barbarous Forces For under the present Tartar Kings the Government continues still the same and in the Hands of the Chinese learned and all the change that appears to have been made by such a Storm or Revolution has been only that a Tartar Race sits in the Throne instead of a Chinese and the Cities and strong places are garrison'd by Tartar Souldiers who fall by degrees into the Manners Customs and Language of the Chineses So great a Respect or rather Veneration is paid to this wise and admirable Constitution even by its Enemies and Invaders that both Civil Usurpers and Foreign Conquerors vie with Emulation who shall make greatest Court and give most support to it finding no other means to secure their own Safety and Ease by the Obedience of the People than the Establishment and Preservation of their ancient Constitutions and Government The great Idea which may be conceived of the Chinese Wisdom and Knowledge as well as their Wit Ingenuity and Civility by all we either read or see of them is apt to be lessened by their gross and sottish Idolatry but this it self is only among the vulgar or illiterate who worship after their manner whatever Idols belong to each City or Village or Family and the Temples and Priests belonging to them are in usual request among the common People and the Women But the Learned adore the Spirit of the World which they hold to be Eternal and this without Temples Idols or Priests And the Emperor only is allowed to sacrifice at certain times by Himself or His Officers at two Temples in the two Imperial Cities of Peking and Nanking one dedicated to Heaven and t'other to the Earth This I mention to shew how the furthest East and West may be found to agree in Notions of Divinity as well as in Excellence of Civil or Politick Constitutions by passing at one leap from these of China to those of Peru. SECT III. 'T IS known enough that about the year 1484 Alonso Sanchez Master of a Spanish Vessel that usually traded from those Coasts to the Canaries and Madara's was in His Passage between these Islands surprised with a furious Storm at East so violent that He was forced to let His Ship drive before it without any Sail and so black that within twenty eight days He could not take the height of the Sun That He was at length cast upon a Shore but whether Island or Continent He could not tell but full of savage People That after infinite Toyls Dangers and miseries of Hunger and Sickness He made at length one of the Tercera Islands with only five Men left of seventeen He carried out and meeting there with the famous Columbo made Him such Relations and so pertinent Accounts of His Voyage as gave occasion for the discovery of America or the West-Indies by this Man so renowned in our Modern Story Whatever Predictions have been since found out or applyed towards the Discovery of this New World or Stories told of a certain Prince in Wales having run the same Fortune or of the ancient Carthaginians I do not find by all I have read upon this Subject any reason to believe that any Mortals from Europe or Africa had ever traced these unknown Paths of that Western Ocean or left the least Footsteps of having discovered those Countries before Alonso Sanchez and his Crew Upon the arrival of the Spaniards there with Columbus they found Nature as naked as the Inhabitants in most parts no thought of business further than the most natural Pleasures or Necessities of Life Nations divided by natural bounds of Rivers Rocks or Mountains or difference of Language Quarrels among them only for Hunger or Lust the Command in Wars given to the strongest or the bravest and in Peace taken up or exercised by the boldest among them and their Lives commonly spent in the most innocent entertainments of Hunting Fishing Feasting or in the most careless leisure There were among them many Principalities that seemed to have grown up from the original of Paternal Dominion and some Communities with Orders and Laws but the two great Dominions were those of Mexico and Peru which had arrived to such extent of Territory Power and Riches that amazed those who had been enough acquainted with the Greatness and Splendor of the European Kingdoms And I never met with any Story so entertaining as the Relations of the several learned Spanish Jesuits and others concerning these Countries and People in their native Innocence and Simplicity Mexico was so vast an Empire that it was well represented by the common answer of the Indians all along that Coast to the Spaniards when they came to any part and asked the People whether they were under Montezuma Quien noes esclavo de Montezuma or Who is not a Slave of Montezuma as if they thought the whole World was so They might truly call it Slave for no Dominion was ever so absolute so tyrannous and so cruel as His. Among other Tributes imposed on the People one was of Men to be sacrificed every year to an ugly deformed Idol in the great Temple of Mexico Such numbers as the King pleased of poor Victims were laid upon such extents of Cities or Villages or Numbers of Inhabitants and there chosen by lot to satisfy such bloody and inhuman Taxes These were often influenced by the Priests who when they saw Men grow negligent either in respect to themselves or devotion to their Idols would send to tell the King that the Gods were hungry and thereupon the common Tribute was raised so as that year the Spaniards landed and invaded Mexico there had been above thirty thousand Men sacrificed to this cruel Superstition And this was said to have given great occasion for the easie Conquests of the Spaniards by the willing Revolts and Submissions of the Natives to any new Dominion The same was observed to happen in Peru by the general hatred and aversion of the People in that Empire to Atahualpa who being a Bastard of the Yncas Family had first by Practices and Subtilty and afterwards by Cruelty and Violence raised Himself to the Throne of Peru and cut off with merciless Cruelty all the Masculine Race of the true Royal Blood that were at Man's estate or near it after that Line had lasted pure and sacred and reigned with unspeakable Felicity both to themselves and their Subjects for above eight hundred years This Kingdom is said to have extended near seven hundred Leagues in length from North to South and about an hundred and twenty in breadth 'T is bounded on the West by the Pacifick Ocean on the East by Mountains impassible for Men or Beasts and as some write even Birds themselves the height being such as makes their Tops always covered with Snow even in that warm Region On the North 't is bounded with a great River and on the South with another which separates it from the Province of Chili that reaches to the Magellan Straits The Kingdom of
such an Opinion were first infused amongst them by Zamolxis and propagated by Odin amongst his Followers or by Him invented I will not conjecture it may have been either one or t'other since the Goths He led into the North-West parts of Europe are agreed to have come from the Getae who are placed near the River Tanais For those vast Scythian Regions were divided into infinite several Nations separated by the common natural Bounds of Rivers Lakes Mountains Woods or Marshes Each of these Countries was like a mighty Hive which by the vigour of Propagation and health of Clymat growing too full of People threw out some new Swarms at certain periods of time that took Wing and sought out some new abode expelling or subduing the old Inhabitants and seating themselves in their rooms if they liked the conditions of place and commodities of Life they met with if not going on till they found some other more agreeable to their present Humours or Dispositions Sometimes the expelled Nations took heart and when they fled from one Country invaded another and revenged the Injuries of some cruel Neighbours upon others that were weaker but more innocent and so like Waves thrust on one the other for mighty length of Space or Countries Sometimes the Conquerors augmented their Numbers and Forces with the strongest and most adventurous of those Nations they first invaded by their voluntary Accession into the Shares or Hopes of their future Fortunes and so went on to further Conquests The usual Manner of these Expeditions was That when a Country grew too full of People for the growth of it to supply they assembled together all that were fit to bear Arms and divided themselves into two Bands whereof one stayed at home to inhabit and defend their own and t'other went to seek new Adventures and possess some other they could gain by Force of Arms and this was done sometimes by Lot and sometimes by Agreement between the two Divisions That Band or Colony that went abroad chose their Leader among those in most Repute and Esteem for Wisdom or for Courage and these were their Commanders or Generals in War and if they lived and succeeded were the first Princes of those Countries they Conquer'd and chose for the Seat of their New Colony or Kingdom It seems agreed by the curious Enquirers into the Antiquities of the Runick Language and Learning that Odin or Woden or Goden according to the different Northern Dialects was the first and great Hero of the Western Scythians That he led a mighty swarm of the Getes under the name of Goths from the Asiatick Scythia into the farthest North-West Parts of Europe That he seated and spred his Kingdom round the whole Baltick Sea and over all the Islands in it and extended it West-ward to the Ocean and Southward to the Elve which was anciently esteemed the Bound between the Scythians and the Germans That this vast Country was in the ancient Gothick term called Biarmia and is by some Authors termed Officina Gentium having furnished all those Swarms of Goths Vandals Saxons Angles Jutes Danes Normans which so often infested and at length subdued all the Western Provinces of Europe Some write that he extended his Conquests even as far as Franconia it self but all agree that this Odin was the first Inventor of or at least the first Engraver of the Runick Letters or Characters sometimes so famous and at last so infamous in the World by the vulgar Opinion and Imputation of all sorts of Charms Enchantments or Witchcrafts to the Use and Force of those strange Characters That He instituted many excellent Orders and Laws made the distinction of Seasons the divisions of Time was an Invincible Warrier a wise Law-giver loved and obeyed during Life by his Subjects and after his Death adored as one of their three chief Gods amongst which he was the God of War Thor of Thunder and Tempests Frea of Pleasure by whose Names for an eternal Memory three days of the Week are called I will not enter into His Story nor that of His Succession or the infinite and famous Revolutions it produced in the World nor into the more curious search of the time of His Expedition which must have been very Ancient and is thereby left doubted and undetermined But if it be true that He was Inventor of the Runick Characters some Writers of that Language will make Him older than Evander by affirming their Runick Letters to have been more Antient than the Latin which were first brought into Italy in His time For my own part I should guess by all I have perused of those Antiquities that this Expedition may have been made two thousand years ago or thereabouts So much is true that the Runes were for long periods of time in use upon materials more lasting than any others imployed to that purpose for instead of Leaves or Barks or Wax or Parchments these were engraven upon Stone or Planks of Oaks upon Artificial Obelisks or Pillars and even upon Natural Rocks in great Numbers and Extent of Lines But more of this Runick Subject will occur upon that of Poetry and I shall only observe among the Constitutions of these Northern People three Principles of a strain very extraordinary and perhaps peculiar to themselves and which extend very far into the Fortunes and Conquests of their Arms and into the force and duration of their Kingdoms The first of these is a Principle of Religion or Superstition the next of Learning and the last of Policy or Civil Government Whether the first were deduced from that of Zamolxis among the Getes styled of old Immortals or introduced by Odin among the Western Goths 't is certain that an Opinion was fixed and general among them That Death was but the entrance into another Life that all men who lived lazy and unactive Lives and died natural Deaths by Sickness or by Age went into vast Caves under ground all dark and miry full of noysom Creatures usual in such places and there for ever grovelled in endless stench and misery On the contrary all who gave themselves to warlike Actions and Enterprises to the Conquest of their Neighbours and Slaughter of Enemies and died in Battel or of Violent Deaths upon bold Adventures or Resolutions they went immediately to the vast Hall or Palace of Odin their God of War who Eternally kept open House for all such Guests where they were entertained at infinite Tables in perpetual Feasts and Mirth Carowsing every Man in Bowls made of the Sculls of their Enemies they had slain according to which numbers every one in these Mansions of Pleasure was the most Honoured and the best entertained How this Opinion was printed in the Minds of these fierce Mortals and what effect it had upon their Thoughts and Passions concerning Life and Death as it is touched Elegantly in those Verses of Lucan before recited so it is lively represented in the twenty fifth and twenty ninth Stanza of that
Empire consists of fifteen several Kingdoms which at least have been so of old tho now governed as Provinces by their several Vice-roys who yet live in Greatness Splendor and Riches equal to great and Sovereign Kings In the whole Kingdom are one hundred and forty five capital Cities of mighty extent and magnificent Building and one thousand three hundred twenty and one lesser Cities but all walled round The number of Villages is infinite and no Country in the known World so full of Inhabitants nor so improved by Agriculture by infinite growth of numerous Commodities by Canals of incredible length conjunctions of Rivers convenience of Ways for the transportation of all sorts of Goods and Commodities from one Province to another so as no Country has so great trade tho till very lately they never had any but among themselves and what there is now foreign among them is not driven by the Chineses going out of their Country to manage it but only by their permission of the Portugueses and Dutch to come and trade in some skirts of their Southern Provinces For Testimonies of their Greatness I shall only add what is agreed of their famous Wall and of their City Peking The Stone-wall which divides the Northern parts of China from Tartary is reckoned by some twelve by others nine hundred miles long running over Rocks and Hills through Marishes and Deserts and making way for Rivers by mighty Arches It is forty five foot high and twenty foot thick at the bottom divided at certain spaces by great Towers It was built above two thousand years ago but with such admirable Architecture that where some Gaps have not been broken down by the Tartars upon their Irruptions the rest is still as intire as when it was first built The King that raised this Wall appointed a Million of Soldiers who were listed and paid for the defence of it against the Tartars and took their turns by certain numbers at certain times for the guard of this Frontier The Imperial City of Peking is nothing so large as several other Cities of China whereof Nanking is esteemed the greatest but is a regular Four-Square the Wall of each side is six Miles in length In each of these sides are three Gates and on each side of each Gate are great Palaces or Forts for the Guards belonging to them which are a thousand Men to each Gate The Streets run quite cross with a thro View and Passage from each Gate to that which is over against it in the opposite side and these Streets are ranged full of stately Houses The Palace of the Emperor is three Miles in Compass consisting of three Courts one within the other whereof the last where the Emperor lodges is four hundred paces square The other two are filled with His Domesticks Officers and Guards to the number of sixteen thousand Persons Without these Courts are large and delicious Gardens many artificial Rocks and Hills Streams of Rivers drawn into several Canals faced with square Stone and the whole atchieved with such admirable Invention Cost and Workmanship that nothing ancient or modern seems to come near it and all served with such Magnificence order and Splendour that the Audience of a Foreign Ambassadour at Peking seems a sight as Great and Noble as one of the Triumphs at Rome As other Nations are usually distinguished into Noble and Plebeian so that of China may be distinguish'd into Learned and Illiterate The last makes up the Body or Mass of the People who are govern'd the first comprehends all the Magistrates that govern and those who may in time or course succeed them in the Magistracy for no other than the Learned are ever employed in the Government nor any in the greatest Charges that are not of those Ranks or Degrees of Learning that make them termed Sages or Philosophers or Doctors among them But to comprehend what this Government of China is and what the Persons employed in it there will be a necessity of knowing what their Learning is and how it makes them fit for Government very contrary to what ours in Europe is observed to do and the reason of such different effects from the same Cause The two great Heroes of the Chinese Nation were Fohu and Confuchu whose Memories have always continued among them Sacred and Adored Fohu lived about four thousand years ago and was the first Founder of their Kingdom the progress whereof has ever since continued upon their Records so clear that they are esteemed by the Missionary Jesuits unquestionable and infallible For after the Death of every King the Successor appoints certain Persons to write the Memorable Actions of His Predecessors Reign and of these an Epitome is afterwards drawn and entred into their Registers Fohu first reduced them from the common Original Lives of Mankind introduced Agriculture Wedlock distinction of Sexes by different Habits Laws and Orders of Government He invented Characters and left several short Tables or Writings of Astronomy or Observations of the Heavens of Morality of Physick and Political Government The Characters He used seem to have been parly strait Lines of different Lengths and distinguish'd by different points and partly Hieroglyphicks and these in time were followed by Characters of which each expressed one word In these several ways were for many Centuries composed many Books among the Chineses in many sorts of Learning especially Natural and Moral Philosophy Astronomy Astrology Physick and Agriculture Something above two thousand years ago lived Confuchu the most learned wise and vertuous of all the Chineses and for whom both the King and Magistrates in His own age and all of them in the Ages since seem to have had the greatest Deference that has any where been rendred to any Mortal Man He writ many Tracts and in them digested all the Learning of the Ancients even from the first Writing or Tables of Fohu at least all that He thought necessary or useful to Mankind in their personal civil or political Capacities which were then received and since prosecuted with so great Esteem and Veneration that none has questioned whatever He writ but admitted it as the truest and best Rules of Opinion and Life so that 't is enough in all Argument That Confuchu has said it Some time after lived a King who to raise a new Period of Time from His own Name and Reign endeavoured to abolish the Memory of all that had passed before Him and caused all Books to be burnt except those of Physick and Agriculture Out of this ruin to Learning escaped either by chance or some private Industry the Epitomes or Registers of the several successions of their Kings since Fohu and the works of Confuchu or at least a part of them which have lately in France been printed in the Latin Tongue with a learned Preface by some of the Missionary Jesuits under the Title of the Works of Confutius After the death of this Tyrannous and Ambitious King These Writings came abroad and being
Officer imployed by the Empress in the nature of an Almoner whose business is only that of Charity and Relief of the Poor and distressed and setting free Prisoners upon small Debts or Offences There is besides in each Province a particular Council to take care of Learning and to appoint Rules and Examiners for the several Degrees thereof It were endless to enumerate all the excellent Orders of this State which seem contrived by a reach of Sense and Wisdom beyond what we meet with in any other Government of the World but by some few the rest may be judged Each Prince of the Royal Blood has a Revenue assigned Him and a City where he is bound to reside and never to stir out of it without the Emperor's leave All Degrees of People are distinguisht by their Habit and the several Officers by several Badges upon them And the Colour worn by the Emperor which is Yellow is never used by any other person whatsoever Every House has a Board over the Door wherein is written the Number Sex and Quality of the Persons living in it and to a certain number of Houses one is appointed to inspect the rest and take care that this be exactly done None is admitted to bear Office in any Province where He was born unless it be Military which is grounded upon the belief that in matters of Justice Men will be partial to their Friends but in those of War Men will fight best for their own Country None ever continues in any Office above three years unless upon a new Election and none put out for miscarriage in His Office is again admitted to any Imployment The two great hinges of all Governments Reward and Punishment are no where turned with greater care nor exercised with more Bounty and Severity Their Justice is rigorous upon all Offences against the Law but none more exemplary than upon corruption in Judges Besides this Inquisition is made into their ignorance and weakness and even into carelesness and rashness in their Sentences and as the first is punished with Death so these are with Dismission and Disgrace The Rewards of Honor besides those of advancement are conferred by Patents from the Emperor expressing Merits and granting Priviledges by Pillars of Marble with elegant and honorary Inscriptions And to merit extraordinary towards the Prince and Country even by erecting Temples offering Incense and appointing Priests for the service of them Agriculture is encouraged by so many special priviledges from the Crown and the Common Laws or Customs of the Country that whatever Wars happen the Tillers of the Ground are untouched as if they were sacred like Priests in other places so as no Country in the World was ever known to be so cultivated as the whole Kingdom of China Honor and Respect is no where paid to Nobility or Riches so much as it is here to Vertue and Learning which are equally regarded both by the Prince and the People And the advancement to Office of persons only for excelling in those Qualities prevents the Cankers of Envy and Faction that corrupt and destroy so many other Governments Every one seeking Preferment here only by Merit attributes to it that of other Men. Tho the King be the most absolute in the World since there are no other Laws in China but what He makes yet all Matters being first digested and represented by His Councils the Humors and Passions of the Prince enter not into the forms or conduct of the Government but His personal favours to Men or Women are distributed in the Preferments of His Houshold or out of the vast Revenue that is particularly applyed to it for support of the greatest Expence and Magnificence that appears in any Palace of the World So that it may truly be said that no King is better served and obeyed more honoured or rather adored and no People better govern'd nor with greater Ease and Felicity Upon these Foundations and Institutions by such Methods and Orders the Kingdom of China seems to be framed and policed with the utmost Force and Reach of Human Wisdom Reason and Contrivance and in Practice to excel the very Speculations of other Men and all those imaginary Scheams of the European Wits the Institutions of Xenophon the Republick of Plato the Utopias or Oceanas of our Modern Writers And this will perhaps be allowed by any that considers the Vastness the Opulence the Populousness of this Region with the Ease and Facility wherewith 't is govern'd and the length of time this Government has run The last is three times longer than that of the Assyrian Monarchy which was thirteen hundred years and the longest Period of any Government we meet with in Story The numbers of People and of their Forces the Treasures and Revenues of the Crown as well as Wealth and Plenty of the Subjects the Magnificence of their publick Buildings and Works would be incredible if they were not confirmed by the concurring Testimonies of Paulus Venetus Martinius Kercherus with several other relations in Italian Portuguese and Dutch either by Missionary Friers or Persons imploy'd thither upon Trade or Embassies upon that occasion Yet the whole Government is represented as a thing managed with as much Facility Order and Quiet as a common Family tho some Writers affirm the number of People in China before the last Tartar Wars to have been above two hundred Millions Indeed the Canals cut thro the Country or made by Conjunctions of Rivers are so infinite and of such lengths and so perpetually filled with Boats and Vessels of all kinds that one Writer believes there are near as many People in these and the Ships wherewith their Havens are filled who live upon the Water as those upon the Land 'T is true that as Physicians say the highest Degree of Health in a Body subjects it to the greatest danger and violence of some Disease so the perfection of this Government or Constitution has had the same Effect joyned with the accident of their Situation upon such a Neighbour as the Tartars For these by the hardness and poverty of their Country and their Lives are the boldest and the fiercest People in the World and the most enterprising On t'other side the Excellence of the Chinese Wit and Government renders them by great Ease Plenty and Luxury in time effeminate and thereby exposes them to frequent Attempts and Invasions of their savage Neighbours Three several times upon their Records the Tartars have conquered great parts of the Kingdom of China and after long establishments there have been expelled Till as we said before about the year 1650. they atchieved the compleat and entire Conquest of the whole Empire after a bloody War of above thirty years But the Force of this Constitution and Government appears in no circumstance or light so great as in this that it has waded safe thro so great Tempests and Inundations as six changes of Race among their Kings by Civil Wars and four Conquests by foreign and