VOL. XXXVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J31 



By this method a moment's attention will make a judicious reader know that 

 there are 424 years elapsed since the epoque of Guei lie wang, to the year 

 when Denis le Petit places the birth of our Saviour; for this year has been 

 marked on the Latin table, to be as its centre, and serve the European literati 

 for a fixed point to regulate their calculations on. Supposing Petavius's doc- 

 trine true, this Dionysian asra is one year before the vulgar aera, which last 

 should be preferred as being most in use, if we had not considered that it coin- 

 cides with the first year of the emperor Ping Ti. 



But if on one hand the epoque of Guei lie wang, placed in the 53d year of the 

 cycle, and once well comprehended, becomes a key that opens the knowledge 

 of the table, and developes its system; on the other, the characteristic names 

 of the 60 years which compose the cycle, do by their connection with the years 

 of the emperors, determine the precise time of incidents. Hence arises clearness 

 and certainty in the Chinese chronology; for these characteristics contribute to 

 the discovery of errors, which either the ignorance and neglect of copyists and 

 printers, or the want of attention in authors, often introduce into chronology. 



This cycle removed, the years of emperors might be very easily confounded, 

 by augmenting or diminishing their number. When an emperor is newly come 

 to the throne, if the first year of his reign be reckoned that in which his pre- 

 decessor died, it is placing two years in one; because, according to the Chinese 

 custom, the year wherein an emperor ends his reign, is wholly attributed to 

 him, though he died in the beginning of the first month : and his successor is 

 held to reign only from the beginning of the ensuing year. 



Yet this custom, though very common, is not so universal, but that some 

 emperors have derogated from it. The Tartarian emperor Tchang hoang Ti, 

 founder of the dynasty now reigning, caused the year in which Hoai Tsong 

 had murdered himself, to be taken for the first year of his reign, which was the 

 17th and last of this last emperor of the Mings. 



Another property of this new table, no less remarkable or useful than the 

 foregoing, is, that this table lays before the eye all the names of the particular 

 epoques assumed by the emperors of China for near 2000 years. For Han uou 

 Ti, the first who took this sort of epoque, began his reign ]40 years before 

 Jesus Christ. 



The emperors of China have a particular custom, little known in Europe, 

 which, if care be not taken, would infallibly spread darkness and confusion 

 over chronology and history. It is not allowed to pronounce the proper name 

 of any emperor during his life, which is held in some measure as ineffable. 

 This respect continues even after their deaths; for then it is not by their proper 

 names they are mentioned, but are as it were consecrated by a surname, which 



