I shall commence with the Chinese Empire, because, among the fifteen historical countries included in the line of civilization we have drawn above, it occupies the extreme point of Eastern Asia. The names of East and West are indeed purely relative; and have not the same permanent and definite signification as the North or South pole in every portion of the globe. China lies to the west of Peru; and to North America, or Brazil, Europe forms the east or north-east point. We still however adhere to common speech, purely relative as it is, and take our point of view from this Asiatic and European hemisphere, in which we dwell. If we would extend in a westerly direction and to the great continent of America, which is more and more assuming an important place in the history of the world, that series of great and civilized states, stretching from the south-east to the north-west in our mightier, more celebrated, and earlier civilized hemisphere, we might add to the before-mentioned fifteen ancient and modern countries three young or rising states in the new world, which, springing in a three-fold division from British, Spanish, and Portuguese extraction, would constitute the most recent, or last historical links in this chain of communities. The Chinese empire is the largest of all the Monarchies now existing on the earth, and even in this respect may well challenge the attention of the historical enquirer. This empire is not absolutely the greatest in territorial extent, though even in this respect it is scarcely inferior to the greatest; but in point of population it is in all probability the first. Spain, if we could now include in the number of her possessions her American colonies, would exceed all empires in extent. The same may be said of Russia, with her annexed colonies, and boundless provinces in the north of Asia. But, great as the population of this Empire may be, when considered in itself and relatively to the other European states, it can sustain no comparison with that of China. England with the East Indies and her colonial possessions in the three divisions of the globe, Polynesia, Africa, and America, has indeed a very wide extent, and, perhaps, when we include the hundred and ten millions that own her sway in India, comes the nearest in point of population to China. Of the amount of the Chinese population, which is not with certainty known, that of India may furnish a criterion for a conjectural and probable estimate. The British ambassador, Lord Macartney received an official document, in which the whole population of China was computed at the monstrous amount of 330 millions. Even if the Chinese possessed those exact statistical estimates we have in Europe, it would still be a matter of doubt how far in such cases we could confide in their veracity, especially in their relations with foreigners and Europeans. In another and somewhat earlier statistical work, composed towards the