﻿2^0 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE ; 



be hardy sceptics to doub: it) the poems of Ca/idas 

 were composed before the beginning of our era. Now 

 it is clear, from internal and external evidence, that 

 the Ramayan and Mahahharat were considerably older 

 than the productions of that poet; and it appears from 

 the style and metre of the Dherma Sastra, revealed by 

 Menu, that it was reduced to writing long before the 

 age of Falmic or Vyasa, the second of whom names 

 it with applause. We shall not, therefore, be thought 

 extravagant if we place the compiler of those laws be- 

 tween a thousand and fifteen hundred years before 

 Christ ; especially as Buddha, whose age is pretty well 

 ascertained, is not mentioned in them ; but, in the 

 twelfth century before our era, the Chinese empire 

 was at least in its cradle. This fact it is necessary to 

 prove ; and my first witness is Confucius himself. I 

 know to what keen satire I shall expose myself by ci- 

 ting that philosopher, after the bitter sarcasms of M. 

 Pauw against him and against the translators of his 

 mutilated, but valuable works ; yet I quote without 

 scruple the book entitled Lun Yu, of which I possess 

 the original with a verbal translation, and which I 

 know to be sufficiently authentic for my present pur- 

 pose. In the secoud part of it Con fu-tsu declares, that 

 !' Altho' he, like other men, could relate, as mere lessons 

 " of morality, the histories of the first and second im- 

 " perial houses, yet, for want of evidence, he could 

 f give no certain account of them. " Now, if the Chi- 

 nese themselves do not even pretend that any histo- 

 rical monument existed in the age of Confucius, pre-: 

 ceding the rise of their third dynasty, about eleven 

 hundred years before the Christian epoch, we may 

 justly conclude that the reign of Vuvam was in the 

 infancy of their empire, which hardly grew to maturity 

 till some ages after that prince; and it has been asserted 

 by very learned Europeans, that even of the third 

 dynasty, which he has the fame of having raised, no 

 unsuspected memorial can now be produced. It was 

 not till the eighth century before the birth ot our 



