Shun. bunals, which ftill fubfift; and, by the reputation of his fingular virtue, to have drawn feveral neighbouring nations into his dominions. In order to make room for thefe, he attempted to drain the plains which were overflowed, by opening a paffage for the waters to the fea. After this, he affociated with him in the empire one Shun, an husbandman, whofe virtue, probity, and patience, under the fevereft trials, joined to the confidence which all good men repofed in him, and to an infinity of other excellent qualities, rendered him worthy of the throne. His emprefs had the care of breeding filkworms, and brought the filk manufactures to a furprifing degree of perfection. We are told, that, in the reign of Yau, the fun did not fet for ten days; and that the Chinese were then afraid of a general conflagration. Various ferpents of a monstrous fize are likewife faid about the fame time to have appeared. Yau lived twenty-eight years in perfect harmony with his new collegue, to whom he had given both his daughters in marriage, and died in the hundred and eighteenth year of his age, after he had reigned ninety years, according to Martini, or an hundred, if we will follow Du Halde. The people, who had experienced in this truly amiable prince all the love and tenderness of a parent, mourned for him three whole years *. 9. SHUN, though of mean extraction, was appointed by the late emperor his fole heir, to the exclufion of all the princes of the blood, and even in oppofition to all the remonftrances of the fucceffor himfelf, who did not think himfelf qualified to be placed at the head of fo great an empire. Immediately after his acceffion, he paid his folemn homage to Shang-ti, and afterwards enacted those wife laws, whereon the government of the empire is founded. He created mandarins, and gave excellent precepts relating to the five principal duties, of the king and the subject, father and children, husband and wife, elder and younger brothers, and of friends among themselves. As his example gave great weight to those precepts, his fubjects were intirely influenced by them. He was, therefore, juftly reckoned one of the moft excellent Chinese lawgivers, as well as his predeceffor. Soon after Yau's decease, 8hun trufted the government to his minifters, and fhut himself up three years in that prince's tomb, the more freely to vent his grief for the lofs of a monarch whom he confidered as his father. But, having difcharged his duty of piety and gratitude towards Yau, he took poffeffion of the imperial palace, and received the homage of all the tributary princes. Finding abundance of gold and jewels in the pa 2 MARTIN. COUPL. & DU HALDE, ubi fup. 4 lace, lace, he caused a sphere to be made exhibiting the feven planets; each of which was reprefented by the precious ftone moft fuitable to it. He always honoured philofophers and men of learning with his favour and protection. The provinces he vifited every year; and, in his progrefs, rewarded or punished the reguli with fo much juftice, that he gained the efteem and admiration of all his people. DURING his reign, agriculture flourished, and plenty everywhere prevailed. For which end he forbad the governors, under fevere penalties, to exact a day's work from any hufbandman, as this must naturally tend to difcourage industry, and obftruct the progrefs of tillage. He filled all the important pofts in the ftate with none but perfons of merit and capacity; nay, by one of his ordinances, he permitted any of his fubjects to fet forth on a table, exposed to public view, whatever could be found blameable in his own conduc. Laftly, in the choice of a fucceffor, he confulted the good of his people, by giving them another prince like himself in the perfon of Yu, though this was done to the exclufion of his own family b. WE are told by Martini, that the Tartars, for the firft time, in this prince's reign, made an irruption into China; but that they were foon obliged to retire into their own territories. Yu, before he was adopted by Shun, had recovered the drowned lands above-mentioned; which his father had not been able to effect. After thirteen years indefatigable labour, he leveled mountains, turned the great rivers into their natural chanels, drained the lakes and marshes, confined several rapid torrents between banks, and divided the leffer rivers into different canals, which terminated in the fea. By this means he inlarged the provinces, and rendered them more fertile ; which important piece of fervice greatly contributed to his advancement, as well as his fingular merit c. SHUN lived feventeen years after he had raised Yu to the throne, which is faid to have happened in the fifty-fourth year of the second cycle; and died in the tenth year of the fol lowing one, being an hundred and ten years old. He was buried in the province of Shen-fi, and vaftly regretted by all his fubjects. He has been greatly celebrated by the famous Confucius, and the Li-ki, as well as the best Chinese writers of all fucceeding ages 4, 'MART. MARTIN. Sinic. hift. lib. i. p. 43-47. DU HALDE in Shun. b Iidem ibid. CMART. MARTIN. & Du HALDE, ubi fup. d CONFUCIUS apud Martin. in Yaus, Sinic. hift, lib. i. p. 37. Lib, Sin, dict. Li ki apud Du Halde, ut & ipfe DU HALDE ibid. As the most authentic Chinese hiftorians feem to agree, that their chronology, before the time of Yau, who affociated Shun with him in the empire, is by no means to be depended upon, and as those hiftorians feem not to have used the computation of cycles before the reign of that prince; we are hereby fufficiently authorized to conclude our hiftory of the antient Chinese with the death of Shun. For this another reason, alfo, of no fmall weight, may be affigned: The crown of China became hereditary in the family of Yu, who fucceeded Shun; and the Chinese dynafties, of which that called Hya was the first, immediately commenced upon that prince's acceffion. As thofe dynafties, therefore, ftill continue, the commencement of them, by an European hiftorian, may be confidered as a new æra, at which the modern hiftory of China will very naturally begin. In the mean time, to the preceding account of the antient Chinese, we shall beg leave to fubjoin the following reflections e. Much of I. THE Chinefe hiftory, from the time of Fo hi to the the early death of Shun, has in the main manifeftly the air of a fiction. Chinese The great progrefs thofe two monarchs, as well as all the biftory fa- intermediate princes, made in fome one at leaft of the libebulous. ral arts, if we fuppofe them to be as antient as many of the miffionaries, together with the Chinese, pretend, is utterly improbable. The number of people there muft have been in China, according to the aforefaid hiftory, during the reigns of all thofe monarchs, will alfo, upon the above-mentioned fuppofition, as well as the fuperior politeness of that people, to every fober and intelligent perfon, appear abfolutely incredible. The fabulous incidents likewife, with which the hiftory of thofe reigns is interfperfed, and which are obvious to every one who perufes the foregoing account, fet this point beyond difpute. So that as the greatest part of the Chinese memoirs of all the emperors of China, preceding Yu, have the principal diftinguishing characteristics of a fiction, they cannot well be viewed in any other light than that in which we are here confidering them. Chinese 2. THAT the Chinese chronology to the reign of Yu is chronology very inaccurate, not to fay falfe, moft clearly appears from the to the reign foregoing hiftory. Nor can all the efforts of fome of the mifof Yu falfe. fionaries overturn this glaring truth. For, not to infift upon the certainty of the Hebrew chronology, to which the generality of the learned feem willing to adhere, the hiftory whofe authority fupports it favours greatly of fiction, as is allowed even by the moft rational Chinefe, and miffionaries themselves. We fay the hiftory, whofe authority supports it ; MAR. MARTIN. ubi fup. p. 47. DU HALDE in introduct. & alib. fince in reality the Chinefe hronology to the reign of Yu is void of every other fupport. For nothing befides that authority can be urged in favour of it, except the teftimony of Confucius, and other antient writers, the opinion of the Chinefe, and their aftronomical obfervations. Now the teftimony of Confucius, and other authors who lived many ages after thefe early princes, that the hiftory of them was extant in their time, and that it was then commonly believed they had exifted, will by no means prove the reality of fuch existence, nor confequently evince their high antiquity. The opinion of the Chinese will indeed prove their zeal for their own antiquities, but by no means evince the genuineness of them. And as for aftronomical obfervations, the Chinese were incapable of making any, at leaft with tolerable precision, till many ages after the death of Shun; and, even had not this been the cafe, they might have feigned folar and lunar eclipfes, planetary conjunctions, &c. in order to pleafe, flatter, and amufe their emperors. For fuch falfe conjunctions often occur in the Chinese hiftory, especially at the change of dynasties; and, as for eclipfes, we find none mentioned by the Chinese writers, before the fecond year of the fourth cycle, in the reign of Chong-kang, about fixty years after the death of Shun. So that the Chinese chronology, for the period we have here confidered, must be looked upon as indefenfible f. the Chinese 3. To confirm what is here fubmitted to the judgment of The celef the learned, we muft beg leave farther to remark, that fome tial obferof the earlieft celeftial obfervations of the Chinese are full as vations of romantic as any thing else that occurs in their hiftory of the nine first emperors. Of this feveral inftances might here be frequently produced; but at prefent we shall confine ourselves to one only. itious. Father Martini informs us, that, according to the Chinese, in the reign of Yau, the fun was obferved not to fet for ten days; which rendered the people apprehenfive of a general conflagration. Now will any perfon be fo fanguinely difpofed in favour of Chinese veracity, as to fuppofe this a real obfervation? And, if not, will it not thake the authority of their other obfervations, especially when they exceed all belief, or at least are not founded upon a proper degree of probability? Nothing, therefore, can be more uncertain and chimerical than the conclufion drawn from the eclipfe that is faid to have happened in China 2155 years before the birth of Chrift, in fupport of a fabulous and romantic antiquity %. f Vid. not. ad DU HALD. in Chwen hyo. 8 MAR. MAT. ubi fup. p. 37. P. PREMARE in lettr. edifiant. tom. xix. p. 403. a Chinese 4. FROM what has been advanced it will follow, that the biftorical Chinese hiftorical period of time must have commenced at least period of confiderably later than the reign of Yu. Nay, Father Fouquet, time begins Bifhop of Eleutheropolis, has obliged the learned world with after Yu. table, that fixes the æra of the Chinese hiftory, fo far as it is genuine, about four hundred years before Chrift; and he even affirms, that fome, not without ftrong reasons, believe, that it might be brought lower ftill. He allows, indeed, the Chinese nation to be almoft as old as the deluge; but denies, that their hiftory deferves much credit, if we afcend higher than four hundred years before Chrift. Nay, M. Fourmont obferves, that this opinion pretty much prevails at prefent among the miffionaries. The table above-mentioned was published at Rome in 1729. It contains three large sheets, and is intituled Tabula chronologica hiftoria Sinica, connexa cum cyclo qui vulgo Kia-tfe dicitur. The founders of the Kang-mo, or great Chinese annals, who are the most efteemed of all the Chinese hiftoriographers, are alfo of the fame fentiments b. China not 5. THIS likewife in fome measure appears from what we peopled fo have advanced in the hiftory of the Tartars. It has there early as the been rendered probable, that a great part of China was very thinly peopled, if not quite void of inhabitants, fo late as the year before Chrift 637. when the Scythians, under the conduct of Madyes, made an irruption into the Upper Afia. From whence it will follow, that little credit is due to those annals which make China to have been a powerful empire above two thousand years before. For, that it was then abfolutely uncultivated, upon the former fuppofition, there is not the leaft reafon to doubt. This argument might be pushed farther, and infifted upon in a more copious manner, were there any need of it; but, as this is not the cafe, we think it fufficient just to have hinted it to our readers here i. Chinese believe. Shun later Chinese believe. 6. WE are informed by fome Chinefe hiftorians, followed than the by Father Martini, that the Tartars first made an irruption into China, in the reign of Shun. If this be admitted, it will abfolutely overturn the high antiquity of Shun, and his predeceffors, as well as the authority of thofe hiftorians in the point before us. For, the Tartars never committed any hoftilities against the Chinefe, even according to their own hiftorians themselves, before the time of Ogus Khan. Now, from what has been already obferved, no one can fuppofe that prince to FOURM. refl. critiq. fur hift. anc. peupl. tom. ii. p. 402. Vid. etiam not. ad DU HALD. in introduct. fub fin. iSee the hiory of the Turks, Tartars, and Moguls, towards the beginning and the end. |