fluctuating body. The gentry of every province, below these, consist of the mandarins retired from employment, and all who have attained any of the three literary degrees, or the nine ranks, distinguished by the ball on the cap. The merit of a son often elevates his parents, and posthumous titles of dignity are occasionally conferred on the ancestors for several generations.

Among the various causes which conduce to give to the upper classes in China their unostentatious character, and to prevent expensiveness being a fashion among them, we may observe that a sufficient reason exists for the absence of magnificence from the establishments of official persons, independently of its being their policy to affect simplicity. As none can exercise office in his birth-place, or patrimonial abode, he can have no motive to expend money on his official residence, from which he is liable at the shortest notice to be removed elsewhere; the longest period being generally three years. Hence official persons are commonly very shabby in every thing but their personal habiliments; their followers, even, being often dirty and ragged. The pride of external pomp and retinue is not allowed, on ordinary occasions, to any except the official aristocracy, and with these it consists rather in the number than in the condition of their attendants.

The intercourse of social life in all cases where women are confined to their homes, or to the company of their own sex, must of course suffer; and accordingly we find that in China it is cold, formal, and encumbered with the ponderous system of ceremonies which have been transmitted from time immemorial. These, however, are occasionally cast off in those scenes of convivial excess into which exclusively male society is so apt to degenerate, when the recoil is sometimes as great on the side of licence, as

the previous restraint has been strict. It must be observed, however, in justice to the better class of Chinese, that these scenes are held in deserved disrepute, and prove always more or less injurious to a man's character.

Notwithstanding the general disadvantages on the side of the weaker sex here, in common with other Asiatic countries, its respectability is in some degree preserved by a certain extent of authority allowed to widows over their sons, and by the homage which these are obliged to pay to their mothers.

The

Emperor himself performs the ceremonies of the Kotow before his own mother, who receives them seated on a throne. They have a maxim, that “ a woman is thrice dependent; before marriage, on her father; after marriage, on her husband; when a widow, on her son;" but this seems to mean principally with reference to support and subsistence.

The ladies of the better class are instructed in embroidering, as well as painting on silk, and music is of course a favourite accomplishment. They are not often very deeply versed in letters, but celebrated instances are sometimes quoted of those who have been skilled in composing verses. The modesty of manner which is deemed so essential to the female character is heightened by their dress, frequently of magnificent materials, and in fashion extremely becoming. They reckon it indecorous in women of birth and breeding to show even their hands, and in touching or moving any thing these are generally covered by the long sleeves. The Chinese look upon the dresses of European ladies (as sometimes represented in drawings or paintings) with surprise, and they certainly present a considerable contrast to their own. Perhaps in both instances the just medium may be in some measure departed from, although in contrary directions.

There is no point on which greater misconception has prevailed than respecting the existence of universal polygamy in China. We will state the case exactly, from the preface to the translation of the "Fortunate Union," which is therein declared to be a more faithful picture of Chinese manners, inasmuch as the hero espouses but one wife. It is not strictly true that their laws sanction polygamy, though they permit concubinage. A Chinese can have but one Tsy, or wife, properly so called, who is distinguished by a title, espoused with ceremonies, and chosen from a rank of life, totally different from his Tsie, or handmaids, of whom he may have as many or as few as he pleases; and though the offspring of the latter possess many of the rights of legitimacy (ranking, however, after the children of the wife), this circumstance makes little difference as to the truth of the position. Even in the present romance, the profligate rival aims at effecting his union with the heroine, only by setting aside his previous marriage with her cousin as informal. Any Chinese fiction, therefore (and of these there are many), which describes a man espousing two wives, is in this respect no truer a picture of existing manners, than in respect to any other silly or amusing extravagance which it may happen to contain. In fact, the wife is of equal rank with her husband by birth, and espoused with regular marriage ceremonies; possessing, moreover, certain legal rights, such as they are: the handmaid is bought for money, and received into the house nearly like any other domestic. The principle on which Chinese law and custom admit the offspring of concubinage to legitimate rights is obvious; the importance which attaches in that country to the securing of male descendants. It is plain that the Tsy and the Tsie stand to each other in very much the same relation as the Sarah and the Hagar of the Old

Testament, and therefore the common expression first and second wife, which the translator himself has used on former occasions, in imitation of his predecessors, is hardly correct."

If a person has sons by his wife (for daughters never enter into the account), it is considered derogatory to take a handmaid at all; but if he has not, it is of course allowable. Still, for every additional repetition, he sinks in personal respectability, and none, in any case, but the rich can afford it. But the strongest dissuasives to a prudent person, on these occasions, are the domestic jealousies that inevitably fill the household with confusion, and sometimes with crime. The Chinese have a maxim, that "nine women in ten are jealous," and they speak feelingly.

Without doubt it is a double calamity to a Chinese wife to be childless, and the sentiment of Creusa in the Greek play must be universal :

Καὶ τωνδ ̓ ἁπάντων εσκατον πειση κακον

εκ δουλης τινος

Γυναίκος, εις σον δωμα δέσποτην αγειν.

Euripid. (Iwv. 836.)

The feeling is very strongly pourtrayed in the drama called "an Heir in old age," translated from the Chinese into English, and from the English version into French. Here the spouse of an old man, who has only one daughter, in concert with her own child, and the young man to whom the latter is married, drives from the house a handmaid, who, being pregnant, is an object of unconquerable jealousy to all parties, except the old man himself, who is anxiously expecting an heir. Both the woman and child are concealed for three years, after which the jealous feeling of the wife is overcome, only by the consideration that, without a male heir, they shall have nobody to sacrifice to their manes after death. This regard to the sepulchral rites, by the way, is another feeling, not peculiar to

China, but one powerfully developed in several of the Greek plays; as the Ajax, and the Choëphori, of Sophocles.

The women, whom a rich Chinese takes in the event of his wife proving barren, are generally purchased for a sum of money. They are of course from the lowest ranks, entering the family as domestic slaves; and the prevalence of this condition may be traced to the difficulty of subsistence in so thickly peopled a country, which leads many to sell their children, sometimes their wives, and even themselves. Men of high spirit and principle have been known to object to their daughters being handmaids even to the Emperor himself; though of course this is an exception to the general rule. When the Sovereign has espoused an Empress with the usual ceremonies, he is supplied with handmaids from among the daughters of Tartars principally, selected on account of their beauty. On the death of an Emperor, all these women are shut up in a secluded part of the palace, and debarred from marriage with any one. Marco Polo, with his usual fidelity, describes the process of selecting the Tartar ladies for the Emperor, in the way that appears exactly to be followed at the present day.

Marriage among the Chinese, with every circumstance relating to it, is so fully described in the "Fortunate Union," that the curious reader may be referred for details to that specimen of Chinese literature and manners. It may be as well, in this place, to remark on the principal legal conditions of the married state, and then to describe the ceremonies attendant on the espousals. Their maxim is, that 66 a married woman can commit no crime; the responsibility rests with her husband." Throughout the Chinese law, obligations and penalties seem to be pretty fairly adjusted; excepting always in cases