﻿ON THE TARTARS. 23 



death, and of which he could not , he says, even think 

 without shivering. A very curious passage in a tract 

 of Plutarch on the figure in the moons orb, naturally 

 induced M. Bailly to place Ogygia in the north ; and 

 he concludes that island, as others have concluded 

 rather fallaciously, to be the Atlantis of Plato ; but 

 is at a loss to determine whether it was Iceland or 

 Greenland, Spt-zbergen or New Zembla. Among so 

 many charms it was difficult, indeed, to give a pre- 

 ference ; but our philosopher, though as much per- 

 plexed by an option of beauties as the shepherd of 

 Ida, seems on the whole to think Zembla the most 

 worthy of the golden fruit; because it is indisputably 

 an island, and lies opposite to a gulph near a conti- 

 nent, from which a great number of rivers descend 

 into the ocean. He appears equally distressed among 

 five nations, real and imaginary, to fix upon that which 

 the Greeks named Atlantes; and his conclusion in 

 both cases must remind us of the showman at Eton, 

 who, having pointed out in his box all the crowned 

 heads of the world, and being asked by the school- 

 boys who looked through the glass, which was the 

 Emperor, which was the Pope, which the Sultan, and 

 which the Great Mogul, answered eagerly, ' which 

 you please, young gentlemen, which you please.' His 

 letters, however, to Voltaire, in which he unfolds his 

 new system to his friend, whom he had not been able 

 to convince, are by no means to be derided ; and his 

 general proposition, that arts and sciences had their 

 source in Tartary, deserves a longer examination than 

 can be given to it in this discourse. 1 shall, neverthe- 

 less, with your permission, shortly discuss the ques- 

 tion under the several heads, that will present them- 

 selves in order. 



Although we may naturally suppose that the 

 numberless communities of Tartars, some of whom 

 are established in great cities, and some encamped 



C 4 



