of Meng-tfe, inserted into the text the notes of the modern commentator, without either diftinguishing them as they are diftinguished in the Chinese work, or informing the public that he had taken this liberty: and as M. FRERET did not underftand the Chinese language, and was therefore obliged to lean upon the authority, and follow the lights (often worse than ambiguous), of the Miffionaries, he built his confident affertion of the antiquity of the Chinese chronology on Father Noel's tranflation, and alleged, for proof, a falfe quotation, without knowing it. The reader need not be furprifed at this inftance of credulity in an unbeliever, though implicit faith in a monkish miffionary be rather a curious phenomenon in fuch a man as M. FRERET.-Be that as it may, Father Noel's tranflation is full of additions of this kind, which cannot be distinguished by a French reader from the Chinese text; but our learned author, by confulting the original, difcovered the error of M. FRERET, whofe hypothefis, and all the labour it coft him, vanish into air in confequence of this difcovery.-Father Couplet, in his tranflation of the works of Confucius, has followed, fays our author, the fame method; if we depend upon the authority of thefe tranflations, we fhall find, indeed, in them a multitude of paffages, that prove the antiquity of the Chinese chronologybut the misfortune is, that thefe paffages do not exist in the originals.

We learn farther, in this curious Memoir, that Father de Mailla, in the celebrated Chinese annals, that are published from his tranflation, is guilty of the fame inconfiderate way of proving, and that his references to paffages in the Chinese books are inaccurate, and fallacious, in a very high degree. M. DE GUIGNES gives an inftance of this, which is really ftriking: De Mailla, in order to prove that the Chinese have not fixed, at random, the duration of the reigns of their ancient kings, tells us, that the Chou-king, a book of the first authority in China, mentions pofitively the duration of the reigns of ten kings of the fecond Dynafly;- he even indicates the chapter, where this is to be found.-Happily for Father Mailla, few critics are capable of examining the original; but, unhappily for him, our Author is one of the few, and affures us, that in the chapter, to which the Rev. Father refers us, there are only three princes mentioned, together with the years in which they governed, and that the greateft part of the others are not even named. Thus the mistakes and tricks of the Miffionaries, and the conjectures and imaginations of other authors, make a confiderable part of that hillory of China, which a certain set of philofophers fet up as a regulator of the chronology of other hiftories.

The

The champions of Chinese hiftory have availed themselves much of aftronomical obfervations to fupport the credit of its ancient chronology; but the contradictions and ambiguity that reign in the accounts of thefe obfervations, render the conclufions, drawn from them, very uncertain.-Father Amiot, in a work fent to the king's library, in 1769, affirms, that the conjunction of five planets, which happened under Tchuen-hio, is a fictitious epocha,-that it is not mentioned in any work really authentic, or worthy of credit, and that, confequently, it cannot be employed to afcertain the Chinese chronology. But, as if this Rev. Father had forgot himself, he, in another work, fent to France in 1775, and lately publifhed, confiders the fame conjunction as a demonftration of the authenticity of the Chinese chronology, and fixes its epocha at the 28th of February of the year 2449, before Chrift. How he came to change his opinion, our Author cannot tell: nor can we imagine, how hiftorians, that were unworthy of credit in 1769, fhould command our affent in 1775. Befide, if we attend to the reports of the other Millionaries, fome of them will be found rejecting this chronology, others adopting it, and all of them calculating it in different ways.

Who fhall decide when Doctors difagree? - Similar doubts are excited by fimilar contradictions with refpect to the eclipfe of Tchong-kang. Father De Premare, in one of his publications, throws a profufion of ridicule upon the aftronomers, by whom it was calculated; and yet we find this fame Father reprefented in the Lettres Edifiantes, as maintaining the credit of this eclipfe. Our Author alfo fhews the interruption, the diforder, and inaccuracy, that have always reigned in the Chinese cycle of fixty (defigned, at firft, to form a period of fixty days, and which was long after applied to a period of fixty years), and of confequence, the fallacy of thofe calculations, which M. FRERET and the Miffionaries have founded upon it.

M. DE GUIGNES, after having evinced the precipitation of the Miffionaries, and fhewn the errors and contradictions into which they have been betrayed by their enthusiastical admiration of the Chinese hiftory, goes a ftep farther, and undertakes to examine that hiftory, with his own eyes, in order to fee in what it confifts, and on what foundations its credit refts. For this purpose, he examines the hiftory of the Dynafty of Hia, the firft of the imperial Dynafties, which had feventeen emperors, during the fpace of 440 years, and which began about the year 2207 before Jefus Chrift. The Chou-king (fays he) which the Chinese confider as the basis of their history, and the pureft source of inftruction, gives very little information with refpect to that ancient Dynafty ;-it mentions only four of the

LI 2

feventeen

feventeen emperors, that modern writers fuppofe to have belonged to it, without even taking notice of the duration of each reign it contains abundance of reflections and maxims relative to government, but few or no events. The hiftory of the second Dynafty is not more circumftantial: of twenty-fix emperors, that it is fuppofed to have contained, the Chou-king mentions only eight, and of thefe only three, the duration of whofe reigns is specified.

It is pretended, that fo early as the reign of Yoa, 2357 years before Chrift, the Chinese made aftronomical obfervations, in countries far diftant from the capital of their empire-that they had a complete year of 365 days and a quarter, and that they undertook immenfe works, to change the courfe of certain rivers and all this-when? at a time when they were learning the first elements of agriculture, and only beginning to emerge from a ftate of barbarifm! This, indeed, is not likely unless we follow M. Bailli's hypothefis, according to which it is poffible, that when the great northern Coloffus of erudition and philofophy (erected who knows when or where?) was broken into pieces (who knows how?), some splinters of aftronomy might have been carried into China, even in its rude and uncivilized state.

Nor does the Chinese hiftory, according to our Author, derive more confiderable riches from the works of Meng-tfe, who occafionally fpeaks of fome of the ancient princes, the fame that are mentioned in the Chou-king:-Confucius, in the little treatifes that have been collected by his difciples, mentions no other; fo that, from thefe different works, which are anterior to the general conflagration of the Chinese books (and about which fome doubts might perhaps be eafily excited), it is impoffible to draw a folid body of hiftory.- How then did Se-matfien, about 97 years before Chrift, compofe one, and from what fource did he take the names of all thefe ancient emperors? It is true, indeed, he does no more than merely indicate them, and begins to mark the dates only at the year 841 before Chrift, fo that the two firft imperial Dynafties are without date,-which is a ftrange manner of fixing chronology.-Be that as it maySe-ma tfien is the father of Chinefe hiftory; but, even in China, he has the reputation of a story-teller, is accused of having employed the fables invented by the Bonzes; and, in general, his hiftory is little efteemed by the Miffionaries. Sibaud, whofe works have been lately printed at Paris, under the name of a Chinefe called Ko, fays, that Se-ma-tfien defigned to flatter the vanity of the emperor of China, by compofing a history, in fuch a manner, that the ambaffadors from the weltern nations of Afia fhould not be able to difpute with that

Father

prince,

prince, in point of antiquity. Accordingly, fays our Author, Se ma-tfien goes as far backward as a perfonage called Hoang ti, but without marking any dates.

This first hiftorian of China, whom even the Chinese behold with a fufpicious eye, did not live either in a country which was unknown to the reft of the world, or in an obscure period of time. China, fays our Author, had confiderable connexions with the western nations, and even with the Romans. The Chinese had made war on the frontiers of Perfia, in order to furnish themselves with the Nifean horfes, mentioned by Herodotus, which were in high request with the kings of Perfia, and which the Chinese obtained under the form of a tribute. About the fame time the vine was tranfplanted into China: cotton was alfo carried thither, and it was, for a long time, confidered there as a rarity. If the hiftory of the arts in China be examined with attention, it will appear, that the greatest part of them may be dated from the time of the intercourse of the Chinese with the western nations. About the fame time, they had communicated to them fome treatises of aftronomy; fo that when Se-ma-tfien compofed his hiftory, he had an opportunity of being acquainted with thofe of other nations, and might avail himself of this knowledge, to flatter more plaufibly the vanity of his fovereign, in giving a high and remote antiquity to the Chinese empire.-From all this, our Author concludes, that this first hiftorian of China deferves but a very small degree of credit. Befide, what can we think of the hiftory of China, when the fragments, anterior to the burning of the books, which yet remain, are deftitute both of circumftantial relations and dates; and fince Se-ma-tfien, who is so often mistaken, and who believed in the fables of Tao-fe, has not had the courage to date farther back than the year 841 before Chrift? It is furely evident from hence, that all the dates, which relate to the reigns of princes, anterior to this epocha, have been forged by more modern writers.

Se-ma-tfien, then, having left undetermined the duration of the reigns of the Chinese princes, in the two first imperial Dynafties, and alfo that of the reigns in a part of the third Dynafty, from what materials and fources did fucceeding writers venture to determine thefe points of ancient hiftory? Our Author's answer to this queftion fhews the uncertainty of the Chinese hiftory in the most evident manner.

M. DE GUIGNES fhews, that the hiftorians who wrote under the Dynafty of Song in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries after Chrift, are not a whit more credible than those already mentioned. The most efteemed among them is Se-makouang, who lived in the eleventh century. He compofed a grand hiftory of China; but as it only begins with the year 425

before Chrift, it has no relation to the chronology of the remote ages; and the fame may be faid of the chronological tables compofed by this author, in which there are no dates anterior to 841 before Chrift.-About the fame time, another learned man called Lieou-jou, compofed a history of the ages anterior to the year 425, A. C. which is a compilation of paffages taken from all forts of authors, from Tao-fe, alfo, of whose abfurd and lying fect he was a member. Other writers, of the fame fect, drew up chronicles, in which they went backward, though without any credible records or guide, as far as the creation of the world.-Nay, feveral were abfurd enough to make use, in their hiftories, of the Y-king, an enigmatical book, that was fuperftitiously employed to foretel future events: they thought the combinations and riddles, that this book furnished for the difcovery of future events, might be applied to the investigation of thofe that were paft, and of the precife time in which they happened. Methods of this kind, which demonftrate the ignorance, credulity, and fuperftition of the Chinese writers, are not surely to be admitted into chronological researches.

Towards the conclufion of the eleventh century, Theou-bi compofed an abridgment of the work of Se-ma-kouang, to which was added, the hiftory, written by Lieou-jou, as above mentioned. In the fifteenth century, another writer treated the fame periods of the Chinese hiftory, and his work was preferred. Here then we have the materials that form the abridgment of the Grand Annals, lately publifhed.

These details fhew the uncertainty of the ancient hiftory of the Chinese; and from these and other confiderations (for which we refer the reader to the publication before us) our Author concludes, that with refped to the two firft imperial Dynafties, it is not poffible to afcertain either the duration of the reigns, or the number and series of the princes, or the places where they reigned, or the extent of their dominions, or the geography of the time. He has proved in another Memoir, that about the tenth and eleventh centuries before Chrift, there were no cities in China,-that the country was filled with different tribes of Barbarians, and that feveral little kingdoms had been formed, in the midft of thefe Barbarians, toward the end of the ninth centuty, A. C. which did not become powerful for a long time after this period. Thefe little kingdoms were difperfed in five provinces only: all the other parts of China were inhabited, as far down as the feventh century, A. C. by people that were not Chinese; and the emperors of the Dynafty of the Tcheou, whofe eftablishment is placed in the year 1122 before Chrift, notwithstanding the power that has been attributed to them, reigned only in a small part of Chen-fi,

fomewhere