minute formality of a household, in conformity with its household origin. Arrived at that condition thirty centuries ago, the Chinese are commonly supposed to have remained nearly stationary ever since, and to offer at this day a living picture of the condition of their nation three thousand years ago. We recently showed, from the history of this curious people, how fallacious was this opinion, alike in regard to their religion and their government, and filled in with broad touch the more salient features which have characterised the material and intellectual career of the nation throughout its forty centuries of vicissitude. Now, dispensing with abstract disquisitions, we desire to present to our readers a rapid _coup-d’œil_ of the national life of China, especially in its more practical and social aspects. In length of years the Chinese Empire has no rival; nor is it easy to find, in the rest of the world’s history, any States which may profitably be paralleled with it. In point of extent and populousness, the only ancient empire that can at all compare with it is the Roman; yet, in almost every other respect, they differ as widely as it is possible for any two States to do. Rome founded its empire wholly by the sword, China mainly by the ploughshare; the former by daring soldiers, the latter by plodding peasants. The conquests of Rome were those of a city that came to cast its chains over a world; the triumphs of China were those of a prolific nation, that absorbed its very conquerors. The splendid talents of the Roman generals, the ardour of the citizens to extend the republic, the thirst for glory, and the matchless skill and self-devotion of the legionaries, may find nothing equal among the sons of Han; but these latter produced heroes of peace, who instructed the people in industry and the useful arts, and increased by their skill the riches and population of the country. The former were masters in the art of destroying, the latter in that of preserving and multiplying human life. In China we must not (at least nowadays) look for the noble sentiments and grand actions which immortalised Greece and Rome. We find there an industrious but common-minded race, which strives stoutly to maintain its existence, however its numbers may multiply, and which finds no heart to sacrifice life for glory, no time to postpone business for politics. The rice-bearing plains are the fields of their glory, the centre of their hopes; and as they trudge forth to their never-ceasing labours, thus they sing:— “The sun comes forth, and we work; The sun goes down, and we rest. We dig wells, and we drink; We sow fields, and we eat. The Emperor’s power, what is it to us?”[35]