China and the West

Thomas James Mathias Imperial Epistle from Kien Long was indebted to William Mason's poem and also to the stanzaic Odes to Kien Long by John Wolcot. Earl Macartney's embassy in China from 1792 to 1794 to establish relations with that nation and to prevent mistreatment of British subjects in the Orient had vigorously stimulated interest in things Chinese. Wolcot satirized Macartney and the English king, but Mathias made his epistle a Tory weapon against Whigs. Sheridan is attacked in this poetic letter with particular ferocity, but all the variously shaded Whigs from Fox to Portland pass the Chinese Emperor in fancied review. In a pleasantly imaginative passage, Mathias' Emperor of China clothes Pitt in oriental magnificence :
While thus they pass, my Mandarins should bend,
And to my throne Pitts' palanquin attend ;
Trumpets of Outong-Chu his praise unfold,
And steely crescents gleam in semblance bold ;
With repercussive notes from impulse strong
Air thunders, rolls the drum, and groans the Gong ;
Flambeaux of odorous wood, and lanterns bright
In eastern prodigality of light...