existed in the breasts of his brethren and canons, who, besides their numerous excesses, had so often proved themselves perjured to the church, thought it no longer honourable for him to remain a member of their society; upon which he went to the archbishop, with whom a perfect reconciliation had taken place, and revealing his intentions to him in the most confidential manner, requested him to use his interest with the bishop of David's, on behalf of his nephew, a young man, to whom he wished to resign his archdeaconry and prebendary. The archbishop at first hesitated, but afterwards consented, and procured the appointment of Philip de Barri to the preferment which his uncle Giraldus was desirous of resigning in his favour. Philip appears to have been the youngest son of his brother Philip de Barri, for whom Giraldus had the greatest affection. His father had bestowed upon him a literary education, and had on his deathbed beseeched his brother to advance him in the church, and to procure him the reversion of his own preferment. Thus Giraldus, both affectionately and essentially, complied with the wishes of his departed brother, by bestowing on his son a most ample revenue: lie often most appropriately repeated to his nephew those lines of Virgil, in which the poet makes Æneas address his son,

Disce puer virtutem ex me, verumque laborem, Fortunam ex aliis.'

"He passed the last seventeen years of his life in Wales; employed in revising his former literary works, and in composing others, of which he has himself given a copious index. In the midst of these avocations, he received once more an offer of the bishopric of Saint David's, and was likely to meet with no opposition from the court; but from the dishonourable terms on which it was proffered, he refused the acceptance of that ecclesiastical dignity, which, during the greater part of his life, had been the object of his most earnest wishes.

"He died at Saint David's, in the seventy-fourth yeat of his age, and was buried in the cathedral church.

"Noble in his birth, and comely in his person; mild in his manners, and affable in his conversation; zealous, active, and undaunted in maintaining the rights and dignities of his church; moral in his charac ter, and orthodox in his principles; charitable and disinterested, though ambitious; learned though superstitious;

"SUCH WAS GIRALDUS.

"And in whatever point of view we examine the character of this extraordinary man, whether as a scholar, a patriot, or a divine, we may justly consider him as one of the brightest luminaries that adorned the annals of the twelfth century."

MANNERS

Ν

IN attempting to drech a very general sketch of the character of this nation, I am not unaware of the risk I incur of being drawn into error. To speak correctly of the manners and opinions of foreign nations; to trace the motives of their actions and the grounds of their prejudices; to examine the effects produced on the temper and disposition of the people by the civil and religious institutions; and to inquire into their ideas of moral right and wrong, their notions of taste, of beauty, of happiness, and many other subjects necessary to be investigated before a thorough knowledge can be obtained of their true character and real condition, require not only a long residence in the country, but an intimate acquaintance with all the various classes of society and, after all, an accurate portrait is hardly to be expected. What can be more ridiculous than a Frenchman attempting to describe English manners, or more preposterous than a German dramatizing the English character? There are, however, certain strongly marked features which, prevailing in the mass of the people, may safely be set down as national

characteristics; and from such only the few observations I have to make on the Cochinchinese were derived. Some of them, indeed, might perhaps be entirely local, and applicable only to that part of the sea coast on which we landed.

"It is scarcely necessary to observe, what I apprehend is gene rally known, that Cochinchina, until a few centuries after the Christian æra, formed a part of the Chinese empire; and that the general fea tures of the natives, many of the customs, the written language, the religious opinions and ceremonies still retained by them, indicate distinctly their Chinese origin. In the northern provinces, however, they are more strongly marked than in those to the southward. The same characteristics are likewise discernible, but in a fainter degree, in Siam, which is properly Se-yang, or the western country; in Pe-gu, probably Pe-quo, or the nor thern province; and in Ava and the rest of the petty states now comprehended under the Birman empire, where, however, from an intermixture with the Malays of Malacca and the Hindoos of the upper and eastern regions of Hin

dostan,

dostan, the traces of the Chinese character are in many respects nearly obliterated. The Cochinchinese of Turon, notwithstanding the loose manners of the women, which I shall presently have occasion to notice, and the tendency which all revolutions in governments have to change, in a greater or less degree, the character of the people, have preserved in most respects a close resemblance to their original, though in some points they differ from it very widely. They perfectly agree, for instance, in the etiquette observed in marriage and funeral processions and ceremonies, in the greater part of religious superstitions, in the offerings usually presented to idols, in the consultation of oracles, and in the universal propensity of inquiring into futurity by casting of lots; in charming away diseases; in the articles of diet and the mode of preparing them; in the nature of most of their public entertainments and amusements; in the construction and devices of fire-works; in instruments of music, games of chance, cock-fighting and quailfighting. The spoken language of Cochinchina, though on the same principle, is so much changed from the original as to be nearly, if not wholly, unintelligible to a Chinese; but the written character is precisely the same. All the temples which fell under our observation were very humble buildings; and we saw no specimens either of the heavy curved roofs, or of the towering pagodas, so frequently met with in China; but it seems there are, in many parts of the country, monasteries that are amply endowed, whose buildings are extensive and enclosed with walls for their better security. The houses in general near Turon bay consisted

only of four mud walls, covered with thatch; and such as are si. tuated on low grounds, in the neighbourhood of rivers, are usually raised upon four posts of wood, or pillars of stone, to keep out vermin as well as inundations.

"The dress of the Cochinchinese has undergone not only an alteration, but a very considerable abridg ment. They wear neither thick shoes, nor quilted stockings, nor clumsy satin boots, nor petticoats stuffed with wadding; but always go barelegged and generally barefooted. Their long black hair, like that of the Malays, is usually twisted into a knot and fixed on the crown of the head. This, indeed, is the ancient mode in which the Chinese wore their hair, until the Tartars, on the conquest of the country, compelled them to submit to the ignominy of shaving the whole head except a little lock of hair behind.

"On the precepts of Confucius is grounded the moral system for the regulation of the conduct in this country as well as in China. Here, however, to the exterior forms of morality very little regard seems to be paid. In China these precepts are gaudily displayed in golden characters in every house, in the streets and public places; but here they are seldom seen and never heard. Were they, indeed, repeated in their original language, (and they will scarcely bear a transla-ion,) they would not be understood. Their conduct, in general, seems to be as little influenced by the solemn precepts of religion as by those of morality. The Cochinchinese are, like the French, always gay and for ever taiking; the Chi nese, always grave and affect to be thinking: the former are open and familiar, the latter close and re

served.

served. A Chinese would consider it as disgraceful to commit any affair of importance to a woman. Women, in the estimation of the Cochinchinese, are best suited for, and are accordingly entrusted with, the chief concerns of the family. The Chinese code of politeness forbids a woman to talk unless by way of reply, to laugh beyond a smile, to sing unless desired, and as to dancing, she labours under a physical restriction which makes this kind of movement impossible. In Cochinchina the women are quite as gay and as unrestrained as the men. And as a tolerable accurate conclusion may be drawn of the state of their society, from the condition in which the female part of it is placed, and the consideration in which the female character is held among them, I shall be more particular in describing the situation here assigned to them, in so far at least as our limited means afforded us the opportunity of observing, than on other points.

"In some of the provinces of China women are condemned to the degrading and laborious task of dragging the plough, and other wise employed in various kinds of heavy drudgery. In Cochinchina it would appear likewise to be the fate of the weaker sex to be doomed to those occupations which require, if not the greatest exertions of bodily strength, at least the most persevering industry. We observed them day after day, and from morning till night, standing in the midst of pools of water, up to the knees, occupied in the transplanting of rice. In fact, all the labours of tillage, and the various employments connected with agriculture, seem to fall to the share of the female peasantry; whilst those in Turon, to the management of do

mestic concerns, add the superintendance of all the details of commerce. They even assist in constructing and keeping in repair their mud-built cottages; they conduct the manufacture of coarse earthern ware vessels; they manage the boats on rivers and in barbours; they bear their articles of produce to market; they draw the cotton wool from the pod, free it from the seeds, spin it into thread, weave it into cloth, dye it of its proper colour, and make it up into dresses for themselves and their families. Almost all the younger part of the males are compelled to enrol themselves in the army; and such as are exempt from military service employ themselves occasionally in fishing, in collecting swallows' nests and the Biches de mer among the neighbouring islands, as luxuries for the use of their own great men, but more particularly as articles of export for the China market; in felling timber; building and repairing ships and boats, and a few other occupations which, however, they take care shall not engross their whole time, but contrive to leave a considerable portion of it unemployed, or employed only in the pursuit of some favorite amusement: for they are not by any means of an idle disposition. But the activity and industry of the women are so unabating, their pursuits so varied, and the fatigue they undergo so harassing, that the Cochinchinese apply to them the same proverbial expression which we confer on a cat, observing that a woman, having nine lives, bears a great deal of killing. It is evident indeed, from the whole tenor of their conduct, that the men, even in the common ranks of life, consider the other sex as destined for their use; and those in a higher

station,

station, as subservient to their pleasures. The number of wives or of concubines which a man may find it expedient to take is not limited by any law or rule; but here, as in China, the first in point of date claims precedence and takes the lead in all domestic concerns. The terms on which the parties are united are not more easy than those by which they may be separated To break a sixpence between two parting lovers is considered, among the peasantry of some of the counties in England, as an avowal and pledge of unalterable fidelity. In Cochinchina, the breaking of one of their copper crins or a pair of chop-sticks between man and wife, before proper witnesses, is considered as a dissolution of their for mer compact, and the act of sepa

ration.

"In China the men have sedulously and successfully inculcated the doctrine, that a well-bred woman should never be seen abroad; that she should confine herself constantly to her own apartments; that in the presence of even her nearest male relations she should not expose her neck and her hands, to prevent which her gown is buttoned up close to the chin, and its sleeves hang down below the knee and so craftily have they contrived their precepts to operate, that the silly women have actually been pre vailed on to consider a physical defect which confines them to the house as a fashionable accomplishment. Here, in this respect, there is a total difference with regard to the sex. So far from the Cochinchinese women being deprived of the free use of their limbs or their liberty, they have the enjoyment of both to the fullest extent. It certainly was not in Cochinchina where Eudoxus, in his Travels, is 1806.

said to have observed the feet of the women to be so small, that they might with propriety be distinguished by the name of the Ostrich-footed; fœminis plantas adeo parvas ut Struthopodes appellentur; as, by their bustling about with naked feet, they become unusually large and spreading; but the nane might aptly enough be applied to the feet of the Chinese ladies, whose undefined and lumpish form is not unlike the foot of the ostrich.

"Extremes often approximate. The same cause which in China has operated this total seclusion of the sex from society and the abridgmem of their physical powers, has produced in Cochinchina a diametrically opposite effect, by permitting them to revel uncontrolled in every species of licentiousness. This cause is their being degraded in public opinion, and considered as beings of an inferior nature to the men. Thus situated, character becomes of little value either to themselves or to others; and, from all accounts, it appears they are fully sensible of its unimportance in this respect. The consequence of which is, that women of less scrupulosity, or men of more accommodating dispositions, are not certainly to be met with in any part of the world than those in the environs of Turon bay. It is to be hoped, however, that the general character of the nation may not exactly correspond with that which prevails at one of the most frequented of its sea-port towns. The singular indulgence, granted by the laws of Solon, of permitting young women to dispose of personal favours, for the purpose of enabling them to procure articles of the first necessity for themselves or their families, is sanctioned by the Cochinchinese without any li mitation

H