to the clouds. Some fortresses mark the frontier lines against Burmah; but a confused congeries of steeps and rocks, on the side of the savage tribes in the neighbourhood of Thibet, leave in some doubt the exact boundaries of the Celestial Empire.

CHAPTER III.

GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND INSTITUTIONS.

It will now be proper to inquire into the political system by means of which so vast an empire is held together under a single head; by means of which an ingenious, intelligent, and generally refined people, to the number of between three and four hundred millions, are made to yield the same obedience to a handful of foreign barbarians as to their native princes. China, on account of the extraordinary anomalies she presents to European ideas, has been called a Sealed Book, which many great minds have attempted in vain to read: but perhaps, after all, the difficulty is more imaginary than real. It may be that the so-called anomalies are homogeneous, that they are the operations of one national character, acting and acted upon by different circumstances; and if this is the case, the mystery will vanish, although the facts will not be the less surprising.

The Chinese, from their earliest recorded existence as

a nation, have been accustomed to nearly the same form of government, although administered at different times by different dynasties. It was to the rule they were attached, not to the family; and when Confucius laid down the law alike to princes and subjects, he was merely the expositor of the national mind, taking for the materials of his philosophy the pre-existing ideas and predilections of the people. The Tartars did not conquer so much as they were conquered. They brought an immense accession of territory to the empire; and, while nominally reigning, became themselves subject, submitting to the manners, laws, and government of the quasi conquered country, in fact, becoming Chinese. If we turn to the historical sketch in a former chapter, we shall find that the Mongol dynasty was not overturned because it was Tartar, but submitted to the common destiny of all the imperial families. So long as the princes took the trouble of keeping the kingdom in order the people were satisfied, and they cared little by what means this was accomplished; but as soon as the sceptre became too heavy for the enervated hands that held it they withdrew their allegiance.

The paucity of numbers of the Manchows has little to do with the question; for they are sufficient, if necessary, to officer the nation, and it is to the office not the person the Chinese pay obedience. Neither is the insignificance of their military force of much consequence, for the dregs (as we hold them to be) of the reigning dynasty rule, not by arms, but by intrigue, espionage, and bribes. Their recent resistance to the British was probably their last military effort, and it resulted in their usual expedient, the payment of a sum of money to buy off the consequences of defeat. This is entirely a government of

expedience and finance, and when the treasury is fairly empty, it must fall to the ground.

Before proceeding to describe the actual system of government, we must be permitted further to observe, that it has been customary to ascribe to it the formation of the national character. The Chinese, we are told, are orderly, industrious, and cheerful, because of such and such institutions which repress licentiousness, reward labour, and promote happiness. But is it not more rea-. sonable to suppose that it is the government which has been formed by the national character, and that it has thus acquired a permanence altogether without example? The lazzaroni of Italy are more cheerful than the industrious Chinese, but no one thinks of attributing this to the beneficent working of their institutions. The Chinese in fact appear to be orderly, industrious, and cheerful from constitution; and they are so alike in the midst of poverty and misrule at home, and foreign laws and customs abroad.

The grand principle of the government was in full force in the families of the Jewish patriarchs. It is composed of the right of parental authority, and the duty of filial obedience. The emperor is the father of the nation; and he disposes of his children as he pleases, even to death. He is their prophet, priest, and king. He is the mediator between them and Heaven; and he alone is to receive blame for their misfortunes, or praise for their prosperity. When a national reverse occurs, he accuses himself of want of merit to deserve prosperity, or want of talent to command it; and he mulcts himself in remissions of revenue to the people who suffer through his fault. Thus the fallibility of the Son of Heaven is acknowledged by the constitution; and even his very character of parent may depend upon his evident possession of the parental instincts. A tyrant,

therefore, or an incapable, may be deposed or slain without breach of duty; and, in submitting implicitly to a new dynasty established by treachery or violence, the subjects may still remain faithful to the monarchy.

Such is the Right of the emperor; while the Duty of the people, except in extreme cases of general and obvious tyranny or incapacity, is submission. A son submits to a father, a servant to a master, a young person to an old person, an inferior to a superior, throughout the whole ascent of office and the whole gradations of society, till the sentiment of universal respect reaches the emperor, the supreme lord of all. A father is emphatically the master of his family, although he may be flogged for murdering his children; but if a son commits the treason of even beating either of his parents, he is not only put to death himself but his kindred are degraded, and even the guilty neighbourhood or district made to suffer.

In Europe the poor are virtually subjected to the rich, but they have no compensation in the subjection of others to them; while in China all men, however poor, are lords and chiefs. But their authority only extends downwards. All above them are their masters, all below them their subjects. This is the essence of the whole system of rights and duties. In Europe, with its customs of primogeniture, its hereditary titles, its entailed properties, it would be a system of intolerable slavery, such as could not fail to be broken in pieces by the natural expansion of the human mind; but in China, where there is no principle of permanence in rank or fortune, it is a system of comparative freedom. There, wealth, office, and distinction are open to all men; a parent while educating his son not only puts him in the way of promotion, but all belonging to him; a family rises with the fortunes of any one of its members, for