“IF any man fhould make a collection of all the inventions, “and all the productions, that every nation, which now is, “or ever has been, upon the face of the globe, the whole “would fall far fhort, either as to number or quality, of what “is to be met with in China.” Thefe, or fomething fimilar, are the words of the learned Ifaac Voffius.

The teftimony given by the celebrated authors of the Encyclopedie des Connoiffances humaines is almoft equally ftrong: “The Chinefe who, by common content, are fuperior to all “the Afiatic nations, in antiquity, in genius, in the profrefs “of the fciences, in wifdom, in government, and, in true phi-“lofophy; may, moreover, in the opinion of fome authors, “enter the lifts, on all thefe points, with the moft enlightened “nations of Europe.”

How flattering, then, and gratifying muft it have been to the feelings of thofe few favoured perfons, who had the good fortune to be admitted into the fuite of the Britifh Embaffador, then preparing to proceed to the court of that Sovereign who held the government of fuch an extraordinary nation; how greatly muft they have enjoyed the profpect of experiencing, in their own perfons, all that was virtuous, and powerful, and grand, and magnificent, concentrated in one point—in the city of Pekin!