Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/101

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 81 forty centuries ; ^3 and which is able to verify a series of near two thousand years, by the perpetual testimony of accurate and contemporary historians.^* The annals of China -^ illustrate the state and revolutions of the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars ; the vassals, the enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire ; whose policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valour of the Barbarians of the North. From the mouth of the Danube to the sea of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be so easily or so accurately measured ; but, fi-om the fortieth degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate, instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke which issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses and the Samoiedes : the want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of reindeer and of large dogs ; and the conquerors 23 The sera of the Chinese monarchy has been variously fixed, from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ ; and the year 2637 has been chosen for the lawful epoch by the authority of the present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain duration of the two first dynasties : and the vacant space that lies beyond them as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi, or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the year 841 : the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty-one of which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and 480 before Christ. The historical period of China does not ascend above the Greek Olym- piads. Christ 206) was the agra of the revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored ; the characters were improved and fixed, and the future preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before Christ Sematsien published the first history of China. His labours were illustrated and continued by a series of one hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is still extant, and the most considerable of them are now deposited in the king of France's library. 25 China has been illustrated by the labours of the French ; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and de Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is extracted from The Chou-king with the preface and notes of M. de Guignes, Paris, 1770 ; the Tong-Kicn-Kang-Mou translated by the P. de Mailla, under the name of Hist. G6n(^rale de la Chine, tom. i. p. xlix.-cc. ; the M^moires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom. i. p. 1-323, tom. ii. p. 5-364 ; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 1-131, tom. v. p. 345-362; and the M^moires de I'Acad^mie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377-402, tom. xv. p. 495-564, tom. xviii. p. 178-295, tom. xxxvi. p. 164-238. VOL. III. 6
 * After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the dynasty of the Han (before