REVIEWS.




LETTER ON DU HALDE'S HISTORY OF CHINA, 1738.


There are few nations in the world more talked of, or less known, than
the Chinese. The confused and imperfect account which travellers have
given of their grandeur, their sciences, and their policy, have,
hitherto, excited admiration, but have not been sufficient to satisfy
even a superficial curiosity. I, therefore, return you my thanks for
having undertaken, at so great an expense, to convey to English readers
the most copious and accurate account, yet published, of that remote and
celebrated people, whose antiquity, magnificence, power, wisdom,
peculiar customs, and excellent constitution, undoubtedly deserve the
attention of the publick.

As the satisfaction found in reading descriptions of distant countries
arises from a comparison which every reader naturally makes, between the
ideas which he receives from the relation, and those which were familiar
to him before; or, in other words, between the countries with which he
is acquainted, and that which the author displays to his imagination; so