gaged in building a superb palace; and desired to sell it before it was finished. One day he would think of nothing but war, and only officers, Tartars and Cossacks, were admitted to his presence. The next day he was busily employed in politics; he would partition the Ottoman empire, and set all the cabinets of Europe in motion. At other times he played the courtier; dressed in a magnificent suit, covered with ribands, the gift of every potentate: displaying diamonds of extraordinary magnitude and brilliancy, be was giving splendid entertainments without any motive.

"For whole months together, neglecting alike business and decorum, he would openly pass his evenings at the apartments of a young female. Sometimes shut up in his room for successive weeks with his nieces and some intimate friends, he would lounge on a sofa without speaking; play at chess or at cards with his legs bare, his shirt collar unbuttoned, wrapped up in a morning gown, knitting his eyebrows, and looking like an unpolished and squalid Cossack.

"These singularities, though they frequently put Catharine out of humour, rendered him yet more interesting to her. In his youth he had pleased her by the ardour of his passion, by his valour, and by his masculine beauty: at a more advanced period in life, he continued to charm her by flattering her pride, by calming her apprehensions, by confirming her power, by caressing her dreams of oriental empire, the expulsion of the barbarians, and the restoration of the Grecian republics."

Surely, were even the life of such a man not connected with the political and military transactions of a vast empire under the despotic sway of an ambitious princess, it would still be calculated to interest those who, thinking that "the most proper study for mankind is man," eagerly search for opportunities of becoming acquainted with human nature in its most capricious form.

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MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF CONFUCIUS.

[From the Monthly Magazine.]

[AMONG other literary gratifications which have resulted from the recent cultivation of oriental literature may be named the publication of the original text of the works of CONFUCIUS, and of a translation of the same by Mr. JAMES MARSHMAN. Nor is it the least interesting fact attending the appearance of this workthat it was printed at SERAMPORE, in Bengal, at a printing-press set up by the ENGLISH MISSIONARIES. We treat it therefore as a foreign work, although printed in the English language, and presume we shall gratify our readers by presenting them with the prefatory memoirs of this great philosopher as they are read and received among his countrymen.]

THE See-khee says that Khoong-chee's proper name was Hyaou, and his literary name Choong-ni. His ancestors were originally of the Soong country; but his father, whose name was Sook-leong-gnit, was a mandarine of considerable rank in the kingdom of Loo. His mother's name was Gnansee. In the twenty-second year of Syong-koong, the sovereign of Loo, (the forty-seventh year of the cycle), was Khoong-chee born, in Chhong-peng, a town in the district of Chhou, of which his father was mandarine. This, according to Du Halde, was in the reign of Ling-wong, (or vang, as he writes it), the twentythird emperor of the Chou (Tcheou) dynasty, and 551 years before the christian era.

The paternal name of the sage was Khoong, and his proper name Hyaou, (or Haou-for the Chinese, through respect, forbear to pronounce the real name). Chee, properly a son, is a term of respect originally applied, according to the imperial dictionary, to a man possessing real virtue; when added to quun, a ruler, &c., it forms the appellation of quun-chee, which, according to the same authority, is applied to a man eminent or complete in virtue; and is translated "the honourable man." Hoo, or Fhoo, lord, chief, &c., prefixed to chee, forms an appellative usually given to a teacher, and applied to Confucius by way of eminence. Khoong-fhoo-chee, therefore, or Con-fu-ci-us, is, literally, "The master, or teacher, Khoong." As this title, incorporated with his paternal name, is now current among Europeans as the sage's proper name, Fhoo, or Hoo-chee, is sometimes rendered as a proper name where it occurs as an appellation of the sage, although it really means the great master or teacher. Khoong-chee is the sage's most common appellative.

When quite a child, Confucius was modest, grave, and cour teous in his deportment, and delighted in imitating, in his puerile way, the ceremonies of worship used in the temples. He was also exceedingly fond of inquiring into the nature of things; which inquisitive temper is said to have exposed him, on a certain occasion, to censure, when inquiring about the nature of things in his paternal temple. At the age of fifteen he gave himself up to more serious studies, and making the maxims and examples of the ancient sages the constant subjects of his contemplation. He acknowledges, that in his youth he was reduced to great straits, and that this gave occasion for his acquiring skill in horsemanship, archery, and various other arts.

When he was little more than twenty, he was appointed to superintend the distribution of grain; and afterwards made superintendent of cattle, in which employment he acquitted himself with great reputation. After some time, however, he went into the Chou country, to profit from the instructions which Laou-chee-tou-kwun, an aged and celebrated teacher, then gave on manners and morals; and on his return to his own country, soon found himself surrounded by a great number of disciples.

Chee-koong, the son of Syong-koong, being compelled, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, (and in the twenty-first year of the cycle), to fly to the Chhi country, because his own kingdom, Loo, was in a state of insurrection, Khoong-chee himself, who was now thirty-five years of age, left Loo, and went into the Chhi country, where he was employed by Kou-cheu-chee, a mandarine of the second order; and at length introduced to Kung-koong, the petty sovereign of Chhi. This prince wished to bestow on Khoong-chee a place of high trust, but An-yun, his principal minister, dissuading him from it, he laid aside his design; yet Khoong-chee praises this minister, as a man truly virtuous, inasmuch as he was constant in his attachment to his friends. After an absence of more than seven years, Khoongchee, in the first year of Tung-koong, and the thirty-ninth year of the cycle, returned to his own country, Loo. He was then in his forty-third year.

We may here begin the second period of the sage's life, which extends to his voluntary exile in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and embraces a period of thirteen years. During this time he had to contend with a wicked and powerful faction in his own country, over whom his virtue and wisdom at length completely triumphed, and placed him at the head of affairs, dispensing happiness around as a father and benefactor. Qui-see, the youngest of three brothers, and a mandarine of the same rank with the sage's father, had at this time usurped all authority: and, some time after, his minister, Yong-fhoo, raised an insur

rection, set up for himself, and for a considerable time managed affairs in the most unjust and oppressive manner. This Qui-see, or, more properly, Qui-suen-see, and his two elder brothers, Mung-suen-see, Sook-suen-see, formed the three houses whose pride the sage reprobates in the third book of the Lun-gnee. With the vanity, extravagance, and folly of these three brothers, the sage seems to have had perpetually to contend.

In this state of things, Khoong-chee declined all share in the management of public affairs; and, retiring into obscurity, employed himself in revising, correcting, and arranging, the See, the Sew, and the Ly, three of the five king or classical books, held in the highest veneration by the Chinese, and by Du Halde, termed their "Livres Canoniques du premier Ordre.” Disciples, however, flocked around him again in multitudes, whom he instructed with the utmost diligence and condescension. In the ninth year after his return, the thirty-seventh year of the cycle, and the fifty-first of his age, Koong-san-put-gneu, a mandarine of Pay, raised great disturbances in Loo; upon which Qui-see called the sage to assist him with his advice and talents. The philosopher felt a strong desire to lend him his aid in this time of distress, notwithstanding his past conduct; but Chee-loo, his disciple, opposed it so strongly, that he laid aside his design.

Soon after this, Tung-koong, the king of Loo, appointed Confucius mandarine of Choong-too, a small district; and, within a year, a reformation of manners was visible among the people in all the parts around. The sage was soon advanced to a higher station, and quickly after to one still superior. In the thirty-eighth year of the cycle he concluded a treaty of alliance with the chief of the Chhi country, who, in consequence, restored all the places he had taken from Loo.

In Tung-koong's fourteenth year, Confucius, who was now fifty-six years of age, accepted the office of chief minister of Loo, and discharged the various duties of his station with such ability, diligence, and impartiality, that, in three months, the affairs of Loo assumed a totally different aspect; peace and tranquillity were restored throughout the whole country, and every thing wore the appearance of prosperity and happiness.

The petty sovereign of the Chhi country, beholding the prosperous state of Loo, was filled with jealousy and envy; and, at length, collecting a number of dancing-girls, versed in all the arts of allurement, sent them into the country of Loo. The dissipated Qui-see, the ancient enemy of his country, and of the sage, gladly received them, and introduced them to the court; and feasting, excess, and riot, quickly turned the attention of VOL. I. 2D ED.

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both prince and people from the instructions of the sage, and the duties of morality and religion. Every attempt to stem the torrent of vice and dissipation proving fruitless, Khoong-chee át length quitted the scene: and sought, in the neighbouring provinces of China, those who would lend a more willing ear to his instructions.

This introduces the third period of Confucius's life, in which we behold the venerable sage wandering from province to province, for the space of nearly twelve years, exposed to poverty and insult, and often in the most imminent danger of his life. He first went into the Wy country, where he remained for some time in the house of Gnan-chok-chou, the brother-in-law of Chee-loo: from thence he went into the province of Chun, where he found every thing so inimical to his views and wishes, that he quickly passed from thence to that of Hong. Here, however, the men of Hong imagining him to be Yong-fhoo, the iniquitous minister of Qui-see, whom he very much resembled in countenance, detained the aged sage in confinement, and threatened to take away his life. It was on this occasion that he supported himself with those reflections on Divine Providence which occur in the fifth book of the Lun-gnee. The men of Hong, at length, perceiving their mistake, dismissed the philosopher unhurt.

Confucius, after this, returned to the Wy country again, and remained for some time at the house of Kheu-pak-yok, a mandarine of the second order. It was here that he, at her earnest and repeated request, visited Nam-chee, the wife of Lungkoong, the sovereign of that country. This was the woman, respecting whom Chee-loo, his faithful and affectionate, but rash and precipitate pupil, was so displeased with him, that the sage was constrained to attest his innocence by appealing to heaven.

From Wy he departed to the province of Soong, from whence his ancestors originally came. Here Hoon-khooi, a mandarine, who hated philosophy and all knowledge, attempted to kill the venerable sage; but was by some means prevented. Destitute of an asylum, he, after this, returned again to the Chun country, and remained in the house of See-kun-cheng-chee, where he continued three years, practising every virtue. From thence, however, he returned to Wy, where Lung-koong would gladly have employed him in the mandarineship; but the jealousy of his other mandarines would not permit him.

About this time the sage went westward, with the view of paying a visit to Cheu-kan-chee; but, coming to the river which parted the two districts, he was unable to obtain a conveyance over it, which compelled him to return again to the Wy country. Here he remained with Kheu-pak-yok; till one day Lung-koong,