{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39803/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39803","id":"gutenberg_39803","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39803","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Art","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Gardens, Chinese -- Early works to 1800","Gardens, English -- Early works to 1800"],"text":"Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY\n\n  AN\n  EXPLANATORY\n  DISCOURSE\n\n  BY\n  TAN CHET-QUA,\n  of\n  QUANG-CHEW-FU, Gent.\n\n  SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS\n  (1773)\n\n  _Introduction by_\n  RICHARD E. QUAINTANCE, JR.\n\n  PUBLICATION NUMBER _191_\n  WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY\n  UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES\n  _1978_\n\n\nGENERAL EDITOR\n\nDavid Stuart Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles\n\n\nEDITORS\n\n  Charles L. Batten, University of California, Los Angeles\n  William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\n  George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles\n  Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles\n\n\nADVISORY EDITORS\n\n  James L. Clifford, Columbia University\n  Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia\n  Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles\n  Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago\n  Louis A. Landa, Princeton University\n  Earl Miner, Princeton University\n  Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota\n  Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles\n  Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\n  James Sutherland, University College, London\n  H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles\n  Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\n\n\nCORRESPONDING SECRETARY\n\nBeverly J. Onley, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library\n\n\nEDITORIAL ASSISTANT\n\nFrances M. Reed, University of California, Los Angeles\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThis \"Explanatory Discourse\" first appeared, in the latter part of March\n1773, annexed to the second and last edition of Sir William Chambers'\n_Dissertation on Oriental Gardening_ of the preceding May. As an effort,\ncuriously hedged, to impersonate a Chinese spokesman it seeks to exploit\nthe satiric vantage points of philosophic naivety and trenchant candor\nenjoyed by Goldsmith's observer Lien Chi Altangi in London a dozen years\nearlier. But Chambers' ventriloquism is both more defensive and more\naggressive than what we find in _The Citizen of the World_; the Preface\nhere in his own voice admits sensitivity to the \"abuse\" which the\nDissertation had incurred for its scenic fantasy, its brief opening and\nclosing attacks on \"Capability\" Brown, and its pervasive criticism of\nthe blandness of Brownian landscaping. By assuming the voice of Tan\nChet-qua Chambers is able to pretend to more authoritative familiarity\nwith actual Chinese gardens even as he deplores his readers'\nmisapprehension that his interest lay mainly in masquerade,\nentertainment, or \"the mere recital of a traveller's observation\" (p.\n113). It was probably a strategic error to entrust the substance of his\ngenuine and quite respectable challenging of Brownian style, to what he\nterms the \"vehicle\" of alleged first-hand reports of preferable\n\"Chinese\" lay-outs. By this date, some two decades after the chinoiserie\nfad had crested in England, most of his readers might fairly be termed\nrather jaded. They preferred to overreact to the frivolity and whimsey\nthey had come to think essentially Chinese, rather than to ponder what\nChambers seriously urges from behind his silken \"screen\": his interest\nin a variegated emotional response to deliberately variegated landscape.\nAn admirer of Burke's Sublime, Chambers saw advantage in complicating\nthe suavity of Brown's gentle contours, shaven lawns, free-form\nreflecting lakes, and still short tree-clumps, through a program of\nlandscaped stimulation of contrasting associative moods. This is the\nessence of that argument which Chambers \"cloathed ... in the garb of\nfiction, to secure it a patient hearing\" (p. 112) in three publications\nappearing over sixteen years. There is no evidence that he was better\nunderstood through publication of this \"Discourse,\" the last of the\nthree.[1]\n\nOf course, it is not as a satirist, an aesthetician of landscape, or\neven as a masquerading orientalist that Sir William Chambers (1723-96)\nhas been best known in his time and since: with Robert Adam, he led the\nBritish architectural profession virtually from the time he undertook\nhis first commissions around 1757. The two buildings for which he is\njustly best remembered are the Chinese Pagoda at Kew Gardens and\nSomerset House, between London's Strand and Waterloo Bridge. Yet from\nthat solid Palladian structure now housing the General Register Office\nit takes more than the dozen miles up Thames to reach the pagoda which\nin 1762 reared its eighty bright wing-displaying dragons on ten\nsuccessive roofs, and from the height of fifty meters flashed its glazed\ntiles across suburbia. Chambers developed simultaneously and maintained\nthrough his career two contrasted sensibilities. The dignified town\nhouse he designed for his family in 1764 fronted Berners Street with a\nmassive rusticated doorway, yet had interior chimney-pieces and a rear\nelevation modelled in \"fanciful\" papier-mache which his biographer John\nHarris supposes was painted and varnished chinoiserie. He made his way\nto the top of his profession and earned royal recognition through\ntectonic skills that absorbed him with Somerset House, for instance,\nduring the last two decades of his life. But as early as 1752 he had\nventured the striking practice--standard by the century's end through\nhis pioneering and Adam's--of drawing elevations of a building proposed\nas it would appear if already conditioned by time, decaying and\novergrown by vegetation.[2] Deciding what to make of his three\npublications on Chinese gardens will not be eased by polarizing his\nsources of inspiration or consigning his life into stretches during\nwhich the dominant interest was product or process, structure or affect.\nHere is no schizoid or frustrated Pre-Romantic--a Chatterton who somehow\nsurvived his suicide attempt to edit copy for the _Gentleman's\nMagazine_--but a consummate professional.[3] The mythic \"Cina\" of which\nthis \"Discourse\" was Chambers' latest account grew and changed with him\nfrom his first-hand experience of Canton at the age of twenty, through\nhis architectural training in Paris and Rome, and throughout his\npractice and success as the Establishment architect of his age in\nEngland.\n\nThe recent thorough Harris biography leaves it appropriate here only to\nsurvey the facts most pertinent to his publications on Chinese gardens\nand to advance a few speculations. The first son of a well-to-do\nScottish sutler to the armies of Charles XII of Sweden, Chambers early\nleft his native Gothenburg for schooling supervised by relatives in\nYorkshire. Between the ages of 17 and 26 his cosmopolitan rearing\nproceeded with his apprenticeship to supercargoes or agents aboard three\nsuccessive vessels of the Swedish East India Company trading in ports\nalong the Indian coast and as far east as Canton. Although his eye and\nsketchbook were thus early busied with oriental sights, what Chambers\nlater wrote of Peking (or much else Chinese beyond the docks of Canton)\nwas, as he admitted, based upon the observations of others. Yet it must\nhave been rare and significant enough in those days that when this\nWesterner determined to devote his earnings from the final voyage to an\neducation in architecture, he had seen proportionately so much of\nnon-European building. Even before enrolling in J.-F. Blondel's Ecole\ndes Arts for the 1749-50 winter, Chambers may have met Frederick, Prince\nof Wales, in London, and been encouraged by Frederick's exotic\ninterests.[4] It was during his second of five springs in Rome, living\nwith his English wife over the shop of Piranesi, that Chambers learned\nof Frederick's death in March 1751 and designed for him a mausoleum\nbased on the ancient and neo-classical shapes before his eyes; in one of\nhis sections for this project he depicted it decaying like some of them,\nwith cypress trees beginning to grow out of the rubble that was to have\nbeen its roof! Though this design was never executed, Chambers did meet\nwith royal patronage upon his return to London and dedicated to the new\nPrince of Wales--soon his pupil in drawing, and three years later,\nGeorge III--his first book, _Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture,\nDresses, Machines and Utensils_ in 1757.\n\nThe opening sentences which Samuel Johnson contributed to Chambers'\n_Designs_ scorned the \"power\" with which \"novelty attracts regard\"[5]--a\nground-note directly contrary to Chambers' sarcastic apology for \"the\nmonster Novelty\" here in his 1773 Preface. But in 1757 he could expect\nhis crisp text and twenty-one plates to administer a calming dose of\nauthenticity to the chinoiserie fever then raging. In fact, this large\nand handsome volume appears to have driven from the market the\npattern-books of \"William Halfpenny\" and others, with their ridiculous\ndragon-finials atop Georgian hip-roofs and Venetian windows bordered by\ncrockets--the carpentry trade trying to sustain a mood for renovations\nwaning by the early fifties. Chambers hoped to put a stop \"to the\nextravagancies that daily appear under the name of Chinese, though most\nof them are mere inventions, the rest copies from the lame\nrepresentations found on porcelain and paper-hangings.\" This sniffy\nprofessionalism would broaden by 1772 into mockery of the \"kitchen\ngardeners, well skilled in the culture of sallads, but little acquainted\nwith the principles of Ornamental Gardening\"[6]--which everyone took for\na swipe at Launcelot \"Capability\" Brown, \"yon stately gentleman in the\nblack perriwig\" (p. 157 below).\n\nYet probably a more general and generous motive prompted Chambers to\nboost in this public way, on the last five pages introducing his\n_Designs_, a landscape-style in which he could hardly expect to exercise\nhis training or build the career just beginning. The lay-outs of Kent\nand Brown took inspired advantage of topography, plants and climate\npeculiar to the south of England, but to anyone coming like Chambers\nfrom the gardens in and near Paris and Rome it might appear by 1757 that\nthe English style risked parochial self-exaggeration to the point where\nall anecdotal human interest would be suppressed in the name of a\n\"Nature\" literally isolated. Cosmopolitanism, more enlightened than\never, befitted a Britain engaged in Pitt's \"Great War for the Empire\"\nwhich would extend its holdings from Montreal to Madras. Was there not\nan earlier empire whose leader had left visible tokens of his\neclecticism? \"[H]Adrian, who was himself an architect, at a time when\nthe Grecian architecture was in the highest esteem among the Romans,\nerected in his Villa, at Tivoli, certain buildings after the manner of\nthe Egyptians and of other nations.\"[7] It was timely to identify a pure\n\"original\" example of culture native to quite another organic whole, and\nthen to transplant it intact to a British scene large enough to sustain\nit. Botanically viewed, this is the principle on which arduous\nhorticultural experiments were being performed at this stage in\nEngland's imperial history: the removal to Kew of Lebanese cedars,\noriental Ginkgoes, persimmons and Sophoras, or American locusts in the\nearlier 1750s, and later, the infamous Bounty venture to transplant in\nJamaica breadfruit from the South Seas. Architecturally applied, it\nwould seem to be the principle on which Chambers developed his designs\nfor a score of buildings after the manner of the Romans, Chinese, Moors,\nand of other nations, erected at Kew Gardens by the time the Treaty of\nParis was signed in 1763.[8] In this concern he seconded but went beyond\nthe hopes of Horace Walpole and William Mason that \"this whole kingdom\nmight soon become one magnificant vast Garden, bounded only by the sea\"\n(below, page 133). The syntax of Lewis Mumford seems apposite: of\nFrederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York's Central Park just a\ncentury later, Mumford has remarked that \"By making nature urbane he\nnaturalized the city.\"[9] At Kew, by making the garden cosmopolitan,\nChambers helped to globalize the capital of empire and proposed the\nworld as Enlightened Eden.\n\nIt was not, of course, such national or global edenic visions which\nchiefly exercised readers of Chambers' 1757 essay \"Of the Art of Laying\nOut Gardens Among the Chinese\" and brought down upon his 1772\n_Dissertation_ the ridicule which prompted the \"Explanatory Discourse.\"\nRather, it was the lurid details through which both accounts maintained\nthat \"The Chinese artists, knowing how powerfully contrast operates on\nthe mind, constantly practise sudden transitions, and a striking\nopposition of forms, coulours, and shades.\" Though this principle earned\nsympathetic response from theorists like Burke and Karnes at home and\nDelille on the Continent, Chambers pressed his luck too far when he\ndescribed what he claimed to have observed, or heard from Chinese\nobservers, of \"three different species of scenes, to which they give the\nappellations of pleasing, horrid, and enchanted.\" Particularly\nvulnerable were the programmed _frissons_ of \"their scenes of horror\":\n\"some miserable huts dispersed in the mountains serve, at once to\nindicate the existence and wretchedness of the inhabitants.\"[10] By 1772\nthe _Schadenfreude_ has deepened: \"Their scenes of terrour are composed\nof gloomy woods, &c. gibbets, crosses, wheels, and the whole apparatus\nof torture are seen from the roads. Here too they conceal in cavities,\non the summits of the highest mountains, foundries, lime-kilns, and\nglass-works, which send forth large volumes of flame, and continued\ncolumns of thick smoke, that give to these mountains the appearance of\nvolcanos.\" This was the sort of opening which William Mason exploited in\nhis _Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers_ of March, 1773:\n\n    Now to our lawns of dalliance and delight,\n    Join we the groves of horrour and affright;\n    This to achieve no foreign aids we try,\n    Thy gibbets, Bagshot! shall our wants supply;\n    Hounslow, whose heath sublimer terrour fills,\n    Shall with her gibbets lend her powder mills.[11]\n\nMason's _Heroic Epistle_ was one of the century's most popular poems\nand, cheered on by Walpole, a viscously successful effort to tar with\nChambers' lavish brush his patron George Bute and other assorted Scots,\nany critic of Brown, and the Tory establishment at large.\n\nYet behind Chambers' oriental screen the novelty, enduring interest, and\neven the practicality of some of his ideas can be observed. That concern\nto naturalize the smoky mills of industrialization may be developing a\nhint (concerning Middleton Dale, in the Peak District) on page 94 of\nThomas Whately's supremely influential _Observations on Modern\nGardening_ (1770). If Chambers' generation was neither the first nor\nlast to grapple with what \"progress\" had done to the land, the English\nlandscaping movement presented a new stage for that encounter. While\nChet-qua's proposal to frame the dreary tracts around a metropolis \"into\nscenes of terror\" seems less than helpful, how neatly he anticipates\nCezanne's transfer of his easel into the abandoned Bibemus Quarry (pp.\n130-132). Foreshadowing William Cowper's satire of \"Th' omnipotent\nmagician, Brown\" in _The Task_, Chambers had warned that\nestate-\"improvement\" could lead to irreparable devastation of the\nnation's woodland. Several of Chambers' means to certain effects sound\nmore like a practical landscape architect at work than a Disneyland\nimpressario parading his promised thrills: when he urges diversification\nof material relative to seasonal change or human entertainments, for\ninstance, or the use of wire fencing and other substitutes for the\nha-ha. His interest in the harmonizing of diverse but massed hues and\ntextures has been recognized as an early glimpse of the \"English\"\neffects secured by Gertrude Jekyll a century and a quarter later.[12]\nThough extravagances of Chambers' language distracted attention from the\nliberalism of his views, such passages of the _Dissertation_ as pp.\n49-50 read like the Picturesque identified by William Gilpin, Uvedale\nPrice, and Richard Payne Knight in the 1780s and '90s. Far from the\n(Sino-British) imperial privity which Mason tartly mocked are Chet-qua's\nsuggestions that the country-house owner drop his palings and open his\ngrounds to \"Holy-day folks,\" as he opens his Park to his kitchen-garden.\nMore than this, he should offer \"meats for every palate,\" plan not for\nhis family or honored guests alone, but for tastes more susceptible to\nsurprise than theirs. Likewise the circuit plan would be well replaced\nby another less coercive.[13] Points like these reveal in Chambers a\nsolicitude on behalf of a general public of garden-strollers not at all\nnecessarily landholding, nor self-conscious as \"connoisseurs.\" Perhaps\nthis is why, when the planners grouped around Nikolaus Pevsner and his\n_Architectural Review_ surveyed their task in postwar England, they\nwould find fresh applications for the term \"picturesque\" and fresh\nrelevance in this Tory's \"Chinese\" gardens.[14] Sinologists and\nlandscape-historians have long recognized, to be sure, that Chambers'\ndescriptions (like most of what the West has wrought in the name of\nChinese gardening since Sir William Temple enunciated his shadowy\n_sharawadgi_ principle in 1685), while they may correctly celebrate\nspecific details, or the general principles of surprise and variety,\nregister no sensitivity to the Taoist or Buddhist teleology crucial to\noriental planning. What Chet-qua calls \"supernatural scenery\" is hence\n\"enchanted\" by the same spirit of diversion animating the Druid or Dark\nWalk and subterranean Fairy Music of Vauxhall Gardens, across the Thames\nfrom Somerset House.[15] Enlightened secularization of the genuine\noriental principles of immanence and affect may, however, be exactly\nwhat makes a paragraph on page 52 of the 1773 _Dissertation_ sound so\nmuch like a ground-plan for a short story of strollers' interwoven and\ninconsequential conversations and interior monologues, Virginia Woolf's\n\"Kew Gardens.\"\n\nIf allowances are made for the persistent difficulty of transcribing\nChinese phonemes, and for Chambers' dependence upon Cantonese rather\nthan Mandarin dialect, the oriental dress of the _Discourse_ is less\nbogus than might be assumed. Chambers' varying spellings of the then\nreigning emperor's name would exemplify the first problem, my failure to\nauthenticate the poem on pages 118-119 the second. (Over 42,000\nunindexed poems in Mandarin are attributed to this emperor, now known\nhere as Ch'ien-lung.) Proustian though they may seem to Westerners, the\nsynesthetic effects of tea-taking and the evocativeness of the scents\nand hues of \"Mei-hoa\" (plum-blossom), \"fo-cheou\" (chrysanthemum), and\npine are indeed celebrated in much Chinese poetry.[16] Whoever wrote the\npoem, it aptly dramatizes the suggestible ethos which Chambers\nrecommends to English artists and their public.\n\nThis \"Discourse\" is appreciably more puckish in tone than the earlier\ntwo-thirds of Chambers' published \"Chinese\" work. The half-title here,\npage [109] of the second edition, heaps Chambers' own initialed\nhonors[17] upon the Canton \"Gent.\" Chet-qua, and with the ironies of his\nPreface and elaborate courtesies of the Introduction, the fun has begun.\nIdentification of a Chinese alter ego enables Chambers to claim a kind\nof diplomatic immunity for both his enthusiasms and his judgments\nagainst the English style. By half-heartedly ascribing the preceding 107\npages of _Dissertation_ also to Chet-qua, and receding as mere \"Editor\"\nof the lovable old gourmet's remarks (page 148n), he trusts to keep one\nstep ahead of his Whig adversaries. With exemplary tolerance such as had\nenhanced the European stereotype of the Chinese sage throughout the\ncentury, Chet-qua finds more to commend in French and Italian gardens,\nmore to tease disarmingly in the Dutch, than Chambers had earlier.\nFinally, since an actual Chinese artist-about-town usually known as\nChitqua had only recently returned to Canton, Chambers may have hoped\nhis masquerade could stir British hospitality for his ideas. Within\nweeks of reaching London in August 1769, Chitqua had had a royal\naudience. The miniature portrait busts he modelled in clay at ten\nguineas apiece, as well as his delicate manners and physique (\"the\neyelashes almost always in motion\") earned the admiration of Wedgwood's\nfriend Thomas Bentley. One of his busts was shown in the 1770 Royal\nAcademy exhibition, and during that year he visited Oxford, met Chambers\nand Bishop Percy, and sat down with Horace Walpole among others at the\nfirst official Academy dinner. Lashes and all, he figures in Zoffany's\n\"Life School of the Royal Academy,\" painted in 1771. But what peculiarly\nrecommends Chitqua to Chambers' purposes here is perhaps a mob's\nintervention at the start of his homeward voyage to Canton that spring,\nwhen xenophobia and \"the superstitious fears of the mariners\" forced him\nto return to London for another ship. On page 141 Chambers differs from\nthe _Gentleman's Magazine_ reporter who had Chitqua \"accidentally ...\nfall overboard\" at Gravesend, but whatever the facts, the parallel to\nJonah at Joppa might be as clear to Chet-qua's adversaries as it was to\nthat reporter and win the \"Discourse\" a more candid hearing than the\n_Dissertation_ had enjoyed.[18] To an unidentified reader of his first\nedition Chambers had justified such artfulness, and his entire \"Chinese\"\nmyth for the promotion of a change in landscaping-style, this way: \"I\nthought it necessary to move in an exalted sphere. Our Gardeners, and I\nfear our Connoisseurs too, are such _tame_ animals, that much sparring\nis necessary to keep them properly on their haunches.\"[19] Such quixotic\nenergy even Mason had to salute, in the last line of his _Heroic\nEpistle_.\n\n  Douglass College\n  Rutgers University\n\n\n\n\nNOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION\n\n\n[1] The \"Explanatory Discourse\" is the last of Chambers' works to be\nreissued in 20th-century facsimile. Chambers' _Designs of Chinese\nBuildings_ (London, 1757), rpt. in facsim. (New York: Benjamin Blom,\n1968), concludes its text with his essay \"Of the Art of Laying Out\nGardens Among the Chinese,\" pp. 14-19, rpt. in John Dixon Hunt and Peter\nWillis, eds., _The Genius of the Place_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1975),\npp. 283-288. _A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening_ (London, 1772), of\nwhich the illus. title-page reappeared in the 2nd ed. (London, 1773),\nhence here, was rpt. in facsim. ed. John Harris (Farnborough, Hants.:\nGregg International, 1972). I quote from pp. 111-113 of \"An\nExplanatory Discourse\"; Chet-qua drops his mask on p. 159 below.\nConcerning the fad see Hugh Honour, _Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay_\n(London: John Murray, 1961), esp. ch. vi.\n\n[2] John Harris, _Sir William Chambers, Knight of the Polar Star_\n(University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1970), p. 24 and pls.\n7, 94 (not to be confused with the earlier accepted practice of\ndesigning ruins: pls. 31, 81). For the \"fanciful\" aspects of his town\nhouse see pp. 11, 217.\n\n[3] For the evidence of correspondence esp. from 1770-74 see Heather\nMartienssen, \"Chambers as a Professional Man,\" _Architectural Review_,\n135, 2 (1964), 277-283.\n\n[4] Harris gathers evidence for the meeting with Frederick, pp. 33-35,\nand on pp. 18-19, surmises that Blondel's teaching \"may well have been\nthe foundation of Chambers's eclecticism.... The choice of a Parisian\neducation underlines Chambers' European character.\"\n\n[5] _Boswell's Life of Johnson_, ed. George Birkbeck Hill and L. F.\nPowell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), IV, 188.\n\n[6] _Designs_, first page of unpaginated Preface; _Dissertation_ (1773),\np. iii. Cf. \"William and John Halfpenny\" [Michael Hoare], _Chinese and\nGothic Architecture Properly Ornamented_ (London, 1752), e.g. pl. 2.\n\n[7] _Designs_, second page of unpaginated Preface.\n\n[8] W. J. Bean, _The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew_ (London: Cassell,\n1908), pp. 194-195, following Sir John Hill, _Hortus Kewensis_ (London,\n1768); Chambers, _Plans, Elevations, Sections and Perspective Views of\nthe Gardens and Buildings at Kew_ (London, 1763).\n\n[9] \"Frederick Law Olmsted's Contribution,\" _Roots of Contemporary\nAmerican Architecture_, ed. Lewis Mumford (New York: Reinhold, 1952), p.\n111. _Dissertation_ (1773), p. 103 and cf. his letter of 13 May 1772 in\nHarris (1970), p. 192; Walpole, _On Modern Gardening_, ed. W. S. Lewis\n(New York: Young Books, 1931), p. 66; Mason, _The English Garden_, Book\nI (1772), final line.\n\n[10] _Designs_, p. 15 (ed. Hunt and Willis, p. 284).\n\n[11] Chambers' prose is cited _Dunciad_-fashion in the _Epistle, Minor\nEnglish Poets, 1660-1780: A Selection from Alexander Chalmers'_ The\nEnglish Poets [_1810_], ed. David P. French (New York: Benjamin Blom,\n1967), VIII, 108. See Isabel W. Chase, \"William Mason and Sir William\nChambers' Dissertation on Oriental Gardening,\" _JEGP_, 35 (1936),\n517-530; R. C. Bald, \"Sir William Chambers and the Chinese Garden,\"\n_JHI_, 11 (1950), 287-320.\n\n[12] Cowper, Book III, \"The Garden,\" 1. 766, in _A Collection of English\nPoems 1660-1800_, ed. Ronald S. Crane (New York: Harper, 1932), p. 998;\n_Dissertation_ (1773), pp. xi, 23-30, 37-39, 91-99; cf. Derek Clifford,\n_A History of Garden Design_, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1966), pp.\n211-212.\n\n[13] \"Discourse,\" pp. 125-128, 133, 137-138, 143, 155-156;\n_Dissertation_ (1773), pp. vi, 53; Harris, p. 192.\n\n[14] Pevsner, \"The Other Chambers,\" _Architectural Review_, 101 (1947),\n195-198.\n\n[15] Temple, \"Upon the Gardens of Epicurus,\" ed. Hunt and Willis, p. 99;\nOsvald Siren, _China and Gardens of Europe of the Eighteenth Century_\n(New York: Ronald, 1950), p. iv; \"Discourse,\" pp. 155-156.\n\n[16] I owe this information to Prof. Ching-I Tu of Livingston Coll. and\nDr. Nelson Chou of the East Asian Lib., both at Rutgers Univ. Likewise\nhelpful but in no way blameworthy in my remarks on matters Chinese were\nProf. King-Lui Wu and Mr. Antony Marr of Yale Univ. and Prof. Andrew\nPlaks of Princeton Univ. Though some of the proper names Chet-qua uses\neluded verification, the worst blunder noted was \"Ty,\" which means\n\"emperor,\" at p. 139_n_. Endowing Chet-qua with \"nine whiskers\" instead\nof the traditional five beards sorts with the unusually narrow\nproportions and numerous stories of the Kew Pagoda. Rhymes and short\nsyntactic groupings in italics, pp. 141, 158, are not Confucian; the\n28th year of Ch'ien-lung's reign (p. [115]) would be 1764. Yet the idiom\nin the final n., p. 163, is authentic.\n\n[17] The initials stand for Fellow of the Royal Soc. of Sweden; Member\nof the Royal Acad. of Arts, Paris; Member of the Italian Acad. of Arts,\nFlorence; Treasurer of the Royal Acad.; Comptroller General of His\nMajesty's Works; Architectural Tutor to the Queen. Chambers'\ninternational reputation was assured by his _Treatise on Civil\nArchitecture_ (1759).\n\n[18] \"Historical Chronicle,\" G.M., 41 (1771), 237-238; William T.\nWhitley, _Artists and their Friends in England, 1700-1799_ (Boston:\nMedici Society, 1928), I, 269-272; \"Johnson, Percy, and Sir William\nChambers,\" _Bodleian Library Record_, 4 (1952-53), 291-292.\n\n[19] Harris, p. 193 (Chambers' emphasis).\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nThe facsimile of \"An Explanatory Discourse\" is reproduced from a copy\n(Shelf Mark: PML 53026) \"annexed to\" the second and last edition of _A\nDissertation on Oriental Gardening_ (1773) in The Pierpont Morgan\nLibrary. The total type-page (p. 113) measures 208 x 127 mm.\n\n\n\n\n    A\n\n    DISSERTATION\n\n    ON\n\n    _ORIENTAL GARDENING_;\n\n    BY\n\n    S^r: WILLIAM CHAMBERS, Kn^t\n\n    _Comptroller General of his Majesty's Works._\n\n    [Illustration: Jacket Cover]\n\n    LONDON:\n\n  Printed by W. GRIFFIN, Printer to the ROYAL ACADEMY; sold by Him in\n  _Catharine-Street_: and by T. DAVIES, Bookseller to the ROYAL ACADEMY,\n  in _Russel-Street, Covent Garden_: also by J. DODSLEY, _Pall Mall_:\n  WILSON and NICOLL, _Strand_: J. WALTER, _Charing Cross_: and P.\n  ELMSLEY, _Strand_. 1772.\n\n\n\n\n\n  A\n\n  DISSERTATION\n\n  ON\n\n  _ORIENTAL GARDENING_;\n\n  BY\n\n  S^R WILLIAM CHAMBERS,\n\n  COMPTROLLER-GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S WORKS, _&c._\n\n  THE SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS.\n\n  TO WHICH IS ANNEXED,\n\n  AN EXPLANATORY DISCOURSE,\n\n  BY\n\n  TAN CHET-QUA, of QUANG-CHEW-FU, Gent.\n\n  LONDON:\n\n  Printed by W. GRIFFIN, Printer to the ROYAL ACADEMY; sold by Him in\n  _Catharine-street_; and by T. DAVIES, Bookseller to the ROYAL ACADEMY,\n  in _Russel-street, Covent-Garden_: also by J. DODSLEY, _Pall-Mall_;\n  WILSON and NICOLL, _Strand_; J. WALTER, _Charing-Cross_; and P.\n  ELMSLEY, _Strand_. 1773.\n\n\n\n\n  AN\n\n  EXPLANATORY DISCOURSE,\n\n  BY\n\n  TAN CHET-QUA,\n\n  OF\n\n  Quang-Chew-fu, Gent. FRSS, MRAAP;\n\n  ALSO,\n\n  MIAAF, TRA, CGHMW and ATTQ.\n\n  WHEREIN\n\n  The PRINCIPLES laid down in the Foregoing\n  DISSERTATION, are illustrated and\n  applied to PRACTICE.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nEvery new system naturally meets with opposition; when the monster\nNovelty appears, all parties, alarmed at the danger, unite to raise a\nclamour: each cavils at what it doth not like, or doth not comprehend,\ntill the whole project is pulled to pieces, and the projector stands\nplumed of every feather; not only robbed of the praise due to his labour\nand good intentions, but, like a common enemy, branded with scorn and\nabuse. In the first hurry of criticism, every deviation is accounted an\nerror; every singularity an extravagance; every difficulty a visionary's\ndream: warm with resentment, biassed by interests and prejudices, the\nangry champions of the old, rarely show mercy to the new; which is\nalmost always invidiously considered, and too often unjustly condemned.\n\nSensible of these difficulties, the Author of the foregoing\nDissertation, written in direct opposition to the stream of fashion,\nharboured no sanguine hopes of fame from his Publication: far from\nexpecting at the first, either applause or encouragement, he even judged\nartifice necessary to screen him from resentment; and cloathed truth in\nthe garb of fiction, to secure it a patient hearing.\n\nThe success of his little work, however, in one sense, far exceeded\nexpectation: at its first appearance here, it found not only a patient,\nbut a very indulgent reception; and it has since been equally fortunate\nin France, and other parts of Europe; where Monsieur Delarochette's\nelegant translation has made it known.\n\nYet flattering as this extensive suffrage may seem, it is in reality\nrather mortifying to the Author; who finds, from the nature of the\nencomiums bestowed upon his performance, that it has been more generally\nliked than understood; and that, whilst a few have honoured it with a\ndeliberate reading, and separated the substance from the vehicle in\nwhich it was contained, far the greater number have mistaken the mask\nfor the reality, and considered it simply as a pleasing tale; as the\nmere recital of a traveller's observation; or, as the luxuriant\neffusions of a fertile imagination, a splendid picture of visionary\nexcellence.\n\nWhether these misapprehensions arose from want of perspicuity in the\nwriter, or want of attention in the readers, admits of no dispute; the\nformer was most probably the case. The Author therefore, who wishes to\nbe perfectly understood, and is more ambitious of being useful than\nentertaining, humbly begs leave to offer, at the end of this second\nedition, such reasons and explanations as seem necessary, either to\nremove doubts, or clear obscurities; he flatters himself they will be\nfound sufficient, and serve to place the work in its true, its most\nadvantageous light.\n\nOf these illustrations he saw the necessity some time ago, and framed\nthem into a Discourse supposed to be pronounced by Chet-qua, then in\nEngland; judging it, at that time, a sort of propriety to put in the\nmouth of a Chinese, what farther information was wanted relative to his\ncountry.\n\nBut as there is now no longer any necessity for disguise, both the\nDissertation and Explanatory Discourse ought certainly to appear in\ntheir natural dress. To new-model them, however, would require more time\nthan the Author can possibly spare; he therefore has republished the\nDissertation, in its original form, and the Discourse as it was\noriginally written; hoping the indulgent reader will pardon these\ndefects, and gather the fruit, if there be any to gather, without\nminding the trees on which it grows.\n\n\n\n\n_Introduction._\n\n\nAll the world knew Chet-qua, and how he was born at Quang-chew-fu,[20]\nin the fourth moon of the year twenty-eight; also how he was bred a\nface-maker, and had three wives, two of whom he caressed very much; the\nthird but seldom, for she was a virago, and had large feet. He dressed\nwell, often in thick sattin; wore nine whiskers and four long nails,\nwith silk boots, callico breeches, and every other ornament that\nMandarins are wont to wear; equalling therein the prime macarones, and\nscavoir vivres, not only of Quang-chew, but even of Kyang-ning, or\nShun-tien-fu. Of his size; he was a well-spoken portly man, for a\nChinese; a pretty general scholar; and, for a heathen, a very compleat\ngentleman. He composed a tieh-tse, or billet-doux, at pleasure; recited\nverses, either in Mantchou or Chinese, and sung love-songs in many\nlanguages. He likewise danced a fandango, after the newest taste of\nMacao, played divinely upon the bag-pipe, and made excellent remarks;\nwhich, when he lodged at Mr. Marr's, in the Strand, he would repeat to\nhis friends over a pipe, as often as they pleased; for he was fond of\nsmoaking, provided the tobacco was good; and, upon these occasions, was\nalways vastly pleasant, and very communicative.\n\nAmongst his favourite topics were painting, music, architecture and\ngardening; to the last of which he seemed most affected, often\ndisserting thereon till he was tired, and the audience fast asleep; for\nthe tone of his voice was like opium to the hearers; his method was\ndiffuse, and the subject, though a good one, not generally interesting.\n\nOne day he launched out into a long description of the Eastern Gardens,\nespecially those of his own country, to which he was exceedingly\npartial; and, in the conclusion, compared them to a splendid feast, at\nwhich there were pleasures for every sense, and food for every fancy;\nwhilst our Gardens, he said, were like Spartan broth, which was\ndisgustful to all but Spartan palates; or like the partial niggardly\ntreats of the fable, adapted only to organs of a peculiar construction:\nhe advanced many other odd positions, spoke very freely, as well of our\nGardeners, as Gardens, and ended recommending the Chinese taste, in\npreference to all others.\n\nWe were diverted with the discourse, from its singularity, and the\nvariety of new ideas in which it abounded; yet as it ran in direct\nopposition to the general opinion and usage of England, and recommended\na system which appeared to us rather visionary than practicable, we\nanimadverted upon all its parts with the utmost freedom; neither sparing\nthe speech nor speaker in any particular.\n\nThe severity of our criticism at first disconcerted poor Chet-qua, who\nremained silent, and in apparent confusion; but, after a short pause, he\nreassumed his usual good humour, his countenance cleared up, he arose,\nbowed to the company, and stroking his nine whiskers, began the\nfollowing discourse.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE, _&c._\n\n    _Tan lou ty tchan yue[21]\n    Ko ou, pou ko choue.\n    Ou yun king tai pan\n    Fou fou teou lo ty_\n\n\nIf, in the hurry and warmth of speaking, Chet-qua has used expressions\nthat seemed disrespectful, or inadvertently started notions that\nappeared extravagant, as you, Gentlemen, are pleased to assert, it is\nmore than he intended; his sole aim at this meeting, has been to point\nout a style of Gardening preferable to your's; and to shew how much more\nmay be done in that Art, than has hitherto been thought on, by your or\nany other European nation: to enumerate impossibilities, or amuse an\naudience with golden dreams and glittering shadows, would answer no\nuseful purposes; and could, therefore, neither be the business nor\nintention of Chet-qua, who speaks not for the pleasure of speaking, nor\nwith a desire of tickling the ear, but with the hope of being\nserviceable; he laments his want of perspicuity, to which alone your\nmisapprehensions must be imputed; and begs leave to trespass on your\npatience a few moments longer, to explain himself more clearly, and\nendeavour to remove your prejudices against him.\n\nHe is sorry to have been under a necessity of censuring, even in a\ndistant manner, what seemed to him imperfect amongst you; but whoever\nwould be instrumental in the advancement of science, must declare his\nmind freely, and sometimes enforce his precepts by examples that exist:\nhis observations have been as general as the subject would permit; for\nit is never his inclination to give offence; yet where truth is to be\ninvestigated, the truth must necessarily be told; else little or no\nprogress can ever be made: where men play the sycophants, and tacitly\nsuffer, or meanly applaud, what they do not approve; no amendment can\never be expected.\n\nIt is true, that dissentions in opinion, however well meant, will often\nbear an invidious aspect, and always must offend some interested\nindividuals; yet, to the community, they are generally advantageous,\nand should always be favourably received, as they give birth to new\ndiscoveries, and ultimately point out the highest perfection: had no man\never ventured to dissent from his neighbour, our age would be as dark as\nwere those of Fo-hii, Shing tong, or Whoang-tii;[22] and I am firmly\npersuaded, that your English Gardening would now have been much more\nperfect, had any one ever dared to dispute its excellence: but to\ndissent, is an unthankful business; a dangerous talk, that few have\nspirits to undertake, particularly where party-rage is violent, at it\nnow and then seems to be amongst you.--But I come to the point.\n\nIn China, our large Gardens are obtained at an almost incredible\nexpence, and attended with many inconveniencys: amongst you, whose\npolicy, whose manners are totally different from ours, they might often\nbe had at a moderate charge, and without much trouble; for formidable\nas they may at first appear, it is certain that most of their scenery is\neasily executed, when proper opportunities occur, which is frequently\nthe case in Europe, particularly in England; where your illustrious\nfamilies have large domains; where agriculture is neater and more\nvarious than in other countries; and where the face of nature is in\ngeneral more luxuriant; as well as better contrasted.\n\nIt is natural enough for a stranger to be dazzled with the splendor of\nour Oriental plantations; upon a cursory inspection, to conclude them\ntoo vast, too magnificent, too expensive for European imitation; and\nthat, in your part of the world, the greatest princes should not be\nindulged with such articles of luxury, calculated, as they seem, to\nexhaust their treasures, waste their lands, rob and oppress their\nsubjects: but a more attentive examination will probably give birth to\nmore favourable opinions, and serve to prove, that not only your\nprinces, but even your private gentlemen, may emulate us in this\nparticular very safely; and that our style of Gardening may be adopted\namongst you, even in its whole extent, without being attended with any\nof the inconveniences just now recited.\n\nIt is not the fence that constitutes the Garden; Cobham, Stourton,\nBlenheim, would still be what they are, though the pales or walls by\nwhich they are enclosed were taken away: neither is privacy necessary to\nthe essence of a Garden; for Richmond and Kew are surely the same, when\nopen to all the world, as when they are only accessible to the Royal\nFamily; nor is useful or profitable culture incompatible with the idea,\neither of our Chinese, or your English Gardening.\n\nAny tract of land, therefore, whose characteristick expressions have\nbeen strengthened by art, and in which the spontaneous arrangements of\nnature have been corrected, improved and adorned by the hand of taste,\nought to be considered as a Garden, though only fenced with common\nhedges, and although the roads or paths passing through it be publick,\nand the grounds of which it is composed cultivated to the utmost\nadvantage.\n\nThere remains then no obstacle to your rivalling the Chinese, either in\nthe grandeur or extent of their Gardens: in which, you seem to fix, the\ninsuperable difficulties of the imitation; since you have parks,\nforests, manors and royalties, some even in private hands, more\nextensive than is necessary; and since these may be so improved, and\nconverted into gardens upon the plan now mentioned, without waste of\nland, without invasion of property, without annoyance or seclusion of\nthe public, and certainly with less damage or expence to the owner, than\nare usually incurred in the article of your common Gardening; as no\nchargeable keeping or fencing would be necessary, no grounds\nunprofitably employed, no considerable assistance from art wanted: for\nthe features of real nature, being in themselves generally more perfect,\nas well as greater than the finest imitations, require very few helps;\nseldom any that are expensive.\n\nEvery artist, therefore, who has the fortune to meet with patrons of\nlarge possessions, and liberal sentiments, may give full scope to his\nimagination, and boldly apply whatever he has seen, heard, or his own\nfancy may have suggested, that is great, extraordinary, or surprising:\ninstead of confining his views to a few acres, to form a trifling\ncomposition, scarcely superior to the desert at a festival; and which,\ninsignificant as it would be, none but the healthful and vigorous could\never see; he may convert a whole province into a Garden; where the\nspectator, instead of toiling on foot, as usual, to see a few nothings,\nand performing more revolutions than a horse in a mill, may wander over\na whole country at his ease, in ships or in barges, in carriages or on\nhorse-back, feasting the sight with scenes of the boldest dimensions,\nand contemplating the luxuriant varied productions of Nature, improved\nand nobly enriched by Art.\n\nAnd permit me to say, that Gardens of this sort, would not only be more\nmagnificent, but also much more beautiful and perfect in every respect,\nthan any even amongst the best of your artificial performances. In the\ngreat style of Gardening, neatness is not only superfluous, but\ndestructive of the principal intent: the common roads, bridleways and\npaths, of a country, however wild, are always preferable to the stiff,\nformal, made walks of a Garden; they are, in themselves, grander, more\nnatural, and may, with a very little assistance; a few accompanyments,\nbe made as commodious, as rich, as varied, and as pleasant.\n\nFields covered with corn, turneps, beans, potatoes, hemp, or productions\nof a similar nature; meadows, pasture lands, hop grounds, orchards, and\nother parts of English culture; interwoven with common hedges, or\nblended with accidental plantations, require little, if any assistance\nfrom Art, to be more picturesque than lawns the most curiously dotted\nwith clumps; and villages, country churches, farm-houses or cottages,\nwhen placed with judgement, and designed with taste, enrich and adorn a\nlandscape as well as more expensive structures.\n\nThe rivers of Nature flow in forms that Art can never equal: their\nnatural modifications, particularly in mountainous places, are\nsufficiently numerous; a little management heightens or diminishes all\ntheir expressions, varies their appearances, and adapts them to scenes\nof any character: their banks are soon adorned, even in the richest\nmanner; for roses, a thousand other shrubs, and most perennial flowers,\nwill grow as easily, and with as little culture, as primroses and briars\ndo. A few of these, a little planting properly employed, and blended\nwith rural buildings, bridges, ruins, monumental urns, and other\ntrifling decorations, spread over the whole an appearance that equals,\neven surpasses the most elaborate cultivation.\n\nIn every large tract of land, there generally are some places abundantly\nsupplied with water, which often flows through uncouth marshy bottoms of\nlittle use or value to the owner: by raising heads at their extremities,\nthese are easily overflowed; and lakes of very considerable dimensions\nmay thus be obtained, often without much trouble, always with great\nadvantages, as well in point of profit as of pleasure; and wherever it\nmay be necessary to dig, in order to give a proper depth to the water,\nthe earth may be raised into islands of various shapes, which serve to\ncomplicate the forms, to enrich and beautify the scenery.\n\nThough woods, from various causes, are now more rare than heretofore\namongst you, yet are there, in most parts, some still remaining; their\nnatural beauties are many, and little more is left for art to do in\nthem, than to form roads, to thin or thicken them occasionally; where it\nmay be wanting, to intersperse, amongst the plantations, a few proper\nshrubs and flowers; to open recesses, and to decorate them with objects;\nthis done, they will be infinitely superior, in every respect, to any of\nthe gaudy trifling confused plantations with which all your English-made\nGardens are so crouded.\n\nEngland abounds with commons and wilds, dreary, barren, and serving only\nto give an uncultivated appearance to the country, particularly near the\nmetropolis: to beautify these vast tracts of land, is next to an\nimpossibility; but they may easily be framed into scenes of terror,\nconverted into noble pictures of the sublimest cast, and, by an artful\ncontrast, serve to enforce the effect of gayer and more luxuriant\nprospects.\n\nOn some of them are seen gibbets, with wretches hanging in terrorem upon\nthem; on others, forges, collieries, mines, coal tracts, brick or lime\nkilns, glass-works, and different objects of the horrid kind: what\nlittle vegetation they have, is dismal; the animals that feed upon it,\nare half-famished to the artist's hands; and the cottagers, with the\nhuts in which they dwell, want no additional touches, to indicate their\nmisery: a few uncouth straggling trees, some ruins, caverns, rocks,\ntorrents, abandoned villages, in part consumed by fire, solitary\nhermitages, and other similar objects, artfully introduced and blended\nwith gloomy plantations, would compleat the aspect of desolation, and\nserve to fill the mind, where there was no possibility of gratifying the\nsenses.\n\nIn prosecuting a plan of this extensive nature, many other opportunities\nwould present themselves to the able artist, of dignifying nature, and\nof heightening his compositions with all the force of novelty and\ngrandeur; stone quarries, chalk pits, mines, might as easily be framed\ninto vast amphitheatres, rustic arcades and perystiles, extensive\nsubterraneous habitations, grottos, vaulted roads, and passages, as into\nother shapes; hills might, without much difficulty, be transformed into\nstupendous rocks, by partial incrustations of stone, judiciously mixed\nwith turf, fern, wild shrubs and forest trees; gravel pits, or other\nsimilar excavations, might be converted into the most romantic scenery\nimaginable, by the addition of some planting, intermixed with ruins,\nfragments of sculpture, inscriptions, or any other little\nembellishments; and, in short, there would be no deviation, however\ntrifling, from the usual march of nature, but what would suggest, to a\nfruitful imagination, some extraordinary arrangement, something to\ndisguise her vulgarity, to rouse the attention of the spectator, and to\nexcite in his mind a succession of strong and opposite sensations.\n\nIt is thus that far the noblest part of our Chinese Gardens, and those\nwhich at first sight appear most impracticable, may be obtained even\namongst the common dispositions of English nature; and the great might\nthus have pleasure-grounds, extensive and extraordinary as those of the\nEast, without any very considerable expence: men of less note would\nnaturally imitate their superiors, by embellishing their possessions in\nthe same manner; and instead of spending large sums to fence and to lard\na little field with twigs, to give it the name of a Garden, they would\nbeautify their whole estate; which, by a proper attention to the\n[oe]conomical precepts of our Chinese Gardeners, might be done in such a\nmanner as to encrease its value, as well as improve its appearance.\n\nBy these means this whole kingdom might soon become one magnificent vast\nGarden, bounded only by the sea; the many noble seats and villas with\nwhich it abounds, would give uncommon consequence to the scenery; and it\nmight still be rendered more splendid, if, instead of disfiguring your\nchurches with monuments, our Chinese manner of erecting mausoleums by\nthe sides of the roads was introduced amongst you; and if all your\npublic bridges were adorned with triumphal arches, rostral pillars,\nbas-reliefs, statues, and other indications of victory, and glorious\natchievements in war: an empire transformed into a splendid Garden, with\nthe imperial mansion towering on an eminence in the center,[23] and the\npalaces of the nobles scattered like pleasure-pavilions amongst the\nplantations, infinitely surpasses any thing that even the Chinese ever\nattempted: yet vast as the design appears, the execution is certainly\nwithin your reach.\n\nSuch, as far as I am able to judge, continued our Orator, is the true\napplication of nature to horticulture; perhaps the only one that can be\nattempted with success: wherever she is made in little, or introduced\nupon a confined plan, the effect is always trifling and bad, as will\nappear to any man of real taste, who inspects the artificial scenery\neven of your most approved gardens: Nature admits of no reduction in\nher dimensions; trees will not grow in miniature; nor are her bold\nmovements to be expressed upon the surface of a few acres: and not to\nmention any of your performances, it is scarcely in the power of the\nmost consummate art, to imitate nature perfectly; nor were it possible,\ncould the most skilful arrangements acquire their true effect, till\nafter the expiration of many years: our children may see the perfection\nof what we plant; we never can.\n\nOur eastern artists, therefore, seldom attempt to create, but rather\nimitate the tonsor, the habit-maker, the posture-master, and all the\nother polishers of man; who dispose, decorate, cleanse, clip, and add\ngrace to what is already formed to their hands: to make nature, they\nsay, is tedious and difficult beyond conception; but she may soon be\nembellished, her redundancys suppressed, her faults corrected, her wants\nsupplied, her beauties improved, and set to view.\n\nThe truth of these assertions is, I think, apparent in many of your\nfamous plantations; but the beauties of improved natural scenery, the\ndefects of artificial, are no where so strongly marked as at B----m, the\nmost magnificent seat I have yet seen in Europe. On our entrance into\nthe Park, we were astonished at the sight of a stupendous palace,\nsurrounded with one of the noblest scenes of nature that can be\nimagined; the extent is vast, the parts uncommonly large, the grounds\nnaturally well contrasted, the transitions bold, the plantations in\nperfect maturity: what assistance was necessary from art, has hitherto\nbeen judiciously administered; the removal of some trees, has exposed to\nview beauties that seem before to have been concealed; the addition of\nsome others, has enriched parts that were bare; and the trifling, though\nvery judicious circumstance of raising a head at the end of a valley,\nhas obtained a very considerable lake of water, which enriches and\nenlivens all the prospects; and which, by following the natural bent or\nwindings of the valley, has taken, without any assistance from art, the\nmost picturesque forms that could be desired: in short, the whole is now\nadmirable; and, when improved to the utmost, according to the design of\nthe munificent owner, will yet be more so. Ornaments to characterize\nthe Garden more strongly, are yet wanting, and some masterly finishing\ntouches still very necessary: one only little twining path, within ten\ncubits of the fence, is certainly not in character with the grandeur of\nthe place; but the fence may be removed; and there is room, even now, on\nthe declivity of the banks, and by the sides of the lake, for more\nconsiderable walks, with many recesses, which, when made and decorated,\nwill add variety to grandeur, and render the whole as entertaining and\nsplendid, as it is now great.\n\nYou enjoy the sight of this noble prospect for more than a mile; when\nthe little path is suddenly turned into a little wood, whence, after\nhaving advanced a few paces, you behold a piece of scenery, all\nartificial, which I cannot venture to describe in this presence: some of\nyou, Gentlemen, have seen what it is; and, with all your national\npartiality, must allow, either that it proves the impossibility of\ncreating nature with any degree of success; or, that the ablest of your\ncountrymen have no talent that way; to create, or to improve, are\nindeed very different operations; the former of which requires\ninfinitely the most skill: it is ten times more difficult to paint a\npicture, than to judge, or suggest improvements, in one already painted.\n\nHitherto I have only described of B----m, what strangers usually see;\nbut the whole park, above twelve miles in circumference, and several\nfarms adjoining to it, are uncommonly beautiful, rich in old planting,\nin water, and in a great variety of picturesque sites and points of\nview; so that, with a very little dressing, with some assistance from\nthe sister arts of architecture and sculpture, the whole might easily be\nconverted into one large magnificent Garden.\n\nAnd give me leave to observe, that these advantages are by no means\npeculiar to B----m; England boasts at least a hundred other places, many\nas extensive, most of them as capable of improvement, in various ways;\nwhich, under the management of true artists, might soon be made to\nrival the Tse-hiu and Chang-lin[24] of ancient days, the Yven ming, the\nTchang tchun yven,[25] or any of the present splendid pleasure Gardens\nof our sublime Emperor, Kieng-long; the torch of the east, and true\ndescendant of Tay-tsoy, the providence of Heaven, whom Joss[26] preserve\nin flesh and good spirits.\n\nIt must, however, be confessed, that there is an inconveniency\nsubsisting amongst you, which will always retard, and often prevent the\nexecution of this extensive plan of Gardening; it is the licentiousness\nof your youth and common people, who delight in destroying every\nextraordinary thing that comes in their way: if a great man plants trees\nto shade and beautify a road, the people cut them down; if statues, or\nother pieces of sculpture, are set to adorn places of public resort, the\nboys pelt at them with stones, till all their extremities are\ndemolished: wherever there are buildings, or seats, even in your Royal\nGardens, we see them constantly disfigured with scurrilous inscriptions,\nor obscene rhimes; and where there are any uncommon trees, they are\ndivested of every branch within reach; the shrubs are robbed of their\nblossom; the flowers are trodden under foot; the birds and animals are\ndestroyed: in short, no mischief, that drunken mirth or deliberate\nmalevolence can suggest, is left undone. What pity that such destructive\nbrutality should exist in a country so particularly favoured by Nature,\nand so capable of improvement in the highest degree; whilst, in every\nother part of the world, it is unknown, almost unheard of!\n\nBut there is a strong tincture of the rhubarb in all human competitions;\nand liberty, which has so many advantages, is, nevertheless, attended\nwith some inconveniencies, of a very serious nature; amongst which, the\nferocity of its lowest votaries is none of the least formidable. Since\nour arrival here last July, I have seen at least twenty of their\nboisterous pranks; in which, not to enumerate the broken windows, the\nbloody noses, the kicks, and the bastinadoes of other gentlemen, I have\nmyself been a melancholy sufferer upon various occasions; particularly\nat Portsmouth, where I was thrown into the sea, and narrowly escaped\ndrowning, for the diversion of the company. Would to Heaven!--as I say\nto the mistress Chet-quas in a morning--would to Heaven, my ducks, we\nwere well at Quang-chew-fu again, with all our long nails, and all our\nwhiskers about us! The rigours of an Emperor are less frightful to me,\nthan the frolics of a savage mob, elevated to madness with songs of\nfreedom, and tons of strong beer: it is easier to please a man with one\ngood head, than a monster with ten thousand, all bad ones.\n\n    _Miao kao faan-quai_[27]\n    _Tsat paat quai-tsai_\n\nPardon this digression, which the terrors of a disturbed imagination\nhave drawn me into; and permit your servant to re-assume the thread of\nhis Discourse.\n\nWherever the extent is considerable, and the lands properly formed for\nthe purpose, the mode of natural Gardening, just recommended, ought\ncertainly to be employed in preference to any other, as it surpasses all\nothers in perfection, and is yet most easily executed: but in or near\ngreat cities, where property is much divided, on flats, where nature has\nno play, in all tame situations; the richer and more artificial manner\nof our Gardening is preferable: because it may contain much variety in a\nsmall compass, and corrects the natural defects of the ground more\nspeedily, more effectually, with less charge than any other.\n\nThis manner is also properest for grounds that immediately surround\nelegant structures, where order and symmetry are absolutely necessary;\nand for many little enclosures, or resting-places of various kinds, that\nmust always be dispersed in different parts of extensive plantations;\nwhere nicety of dress, and excessive decoration are in character; and\nwhere they may be conveniently secured with stronger fences, to guard\nthem from public intrusion.\n\nThese choice pieces of cultivation are appropriated to the owner and his\nselect friends; set aside for convivial pleasures, and enjoyments that\ncan only be tasted in private: they may be considered as more spacious\napartments, as habitations adapted to the milder seasons of the year, in\nwhich Art and Nature unite to furnish a variety of whatever is\nbeautiful, elegant, extraordinary or entertaining; whilst the larger\nimprovements are suited to the more open amusements of the owner,\ncontrived upon a bolder system, for a more distant and cursory\ninspection: they are a noble indication of his consequence; a\nbenevolent, as well as artful tribute to the community; which, whilst it\nserves to multiply the conveniencys, or promote the innocent amusements\nof the public, secures the popularity of the benefactor, and marks, in\nthe strongest colours, his power, wealth and munificence. How these\nconsiderations operate in England, I, who am a stranger, cannot\ndetermine; but in the kingdoms of the East they have great weight.\n\nYour connoisseurs will, I know, object to our artificial scenery; which\nthey consider as unnatural, and represent as too expensive for\nimitation. On the former of these points you have already heard my\nsentiments; I need not now repeat them: those who are not yet convinced,\nmay still feed on crabs, and leave ananas to better heads.\n\nTill my arrival in England, I never doubted but the appearance of art\nwas admissible, even necessary to the essence of a splendid Garden: and\nI am more firmly of that opinion, after having seen your English\nGardens; though the contrary is so violently maintained by your\ncountrymen, in opposition to the rest of the world, to the practice of\nall other polished nations, all enlightened ages; and, as far as I am\nable to judge, in opposition to reason. But your people delight in\nextremes; and, whenever they get upon a new scent, pursue it with such\nrage, that they always overshoot the bounds. We admire Nature as much as\nyou do; but being of a more phlegmatick disposition, our affections are\nsomewhat better regulated: we consider how she may be employed, upon\nevery occasion, to most advantage; and do not always introduce her in\nthe same garb; but show her in a variety of forms; sometimes naked, as\nyou attempt to do; sometimes disguised; sometimes decorated, or assisted\nby art; scrupulously avoiding, in our most artless dispositions, all\nresemblance to the common face of the country, with which the Garden is\nimmediately surrounded; being convinced, that a removal from one field\nto another, of the same appearance, can never afford any particular\npleasure, nor ever excite powerful sensations of any kind.\n\nIf I must tell you my mind freely, Gentlemen, both your artists and\nconnoisseurs seem to lay too much stress on nature and simplicity; they\nare the constant cry of every half-witted dabbler, the burthen of every\nsong, the tune by which you are insensibly lulled into dullness and\ninsipidity. If resemblance to nature were the measure of perfection, the\nwaxen figures in Fleet-street, would be superior to all the works of the\ndivine Buonarotti; the trouts and wood-cocks of Elmer, preferable to the\ncartoons of Raphael: but, believe me, too much nature is often as bad\nas too little, as may be deduced from many examples, obvious to every\nman conversant in polite knowledge. Whatever is familiar, is by no means\ncalculated to excite the strongest feelings; and though a close\nresemblance to familiar objects may delight the ignorant, yet, to the\nskilful, it has but few charms, never any of the most elevated sort; and\nis sometimes even disgusting: without a little assistance from art,\nnature is seldom tolerable; she may be compared to certain viands,\neither tasteless, or unpleasant in themselves: which, nevertheless, with\nsome seasoning, become palatable; or, when properly prepared, compose a\nmost exquisite dish.\n\nAnd with respect to simplicity, wherever more is admitted than may be\nrequisite to constitute grandeur, or necessary to facilitate conception,\nit is always a fault. To the human mind, some exertion is always\nnecessary: it must be occupied to be pleased; and is more satisfied with\na treat, than with a frugal repast: for though it doth not delight in\nintricacies, yet, without a certain, even a considerable degree of\ncomplication, no grateful sensations can ever be excited. Excessive\nsimplicity can only please the ignorant or weak, whose comprehensions\nare slow, and whose powers of combination are confined.\n\nSimplicity must therefore be used with discretion, and the dose be\nadapted to the constitution of the patients, amongst savages and\nHottentots; where arts are unknown, refinements unheard of, an abundant\nportion may be necessary; but wherever civilization has improved the\nmental faculties, a little, with proper management, will go a very great\nway: need I prove what the music, poetry, language, arts and manners, of\nevery nation demonstrate, beyond the possibility of a doubt.\n\nAnother favourite word of your virtuosi, is purity; a word of which,\nbeing a stranger, I do not perhaps know the full value; nor exactly in\nwhat sense it is applied to the art in question. We are told, that in\nthe purity of Gardening, you were never equalled by any nation; even\nthat this boasted purity never appeared in any country but England: it\nmay be so; your Gardens have certainly been purged to the quick, freed\nof every encumberance, and cleansed of every extrinsick redundancy; so\nthat nothing now remains but the genuine carcass, in its native purity:\nyet whether this quality, which I apprehend is the only one that can\npositively be implied, is a perfection or a blemish, will always be\ndisputed; for though pure wine[28] is, without doubt, a delicious\nbeverage, and preferable to that which is mixed, yet pure water is very\ninsipid, and may be much mended, by the additions of arrack, lemon and\nsugar, to turn it into punch; and ninety-nine persons in a hundred will\nmaintain, that your pure Gardens might be much improved by the addition\nof embellishments proper to produce variety, and set off the vegetation\nto advantage: for vary your trees and shrubs as much as possible,\ncombine them in every imaginable arrangement, they are still but trees\nand shrubs; they can impress but a very few images upon the mind of the\nspectator, and only affect his senses with very slight perceptions.\n\nThat our artificial stile of Gardening is expensive, is doubtless true;\nyet certainly not ruinously so. In my former voyage, I knew an\nunfortunate prince, who, on a very moderate allowance from his\nrelations, supported a court in splendour; and, with the surplus, formed\none of the most extraordinary, as well as magnificent artificial Gardens\nI ever saw. It is surprizing what good management will do, where\nmanagement is necessary; but you are too rich ever to need it in any\nthing. I have seen more money expended here, in digging an ugly pond,\nthan would have compleated a whole Garden elsewhere; yet, after all, the\npond would never hold water. But, to proceed--You have all seen what the\nFrench have done at Versailles, Marli, Trianon, Saint Cloud, Liancourt,\nand Chanilly; the Italians near Rome, at Tivoli, at Frescati, and in\nmany other parts of Italy: I do not here enter into the merit of these\nworks; but they are certainly as costly, perhaps more so, than any of\nours; yet these were done by foreigners, of different denominations; all\nwithout the least help of magick: you are richer than they; you may,\nwith some trouble, acquire their skill; it is hoped you have already\nmore than their spirit: be not, therefore, afraid to attempt, what they\nhave already long since accomplished.\n\nI have formerly told you what sort of art we employ in our Chinese\nGardening; I now recommend it to your imitation; and though in general\nyour European artificial manner appears not to me perfect, yet doth it\ncontain many things highly deserving notice, which you have imprudently\nlaid aside, without substituting any equivalent.\n\nTo instance the Gardens of France; they are, I will allow, sufficiently\nextravagant: you hear of nothing but islands of love, or halls of\nfestivity; every recess is the retreat of a God, every prospect a scene\nof enchantment: like their petit maitres, they are all out of nature,\nall affectation; yet it is an affectation often delightful, and\nabsurdity generally overflowing with taste and fancy: in their best\nworks there is such a mysterious, pleasing intricacy in the disposition,\nsuch variety in the objects, so much splendour and animation in the\nscenery, and so much skill apparent in the execution of every part, that\nthe attention of the spectator never flags; the succession is so rapid,\nthat he is hurried on from one exhibition to another, with his mind\nconstantly upon the stretch: he has only time to be pleased; there is no\nleisure to reflect, none to be disgusted with the extravagance of what\nhe sees. If their Gardens are less rational than yours, they are\ncertainly much more entertaining; and though, upon the whole, they can\nby no means be proposed as models for imitation, yet are there many\nthings to be borrowed from them, which might be adopted by you with\nconsiderable advantage.\n\nI may say the same with regard to the Italian Gardens, of which the\nstyle is less affected, less extravagant than in those of France: the\nheat of the climate obliges the inhabitants to seek for shade; the walks\nare sheltered, the plantations close, whence their compositions have a\ngloom, and an air of solitude that are exceedingly awful. There is a\ngrandeur of manner in all their works, seldom to be met with elsewhere;\nwhich, about Rome, and in some other parts of Italy, is greatly\nheightened by the majestick face of Nature, framed upon a larger scale,\nand broken into nobler forms, than in most other countries. Their\nvegetation too is uncommonly picturesque; the abundance of water with\nwhich they are every where supplied, enables them to form a thousand\npleasing combinations; and the venerable vestiges of ancient structures,\nwhich rear their decaying heads above the plantations, add surprizingly\nto the dignity of the scenery.\n\nAt every step, the admiration of the spectator is excited by statues,\ntherms, bas-reliefs, sarcophagi urns, vases, and other remains of\nancient splendour; or he is delighted with the productions of modern\nartists, ingeniously imagined, well executed, and skilfully disposed.\nIt is not easy to conceive any thing more entertaining, to a man of\ntaste, than an Italian Garden; in which, amidst a profusion of pleasing\nobjects, the same elegance of choice, the same elevation of style so\nconspicuous in the sculpture and painting of the great Italian schools,\nis every where prevalent.\n\nTo branch out into farther descriptions of your continental Gardens, is\nperhaps superfluous, and may be thought foreign to the present purpose;\nas some of them differ very little from those just mentioned; and others\nare too trifling, or imperfect, to deserve any notice: yet permit me,\nbefore I finish, to give a slight sketch of the Dutch Gardening; from\nwhich I am apt to believe your ideas of the artificial style are chiefly\ncollected, and your extraordinary aversion to it principally owing.\n\nIn Holland, parterres, embroidered in box, brick-dust, sea-coal, and\nbroken porcelain, are every where admired. No Garden is perfect, that is\nnot surrounded with a wet ditch, and many _lusthouses_ hanging over it,\nfor smoking tobacco; nor is there any elegance, without some tons of\nlead, transformed into skating Dutchmen, Harlequins, and fluting\nShepherdesses, all richly painted, in proper colours: azure flower-pots,\nwith gilt handles, are seen in every corner; and golden mercury are\nperched, like birds, upon every pinnacle: every pass is guarded by\npasteboard Grenadiers; and Fame, straddling over the entrance, displays\na Dutch label to the passenger, telling the name and beauties of the\nplace, the virtues and moral opinions of the proprietor. These\nparticularities, with all the formal absurd parts of the French\nGardening, make an Eden in Holland; a thing too ridiculous to be out of\nhumour with any where; 'tis a pity it has had so serious an effect upon\nyou. You are a wise people; yet, in the reformation of Gardening, you\nhave followed the beaten road of ignorance: to avoid one fault, you have\nrun headlong into another, its opposite: because, in the Old Gardening,\nart, order and variety, were carried to an extravagant excess, you have,\nin the New, almost totally excluded them all three: to mend an\nexuberant, fantastick dress, you have stripped stark naked: and, to\nheal a distempered limb, you have, like some famous surgeons of our day,\nchopped it entirely off.\n\nAll connoisseurs amongst you, and even amongst us, agree in despising\nour enchanted, or supernatural scenery; which, they say, is trifling,\nabsurd, extravagant, abounding in conceits and boyish tricks; that\noperating chiefly by surprize, it has little or no effect, after a first\nor second inspection, and consequently can afford no pleasure to the\nowner: yet our best Artists, who have no excessive reverence for the\ndecrees of connoisseurs[29], and who think the owner is not the only\nperson to be entertained, often introduce it; either where the plan is\nextensive, and admits of many changes; or, where the ground is barren of\nnatural varieties: saying, in their vindication, that it serves as an\ninterlude between more serious expositions; that, at a treat, there\nshould be meats for every palate; in a shop of general resort, goods for\nevery fancy; in a Garden, designed for publick inspection, exhibitions\nof every kind; that all may find something to their liking, and none go\naway disappointed or dissatisfied: and, as at a feast, men eat of what\nthey best relish, without mumbling the rest of the dishes, but leave\nthem untainted for others to feed upon, so, in a Garden, if a man be too\nwise to laugh, or be pleased with trifles, he may pass them over\nunnoticed: amongst the multitude, there are many fancies to gratify;\nchildren, old women, eunuchs, and pleasure-misses, ought to be diverted,\nas well as sages, mandarines, or connoisseurs. It is not every one, say\nthey, that enjoys the force or fierceness of grand compositions; to some\nthey are even terrifying: weak minds delight in little objects, which\nare easiest adapted to their confined comprehensions; as children are\nbetter pleased with a puppet-show, than with more serious or noble\nperformances.\n\nThus they reason; and say moreover, that, as the principal parts of this\nsupernatural Gardening consists in a display of many surprizing\nphenomena, and extraordinary effects, produced by air, fire, water,\nmotion, light, and gravitation, they may be considered at a collection\nof philosophical experiments, exhibited in a better manner, upon a\nlarger scale, and more forcibly than is common: in that light they\nthink, even men of sense may venture to look at them, without\nimpeachment of their understanding; to admire what is ingenious, new or\nextraordinary; and stare at what they do not comprehend. Whether the\nconnoisseurs or the artists are most in the wrong, I will not decide;\nyou, Gentlemen, must determine for yourselves.\n\nSome free expressions, relative to your Gardeners, constitute a heavy\npart of the charge exhibited against me: it seems therefore necessary,\nin alleviation of this high offence, to declare, that whatever has been\nsaid on that subject, was with an eye to the general character of the\nfraternity; and by no means levelled at yon stately gentleman in the\nblack perriwig, as he has been pleased to maintain. It could not be my\nbusiness to mark out individuals, either by excessive praise, which was\nperhaps expected, or by more poignant censure: such conduct must have\nbeen fawning in one in instance, invidious in both; for there is no\nexalting one ph[oe]nomenon, without proportionably degrading the rest:\nas in a draw-well, one bucket can never rise, but when the other sinks.\nIf a man far outstrips his brothers, he will of course be distinguished;\nif only a little, his safest station is in the croud. And really it is\nodd that any one should officiously have stepped out of the ranks,\ninsisting, like master Dogberry in the play, upon his exclusive title;\nwhere nothing partial was even distantly hinted at, no names mentioned,\nnor any thing said, that was not full as applicable to the brotherhood\nin general, as to the sagacious claimant in particular: but\n\n    _Man lup jao kai_\n    _Tai kup tao bai._\n\nThere is reason to believe, from various hints which have been dropped\nby Gentlemen here present, that the veracity of Chet-qua's description\nis doubted; nay, that the Gardens described, are supposed to have no\nexistence but in Chet-qua's brain: be it so, my friends; I shall not\nseek to refute what you seem so strongly disposed to believe; it is not\nat present material: for the end of all that I have said, was rather as\nan Artist, to set before you a new style of Gardening; than as a\nTraveller, to relate what I have really seen: and, notwithstanding your\nstrictures, you all seemed satisfied, even entertained with the\ndescription: there is no doubt, but the reality, like all other\nrealities, would affect you still more strongly than the picture. I have\nendeavoured to shew, how that may be obtained: the rest is left to those\nit most concerns; the ingenious, the wealthy, and the great; who have\npower and inclinations to execute what I attempt to plan: my part is\ndone, as far as I am able to do it; theirs may begin when they think\nfit.\n\nAnd although they may at first be embarrassed in the execution of a\nsystem so much more complicated and dependant on genius, on skill, and\non nice judgement, than that which has hitherto been pursued; yet there\nis no doubt, but practice and perseverance will, by degrees, dispel\nevery difficulty: it is at least glorious to hazard arduous attempts;\nand more honourable even to fail in manly pursuits, than to succeed in\ntrifling, childish enterprizes. Let the timid or the feeble meanly creep\nupon the earth, with uniform, sluggard pace; but the towering spirit\nmust attempt a nobler flight, and climb the paths that lead to fame: now\ngayly sporting on the slippery surface, as doth the gentle, graceful\nlizard; now thundering up the precipice, with the tremendous dragon's\nstride; now soaring to the top, stately and splendid as the imperial\nbird;[30] when, with his glittering crest and twelve irradiant wings, he\ncomes upon the morning's light, while myriads of the warbling tribes, at\nawful distance, crowd the vaulted air, adore their King, and, with loud\nsongs of frantick joy, shake the firm earth, and all yon starry heaven.\n\nFrom the whole tenour of this Discourse, and indeed from the substance\nof the first Dissertation, it is evident, Gentlemen, that your servant\nChet-qua has no aversion to natural Gardening; but is, on the contrary,\na zealous advocate in its favour, wherever there is room to expand, and\nwork upon a great scale, or where it can conveniently, and with\npropriety be introduced. The style which in England has been adopted,\npreferable to others, is not what appears to him reprehensible; but he\nlaments the little use you have made of your adoption, and apprehends\nyour partiality is too excessive, while you obstinately refuse the\nassistance of almost every extraneous embellishment, and persist in an\nindiscriminate application of the same manner, upon all occasions,\nhowever opposite, or ill adapted; and often where no probability of\nsuccess appears. Natural Gardening, when treated upon an extensive plan,\nwhen employed with judgement, and conducted with art, is perhaps as\nsuperior to all other sorts of culture, as heroick verse is to every\nother species of writing; but there are many occasions, where neither\nthe one nor the other can, with the least propriety, be employed; where\nthey would only serve to give a ridicule to the whole composition; and\nwhere different or less elevated modes of expression are, on all\naccounts, preferable. Artists of other professions, vary their manners\nof applying to the human affections; suiting them to the circumstances\nor nature of the subjects before them; and they are oftenest indebted to\nthese variations for their success; why then should Gardeners always\nconfine themselves to the same tract, and torture all dispositions to\nadapt them to the same method, like that tyrant of old, who stretched or\nmutilated every guest, till he fitted a particular bed? Can they hope to\nsucceed by means, which others have found ineffectual; or is it\nreasonable to suppose, that Nature will change her course to please\ntheir fancy? Variety is a powerful agent, without the assistance of\nwhich, little can be effected; it captivates even with trifles; and,\nwhen united to perfection, has charms which nothing can resist: the most\nexquisite pictures of nature, receive additional beauties from a\njudicious opposition of art; and the confined, uniform, tasteless walk\nof imitation, which you have unfortunately fallen into, must have many\nhelps to make it even tolerable; a thousand enlivening additions, to\nanimate its native dulness.\n\nThus I have considered every part of my first Discourse, and offered in\nits vindication, what immediately occurs to me: perhaps, with more\nleisure, I might have contrived a better Speech, and a stronger Defence;\nbut the hurry of Face-making[31] is such, that there is scarcely time to\neat rice, or drink brandy,[32] much less to think: I never frequent my\nwives but by night; I have only heard one of them scold, and seen the\nothers by twilight, these six months: judge then, what can be expected\nfrom Chet-qua; the little knowledge he has, or thinks he has, is freely\ncommunicated to his neighbours; he wishes it were more and better; yet\nsuch as it is, he flatters himself it will be kindly received; and that\nhis neighbours will use what may be useful, without kicking too\nviolently at the rest.\n\n\nFINIS.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[20] _Quang-chew-fu_--Canton. _For she was a virago, and had large\nfeet_--Both which are accounted great defects in China. _Nine whiskers,\n&c._--All beaus wear whiskers in China; and all gentlemen long nails, to\nshew that they are idle. _Kyang-ning, or_ Nang-king--Capital of\nKyang-nang. _Shun-tien-fu_--Peking.\n\n[21] _Tan lou ty tchan yue, &c._--The motto which Chet-qua has made\nchoice of, is part of a poem written by Kien-long, reigning emperor of\nChina, in praise of drinking tea: and published, by his imperial edict,\nbearing date the twelfth day, of the ninth moon, of the thirteenth year\nof his reign; in thirty-two different types, or characters; under the\ninspection of Yun-lou, and Houng-yen, princes, by the title of\nTsin-ouang; Fouheng, grandee, by the title of Taypao; Count, by the\ntitle of Valiant; and first president of almost all the great tribunals\nof the empire: whose deputies were Akdoun and Tsing-pou, grandees, by\nthe title of Tay-tsee Chaopao; and these were again assisted by Isan,\nFouki, Elguingue, Tetchi, Mingte, Tsoungmin, Tchangyu, Tounmin, and\nabout a dozen other mandarines of rank and reputation; so that there is\nno doubt but the work is perfectly correct. Here follows the exact copy\nof it, with an English translation, for the entertainment and\ninstruction of the curious in poetry. There is a French translation of\nthe same work, by Father Amiot, published at Paris, in 1770, from which\nthe present Publication is in a great measure taken; the Editor having\nfound it easier to translate from the French copy, than from the Chinese\noriginal.\n\n    Mei-hoa che pou yao\n    Fo-cheou hiang tsie kie,\n    Soung-che ouei fang ny;\n    San pin tchou tsing kue;\n    Pong y tche kio tang,\n    Ou tche tcheng koang hiue\n    Houo heou pien yu hie,\n    Ting yen y cheng mie.\n\n    Yue ngueou po sien jou,\n    Tan lou ty tchan yue,\n    Ou yun king tai pan\n    Ko ou, pou ko choue.\n    Fou fou teou lo ty\n    Ho ho yun kiang tche\n    Ou-tsuen y ko tsan\n    Lin-fou chang che pie.\n\n    Lan ku Tchao-tcheou ngan\n    Po siao Yu-tchouan kiu\n    Han siao ting sing leou\n    Kou yue kan hiuen tsue,\n    Joan pao tchen ki yu\n    Tsiao king sing ou kie,\n    Kien-long ping-yn\n    Siao, tchun yu ty.\n\nTRANSLATION\n\nThe colours of the Mei hoa are never brilliant, yet is the flower always\npleasing: in fragrance or neatness the fo-cheou has no equal: the fruit\nof the pine is aromatick, its odour inviting. In gratifying at once the\nsight, the smell and the taste, nothing exceeds these three things: and\nif, at the same time, you put, upon a gentle fire, an old pot, with\nthree legs, grown black and battered with length of service, after\nhaving first filled it with the limpid water of melted snow; and if,\nwhen the water is heated to a degree that will boil a fish, or redden a\nlobster, you pour it directly into a cup made of the earth of yue, upon\nthe tender leaves of superfine tea; and if you let it rest there, till\nthe vapours which rises at first in great abundance, forming thick\nclouds, dissipate by degrees, and at last appear merely as a slight mist\nupon the surface; and if then you gently sip this delicious beverage, it\nis labouring effectually to remove the five causes of discontent which\nusually disturb our quiet: you may feel, you may taste, but it is\nimpossible to describe the sweet tranquillity which a liquor, thus\nprepared, procures.\n\nRetired, for some space of time, from the tumults of business, I sit\nalone in my tent, at liberty to enjoy myself unmolested: in one hand\nholding a fo-cheou, which I bring nearer to my nose, or put it farther\noff, at pleasure; in the other hand holding my dish of tea, upon which\nsome pretty curling vapours still appear: I taste, by intervals the\nliquor; by intervals, I consider the mei-hoa--I give a fillip to my\nimagination, and my thoughts are naturally turned towards the sages of\nantiquity.--I figure to myself the famous Ou-tsuen, whose only\nnourishment was the fruit of the pine; he enjoyed himself in quiet,\namidst this rigid frugality! I envy, and wish to imitate him.--I put a\nfew of the kernels into my mouth; I find them delicious.\n\nSometimes, methinks, I see the virtuous Lin-fou, bending into form, with\nhis own hands, the branches of the mei-hoa-chou. It was thus, say I to\nmyself, that he relieved his mind, after the fatigues of profound\nmeditation, on the most interesting subjects. Then I take a look at my\nshrub, and it seems as if I were assisting Lin-fou, in bending its\nbranches into a new form.--I skip from Lin-fou to Tchao-tcheon, or to\nYu-tchouan; and see the first in the middle of a vast many tea-cups,\nfilled with all kinds of tea, of which he sometimes tastes one,\nsometimes another; thus varying incessantly his potation: while the\nsecond drinks, with the profoundest indifference, the best tea, and\nscarcely distinguishes it from the vilest stuff.--My taste is not\ntheir's; why should I attempt to imitate them?----\n\nBut I hear the sound of the evening bell; the freshness of the night is\naugmented; already the rays of the moon strike through the windows of my\ntent, and with their lustre brighten the few moveables with which it is\nadorned. I find myself neither uneasy nor fatigued; my stomach is empty,\nand I may, without fear, go to rest.----It is thus that, with my poor\nabilities, I have made these verses, in the little spring of the tenth\nmoon of the year Ping-yn, of my reign Kien-long.\n\n[22] _Fo-hii_, _Shing-tong_, or _Whoang-tii_--Some of the first emperors\nof China; who invented the eight qua's, together with the kay-tse, and\ncreated colsus.\n\n[23] _An eminence in the center_--Meaning Windsor, probably.\n\n[24] _Tse-hiu and Chang-lin_--Two celebrated parks, which belonged to\nthe emperors of the Ty.\n\n[25] _Yven-ming-yven, and Tchang-tchun-yven_--Are Gardens near Pe-king,\nbelonging to the present Emperors of China.\n\n[26] _Joss_--A corruption of Dios, God.\n\n[27] _Miao kao, etc._--Muttering expressions from Hoang-fou-tse, or\nConfucius.\n\n[28] _For though pure wine, etc._--It is remarkable, that our Orator\ndraws most of his similes and allusions either from the kitchen or the\ncellar; whether this particularity proceeded from any skill of his in\nthe culenary art, from his affection for good living, or from any other\nhidden motive; or whether it was merely accidental, the Editor never\ncould learn with any degree of certainty.\n\n[29] In China they have an innumerable multitude of connoisseurs and\ncriticks; who, with a very superficial knowledge, a few general maxims,\nand some hard words, boldly decide on subjects they do not understand:\nhence the whole fraternity is fallen into disrepute. They have, indeed,\nlike us, some real connoisseurs amongst them; but these are very rare in\nChina.\n\n[30] _The imperial bird_, or foung hoang, is a fabulous being, of the\nnature of the ph[oe]nix, by the Chinese poets, accounted the emperor of\nbirds, as the dragon is of all the scaly tribe: he is said never to\nappear, but in great pomp, attended by a numerous train of all the most\nbrilliant and extraordinary of the volatile race.\n\n[31] _Hurry of face-making_--The Chinese call portrait painting, or\nmodelling portraits in coloured clay, which was Chet-qua's particular\nprofession, face-making.\n\n[32] _Eat rice or drink brandy_--The Chinese call dining, eating rice;\nand their common liquors, at meals, are spirits, of various sorts.\n\n....\nTranscriber's note:  In this etext the ^ indicates superscript.\n....","title":"An Explanatory Discourse by Tan Chet-qua of Quang-chew-fu, Gent.","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":14091}