China and the West

José Vicente da Silveira Meneses ist Gouverneur von Macao.

Aufführung von Jesuiten von Goldoni, Carlo ; Piccinni, Niccoló. La buona figliuola im Palast von Kaiser Qianlong. [ID D40501].

Nathanael Burger ist Koadjutorbischof von Nanjing.

Gibbon, Edward. A vindication of some passages in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the History of the decline and fall of the Roman empire [ID D26762].
Quellen : Joseph de Guignes, Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, Antoine Gaubil.

Chapter 35 : Invasion by Attila. Pt. 2.
The invasion of Gaul was preceded, and justified, by a formal demand of the princess Honoria, with a just and equal share of the Imperial patrimony. His predecessors, the ancient Tanjous, had often addressed, in the same hostile and peremptory manner, the daughters of China; and the pretensions of Attila were not less offensive to the majesty of Rome.
Note 48 : Machinis constructis, omnibusque tormentorum generibus adhibitis. Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673. In the thirteenth century, the Moguls battered the cities of China with large engines, constructed by the Mahometans or Christians in their service, which threw stones from 150 to 300 pounds weight. In the defence of their country, the Chinese used gunpowder, and even bombs, above a hundred years before they were known in Europe; yet even those celestial, or infernal, arms were insufficient to protect a pusillanimous nation. See Gaubil. Hist. des Mongous, p. 70, 71, 155, 157, &c.

Chapter 30 : Revolt of the Goths. Pt. 3.
The fears of Honorius were not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the earned industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of the fall of the Roman empire. The extensive territory to the north of the great wall was possessed, after the flight of the Huns, by the victorious Sienpi, who were sometimes broken into independent tribes, and sometimes reunited under a supreme chief; till at length, styling themselves Topa, or masters of the earth, they acquired a more solid consistence, and a more formidable power. The Topa soon compelled the pastoral nations of the eastern desert to acknowledge the superiority of their arms; they invaded China in a period of weakness and intestine discord; and these fortunate Tartars, adopting the laws and manners of the vanquished people, founded an Imperial dynasty, which reigned near one hundred and sixty years over the northern provinces of the monarchy. Some generations before they ascended the throne of China, one of the Topa princes had enlisted in his cavalry a slave of the name of Moko, renowned for his valor, but who was tempted, by the fear of punishment, to desert his standard, and to range the desert at the head of a hundred followers. This gang of robbers and outlaws swelled into a camp, a tribe, a numerous people, distinguished by the appellation of Geougen; and their hereditary chieftains, the posterity of Moko the slave, assumed their rank among the Scythian monarchs. The youth of Toulun, the greatest of his descendants, was exercised by those misfortunes which are the school of heroes. He bravely struggled with adversity, broke the imperious yoke of the Topa, and became the legislator of his nation, and the conqueror of Tartary. His troops were distributed into regular bands of a hundred and of a thousand men; cowards were stoned to death; the most splendid honors were proposed as the reward of valor; and Toulun, who had knowledge enough to despise the learning of China, adopted only such arts and institutions as were favorable to the military spirit of his government. His tents, which he removed in the winter season to a more southern latitude, were pitched, during the summer, on the fruitful banks of the Selinga. His conquests stretched from Corea far beyond the River Irtish. He vanquished, in the country to the north of the Caspian Sea, the nation of the Huns; and the new title of Khan, or Cagan, expressed the fame and power which he derived from this memorable victory. (64)
The chain of events is interrupted, or rather is concealed, as it passes from the Volga to the Vistula, through the dark interval which separates the extreme limits of the Chinese, and of the Roman, geography.
Note 64 : (See M. de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 179 - 189, tom ii p. 295, 334 – 338).

Chapter 38 : Reign of Clovis. Pt. 6.
2. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent was swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the spirit of conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new assailants
3 : Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue, fortify the strength and courage of Barbarians. In every age they have oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to counterbalance these natural powers by the resources of military art.
Note 6 : The French and English editors of the Genealogical History of the Tartars have subjoined a curious, though imperfect description of their present state. We might question the independence of the Caimucks, or Eluths, since they have been recently vanquished by the Chinese, who, in the year 1759, subdued the lesser Bucharia, and advanced into the country of Badakshan, near the sources of the Oxus (Mémoires sur les Chinois, tom. i. p. 325-400). But these conquests are precarious, nor will I venture to ensure the safety of the Chinese empire.

Chapter 40 : Reign of Justinian. Pt. 3.
I need not explain that silk (61) is originally spun from the bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden tomb, from whence a worm emerges in the form of a butterfly. Till the reign of Justinian, the silk- worm who feed on the leaves of the white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the pine, the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of Asia and Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and their produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except in the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A thin gauze was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture, the invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired both in the East and at Rome. Whatever suspicions may be raised by the garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; and this natural error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny, in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for the pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked draperies and transparent matrons. A dress which showed the turn of the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity, or provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in China were sometimes unravelled by the Phoenician women, and the precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture, and the intermixture of linen threads...
A valuable merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying the expense of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed the whole latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three days from the Chinese Ocean to the sea-coast of Syria. Silk was immediately delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, who frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis; but this trade, which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the four gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are advantageously seated for the exchange of its various productions; and their merchants purchased from the Chinese, (68) the raw or manufactured silk which they transported into Persia for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China, the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant embassies of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety, the bold adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the difficult and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi, could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred days: as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the desert; and the wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen and the traveller as the objects of lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar robbers, and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans explored a more southern road; they traversed the mountains of Thibet, descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus, and patiently expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual fleets of the West. (69) But the dangers of the desert were found less intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that unfrequented way, applauds his own diligence, that, in nine months after his departure from Pekin, he reached the mouth of the Indus. The ocean, however, was open to the free communication of mankind. From the great river to the tropic of Cancer, the provinces of China were subdued and civilized by the emperors of the North; they were filled about the time of the Christian aera with cities and men, mulberry- trees and their precious inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of the compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or Phoenicians, they might have spread their discoveries over the southern hemisphere. I am not qualified to examine, and I am not disposed to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian Gulf, or the Cape of Good Hope; but their ancestors might equal the labors and success of the present race, and the sphere of their navigation might extend from the Isles of Japan to the Straits of Malacca, the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an Oriental Hercules. (70) Without losing sight of land, they might sail along the coast to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is annually visited by ten or twelve ships laden with the productions, the manufactures, and even the artificers of China; the Island of Sumatra and the opposite peninsula are faintly delineated as the regions of gold and silver; and the trading cities named in the geography of Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth was not solely derived from the mines. The direct interval between Sumatra and Ceylon is about three hundred leagues: the Chinese and Indian navigators were conducted by the flight of birds and periodical winds; and the ocean might be securely traversed in square-built ships, which, instead of iron, were sewed together with the strong thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib, or Taprobana, was divided between two hostile princes; one of whom possessed the mountains, the elephants, and the luminous carbuncle, and the other enjoyed the more solid riches of domestic industry, foreign trade, and the capacious harbor of Trinquemale, which received and dismissed the fleets of the East and West. In this hospitable isle, at an equal distance (as it was computed) from their respective countries, the silk merchants of China, who had collected in their voyages aloes, cloves, nutmeg, and sandal wood, maintained a free and beneficial commerce with the inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects of the great king exalted, without a rival, his power and magnificence: and the Roman, who confounded their vanity by comparing his paltry coin with a gold medal of the emperor Anastasius, had sailed to Ceylon, in an Aethiopian ship, as a simple passenger.
As silk became of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian saw with concern that the Persians had occupied by land and sea the monopoly of this important supply, and that the wealth of his subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies and idolaters. An active government would have restored the trade of Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea, which had decayed with the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman vessels might have sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the ports of Ceylon, of Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies, the Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the arts of navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of Adulis, still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian conqueror. Along the African coast, they penetrated to the equator in search of gold, emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely declined an unequal competition, in which they must be always prevented by the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India; and the emperor submitted to the disappointment, till his wishes were gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached to the Indians: a bishop already governed the Christians of St. Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church was planted in Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of commerce to the extremities of Asia. Two Persian monks had long resided in China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat of a monarch addicted to foreign superstitions, and who actually received an embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious occupations, they viewed with a curious eye the common dress of the Chinese, the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of silk-worms, whose education (either on trees or in houses) had once been considered as the labor of queens. (75)They soon discovered that it was impracticable to transport the short-lived insect, but that in the eggs a numerous progeny might be preserved and multiplied in a distant climate. Religion or interest had more power over the Persian monks than the love of their country: after a long journey, they arrived at Constantinople, imparted their project to the emperor, and were liberally encouraged by the gifts and promises of Justinian. To the historians of that prince, a campaign at the foot of Mount Caucasus has seemed more deserving of a minute relation than the labors of these missionaries of commerce, who again entered China, deceived a jealous people by concealing the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane, and returned in triumph with the spoils of the East. Under their direction, the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the artificial heat of dung; the worms were fed with mulberry leaves; they lived and labored in a foreign climate; a sufficient number of butterflies was saved to propagate the race, and trees were planted to supply the nourishment of the rising generations. Experience and reflection corrected the errors of a new attempt, and the Sogdoite ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding reign, that the Romans were not inferior to the natives of China in the education of the insects, and the manufactures of silk, (76) in which both China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the industry of modern Europe. I am not insensible of the benefits of elegant luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire decads of Livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of the sixth century. A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted the improvement of speculative science, but the Christian geography was forcibly extracted from texts of Scripture, and the study of nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind. The orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one temperate zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface, four hundred days' journey in length, two hundred in breadth, encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid crystal of the firmament...
Note 61 In the history of insects (far more wonderful than Ovid's Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous place. The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned Jesuits, Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar species in China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575 - 598;) but our silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were unknown to Theophrastus and Pliny.
Note 68 The blind admiration of the Jesuits confounds the different periods of the Chinese history. They are more critically distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des Huns, tom. i. part i. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii. xliii.,) who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the annals and the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the Chinese with the nations of the West; but these connections are slight, casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a suspicion that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not inferior to their own.
Note 69 The roads from China to Persia and Hindostan may be investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot, the ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere Greuber, &c. See likewise Hanway's Travels, vol. i. p. 345 - 357. A communication through Thibet has been lately explored by the English sovereigns of Bengal.
Note 70 For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and Achin, perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan Travellers, p. 8 - 11, 13 - 17, 141 - 157;) Dampier, (vol. ii. p. 136;) the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes, (tom. i. p. 98,) and Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom. vi. p. 201.)
Note 75 The invention, manufacture, and general use of silk in China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale de la Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205 - 223.) The province of Chekian is the most renowned both for quantity and quality.
Note 76 Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 69. Pagi (tom. ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this memorable importation. Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107) mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival kingdoms in (China) the country of silk.

Chapter 53 : Fate of the Eastern empire.
Pt. 1. From the age of Charlemagne to that of the Crusades, the world (for I overlook the remote monarchy of China) was occupied and disputed by the three great empires or nations of the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks...
The northern climates are less propitious to the education of the silkworm; but the industry of France and England is supplied and enriched by the productions of Italy and China.
Pt. 3 The model was indeed more perfect than the copy; their ships, and engines, and fortifications, were of a less skilful construction; and they confess, without shame, that the same God who has given a tongue to the Arabians, had more nicely fashioned the hands of the Chinese, and the heads of the Greeks.

Hirschfeld, Christian Cajus Lorenz. Theorie der Gartenkunst [ID D26947].
Er schreibt : Die Chinesischen Gärten sind unstreitig diejenigen in einem andern Welttheil, welche in den neueren Zeiten bey uns das meiste Aufsehen gemacht haben. Sie sind schon beschrieben und zu bekannt, als dass hier noch eine Schilderung derselben wiederholt werden dürfte. Wenn man sich gleich verwundern muss, wie ein Volk, das sonst fast nichts von den schönen Künsten kennt, und in Ansehung seines Geschmacks so weit zurücksteht, auf eine so gute Anlage der Gärten komment können ; so scheint der Bericht des Chambers (Von seiner Dissertation on oriental Gardening ist im vorigen Jahre eine deutsche Übersetzung zu Gotha herausgekommen), der selbst in China mit seinen Augen gesehen, die Sache fast ausser Zweifel zu setzen. Indessen da dieser Bericht in vielen Stellen die sinnreichsten Gemälde der Phantasie und die wunderbarsten Feenbezauberungen enthält, so möchte vielleicht nur einem Theil davon historische Wahrheit zukommen. Ja ich möchte fast vermuthen, dass Chambers, wenn er sich nicht durch die Erzählungen späterer Reisender hat hintergehen lassen, das, was er selbst gesehen, nur zum Grunde gelegt, um darauf ein Ideal nach seiner eigenen Einbildungskraft aufzuführen, und dabey seinen Landsleuten, die noch zu sehr dem alten Geschmack anhiengen, seinen Wink auf eine neue Bahn zu geben. Übrigens muss man gestehen, der Chinese folgte allein der Natur ; und man weis, dass die Schritte gemeiniglich da am sichersten sind, wo man von keinen falschen Wegweisern von dem Pfade der Natur abgeleitet wird. Wenn es wahr ist, dass die Engländer durch die chinesischen Gärten auf die ächte Spur des Natürlichen in Anlegung ihrer Parks geleitet sind ; so ist es auch nicht zu leugnen, dass sie schon vorher, manche richtige Aufklärungen über diesen Gegenstand von ihren eigenen Schriftstellern erhalten hatten. Es ist dabey offenbar, dass nicht allein in den chinesischen Gärten, selbst nach den schmeichelhaftesten Beschreibungen, viel Übertriebenes, Spitzfündiges und Abgeschmacktes herrscht, worüber sich wohl eben kein Kenner der Nation verwundern wird, sondern dass auch verschiedene neuere Schriftsteller diese Gärten mit einem ungebränzten und gar zu partheyischen Lobe erheben. Selbst die kopirten Beschreibungen enthalten manche Widersprüche und sind mit Zusätzen überladen, die ihnen eine günstige Phantasie geschenkt hatte, die ihnen die Wahrheit aber mit einer gerechten Hand wieder entreisst. War es denn nicht genug zu sagen, dass manches Natürliche in den chinesischen Anlagen Nachahmung oder Aufmerksamkeit verdiene ?...
Weil man oft der ersten Art des Kontrastes gar zu anhängig war, so sind dadurch die sonderbarsten Übertreibungen entstanden. Man wollte gewisse romantische Scenen der Natur nachahmen, die sie mir hie und da als Spiele ihrer Laune zu bilden pflegt, und man verfiel in das Abgeschmackte ; zumal da man anfieng, aus dem, was bey der Natur nur seltene Erscheinung ist, ein eigenes Hauptwerk zu machen. Dieser Tadel trift nicht unsere gewöhnlichen Gärten, die noch weit davon entfernt sind, sondern einige Parks der Engländer und der Chineser, am meisten aber der letztern. Dass diese die Gegeneinandersetzung noch der Zügellosigkeit des orientalischen Geschmacks übertreiben, darüber darf man sich nicht wundern ; aber wohl darüber, dass Chambers diese Ausschweifung billigt.
Den angenehmen Scenen, sagt er, setzen die Chineser die fürchterlichen entgegen ; diese sind eine Zusammensetzung düsterer Gehölze, tiefer der Sonne unzugängliche Thäler, überhangenden unfruchtbarer Felsen, dunkler Hölen und ungestümer Wasserfälle, die sich von allen Seiten von den Bergen herabstürzen. Die Bäume sind übel gestaltet, aus ihrem natürlichen Wachsthum herausgezwungen und dem Anschein nach von der Gewalt der Gewitter zerrissen. Einige sind ausgerissen und hemmen den Lauf der Ströme ; andere sind wie vom Blitz verbrannt und zerschmettert. Die Gebäude sind Ruinen, oder halb vom Feuer verzehrt, oder durch die Wuth der Gewässer weggespült. So weit möchte alles dieses noch leidlich seyn, und so weit hat man auch zum Theil in einigen brittischen Parks die Nachahmung schon getrieben. Aber nun ! Fledermäuse, Eulen, Geyer und alle Raubvögel flattern in den Gehölzen umher ; Wölfe und Tyger heulen in den Wäldern ; halb verhungerte Thiere schleichen über die Haiden ; Galgen, Kreuze, Räder und alle Torturwerkzeuge kann man von den Landstrassen her sehen. In dem schrecklichen Innern der Wälder, wo die Wege uneben und mit Unkraut bewachsen sind, stehen dem Gott der Rache geweihete Tempel. Neben allen diesen sieht man steinerne Pfeiler mit Beschreibungen tragischer Begebenheiten und allerhand schreckliche Handlungen der Grausamkeit. Dazu kommen abgelegene Örter, die mit kolossalischen Figuren von Drachen, höllischen Furien, und andern grässlichen Gestalten angefüllet sind. Was Chambers mehr davon erzählt, zeugt, wie dieses, von einer Ausschweifung, die vielleicht nirgends weiter getrieben ist. Das Seltsame ist, dass diese Scenen des Schreckens deswegen angelegt werden, um die Wirkungen der angenehmen Auftritte durch den Kontrast zu heben…
Bey allen Gartengebäuden muss Pomp und Überfluss an Zierrathen sorgfältig entfernt seyn, und eine leichte, freye und anmuthige Architektur herrschen. Man hüte sich, dass man nicht verführt durch das Beyspiel des Engländers, in dessen Parks sich zuweilen in Einem Prospect ein Wohnhaus von edler Architectur, ein Obelisk, ein gothischer Thurm, ein römisches Monument und ein chinesischer Tempel vereinigen, auf eine seltsame Vermischung verschiedener fremder Bauarten verfalle ; eine Ausschweifung, die selbst der scharfsinnige Whately ausdrücklich in einem Garten verstattet wissen will, und die gleichwohl so auffallend ist, dass sie nicht einmal Nachsicht finden sollte. [Whately, Thomas. Betrachtungen über das heutige Gartenwesen. (Leipzig : Junius, 1771)].

Sekundärliteratur
Jörg Deuter : Hirschfeld war der erste, der William Chambers' Chinaverehrung in Beziehung zur tatsächlichen chinesischen Gartenkunst setzte und sie als das erkannte, was sie war, eine Maske, historisch nicht ernst zu nehmen, unter der dieser verborgen für einen weiteren anglo-chinoisen Gartenstil kämpfte, der wenig mit der historisch-exakten Nachahmung konkreter Vorbilder zu tun hat. Indem er aus Chambers' Theorie der Gartenkunst seitenlang zitierte, wurde Hirschfeld aber nicht nur sein scharfsinnigster Kritiker, sondern auch sein (zumindest im deutschen Sprachraum) wirkungsvollster Propagandist.

Alexander, William. The history of women [ID D27259].
A native of China, who lately resided some years in England, acknowleged, that, for some time after he arrived here, he had much difficulty in restraining himself from attacking every women with whom he was left alone ; and a Nun, who had escaped from a convent, imagined that every man who had an opportunity would assault her virtue…
We have seen that in France and Italy, which are reckoned the politest countries in Europe, women set themselves above shame and despise delicacy ; but in China, one of the politest countries in Asia, and perhaps not even in this respect behind France or Italy, the case is quite otherwise : no being can be so delicate as a woman ; in her dress, in her behaviour and conversation ; and should she ever happen to be exposed in any unbecoming manner, she feels with the greatest poignancy the awkwardness of her situation, and if possible covers her face that she may not be known…
Such has always been the constitution of human nature, and mode of governing that the legislators of every country, except China, have constantly held out terrors to hinder from the commission of vice, but seldom or never offered rewards for the practice of virtue… The Chinese not only punish vice as in other countries, but to several of the more exalted virtues, they annex honorary, and even sometimes pecuniary rewards…
The art of spinning, one of the most useful that ever was invented, is, by all antiquity, ascribed to women : the Egyptians give the honour of it to Isis ; the Chinese, to the consort of their emperor Yao…
Some tribes of the Asiatic Tartars are of the same opinion with this reverend gentleman. 'Women, say they, were sent into the world only to be our servants, and propagate the species, the only purposes to which their natures are adapted' ; on this account their women are no sooner past child-bearing, than believing that they have accomplished the design of their creation, the men no farther cohabit with, or regard them. The ancient Chinese carried this idea still farther ; women, according to some of them, were the most wicked and malevolent of all the beings which had been created ; and a few of their ancient philosophers advised, that on this account they ought always to be put to death as soon as past child-bearing, as they could then be of no farther use, and only contributed to the disturbance of society…
The ancient annals of China inform us, that Tchinfang, one of their first kings, taught them to prepare the skins of animals for garments, by taking off the hair with a wooden roller ; but even after the skins of animals were, by the various methods practised in different countries, rendered something more convenient, they were not naturally adapted to form a neat and commodious covering for the human body…
The Abbe Lambert, in his account of the manners and customs of the East, observes of the Chinese women, that though they are certain that they can be seen by none but their female domestics, yet they every morning pass several hours in dressing and adorning themselves.
Though the Chinese are perhaps the most regularly oeconomical people on the globe, yet the dress of their women, and particularly the ornaments of their heads, are strong instances of that love of finery and show which has ever prevailed in the East. The head-dress of their ladies commonly consists of several ringlets of hair variously disposed, and every where ornamented with small bunches of gold or silver flowers. Some of them adorn their heads with the figure of a fabulous bird made of gold or silver, according to the quality of the person, which has a grotesque though magnificent appearance. Ladies of the first rank sometimes have several of those birds fastened together so as to form the figure of a crown, the workmanship of which is exquisitely curious. Young ladies generally wear a kind of crown made of pasteboard, covered with silk, and ornamented with pearls, diamonds, and other jewels ; and on the top of the head a bunch of flowers, either natural or artificial, in the middle of which is stuck small wires with sparking jewels fastened on their points. Such is the attention these women pay to the dress of their heads, though secluded from all communication with the greater part of that sex whom they would naturally wish to please by it. The dress of their bodies is of all others the most clumsy and inelegant, though often made of the richest materials, and decorated, or rather loaded, with the most costly ornaments ; our readers, however, will form a better idea of it by looking at a Chinese figure, than we could convey by the most laboured description.
The Chinese, a phlegmatic kind of people, fell an adulteress for a slave…
The negroes purchase their wives, and turn them away when they think proper ; in China and Monomatapa, they observe the same custom…
Widows are not, however, in all parts of Asia treated in this indignant manner. In China, if they have had children, they become absolute mistresses of themselves, and their relations have no power to compel them to continue widows, or to give them to another husband. It is not, however, reputable for a widow who has children, to enter into a second marriage, without great necessity, especially if she is a woman of distinction ; in which case, although she has been a wife only a few hours, or barely contracted, she frequently thinks herself obliged to pass the rest of her days in widowhood ; and thereby to testify to the world the esteem and veneration she had for her husband or lover. In the middle stations of life, the relations of the deceased husbands, eager to reimburse the family in the sum which the wife originally cost is, oblige her to marry, or rather fell her to another husband, if she has no male issue ; and it frequently happens, that the future husband is fixed upon, and the money paid for her, before she is acquainted with the transaction. From this oppression she has only two methods of delivering herself ; her relations may reimburse those of the deceased husband, and claim her exemption ; or she may become a Bonzesse ; a state, however, not very honourable, when embraced in an involuntary manner. By the law of China, a widow cannot be sold to another till the time of her mourning for the first expires ; so eager, however, are the friends often to dispose of her, that they pay no regard to this law ; but on complaint being made to a mandarin, he is obliged to do her justice. As she is commonly unwilling to be bartered for in this manner, without her consent or knowledge, as soon as the bargain is struck, a covered chair, with a considerable number of lusty fellows, is brought to her house ; she is forcibly put into it, and conveyed to the house of her new husband, who takes care to secure her.

Katharina II beordert Antonio Rinaldi und Charles Cameron das chinesische Dorf in Tsarskoe Selo, St. Petersburg zu bauen. Alexander I. übernimmt das Projekt in 1818.

Chaumier, C.J. Idée d'un jardin chinois à Fresne. (Paris : Georges-Louis Le Rouge, 1777).

Bau des jardin anglais du Duc de Chartres à Monceaux : le jeu de bague chinois entouré d'un bassin, avec trois pagodes chinoises.

João Damasceno Salusti wird Bischof von Beijing.

Errichtung eines chinesischen Pavillons im Park von Schloss Grönsöö, Uppland, Schweden nach den Designs of Chinese buildings von William Chambers.

Anton Vladykin reist als Student der VII. russischen geistlichen Mission nach Beijing. Er ist Übersetzer des Aufsehers Igumnov und übersetzt die aus Russland gesendeten Schriftstücke ins Mandjurische.

Marie-Catherine Brignole verschönert das Château und den Park de Betz (Indre-et-Loire). Sie errichtet einen Kiosque und einen Pont chinois.

António José da Costa ist Gouverneur von Macao.

Gründung der Xin Jiao, der ‚Neuen islamischen Sekte' durch Ma Mingxin in Gansu.

Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy ist Ratsmitglied des Cour des monnaies.

João de Loureiro kehrt nach Lissabon zurück.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe liest Du Halde, Jean-Baptiste. Ausführliche Beschreibung des Chinesischen Reichs und der grossen Tartary... [ID D11242].
Chen Chuan : Goethes Tagebuchnotiz "O Ouen Ouang", die öfters darin vorkommt, könnte beweisen, dass Goethe das Schauspiel Des Hauses Tschao kleine Waise [Zhao shi gu er] gelesen hat.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethes Geburtstag wird in Weimar mit einem chinesischen Schattenspiel gefeiert.

Seckendorff, Karl Siegmund von. Das Rad des Schicksals [ID D11895].
Adrian Hsia : Zhuangzi ist Schüler von Laozi, der ihn in die Welt schickt, um Erfahrungen zu sammeln, damit er eventuell die Wahrheit bzw. Weisheit erlangt. Zhuangzi erlebt zunächst die üppige Natur, dann wird er Zeuge eines Schiffbruchs, wo er die Erbarmungslosigkeit und Gier der Menschen, aber auch die herzliche Dankbarkeit der Geretteten erlebt. Dabei lernt er den Bonzen Tu Fu kennen, der ihn für eine Weile zu sich einlädt und ihm seine Lebensgeschichte erzählt.

Liu Weijian : Seckendorff kannte die taoistische Philosophie nur durch Philippe Couplet [ID D1758] und Martino Martini [ID D1703]. Er beschreibt in der unvollendeten Abhandlung Das Rad des Schicksals wie Lao-tse [Laozi] seinen Schüler Tschoang-tse [Zhuangzi], der für die hohe Weisheit noch nicht reif ist, in die Welt schickt, damit er wie ein Schmetterling von Lebensblume zu Lebensblume fliege, verschiedene Lebensabschnitte durchwandere und Erfahrungen mache, bis er schliesslich das Leere aller menschlichen Vergnügungen erkenne und sein Schicksal selbst behrrsche. Damit stellt Seckendorff einen weisen Laozi dem verbreiteten Bild des Gründers einer moralisch verkommenen Sekte entgegen, der die Wollust propagiert. Er macht die Unterscheidung zwischen dem Weisen und seinem Schüler deutlich, der der Versuchung der Welt noch nicht widerstehen kann... Im Buch wird im ersten Kapitel Laozi als Weltweiser beschrieben, der mit grauen Haaren auf die Welt kommt, das Land durchwandert, später in einer bescheidenen Hütte in idyllischer Landschaft seine Heimat findet und dort als Philosoph eine Schülergemeinde zur Weisheit führt. Anschliessend beschreibt er Laozis Lehre in drei Fragenkomplexen : Wer bin ich ? Wo bin ich ? Warum bin ich?... Von dem müssigen Bonzen Tou-fou heben sich Lao-tsee [Laozi], der sich über die irdischen Vergnügungen erhebt, und Tchoan-gsee [Zhuangzi], der nach der Wahrheit Lao-tsees sucht, deutlich ab. Durch diese Unterscheidung des taoistischen Meisters von seinen angeblichen verkommenen Schülern wird Laozi von Seckendorff gewürdigt. Seckendorff benutzt statt des Begriffes "die grosse Vernunft" den Begriff "das höchste Westen", das als Urquelle aller Kraft die ganze Natur belebt und zugleich als seinen Wirkungs-Kreis bedient. Das entspricht Laozis Unterscheidung zwischen dem Tao als Potentialität aller Wesen und dem Te als dessen Aktualität. Darüberhinaus versucht er die Übereinstimmung der Natur mit dem höchsten Wesen zu unterstreichen. Seckendorff lässt Laozi erklären, dass die Natur für die Wirkung des unveränderlichen höchsten Wesens immer unumgänglich nötig und darum auch dementsprechend ewig sei... Weiterhin beschreibt er im Namen des Laozi, dass die Natur als Wirkungsmittel des höchsten Wesens zugleich nach dessen Gesetz vielen Veränderungen, Mannigfaltigkeiten und Verwandlungen unterworfen sei. Gleich einem unermesslichen Rad, dessen Achse die Zeit, dessen Laufbahn die Ewigkeit sei, wälze die Natur das Schicksal zahlreicher Wesen mit sich fort... Dann befasst er sich mit der Idee von der harmonischen Einheit des Lebens : Der Mensch bestehe aus dem wollenden freien Geist und dem handelnden beschränkten Körper. Da die beiden sich stets widersprächen, solle der Mensch dem Gesetz des höchsten Wesens folgen, das dem wollenden Geist die Fesseln gebe und zugleich ihm solche erträglich mache, damit die beiden in brüderlicher Eintracht lebten... Seckendorff unterscheidet Laozi von seinen angeblichen unmoralischen Anhängern und versucht einen Beitrag zu einer vorurteilsfreieren Annäherung an die taoistische Philosophie zu leisten.