, Thomas was sent by the Son of God, whose disciple he was, to teach the law of heaven in India; that he built a church, and was killed by a Brahmin at the altar."
{*} The existence of this breviary is a certain fact. These Christians had the Scripture also in the Syriac language.
{**} This was a very ancient building, in the very first style of Christian churches. The Portuguese have now disfigured it with their repairs and new buildings.
A view of Portuguese Asia, which must include the labours of the Jesuits, forms a necessary part in the comment on the Lusiad: this note, therefore, and some obvious reflections upon it, are in place. It is as easy to bury an inscription and find it again, as it is to invent a silly tale; but, though suspicion of fraud on the one hand, and silly absurdity on the other, lead us to despise the authority of the Jesuits, yet one fact remains indisputable. Christianity had been much better known in the East, several centuries before, than it was at the arrival ofGama. Where the name was unknown, and where the Jesuits were unconcerned, crosses were found. The long existence of the Christians of St. Thomas in the midst of a vast pagan empire, proves that the learned of that kingdom must have some knowledge of their doctrines. And these facts give countenance to some material conjectures concerning the religion of the Brahmins.
[649]When now the chief who wore the triple thread.—Of this, thus Osorius: "Terna fila ab humero dextero in latus finistrum gerunt, ut designent trinam in natura divina rationem.—They (the Brahmins) wear three threads, which reach from the right shoulder to the left side, as significant of the trinal distinction in the Divine Nature." That some sects of the Brahmins wear a symbolical tessera of three threads is acknowledged on all hands; but, from whatever the custom arose, it is not to be supposed that the Brahmins, who have thousands of ridiculous contradictory legends, should agree in their accounts or explanations of it. They have various accounts of a Divine Person having assumed human nature. And the god Brahma, as observed by Cudworth, is generally mentioned as united in the government of the universe with two others, sometimes of different names. They have also images with three heads rising out of one body, which they say represent the Divine Nature.{*} But are there any traces of these opinions in the accounts which the Greek and Roman writers have given us of the Brahmins? And will the wise pay any credit to the authority of those books which the public never saw, and which, by the obligation of their keepers, they are never to see; and some of which, by the confession of their keepers, since the appearance of Mohammed, have been rejected? The Platonic idea of a trinity of divine attributes was well known to the ancients, yet perhaps the Athanasian controversy offers a fairer field to the conjecturist. That controversy for several ages engrossed the conversation of the East. All the subtilty of the Greeks was called forth, and no speculative contest was ever more universally or warmly disputed; so warmly, that it is a certain fact that Mohammed, by inserting into his Koran some declarations in favour of the Arians, gained innumerable proselytes to his new religion. Abyssinia, Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Armenia were perplexed with this unhappy dispute, and from the earliest times these countries have had a commercial intercourse with India. The number, blasphemy, and absurdity of the Jewish legends of the Talmud and Targums, bear a striking resemblance to the holy legends of the Brahmins. The Jews also assert the great antiquity of their Talmudical legends. Adam, Enoch, and Noah are named among their authors; but we know their date; Jerusalem, ere their birth, was destroyed by Titus. We also know, that the accounts which the Greek writers give of the Brahmins fall infinitely short of those extravagances which are confessed even by their modern admirers. And Mohammedanism does not differ from Christianity, more than the account which even these gentlemen give, does from that of Porphyry. That laborious philosopher, though possessed of all the knowledge of his age, though he mentions their metempsychosis and penances, has not a word of any of their idols, or the legends of Brahma or his brothers. On the contrary, he represents their worship as extremely pure and simple. Strabo's account of them is similar. And Eusebius has assured us they worshipped no images.{**} Yet, on the arrival of the modern Europeans in India, innumerable were their idols; and all the superstition of ancient Egypt, in the adoration of animals and vegetables, seemed more than revived by the Brahmins. Who that considers this striking alteration in their features, can withhold his contempt when he is told of the religious care with which these philosophers have these four thousand years preserved their sacred rites.{*} To these undoubted facts the author will not add the authority of a Xavier, who tells us, that he prevailed upon a Brahmin to explain to him some part of their hidden religion; when to his surprise, the Indian, in a low voice, repeated the Ten Commandments.{**} ...χιλιάδες πολλὰι τῶν λεγομένων Βραχμάνων, ὅιτινες κατὰ παραδισόν τῶν προγόνων καὶ νόμων, οὐτε φονεύουσιν, ΟΥΤΕ ΞΟΑΝΑ ΣΕΒΟΝΤΑΙ.—Euseb.Prep. Evan. lib. 6, c. 10, p. 275. Ed. Paris, 1628.
[649]When now the chief who wore the triple thread.—Of this, thus Osorius: "Terna fila ab humero dextero in latus finistrum gerunt, ut designent trinam in natura divina rationem.—They (the Brahmins) wear three threads, which reach from the right shoulder to the left side, as significant of the trinal distinction in the Divine Nature." That some sects of the Brahmins wear a symbolical tessera of three threads is acknowledged on all hands; but, from whatever the custom arose, it is not to be supposed that the Brahmins, who have thousands of ridiculous contradictory legends, should agree in their accounts or explanations of it. They have various accounts of a Divine Person having assumed human nature. And the god Brahma, as observed by Cudworth, is generally mentioned as united in the government of the universe with two others, sometimes of different names. They have also images with three heads rising out of one body, which they say represent the Divine Nature.{*} But are there any traces of these opinions in the accounts which the Greek and Roman writers have given us of the Brahmins? And will the wise pay any credit to the authority of those books which the public never saw, and which, by the obligation of their keepers, they are never to see; and some of which, by the confession of their keepers, since the appearance of Mohammed, have been rejected? The Platonic idea of a trinity of divine attributes was well known to the ancients, yet perhaps the Athanasian controversy offers a fairer field to the conjecturist. That controversy for several ages engrossed the conversation of the East. All the subtilty of the Greeks was called forth, and no speculative contest was ever more universally or warmly disputed; so warmly, that it is a certain fact that Mohammed, by inserting into his Koran some declarations in favour of the Arians, gained innumerable proselytes to his new religion. Abyssinia, Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Armenia were perplexed with this unhappy dispute, and from the earliest times these countries have had a commercial intercourse with India. The number, blasphemy, and absurdity of the Jewish legends of the Talmud and Targums, bear a striking resemblance to the holy legends of the Brahmins. The Jews also assert the great antiquity of their Talmudical legends. Adam, Enoch, and Noah are named among their authors; but we know their date; Jerusalem, ere their birth, was destroyed by Titus. We also know, that the accounts which the Greek writers give of the Brahmins fall infinitely short of those extravagances which are confessed even by their modern admirers. And Mohammedanism does not differ from Christianity, more than the account which even these gentlemen give, does from that of Porphyry. That laborious philosopher, though possessed of all the knowledge of his age, though he mentions their metempsychosis and penances, has not a word of any of their idols, or the legends of Brahma or his brothers. On the contrary, he represents their worship as extremely pure and simple. Strabo's account of them is similar. And Eusebius has assured us they worshipped no images.{**} Yet, on the arrival of the modern Europeans in India, innumerable were their idols; and all the superstition of ancient Egypt, in the adoration of animals and vegetables, seemed more than revived by the Brahmins. Who that considers this striking alteration in their features, can withhold his contempt when he is told of the religious care with which these philosophers have these four thousand years preserved their sacred rites.
{*} To these undoubted facts the author will not add the authority of a Xavier, who tells us, that he prevailed upon a Brahmin to explain to him some part of their hidden religion; when to his surprise, the Indian, in a low voice, repeated the Ten Commandments.
{**} ...χιλιάδες πολλὰι τῶν λεγομένων Βραχμάνων, ὅιτινες κατὰ παραδισόν τῶν προγόνων καὶ νόμων, οὐτε φονεύουσιν, ΟΥΤΕ ΞΟΑΝΑ ΣΕΒΟΝΤΑΙ.—Euseb.Prep. Evan. lib. 6, c. 10, p. 275. Ed. Paris, 1628.
[650]Thee, Thomas, thee, the plaintive Ganges mourn'd.—The versification of the original is here exceedingly fine. Even those who are unacquainted with the Portuguese may perceive it."Choraraóte Thomé, o Gange, o Indo,Choroute toda a terra, que pizaste;Mas mais te choráo as almas, que vestindoSe hiáo dà Santa Fê, que lhe ensinaste;Mas os anjos do ceo cantando, & rindo,Te recebem na gloria que ganhaste."
[650]Thee, Thomas, thee, the plaintive Ganges mourn'd.—The versification of the original is here exceedingly fine. Even those who are unacquainted with the Portuguese may perceive it.
"Choraraóte Thomé, o Gange, o Indo,Choroute toda a terra, que pizaste;Mas mais te choráo as almas, que vestindoSe hiáo dà Santa Fê, que lhe ensinaste;Mas os anjos do ceo cantando, & rindo,Te recebem na gloria que ganhaste."
[651]Like him, ye Lusians, simplest Truth pursue.—It is now time to sum up what has been said of the labours of the Jesuits. Diametrically opposite to this advice was their conduct in every Asiatic country where they pretended to propagate the gospel. Sometimes we find an individual sincere and pious, but the great principle which always actuated them as a united body was the lust of power and secular emolument, the possession of which they thought could not be better secured than by rendering themselves of the utmost importance to the see of Rome. In consequence of these principles, wherever they came their first care was to find what were the great objects of the fear and adoration of the people. If the sun was esteemed the giver of life, Jesus Christ was the Son of that luminary, and they were his younger brethren, sent to instruct the ignorant. If the barbarians were in dread of evil spirits, Jesus Christ came on purpose to banish them from the world, had driven them from Europe,{*} and the Jesuits were sent to the East to complete his unfinished mission. If the Indian converts still retained a veneration for the powder of burned cow-dung, the Jesuits made the sign of the cross over it, and the Indian besmeared himself with it as usual. Heaven, or universal matter, they told the Chinese, was the God of the Christians, and the sacrifices of Confucius were solemnized in the churches of the Jesuits. This worship of Confucius, Voltaire, with his wonted accuracy, denies. But he ought to have known that this, with the worship oftien, or heaven, had been long complained of at the court of Rome (see Dupin), and that after the strictest scrutiny the charge was fully proved, and Clement XI., in 1703, sent Cardinal Tournon to the small remains of the Jesuits in the East with a papal decree to reform these abuses. But the cardinal, soon after his arrival, was poisoned in Siam by the holy fathers. Xavier, and the other Jesuits who succeeded him, by the dexterous use of the great maxims of their master Loyola,Omnibus omnia, et omnia munda mundis, gained innumerable proselytes. They contradicted none of the favourite opinions of their converts, they only baptized, and gave them crucifixes to worship, and all was well. But their zeal in uniting to the see of Rome the Christians found in the East descended to the minutest particulars. And the native Christians of Malabar were so violently persecuted as heretics that the heathen princes took arms in their defence in 1570 (see Geddes, Hist. Malabar), and the Portuguese were almost driven from India. Abyssinia, by the same arts, was steeped in blood, and two or three Abyssinian emperors lost their lives in endeavouring to establish the pope's supremacy. An order at last was given from the throne to hang every missionary, without trial, wherever apprehended, the emperor himself complaining that he could not enjoy a day in quiet for the intrigues of the Romish friars. In China, also, they soon rendered themselves insufferable. Their skill in mathematics and the arts introduced them to great favour at court, but all their cunning could not conceal their villainy. Their unwillingness to ordain the natives raised suspicions against a profession thus monopolized by strangers; their earnest zeal in amassing riches, and their interference with, and deep designs on, secular power (the fatal rock on which they have so often been shipwrecked), appeared, and their churches were levelled with the ground. About 90,000 of the new converts, together with their teachers, were massacred, and their religion was prohibited. In Japan the rage of government even exceeded that of China, and in allusion to their chief object of adoration, the cross, several of the Jesuit fathers were crucified by the Japanese, and the revival of the Christian name was interdicted by the severest laws. Thus, in a great measure, ended in the East the labours of the society of Ignatius Loyola, a society which might have diffused the greatest blessings to mankind, could honesty have been added to their great learning and abilities. Had that indefatigable zeal which laboured to promote the interests of their own brotherhood and the Roman see been employed in the real interests of humanity and civilization, the great design of diffusing the law of Heaven, challenged by its author as the purpose of the Lusiad, would have been amply completed, and the remotest hordes of Tartary and Africa ere now had been happily civilized. But though the Jesuits have failed, they have afforded a noble lesson to mankind."Though fortified with all the brazen moundsThat art can rear, and watch'd by eagle eyes,Still will some rotten part betray the structureThat is not bas'd on simple honesty."{*} This trick, it is said, has been played in America within these twenty years, where the notion of evil spirits gives the poor Indians their greatest misery. The French Jesuits told the Six Nations, that Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and had driven all evil demons from France; that he had a great love for the Indians, whom he intended also to deliver, but taking England in his way, he was crucified by the wicked Londoners.
[651]Like him, ye Lusians, simplest Truth pursue.—It is now time to sum up what has been said of the labours of the Jesuits. Diametrically opposite to this advice was their conduct in every Asiatic country where they pretended to propagate the gospel. Sometimes we find an individual sincere and pious, but the great principle which always actuated them as a united body was the lust of power and secular emolument, the possession of which they thought could not be better secured than by rendering themselves of the utmost importance to the see of Rome. In consequence of these principles, wherever they came their first care was to find what were the great objects of the fear and adoration of the people. If the sun was esteemed the giver of life, Jesus Christ was the Son of that luminary, and they were his younger brethren, sent to instruct the ignorant. If the barbarians were in dread of evil spirits, Jesus Christ came on purpose to banish them from the world, had driven them from Europe,{*} and the Jesuits were sent to the East to complete his unfinished mission. If the Indian converts still retained a veneration for the powder of burned cow-dung, the Jesuits made the sign of the cross over it, and the Indian besmeared himself with it as usual. Heaven, or universal matter, they told the Chinese, was the God of the Christians, and the sacrifices of Confucius were solemnized in the churches of the Jesuits. This worship of Confucius, Voltaire, with his wonted accuracy, denies. But he ought to have known that this, with the worship oftien, or heaven, had been long complained of at the court of Rome (see Dupin), and that after the strictest scrutiny the charge was fully proved, and Clement XI., in 1703, sent Cardinal Tournon to the small remains of the Jesuits in the East with a papal decree to reform these abuses. But the cardinal, soon after his arrival, was poisoned in Siam by the holy fathers. Xavier, and the other Jesuits who succeeded him, by the dexterous use of the great maxims of their master Loyola,Omnibus omnia, et omnia munda mundis, gained innumerable proselytes. They contradicted none of the favourite opinions of their converts, they only baptized, and gave them crucifixes to worship, and all was well. But their zeal in uniting to the see of Rome the Christians found in the East descended to the minutest particulars. And the native Christians of Malabar were so violently persecuted as heretics that the heathen princes took arms in their defence in 1570 (see Geddes, Hist. Malabar), and the Portuguese were almost driven from India. Abyssinia, by the same arts, was steeped in blood, and two or three Abyssinian emperors lost their lives in endeavouring to establish the pope's supremacy. An order at last was given from the throne to hang every missionary, without trial, wherever apprehended, the emperor himself complaining that he could not enjoy a day in quiet for the intrigues of the Romish friars. In China, also, they soon rendered themselves insufferable. Their skill in mathematics and the arts introduced them to great favour at court, but all their cunning could not conceal their villainy. Their unwillingness to ordain the natives raised suspicions against a profession thus monopolized by strangers; their earnest zeal in amassing riches, and their interference with, and deep designs on, secular power (the fatal rock on which they have so often been shipwrecked), appeared, and their churches were levelled with the ground. About 90,000 of the new converts, together with their teachers, were massacred, and their religion was prohibited. In Japan the rage of government even exceeded that of China, and in allusion to their chief object of adoration, the cross, several of the Jesuit fathers were crucified by the Japanese, and the revival of the Christian name was interdicted by the severest laws. Thus, in a great measure, ended in the East the labours of the society of Ignatius Loyola, a society which might have diffused the greatest blessings to mankind, could honesty have been added to their great learning and abilities. Had that indefatigable zeal which laboured to promote the interests of their own brotherhood and the Roman see been employed in the real interests of humanity and civilization, the great design of diffusing the law of Heaven, challenged by its author as the purpose of the Lusiad, would have been amply completed, and the remotest hordes of Tartary and Africa ere now had been happily civilized. But though the Jesuits have failed, they have afforded a noble lesson to mankind.
"Though fortified with all the brazen moundsThat art can rear, and watch'd by eagle eyes,Still will some rotten part betray the structureThat is not bas'd on simple honesty."
{*} This trick, it is said, has been played in America within these twenty years, where the notion of evil spirits gives the poor Indians their greatest misery. The French Jesuits told the Six Nations, that Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and had driven all evil demons from France; that he had a great love for the Indians, whom he intended also to deliver, but taking England in his way, he was crucified by the wicked Londoners.
[652]The dying.—The innumerable superstitions performed on the banks of the river Ganges, afford a pitiable picture of the weakness of humanity. The circumstances here mentioned are literally true. It is no uncommon scene for the English ships to be surrounded with the corpses which come floating down this hallowed stream.
[652]The dying.—The innumerable superstitions performed on the banks of the river Ganges, afford a pitiable picture of the weakness of humanity. The circumstances here mentioned are literally true. It is no uncommon scene for the English ships to be surrounded with the corpses which come floating down this hallowed stream.
[653]Pegu, whose sons (so held old faith) confess'dA dog their sire.—The tradition of this country boasted this infamous and impossible original. While other nations pretend to be descended of demi-gods, the Peguans were contented to trace their pedigree from a Chinese woman and a dog; the only living creatures which survived a shipwreck on their coast.—See Faria.
[653]
Pegu, whose sons (so held old faith) confess'dA dog their sire.—
The tradition of this country boasted this infamous and impossible original. While other nations pretend to be descended of demi-gods, the Peguans were contented to trace their pedigree from a Chinese woman and a dog; the only living creatures which survived a shipwreck on their coast.—See Faria.
[654]A pious queen their horrid rage restrain'd.—Thus in the original:"Aqui soante arame no instrumentoDa géraçáo costumáo, o que usaráoPor manha da Raynha, que inventandoTal uso, deitou fóra o error nefando."
[654]A pious queen their horrid rage restrain'd.—Thus in the original:
"Aqui soante arame no instrumentoDa géraçáo costumáo, o que usaráoPor manha da Raynha, que inventandoTal uso, deitou fóra o error nefando."
[655]And 'mid white whirlpools down the ocean driven.—See the same account of Sicily, Virg. Æn. iii.
[655]And 'mid white whirlpools down the ocean driven.—See the same account of Sicily, Virg. Æn. iii.
[656]Ophir its Tyrian name.—Sumatra has been by some esteemed the Ophir of the Holy Scriptures; but the superior fineness of the gold of Sofala, and its situation, favour the claim of that Ethiopian isle.—See Bochart. Geog. Sacr.
[656]Ophir its Tyrian name.—Sumatra has been by some esteemed the Ophir of the Holy Scriptures; but the superior fineness of the gold of Sofala, and its situation, favour the claim of that Ethiopian isle.—See Bochart. Geog. Sacr.
[657]And thousands more.—The extensive countries between India and China, where Ptolemy places his man-eaters, and where Mandevylle found "men without heads, who saw and spoke through holes in their breasts," continues still very imperfectly known. The Jesuits have told many extravagant lies of the wealth of these provinces. By the most authentic accounts they seem to have been peopled by colonies from China. The religion and manufactures of the Siamese, in particular, confess the resemblance. In some districts, however, they have greatly degenerated from the civilization of the mother country.
[657]And thousands more.—The extensive countries between India and China, where Ptolemy places his man-eaters, and where Mandevylle found "men without heads, who saw and spoke through holes in their breasts," continues still very imperfectly known. The Jesuits have told many extravagant lies of the wealth of these provinces. By the most authentic accounts they seem to have been peopled by colonies from China. The religion and manufactures of the Siamese, in particular, confess the resemblance. In some districts, however, they have greatly degenerated from the civilization of the mother country.
[658]And gnaw the reeking limbs.—Much has been said on this subject, some denying and others asserting the existence of anthropophagi or man-eaters. Porphyry (de Abstin. i. 4 § 21{*}) says that the Massagetæ and Derbices (people of north-eastern Asia), esteeming those most miserable who died of sickness, when their parents and relations grew old, killed and ate them, holding it more honourable thus to consume them than that they should be destroyed by vermin. St. Jerome has adopted this word for word, and has added to it an authority of his own: "Quid loquar," says he, (Adv. Jov. l. 2, c. 6), "de cæteris nationibus; cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus, et cum per sylvas porcorum greges et armentorum, pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates, et fæminarum papillas solere abscindere, et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari?" Mandevylle ought next to be cited. "Aftirwarde men gon be many yles be see unto a yle that men clepen Milhe: there is a full cursed peple: thei delyten in ne thing more than to fighten and to fie men, and to drynken gladlyest mannes blood, which they clepen Dieu."—P. 235. Yet, whatever absurdity may appear on the face of these tales; and what can be more absurd than to suppose that a few wild Scots or Irish (for the name was then proper to Ireland), should so lord it in Gaul, as to eat the breasts of the women and the hips of the shepherds? Yet, whatever absurdities our Mandevylles may have obtruded on the public, the evidence of the fact is not thereby wholly destroyed. Though Dampier and other visitors of barbarous nations have assured us that they never met with any man-eaters, and though Voltaire has ridiculed the opinion, yet one may venture the assertion of their existence, without partaking of a credulity similar to that of those foreigners, who believed that the men of Kent were born with tails like sheep (see Lambert's Peramb.), the punishment inflicted upon them for the murder of Thomas à Becket. Many are the credible accounts, that different barbarous nations used to eat their prisoners of war. According to the authentic testimony of the best Portuguese writers, the natives of Brazil, on their high festivals, brought forth their captives, and after many barbarous ceremonies, at last roasted and greedily devoured their mangled limbs. During his torture the unhappy victim prided himself in his manly courage, upbraiding their want of skill in the art of tormenting, and telling his murderers that his belly had been the grave of many of their relations. Thus the fact was certain long before a late voyage discovered the horrid practice in New Zealand. To drink human blood has been more common. The Gauls and other ancient nations practised it. When Magalhaens proposed Christianity to the King of Subo, a north-eastern Asiatic island, and when Francis de Castro discovered Santigana and other islands, a hundred leagues north of the Moluccas, the conversion of their kings was confirmed by each party drinking of the blood of the other. Our poet Spenser tells us, in his View of the State of Ireland, that he has seen the Irish drink human blood, particularly, he adds, "at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, who was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartering and suck up all the blood that run thereout, saying, that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly." It is worthy of regard that the custom of marking themselves with hot irons, and tattooing, is characteristic both of the Guios of Camoëns and of the present inhabitants of New Zealand. And if, as its animals indicate, the island of Otaheite was first peopled by a shipwreck, the friendship existing in a small society might easily obliterate the memory of one custom, while the less unfriendly one of tattooing was handed down, a memorial that they owed their origin to the north-eastern parts of Asia, where that custom particularly prevails.{*}Ιστοροῦνται γοῦν Μασσαγέται καὶ Δέρβυκες ἁθλιωτάτους ἡγεῖσθαι τῶν οἱκείων τοὺς ἀυτομάτους τελευτήσαντας· διὸ καὶ φθάσαντες καταθύουσιν καὶ ἐστιῶνται τῶν φιλτάτων τοὺς γεγηρακότας.
[658]And gnaw the reeking limbs.—Much has been said on this subject, some denying and others asserting the existence of anthropophagi or man-eaters. Porphyry (de Abstin. i. 4 § 21{*}) says that the Massagetæ and Derbices (people of north-eastern Asia), esteeming those most miserable who died of sickness, when their parents and relations grew old, killed and ate them, holding it more honourable thus to consume them than that they should be destroyed by vermin. St. Jerome has adopted this word for word, and has added to it an authority of his own: "Quid loquar," says he, (Adv. Jov. l. 2, c. 6), "de cæteris nationibus; cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus, et cum per sylvas porcorum greges et armentorum, pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates, et fæminarum papillas solere abscindere, et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari?" Mandevylle ought next to be cited. "Aftirwarde men gon be many yles be see unto a yle that men clepen Milhe: there is a full cursed peple: thei delyten in ne thing more than to fighten and to fie men, and to drynken gladlyest mannes blood, which they clepen Dieu."—P. 235. Yet, whatever absurdity may appear on the face of these tales; and what can be more absurd than to suppose that a few wild Scots or Irish (for the name was then proper to Ireland), should so lord it in Gaul, as to eat the breasts of the women and the hips of the shepherds? Yet, whatever absurdities our Mandevylles may have obtruded on the public, the evidence of the fact is not thereby wholly destroyed. Though Dampier and other visitors of barbarous nations have assured us that they never met with any man-eaters, and though Voltaire has ridiculed the opinion, yet one may venture the assertion of their existence, without partaking of a credulity similar to that of those foreigners, who believed that the men of Kent were born with tails like sheep (see Lambert's Peramb.), the punishment inflicted upon them for the murder of Thomas à Becket. Many are the credible accounts, that different barbarous nations used to eat their prisoners of war. According to the authentic testimony of the best Portuguese writers, the natives of Brazil, on their high festivals, brought forth their captives, and after many barbarous ceremonies, at last roasted and greedily devoured their mangled limbs. During his torture the unhappy victim prided himself in his manly courage, upbraiding their want of skill in the art of tormenting, and telling his murderers that his belly had been the grave of many of their relations. Thus the fact was certain long before a late voyage discovered the horrid practice in New Zealand. To drink human blood has been more common. The Gauls and other ancient nations practised it. When Magalhaens proposed Christianity to the King of Subo, a north-eastern Asiatic island, and when Francis de Castro discovered Santigana and other islands, a hundred leagues north of the Moluccas, the conversion of their kings was confirmed by each party drinking of the blood of the other. Our poet Spenser tells us, in his View of the State of Ireland, that he has seen the Irish drink human blood, particularly, he adds, "at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, who was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartering and suck up all the blood that run thereout, saying, that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly." It is worthy of regard that the custom of marking themselves with hot irons, and tattooing, is characteristic both of the Guios of Camoëns and of the present inhabitants of New Zealand. And if, as its animals indicate, the island of Otaheite was first peopled by a shipwreck, the friendship existing in a small society might easily obliterate the memory of one custom, while the less unfriendly one of tattooing was handed down, a memorial that they owed their origin to the north-eastern parts of Asia, where that custom particularly prevails.
{*}Ιστοροῦνται γοῦν Μασσαγέται καὶ Δέρβυκες ἁθλιωτάτους ἡγεῖσθαι τῶν οἱκείων τοὺς ἀυτομάτους τελευτήσαντας· διὸ καὶ φθάσαντες καταθύουσιν καὶ ἐστιῶνται τῶν φιλτάτων τοὺς γεγηρακότας.
[659]Other worlds the souls of beasts receive.—That Queen Elizabeth reigned in England, is not more certain than that the most ignorant nations in all ages have had the idea of a state after death. The same faculty which is conscious of existence whispers the wish for it; and, so little acquainted with the deductions of reasoning have some tribes been, that not only their animals, but even the ghosts of their domestic utensils have been believed to accompany them to the islands of the blessed. Long ere the voice of philosophy was heard, the opinion of an after state was popular in Greece. The works of Homer bear incontestable evidence of this. And there is not a feature in the history of the human mind better ascertained, than that no sooner did speculation seize upon the topic, than belief declined, and, as the great Bacon observes, the most learned, became the most atheistical ages. The reason of this is obvious. While the human mind is all simplicity, popular opinion is cordially received; but, when reasoning begins, proof is expected, and deficiency of demonstration being perceived, doubt and disbelief naturally follow. Yet, strange as it may appear, if the writer's memory does not greatly deceive him, these certain facts were denied by Hobbes. If he is not greatly mistaken, that gentleman, who gave a wretched, a most unpoetical translation of Homer, has so grossly misunderstood his author, as to assert that his mention of a future state was not in conformity to the popular opinion of his age, but only his own poetical fiction. He might as well have assured us, that the sacrifices of Homer had never any existence in Greece. But, as no absurdity is too gross for some geniuses, our murderer of Homer, our Hobbes, has likewise asserted, that the belief of the immortality of the human soul was the child of pride and speculation, unknown in Greece till long after the appearance of the Iliad.
[659]Other worlds the souls of beasts receive.—That Queen Elizabeth reigned in England, is not more certain than that the most ignorant nations in all ages have had the idea of a state after death. The same faculty which is conscious of existence whispers the wish for it; and, so little acquainted with the deductions of reasoning have some tribes been, that not only their animals, but even the ghosts of their domestic utensils have been believed to accompany them to the islands of the blessed. Long ere the voice of philosophy was heard, the opinion of an after state was popular in Greece. The works of Homer bear incontestable evidence of this. And there is not a feature in the history of the human mind better ascertained, than that no sooner did speculation seize upon the topic, than belief declined, and, as the great Bacon observes, the most learned, became the most atheistical ages. The reason of this is obvious. While the human mind is all simplicity, popular opinion is cordially received; but, when reasoning begins, proof is expected, and deficiency of demonstration being perceived, doubt and disbelief naturally follow. Yet, strange as it may appear, if the writer's memory does not greatly deceive him, these certain facts were denied by Hobbes. If he is not greatly mistaken, that gentleman, who gave a wretched, a most unpoetical translation of Homer, has so grossly misunderstood his author, as to assert that his mention of a future state was not in conformity to the popular opinion of his age, but only his own poetical fiction. He might as well have assured us, that the sacrifices of Homer had never any existence in Greece. But, as no absurdity is too gross for some geniuses, our murderer of Homer, our Hobbes, has likewise asserted, that the belief of the immortality of the human soul was the child of pride and speculation, unknown in Greece till long after the appearance of the Iliad.
[660]Oh gentle Mecon.—It was on the coast of Cochin-China, at the mouth of this river, the Maekhaun, or Camboja of modern writers, that Camoëns suffered the unhappy shipwreck which rendered him the sport of fortune during the remainder of his life. The literal rendering of the Portuguese, which Mickle claims the liberty of improving, is, "On his gentle, hospitable bosom shall he receive the song, wet from woful, unhappy shipwreck, escaped from destroying tempests, from ravenous dangers, the effect of the unjust sentence upon him whose lyre shall be more renowned than enriched."—Ed.
[660]Oh gentle Mecon.—It was on the coast of Cochin-China, at the mouth of this river, the Maekhaun, or Camboja of modern writers, that Camoëns suffered the unhappy shipwreck which rendered him the sport of fortune during the remainder of his life. The literal rendering of the Portuguese, which Mickle claims the liberty of improving, is, "On his gentle, hospitable bosom shall he receive the song, wet from woful, unhappy shipwreck, escaped from destroying tempests, from ravenous dangers, the effect of the unjust sentence upon him whose lyre shall be more renowned than enriched."—Ed.
[661]Here ere the cannon's rage in Europe roar'd.—According to Le Comte's memoirs of China, and those of other travellers, the mariner's compass, fire-arms, and printing were known in that empire, long ere the invention of these arts in Europe. But the accounts of Du Halde, Le Comte, and the other Jesuits, are by no means to be depended on. It was their interest (in order to gain credit in Europe and at the court of Rome) to magnify the splendour of the empire where their mission lay, and they have magnified it into romance itself. It is pretended, that the Chinese used fire-arms in their wars with Zenghis Khan, and Tamerlane; but it is also said that the Sogdians used cannon against Alexander. The mention of any sulphurous composition in an old writer is, with some, immediately converted into a regular tire of artillery. The Chinese, indeed, on the first arrival of Europeans, had a kind of mortars, which they called fire-pans, but they were utter strangers to the smaller fire-arms. Verbiest, a Jesuit, was the first who taught them to make brass cannon, set upon wheels. And, even so late as the hostile menace which Anson gave them, they knew not how to level, or manage, their ordnance to any advantage. Their printing is, indeed, much more ancient than that of Europe, but it does not deserve the same name, the blocks of wood with which they stamp their sheets being as inferior to as they are different from the movable types of Europe. The Chinese have no idea of the graces of fine writing; here, most probably, the fault exists in their language; but the total want of nature in their painting, and of symmetry in their architecture, in both of which they have so long been experienced, afford a heavy accusation against their genius. But, in planning gardens, and in the art of beautifying the face of their country, they are unequalled. Yet, even in their boasted gardening their genius stands accused. The art of ingrafting, so long known to Europe, is still unknown to them. And hence their fruits are vastly inferior in flavour to those of the western world. The amazing wall of defence against the Tartars, though 1500 miles in extent, is a labour inferior to the canals, lined on the sides with hewn stone, which everywhere enrich, and adorn their country; some of which reach 1000 miles, and are of depth to carry vessels of burthen. These grand remains of antiquity prove that there was a time when the Chinese were a much more accomplished people than at present. Though their princes for many centuries have discovered no such efforts of genius as these, the industry of the people still remains, in which they rival, and resemble, the Dutch. In every other respect they are the most unamiable of mankind. Amazingly uninventive, for, though possessed of them, the arts have made no progress among the Chinese these many centuries: even what they were taught by the Jesuits is almost lost. So false in their dealings, they boast that none but a Chinese can cheat a Chinese. The crime which disgraces human nature, is in this nation of atheists, and most stupid of all idolaters, common asthat charter'd libertine, the air. Destitute, even in idea, of that elevation of soul which is expressed by the best sense of the word piety, in the time of calamity whole provinces are desolated by self-murder; an end, as Hume says, of some of the admired names of antiquity, not unworthy of so detestable a character. And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart, the most dastardly cowardice completes the description of that of the Chinese.Unimproved as their arts is their learning. Though their language consists of few words, it is almost impossible for a stranger to attain the art of speaking it. And what a European learns ere he is seven years old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. In place of our 24 letters, they have more than 60,000 marks, which compose their writings: and their paucity of words, all of which may be attained in a few hours, requires such an infinite variety of tone and action, that the slightest mistake in modulation renders the speaker unintelligible. And in addressing a great man, in place of "my Lord," you may call him abeast, the word being the some, all the difference consisting in the tone of it. A language like this must ever be a bar to the progress and accomplishments of literature. Of medicine they are very ignorant. The ginseng, which they pretended was a universal remedy, is found to be a root of no singular virtue. Their books consist of odes without poetry, and of moral maxims, excellent in themselves, but without investigation or reasoning. For, to philosophical discussion and metaphysics they seem utterly strangers; and, when taught mathematics by the Jesuits, their greatest men were lost in astonishment. Whatever their political wisdom has been, at present it is narrow and barbarous. Jealous lest strangers should steal their arts—arts which are excelled at Dresden, and other parts of Europe—they preclude themselves from the great advantages which arise from an intercourse with civilized nations. Yet, in the laws which they impose on every foreign ship which enters their ports for traffic, they even exceed the cunning and avarice of the Dutch. In their internal policy the military government of Rome under the emperors is revived, with accumulated barbarism. In every city and province the military are the constables and peace officers. What a picture is this! Nothing but Chinese or Dutch industry could preserve the traffic and population of a country under the control of armed ruffians. But, hence the emperor has leisure to cultivate his gardens, and to write despicable odes to his concubines.Whatever was their most ancient doctrine, certain it is that the legislators who formed the present system of China presented to their people no other object of worship thanTien Kamti, the material heavens and their influencing power; by which an intelligent principle is excluded. Yet, finding that the human mind in the rudest breasts is conscious of its weakness, and prone to believe the occurrences of life under the power of lucky or unlucky observances, they permitted their people the use of sacrifices to those Lucretian gods of superstitious fear. Nor was the principle of devotion, imprinted by Heaven in the human heart, alone perverted; another unextinguishable passion was also misled. On tablets, in every family, are written the names of the last three of their ancestors, added to each, "Here rests his soul:" and before these tablets they burn incense, and pay adoration. Confucius, who, according to their histories, had been in the West about 500 years before the Christian era, appears to be only the confirmer of their old opinions; but the accounts of him and his doctrine are involved in uncertainty. In their places of worship, however, boards are act up, inscribed, "This is the seat of the soul of Confucius," and to these, and their ancestors, they celebrate solemn sacrifices, without seeming to possess any idea of the intellectual existence of the departed soul. The Jesuit Ricci, and his brethren of the Chinese mission,very honestlytold their converts, thatTienwas the God of the Christians, and that the label of Confucius was the term by which they expressed His divine majesty. But, after a long and severe scrutiny at the court of Rome, Tien was found to signify nothing more thanheavenlyoruniversal matter, and the Jesuits of China were ordered to renounce this heresy. Among all the sects who worship different idols in China, there is only one which has any tolerable idea of the immortality of the soul; and among these, says Leland, Christianity at present obtains some footing. But the most interesting particular of China yet remains to be mentioned. Conscious of the obvious tendency, Voltaire and others have triumphed in the great antiquity of the Chinese, and in the distant period they ascribe to the creation. But the bubble cannot bear the touch. If some Chinese accounts fix the era of creation 40000 years ago, others are contented with no less than 884953. But who knows not that every nation has its Geoffry of Monmouth? And we have already observed the legends which took their rise from the Annus Magnus of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers, an apparent revolution of the stars, which in reality has no existence. To the fanciful who held this Annus Magnus, it seemed hard to suppose that our world was in its first revolution of the great year, and to suppose that many were past was easy. And, that this was the case, we have absolute proof in the doctrines of the Brahmins, who, though they talk of hundreds of thousands of years which are past, yet confess, that this, the fourth world, has not yet attained its 6000th year. And much within this compass are all the credible proofs of Chinese antiquity comprehended. To three heads all three proofs are reduceable—their form of government, which, till the conquest of the Tartars in 1644, bore the marks of the highest antiquity; their astronomical observations; and their history.Simply and purely patriarchal, every father was the magistrate in his own family; and the emperor, who acted by his substitutes, the Mandarins, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most passive submission to authority thus branched out was inculcated by Confucius, and their other philosophers, as the greatest duty of morality. But, if there is an age in sacred or profane history where the manners of mankind are thus delineated, no superior antiquity is proved by the form of Chinese government. Their ignorance of the very ancient art of ingrafting fruit-trees, and the state of their language (like the Hebrew in its paucity of words), a paucity characteristic of the ages when the ideas of men required few syllables to clothe them, prove nothing farther than the early separation of the Chinese colony{*} from the rest of mankind; nothing farther, except that they have continued till very lately without any material intercourse with the other nations of the world.{*} The Chinese colony! Yes, let philosophy smile; let her talk of the different species of men which are found in every country; let her brand as absurd the opinion of Montesquieu, which derives all the human race from one family. Let her enjoy her triumph. Peace to her insolence, peace to her dreams and her reveries. But let common sense be contented with the demonstration (See Whiston, Bentley, etc.) that a creation in every country is not wanted, and that one family is sufficient in every respect for the purpose. If philosophy will talk of black and white men as different in species, let common sense ask her for a demonstration, that climate and manner of life cannot produce this difference; and let her add, that there is the strongest presumptive experimental proof that the difference thus happens. If philosophy draw her inferences from the different passions of different tribes; let common sense reply, that stripped of every accident of brutalization and urbanity, the human mind in all its faculties, all its motives, hopes and fears, is most wonderfully the same in every age and country. If philosophy talk of the impossibility of peopling distant islands and continents from one family, let common sense tell her to read Bryant's Mythology. If philosophy asserts that the Kelts wherever they came found aborigines, let common sense reply, there were tyrants enough almost 2000 years before their emigrations, to drive the wretched survivors of slaughtered hosts to the remotest wilds. She may also add, that many islands have been found which bore not one trace of mankind, and that even Otaheite bears the evident marks of receiving its inhabitants from a shipwreck, its only animals being the hog, the dog, and the rat. In a word, let common sense say to philosophy, "I open my egg with a pen-knife, but you open yours with the blow of a sledge hammer."A continued succession of astronomical observations, for 4000 years, was claimed by the Chinese, when they were first visited by the Europeans. Voltaire, thatson of truth, has often with great triumph mentioned the indubitable proofs of Chinese antiquity; but at these times he must have received his information from the same dream which told him that Camoëns accompanied his friendGamain the voyage which discovered the East Indies. If Voltaire and his disciples will talk of Chinese astronomy, and the 4000 years antiquity of its perfection, let them enjoy every consequence which may possibly result from it. But let them allow the same liberty to others. Let them allow others to drawtheirinferences from a few stubborn facts, facts which demonstrate the ignorance of the Chinese in astronomy. The earth, they imagined, was a great plain, of which their country was the midst; and so ignorant were they of the cause of eclipses, that they believed the sun and moon were assaulted, and in danger of being devoured by a huge dragon. The stars were considered as the directors of human affairs, and thus their boasted astronomy ends in that silly imposition, judicial astrology. Though they had made some observations on the revolutions of the planets, and though in the emperor's palace there was an observatory, the first apparatus of proper instruments ever known in China was introduced by Father Verbiest. After this it need scarcely be added, that their astronomical observations which pretend an antiquity of 4000 years, are as false as a Welch genealogy, and that the Chinese themselves, when instructed by the Jesuits, were obliged to own that their calculations were erroneous and impossible. The great credit and admiration which their astronomical and mathematical knowledge procured to the Jesuits, afford an indubitable confirmation of these facts.Ridiculous as their astronomical, are their historical antiquities. After all Voltaire has said of it, the oldest date to which their history pretends is not much above 4000 years. During this period 236 kings have reigned, of 22 different families. The first king reigned 100 years, then we have the names of some others, but without any detail of actions, or that concatenation of events which distinguishes authentic history. That mark of truth does not begin to appear for upwards of 2000 years of the Chinese legends. Little more than the names of kings, and these often interrupted with wide chasms, compose all the annals of China, till about the period of the Christian era. Something like a history then commences, but that is again interrupted by a wide chasm, which the Chinese know not how to fill up otherwise, than by asserting that a century or two elapsed in the time, and that at such a period a new family mounted the throne. Such is the history of China, full brother in every family feature to those Monkish tales, which sent a daughter of Pharoah to be queen of Scotland, which sent Brutus to England, and a grandson of Noah to teach school among the mountains in Wales.
[661]Here ere the cannon's rage in Europe roar'd.—According to Le Comte's memoirs of China, and those of other travellers, the mariner's compass, fire-arms, and printing were known in that empire, long ere the invention of these arts in Europe. But the accounts of Du Halde, Le Comte, and the other Jesuits, are by no means to be depended on. It was their interest (in order to gain credit in Europe and at the court of Rome) to magnify the splendour of the empire where their mission lay, and they have magnified it into romance itself. It is pretended, that the Chinese used fire-arms in their wars with Zenghis Khan, and Tamerlane; but it is also said that the Sogdians used cannon against Alexander. The mention of any sulphurous composition in an old writer is, with some, immediately converted into a regular tire of artillery. The Chinese, indeed, on the first arrival of Europeans, had a kind of mortars, which they called fire-pans, but they were utter strangers to the smaller fire-arms. Verbiest, a Jesuit, was the first who taught them to make brass cannon, set upon wheels. And, even so late as the hostile menace which Anson gave them, they knew not how to level, or manage, their ordnance to any advantage. Their printing is, indeed, much more ancient than that of Europe, but it does not deserve the same name, the blocks of wood with which they stamp their sheets being as inferior to as they are different from the movable types of Europe. The Chinese have no idea of the graces of fine writing; here, most probably, the fault exists in their language; but the total want of nature in their painting, and of symmetry in their architecture, in both of which they have so long been experienced, afford a heavy accusation against their genius. But, in planning gardens, and in the art of beautifying the face of their country, they are unequalled. Yet, even in their boasted gardening their genius stands accused. The art of ingrafting, so long known to Europe, is still unknown to them. And hence their fruits are vastly inferior in flavour to those of the western world. The amazing wall of defence against the Tartars, though 1500 miles in extent, is a labour inferior to the canals, lined on the sides with hewn stone, which everywhere enrich, and adorn their country; some of which reach 1000 miles, and are of depth to carry vessels of burthen. These grand remains of antiquity prove that there was a time when the Chinese were a much more accomplished people than at present. Though their princes for many centuries have discovered no such efforts of genius as these, the industry of the people still remains, in which they rival, and resemble, the Dutch. In every other respect they are the most unamiable of mankind. Amazingly uninventive, for, though possessed of them, the arts have made no progress among the Chinese these many centuries: even what they were taught by the Jesuits is almost lost. So false in their dealings, they boast that none but a Chinese can cheat a Chinese. The crime which disgraces human nature, is in this nation of atheists, and most stupid of all idolaters, common asthat charter'd libertine, the air. Destitute, even in idea, of that elevation of soul which is expressed by the best sense of the word piety, in the time of calamity whole provinces are desolated by self-murder; an end, as Hume says, of some of the admired names of antiquity, not unworthy of so detestable a character. And, as it is always found congenial to baseness of heart, the most dastardly cowardice completes the description of that of the Chinese.
Unimproved as their arts is their learning. Though their language consists of few words, it is almost impossible for a stranger to attain the art of speaking it. And what a European learns ere he is seven years old, to read, is the labour of the life of a Chinese. In place of our 24 letters, they have more than 60,000 marks, which compose their writings: and their paucity of words, all of which may be attained in a few hours, requires such an infinite variety of tone and action, that the slightest mistake in modulation renders the speaker unintelligible. And in addressing a great man, in place of "my Lord," you may call him abeast, the word being the some, all the difference consisting in the tone of it. A language like this must ever be a bar to the progress and accomplishments of literature. Of medicine they are very ignorant. The ginseng, which they pretended was a universal remedy, is found to be a root of no singular virtue. Their books consist of odes without poetry, and of moral maxims, excellent in themselves, but without investigation or reasoning. For, to philosophical discussion and metaphysics they seem utterly strangers; and, when taught mathematics by the Jesuits, their greatest men were lost in astonishment. Whatever their political wisdom has been, at present it is narrow and barbarous. Jealous lest strangers should steal their arts—arts which are excelled at Dresden, and other parts of Europe—they preclude themselves from the great advantages which arise from an intercourse with civilized nations. Yet, in the laws which they impose on every foreign ship which enters their ports for traffic, they even exceed the cunning and avarice of the Dutch. In their internal policy the military government of Rome under the emperors is revived, with accumulated barbarism. In every city and province the military are the constables and peace officers. What a picture is this! Nothing but Chinese or Dutch industry could preserve the traffic and population of a country under the control of armed ruffians. But, hence the emperor has leisure to cultivate his gardens, and to write despicable odes to his concubines.
Whatever was their most ancient doctrine, certain it is that the legislators who formed the present system of China presented to their people no other object of worship thanTien Kamti, the material heavens and their influencing power; by which an intelligent principle is excluded. Yet, finding that the human mind in the rudest breasts is conscious of its weakness, and prone to believe the occurrences of life under the power of lucky or unlucky observances, they permitted their people the use of sacrifices to those Lucretian gods of superstitious fear. Nor was the principle of devotion, imprinted by Heaven in the human heart, alone perverted; another unextinguishable passion was also misled. On tablets, in every family, are written the names of the last three of their ancestors, added to each, "Here rests his soul:" and before these tablets they burn incense, and pay adoration. Confucius, who, according to their histories, had been in the West about 500 years before the Christian era, appears to be only the confirmer of their old opinions; but the accounts of him and his doctrine are involved in uncertainty. In their places of worship, however, boards are act up, inscribed, "This is the seat of the soul of Confucius," and to these, and their ancestors, they celebrate solemn sacrifices, without seeming to possess any idea of the intellectual existence of the departed soul. The Jesuit Ricci, and his brethren of the Chinese mission,very honestlytold their converts, thatTienwas the God of the Christians, and that the label of Confucius was the term by which they expressed His divine majesty. But, after a long and severe scrutiny at the court of Rome, Tien was found to signify nothing more thanheavenlyoruniversal matter, and the Jesuits of China were ordered to renounce this heresy. Among all the sects who worship different idols in China, there is only one which has any tolerable idea of the immortality of the soul; and among these, says Leland, Christianity at present obtains some footing. But the most interesting particular of China yet remains to be mentioned. Conscious of the obvious tendency, Voltaire and others have triumphed in the great antiquity of the Chinese, and in the distant period they ascribe to the creation. But the bubble cannot bear the touch. If some Chinese accounts fix the era of creation 40000 years ago, others are contented with no less than 884953. But who knows not that every nation has its Geoffry of Monmouth? And we have already observed the legends which took their rise from the Annus Magnus of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers, an apparent revolution of the stars, which in reality has no existence. To the fanciful who held this Annus Magnus, it seemed hard to suppose that our world was in its first revolution of the great year, and to suppose that many were past was easy. And, that this was the case, we have absolute proof in the doctrines of the Brahmins, who, though they talk of hundreds of thousands of years which are past, yet confess, that this, the fourth world, has not yet attained its 6000th year. And much within this compass are all the credible proofs of Chinese antiquity comprehended. To three heads all three proofs are reduceable—their form of government, which, till the conquest of the Tartars in 1644, bore the marks of the highest antiquity; their astronomical observations; and their history.
Simply and purely patriarchal, every father was the magistrate in his own family; and the emperor, who acted by his substitutes, the Mandarins, was venerated and obeyed as the father of all. The most passive submission to authority thus branched out was inculcated by Confucius, and their other philosophers, as the greatest duty of morality. But, if there is an age in sacred or profane history where the manners of mankind are thus delineated, no superior antiquity is proved by the form of Chinese government. Their ignorance of the very ancient art of ingrafting fruit-trees, and the state of their language (like the Hebrew in its paucity of words), a paucity characteristic of the ages when the ideas of men required few syllables to clothe them, prove nothing farther than the early separation of the Chinese colony{*} from the rest of mankind; nothing farther, except that they have continued till very lately without any material intercourse with the other nations of the world.
{*} The Chinese colony! Yes, let philosophy smile; let her talk of the different species of men which are found in every country; let her brand as absurd the opinion of Montesquieu, which derives all the human race from one family. Let her enjoy her triumph. Peace to her insolence, peace to her dreams and her reveries. But let common sense be contented with the demonstration (See Whiston, Bentley, etc.) that a creation in every country is not wanted, and that one family is sufficient in every respect for the purpose. If philosophy will talk of black and white men as different in species, let common sense ask her for a demonstration, that climate and manner of life cannot produce this difference; and let her add, that there is the strongest presumptive experimental proof that the difference thus happens. If philosophy draw her inferences from the different passions of different tribes; let common sense reply, that stripped of every accident of brutalization and urbanity, the human mind in all its faculties, all its motives, hopes and fears, is most wonderfully the same in every age and country. If philosophy talk of the impossibility of peopling distant islands and continents from one family, let common sense tell her to read Bryant's Mythology. If philosophy asserts that the Kelts wherever they came found aborigines, let common sense reply, there were tyrants enough almost 2000 years before their emigrations, to drive the wretched survivors of slaughtered hosts to the remotest wilds. She may also add, that many islands have been found which bore not one trace of mankind, and that even Otaheite bears the evident marks of receiving its inhabitants from a shipwreck, its only animals being the hog, the dog, and the rat. In a word, let common sense say to philosophy, "I open my egg with a pen-knife, but you open yours with the blow of a sledge hammer."
A continued succession of astronomical observations, for 4000 years, was claimed by the Chinese, when they were first visited by the Europeans. Voltaire, thatson of truth, has often with great triumph mentioned the indubitable proofs of Chinese antiquity; but at these times he must have received his information from the same dream which told him that Camoëns accompanied his friendGamain the voyage which discovered the East Indies. If Voltaire and his disciples will talk of Chinese astronomy, and the 4000 years antiquity of its perfection, let them enjoy every consequence which may possibly result from it. But let them allow the same liberty to others. Let them allow others to drawtheirinferences from a few stubborn facts, facts which demonstrate the ignorance of the Chinese in astronomy. The earth, they imagined, was a great plain, of which their country was the midst; and so ignorant were they of the cause of eclipses, that they believed the sun and moon were assaulted, and in danger of being devoured by a huge dragon. The stars were considered as the directors of human affairs, and thus their boasted astronomy ends in that silly imposition, judicial astrology. Though they had made some observations on the revolutions of the planets, and though in the emperor's palace there was an observatory, the first apparatus of proper instruments ever known in China was introduced by Father Verbiest. After this it need scarcely be added, that their astronomical observations which pretend an antiquity of 4000 years, are as false as a Welch genealogy, and that the Chinese themselves, when instructed by the Jesuits, were obliged to own that their calculations were erroneous and impossible. The great credit and admiration which their astronomical and mathematical knowledge procured to the Jesuits, afford an indubitable confirmation of these facts.
Ridiculous as their astronomical, are their historical antiquities. After all Voltaire has said of it, the oldest date to which their history pretends is not much above 4000 years. During this period 236 kings have reigned, of 22 different families. The first king reigned 100 years, then we have the names of some others, but without any detail of actions, or that concatenation of events which distinguishes authentic history. That mark of truth does not begin to appear for upwards of 2000 years of the Chinese legends. Little more than the names of kings, and these often interrupted with wide chasms, compose all the annals of China, till about the period of the Christian era. Something like a history then commences, but that is again interrupted by a wide chasm, which the Chinese know not how to fill up otherwise, than by asserting that a century or two elapsed in the time, and that at such a period a new family mounted the throne. Such is the history of China, full brother in every family feature to those Monkish tales, which sent a daughter of Pharoah to be queen of Scotland, which sent Brutus to England, and a grandson of Noah to teach school among the mountains in Wales.
[662]Immense the northern wastes their horrors spread.—Tartary, Siberia, Samoyada, Kamtchatka, etc. A short account of the Grand Lama of Thibet Tartary shall complete our view of the superstitions of the East. While the other pagans of Asia worship the most ugly monstrous idols, the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living god. He sits cross-legged on his throne, in the great temple, adorned with gold and diamonds. He never speaks, but sometimes elevates his hand in token that he approves of the prayers of his worshippers. He is a ruddy well-looking young man, about 25 or 27, and is the most miserable wretch on earth, being the mere puppet of his priests, who dispatch him whenever age or sickness make any alteration in his features; and another, instructed to act his part, is put in his place. Princes of very distant provinces send tribute to this deity and implore his blessing, and, as Voltaire has merrily told us, think themselves secure of benediction if favoured with something from his godship, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed cow-dung of the Brahmins.
[662]Immense the northern wastes their horrors spread.—Tartary, Siberia, Samoyada, Kamtchatka, etc. A short account of the Grand Lama of Thibet Tartary shall complete our view of the superstitions of the East. While the other pagans of Asia worship the most ugly monstrous idols, the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living god. He sits cross-legged on his throne, in the great temple, adorned with gold and diamonds. He never speaks, but sometimes elevates his hand in token that he approves of the prayers of his worshippers. He is a ruddy well-looking young man, about 25 or 27, and is the most miserable wretch on earth, being the mere puppet of his priests, who dispatch him whenever age or sickness make any alteration in his features; and another, instructed to act his part, is put in his place. Princes of very distant provinces send tribute to this deity and implore his blessing, and, as Voltaire has merrily told us, think themselves secure of benediction if favoured with something from his godship, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed cow-dung of the Brahmins.
[663]How bright a silver mine.—By this beautiful metaphor (omitted by Castera) Camoëns alludes to the great success, which in his time attended the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. James I. sent an embassy to the sovereign, and opened a trade with this country, but it was soon suffered to decline. The Dutch are the only Europeans who now traffic with the Japanese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the Japanese are much the same as their neighbours of China. And in the frequency of self-murder, says Voltaire, they vie with their brother islanders of England.
[663]How bright a silver mine.—By this beautiful metaphor (omitted by Castera) Camoëns alludes to the great success, which in his time attended the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. James I. sent an embassy to the sovereign, and opened a trade with this country, but it was soon suffered to decline. The Dutch are the only Europeans who now traffic with the Japanese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the Japanese are much the same as their neighbours of China. And in the frequency of self-murder, says Voltaire, they vie with their brother islanders of England.
[664]The ground they touch not.—These are commonly called the birds of Paradise. It was the old erroneous opinion that they always soared in the air, and that the female hatched her young on the back of the male. Their feathers bear a mixture of the most beautiful azure, purple, and golden colours, which have a fine effect in the rays of the sun.
[664]The ground they touch not.—These are commonly called the birds of Paradise. It was the old erroneous opinion that they always soared in the air, and that the female hatched her young on the back of the male. Their feathers bear a mixture of the most beautiful azure, purple, and golden colours, which have a fine effect in the rays of the sun.
[665]From hence the pilgrim brings the wondrous tale.—Streams of this kind are common in many countries. Castera attributes this quality to the excessive coldness of the waters, but this is a mistake. The waters of some springs are impregnated with sparry particles, which adhering to the herbage, or the clay, on the banks of their channel, harden into stone, and incrust the original retainers.
[665]From hence the pilgrim brings the wondrous tale.—Streams of this kind are common in many countries. Castera attributes this quality to the excessive coldness of the waters, but this is a mistake. The waters of some springs are impregnated with sparry particles, which adhering to the herbage, or the clay, on the banks of their channel, harden into stone, and incrust the original retainers.
[666]Here from the trees the gum.—Benzoin, a species of frankincense. The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the rock oil, petroleum, a black fetid mineral oil, good for bruises and sprains.
[666]Here from the trees the gum.—Benzoin, a species of frankincense. The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the rock oil, petroleum, a black fetid mineral oil, good for bruises and sprains.
[667]Wide forests there beneath Maldivia's tide.—A sea plant, resembling the palm, grows in great abundance in the bays about the Maldivian islands. The boughs rise to the top of the water, and bear a kind of apple, called the coco of Maldivia, which is esteemed an antidote against poison.
[667]Wide forests there beneath Maldivia's tide.—A sea plant, resembling the palm, grows in great abundance in the bays about the Maldivian islands. The boughs rise to the top of the water, and bear a kind of apple, called the coco of Maldivia, which is esteemed an antidote against poison.
[668]The tread of sainted footstep.—The imprint of a human foot is found on the high mountain, called the Pic of Adam. Legendary tradition says, that Adam, after he was expelled from Paradise, did penance 300 years on this hill, on which he left the print of his footstep. This tale seems to be Jewish, or Mohammedan; for the natives, according to Captain Knox (who was twenty years a captive in Ceylon), pretend the impression was made by the god Budha, when he ascended to heaven, after having, for the salvation of mankind, appeared on the earth. His priests beg charity for the sake of Budha, whose worship they perform among groves of the Bogahah-tree, under which, when on earth, they say he usually sat and taught.
[668]The tread of sainted footstep.—The imprint of a human foot is found on the high mountain, called the Pic of Adam. Legendary tradition says, that Adam, after he was expelled from Paradise, did penance 300 years on this hill, on which he left the print of his footstep. This tale seems to be Jewish, or Mohammedan; for the natives, according to Captain Knox (who was twenty years a captive in Ceylon), pretend the impression was made by the god Budha, when he ascended to heaven, after having, for the salvation of mankind, appeared on the earth. His priests beg charity for the sake of Budha, whose worship they perform among groves of the Bogahah-tree, under which, when on earth, they say he usually sat and taught.
[669]And lo, the Island of the Moon.—Madagascar is thus named by the natives.
[669]And lo, the Island of the Moon.—Madagascar is thus named by the natives.
[670]The kingfishers.
[670]The kingfishers.
[671]Now to the West, by thee, great chief, is given.—The sublimity of this eulogy on the expedition of the Lusiad has been already observed. What follows is a natural completion of the whole; and, the digressive exclamation at the end excepted, is exactly similar to the manner in which Homer has concluded the Iliad.
[671]Now to the West, by thee, great chief, is given.—The sublimity of this eulogy on the expedition of the Lusiad has been already observed. What follows is a natural completion of the whole; and, the digressive exclamation at the end excepted, is exactly similar to the manner in which Homer has concluded the Iliad.
[672]Near either pole.—We are now presented with a beautiful view of the American world. Columbus discovered the West Indies before, but not the continent till 1498—the year afterGamasailed from Lisbon.
[672]Near either pole.—We are now presented with a beautiful view of the American world. Columbus discovered the West Indies before, but not the continent till 1498—the year afterGamasailed from Lisbon.