China and the West

Browne, Thomas. Enquiries into vulgar and common errors. In : Browne, Thomas. Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By Thomas Brovvne Dr. of Physick. (London : Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, 1646). Vol. 2-3.
Vol. 2.
We are not thoroughly resolved concerning porcelain or china dishes, that according to common belief they are made of earth, which lieth in preparation about an hundred years under ground ; for the relations thereof are not only diverse but contrary, and authors agree not herein. Guido Pancirollus will have them made of egg-shells, lobster-shells, and gypsum laid up in the earth the space of eighty years : of the same affirmation is Scaliger, and the common opinion of most. Ramuzius, in his Navigations, is of a contrary assertion ; that they are made out of earth, not laid under ground, but hardened in the sun and wind, the space of forty years. But Gonzales de Mendoza, a man employed into China from Philip the second, king of Spain, upon enquiry and ocular experience, delivered a way different from all these. For enquiring into the artifice thereof, he found they were made of a chalky earth ; which, beaten and steeped in water, affordeth a cream or fatness on the top, and a gross subsidence at the bottom ; our of the cream or superfluitance, the finest dishes, saith he, are made ; out of the residence thereof, the coarser ; which being formed, they gild or paint, and, not after an hundred years, but presently, commit unto the furnace. This, saith he, is known by experience, and more probable than what Odoardus Barbosa hath delivered, that they are made of shells, and buried under earth an hundred years. And answerable in all points hereto, is the relation of Linschotten, a diligent enquirer, in his Oriental Navigations. Later confirmation may be had from Alvarez the Jesuit, who lived long in those parts, in his relations of China : that porcelain vessels were made but in one town of the province of Chiamsi ; that the earth was brought out of other provinces, but, for the advantage of water, which makes them more polite and perspicuous, they were only made in this ; that they were wrought and fashioned like those of other countries, whereof some were tinted blue, some red, others yellow, of which colour only they presented unto the king.
The latest account hereof may be found in the voyage of the Dutch ambassador, sent from Batavia unto the emperor of China, printed in French, 1665 ; which plainly informeth, that the earth, whereof porcelain dishes are made, is brought from the mountains of Hoang, and being formed into square loaves, is brought by water, and marked with the emperor's seal ; and that it is prepared and fashioned after the same manner which the Italians observe in the fine earthen vessels of Faventia or Fuenca…

Vol. 2 : S. 36, Fussnote 2 : Of those three great inventions in Germany, there are two which are not without their incommodities. Those two, he means, are printing and gunpowder, which are commonly taken to be German inventions ; but artillery was in China above 1500 years since, and printing long before it was in Germany, if we may believe Juan Gonzales Mendoza, in his History of China, lib. III, cap. 15, 16.

Vol. 3.
For, to speak strictly, there is no East and West in nature, nor are those absolute and invariable, but respective and mutable points, according unto different longitudes, or distant parts of habitation, whereby they suffer many and considerable variations. For first, unto some, the same part will be East or West in respect of one another, that is, unto such as inhabit the same parallel, or differently dwell from East to West. Thus as unto Spain, Italy lyeth East, unto Italy Greece, unto Greece Persia, and unto Persia China; so again unto the Country of China, Persia lyeth West, unto Persia Greece, unto Greece Italy, and unto Italy Spain. So that the same Countrey is sometimes East and sometimes West; and Persia though East unto Greece, yet is it West unto China…
For the Sea lay West unto that Country, and the winds brought rain from that quarter; but this consideration cannot be transferred unto India or China, which have a vast Sea Eastward: and a vaster Continent toward the West. So likewise when it is said in the vulgar Translation, Gold cometh out of the North; it is no reasonable inducement unto us and many other Countries, from some particular mines septentrional unto his situation, to search after that metal in cold and Northern regions, which we most plentifully discover in hot and Southern habitations. ..
So the city of Rome is magnified by the Latins to be the greatest of the earth ; but time and geography inform us that Cairo is bigger, and Quinsay, in China, far exceedeth both…
Thus have the Chinese little feet, most Negroes great lips and flat noeses ; and thus many Spaniards, and Mediterranean inhabitants, which are of the race of Barbary Moors (although after frequent commixture), have not worn out the Camoys nose unto this day…
And though the best of China dishes, and such as the emperor doth use, be thought by some of infallible virtue unto this effect, yet will they not, I fear, be able to elude the mischief of such intentions…