A SCRAP CONCERNING THE CHINESE. $53 



not at all; and therefore european clockmakers arc 

 indifpenfably neceffary at the court of Pekin. 



The great Cang-hi, who In his attempts on his 

 country , refembled Peter the great, but without his 

 fuccefs, though he was equally feniible of the fupe- 

 riority of the Europeans, and would have willingly 

 introduced them among his fubjects, caufed two 

 glafs-houfes to be edablifhed at Pekin with european 

 workmen ; but it does net appear that they were con- 

 tinued after his death, or that they promoted the ufe 

 of glafs throughout his empire, At leait the windows 

 are ftill mpplied with paper or oyfter-lliells, and their 

 mirrors are of white copper. Of all our glafs wares 

 they efleem none but fuch as are prepared for dioptrical 

 ufes, Since glafs was fo early found out as to have 

 the Phoenicians for its inventors, and is not yet intro- 

 duced among the Chinefe ; it mould feem that they 

 did not obtain thofe arts which they have in common 

 with us, from abroad, but found them out themfelves. 

 Accordingly the arts with them are nearly what they 

 were at fir ft, and the improvements of them are about 

 300 years behind our's. Books that treat of .grammar, 

 of nature, and their civil hifcory, geography, houfe- 

 hold management, mechanical arts, morality and poli- 

 tics, they have in great numbers ; and they are not 

 wanting in poets. But of fpeculative fciences they 

 know nothing : their philofophers are only expoiitors of 

 the books of Cong-fu-tzu, and their priefts only teach- 

 ers of the dreams of the Budda or Sommona Coddom. 



The languages of thefe tribes confifr. of monofyllabic 

 words, and are the medium from the animal founds to 

 human fpeech. In the remoter! times, while pure fen- 



litive 



