10 Mr. Davis's Memoir concerning the Chinese. 



Pretorian guards at Rome. As they could not, like the latter, have 

 possessed any real or substantial power, we must necessarily refer so 

 curious a circumstance to the operations of intrigue. The uncontrolled 

 access which their neutralized condition gave them to all parts of the 

 palace, and to the company of both sexes, was greatly calculated to facilitate 

 their projects : and projects of mischief and disorder were likely enough 

 to be formed by persons in their miserable condition, who looked with 

 an eye of envy and hatred on all the rest of the human race. The 

 awe of state was not long felt by those who were the immediate atten- 

 dants, and perhaps the companions of the sovereign, in his private haunts : 

 and that barrrier being once passed, the approaches of insolence and 

 usurpation advanced with less interruption. At the close of the dynasty, 

 however, their power was finally crushed in a general massacre : and though 

 eunuchs are at this day emj)loyed at Pekin in great numbers, tiie more 

 modern history of Cliina has not recorded their interference in the revo- 

 lutions of the Empire.* 



In the above brief view of the principal facts connected with the earlier 

 history of China, I have contented myself with noticing such points, as 

 seemed best calculated to convey a general notion of the real antiquity of 

 the Empire, or were most deserving of attention in themselves ; and I am of 

 opinion, that a careful examination of its authentic annals, undertaken with 

 a proper degree of scepticism towards tlie misrepresentations of national 

 vanity, will establish the following facts : that tiie antiquity of China as an 

 Empire, has been greatly exaggerated, and that it cannot be dated earlier 

 than tlie reign of Chi-hoang-ti, about B. C. 200 ; that it was then confined 



* It was about the end of the same dynasty of Tang, or very soon after, that the strange 

 custom of cramping the feet of the liigher classes of women is recorded to Iiave commenced. 

 As it has always appeared to myself impossible to refer the origin of such shocking mutilation to 

 any notions of physical beauty, however arbitrary, 1 am inclined to ascribe it to a principle which 

 unquestionably dictates the long nails of the literati and higher classes of Chinese men. The 

 idea conveyed by these is exemption from Icihonr, and as the small feet make perfect cripples of 

 the ladies, it is fair to conclude that the idea of gentility which they convey, arises from a similar 

 association. That appearance of helplessness, which the mutilation induces, is much admired by 

 the Chinese, notwithstanding its usual concomitant of extreme unhealthiness ; and in their 

 poetry, I have frequently observed the tottering gait of the poor women compared to " the 

 " waving of a willow in the breeze." A Mandarin once told me, with great gravity, that the 

 compression of the ladies' feet in early youth was highly desirable, — quod carnem ex pedibus in 

 crura misit, etpinguiora ea ob hanc causam fecit. 



