fiquor is very fresh it is whitifh; but when it is put into a fmall wooden veffel it becomes very brown. This drink is kept in all the inns, as wine in the taverns of Europe. It conftitutes their entertainment at feftivals and times of rejoicing, and it is ufed as wine by perfons of diftinction at their meals. The Japanese never drink it cold, but, heating it in common tea-kettles, pour it out into fhallow cups of varnished wood, and take it very warm. They very foon become intoxicated; but this paffes off in a few minutes, leaving behind a fevere head-ach. Sacki is imported to Batavia, where it is drank before meals to whet the appetite; the white fort, on account of its lefs difagreeable tafte, is preferred. Tea is ufed over all the country to allay thirft. Hence a kettle with boiling water and pulverized tea is kept over the fire in every house, and more especially in every inn. The brown decoction is diluted and cooled with cold water. Smoking of tobacco was not an ancient practice in Japan, It was probably introduced by the Portuguefe. The Japanefe have no other name for this plant; both fexes fmoke. The quantity confumed is all reared in the country, and is the common fort. It is divided into filaments almost as fine as hair. The pipes are small, fcarce more than fix inches long; they are of varnished bamboos, with head and mouth-piece of copper. The head is fo fmall, that fcarce the third of a can be put in, which is done with the finger. A pipe is finished at a few draughts; it is then emptied of the ashes, and filled again. The fmoke is blown out through both the noftrils and mouth. Perfons of diftinction ufe the following apparatus: An oblong box, nine inches long, fix broad, and three fingers high, is fet before every guest. In this are laid pipes and tobacco; and three cups are fet at the same time, all of which are ufed in fmoking. One of thefe cups, which are generally of thick porcelain, is filled with afhes, on which a live coal is placed to light the pipe: the second serves to receive the afhes, which are ftruck out of the pipe when it is finished; it is ufual to extinguish them by spitting upon them: the third cup is used as a spitting-box. When vifits are made, this apparatus is the first thing which is prefented. A box of this kind is fometimes provided with a cover, which is fastened on with a ribband, and carried by a fervant, when they go to places where they do not expect to be treated with tobacco. The common people generally carry both pipes and tobacco with them when they go out. The pipe is put into a cafe, which is ftuck in the girdle on the right fide. The purfes for holding tobacco are fcarce a hand in length or breadth; they are provided with a flap, which is faftened with an ivory hook. These purfes are fufpended at the girdle by a filken ftring, and a cornelian, or a piece of agate. They are generally made of a peculiar fort of filk, with interwoven flowers of gold and filver. The fciences are very far from having arrived at the fame height in Japan as in Europe. The hiftory of the country is, notwithstanding, more authentic, perhaps, than that of any other country; and it is ftudied, without diftinction, by all. Agriculture, which is confidered as the art moft neceffary, and most conducive to the fupport and profperity of the kingdom, is no where in the world brought to fuch perfection as here, where neither civil nor foreign war, nor emigration, diminishes population; and where a thought is never entertained, either of getting poffeffion of other countries, or to import the ufelefs, and often hurtful productions of foreign lands; but where the utmost care is taken that no turf lies uncultivated, and no produce of the earth unemployed. Aftronomy is purfued and respected; but the natives are unable, without the aid of Chinese, and fometimes of Dutch almanacks, to form a true calendar, or calculate an eclipfe of the fun or moon within minutes and feconds. Medicine has neither arrived, nor is it likely to arrive at any degree of perfection. Anatomy is totally unknown; the knowledge of diseases imperfect, intricate, and often fabulous. Botany, and the knowledge of medicines, conftitute the whole of their skill. They use only fimples; and these generally in diuretic and diaphoretic decoctions. They are unacquainted with compound medicines. Their phyficians always, indeed, feel the pulfe; but they are very tedious, not quitting for a quarter of an hour; besides, they examine first one, and then the other arm, as if the blood was not driven by the fame heart to both pulfes. Befides those diseases which they have in common with other countries, or peculiar to themselves, the venereal disease is very frequent, which they have only as yet understood how to alleviate by decoctions, thought to purify the blood. Salivation, which their phyficians have heard mentioned by the Dutch furgeons, appears to them extremely formidable, both to conduct and to undergo; but they received, with gratitude and joy, the method of cure by aqua mercurialis, which I had the fatisfaction first to inftruct them in. Different interpreters used this method as early as the year 1775 or 1776, and perfectly reftored, under my direction, many, both in Nogafaki and out of it. Jurifprudence is not an extenfive ftudy in Japan. No country has thinner law-books, or fewer judges. Explanations of the laws, and advocates, are things altogether unknown; but no where, perhaps, are the laws more certainly put in force, without refpect to perfons, without partiality or violence. violence. They are very ftrict, and law-fuits very fhort. The Japanese know little more of phyfics or chemistry, than what they have learned of late years of the Europeans. Manufactures are much practifed through the whole country. In fome cafes they are inferior, in others they are fuperior, to the best-wrought articles of European induftry. They work very well in copper and iron. Their filks and cottons equal, and fometimes exceed, those wrought in India. Their varnished wood-ware, especially the old, exceed every thing of the kind which other countries have produced. Agriculture is in the higheft repute. Notwithstanding the wildness of the mountains, the foil, even of the mountains. themfelves, as well as the hills, is cultivated up to the very top. They need not there premiums and encouragement; fince, in that country, the farmer is confidered as the most ufeful citizen; nor is he oppreffed by those numerous burdens which, in other countries, prevent, and at all times will prevent, the improvement of his art. He is fubject to none of thofe various fervices which, in many countries of Europe, confume so much of his time and his labour. His whole ob ligation confifts in the neceffity of cultivating his land. If a farmer does not, every year, employ a certain part of his land, he lofes it, and another, who is able, may take it. Thus he may employ his whole ftudy and time in the care of his land, affifted in it by his wife and children. There are no meadows in the whole country, but the whole land is either ploughed or planted; and, no fpace being loft in extenfive meadows, for the fupport of cattle, nor in large and useless plantations of tobacco, nor in rearing grain of fecondary use, the whole country is covered with habitations and people, and is able to maintain, in plenty, its innumerable inhabitants. In no part is manure collected with greater induftry; fo that nothing, which can be employed for this purpose, is loft. The cattle are fed at home all the year, that every thing which falls from them may remain in the yard; and horfes upon the road are followed by old men and children, for the fake of their dung; nay, even urine itself, which fo feldom is used to fertilize the fields of Europe, is carefully collected in earthen pitchers, which are buried in the ground, not only in the vil lages, but here and there by the fide of the high road. The manure, thus fcrupulously collected, is ufed in a manner very different from that of any other country. The Japanese does not carry out his dunghill, either in winter or in fummer, into his fallows, to be dried by a burning fun, and to lofe ftrength by the evaporation of the volatile falt and oils, but he fubmits to the difagreeable task of mixing various forts of dung, and the refufe of the kitchen, with urine and water, till it fo ms an uniform thin pafte, which he carries out in two large buckets to his field, and waters the plant, now grown to the height of a few inches, by means of a ladie, taking care that the moisture fhall penetrate to the root By this method of manuring, and by affiduous weeding, the fields are kept fo perfectly free of weeds, that the moit fharp-fighted will scarce be able to difcover, in a journey of feveral days, a strange plant among the crops. The pains taken by the farmer, to till even the parched fides of the mountains, exceeds belief. Though the fpot should not be above a yard square, he will raise a stonewall in the declivity, fill it within with earth, and manure and fow rice, or plant fome vegetable. A thoufand fuch beds adorn almost every hill, and give them an appearance which furprifes the fpectator. Rice is the principal grain. Buck-wheat, rye, barley, and wheat, are feldom ufed. The batata is the moft abundant and agreeable Several forts of beans and peas are planted in great quantities; as also muftard, from the feeds of which they exprefs oil for lamps; its yellow flowers conftitute the ornament of whole fields. Their computation of time takes its rife from MIN-o, or 660 years before Chrift. The year is divided according to the changes of the moon; fo that fome years confist of twelve, and others of thirteen months; and the beginning of the year falls out in February or March. They have no weeks confifting of feven days, or of fix working days and a holiday; but the firft and fifteenth day of the month serve for a holiday. On thefe days no work is done. On new-year'sday they go round to wish one another a new year, with their whole families, clad, in white and blue checquered, their hos liday drefs; and they rest almost the whole of the first month. The day is divided only into twelve hours; and in this divifion they are directed the whole year by the rifing and fetting of the fun. They reckon fix o'clock at the rifing, and fix likewife at the fetting of the fun. Midday and midnight are always at nine. Time is not measured by clocks, or hour-glasses, but with burning matches, which are twifted together like ropes, and divided by knots. When the match is burnt to a knot, which indicates a certain portion of time elapfed, notice is given, during the day, by friking the bells of the temples; and in the night, by the watchmen ftriking two boards against one another. A child is always reckoned a year old at the end of the year of his birth, whether this happen at the beginning or the clofe. A few days after the beginning of the year, is performed the horrid ceremony of trampling on images reprefenting the crofs, ard the Virgin Mary with her child. The images are of melted copper, and are are faid to be scarce a foot in height. This ceremony is intended to impress every individual with hatred of the Christian doctrine, and the Portugueze, who attempted to introduce it there; and alfo to discover whether there is any remnant of it left among the Japanese. It is performed in the places where the Chriftians chiefly refided. In Nogafaki it lafts four days; then the images are conveyed to the circumjacent places, and afterwards are laid afide against the next year. Every perfon, except the Japanese governor and his attendants, even the fmalleft child, must be prefent; but it is not true, as fome have pretended, that the Dutch are also obliged to trample on the image. Overfeers are appointed in every place, which af femble the people in companies, in certain houfes, call over the name of every one in his turn, and take care that every thing goes on properly. The children, not yet able to walk, have their feet placed upon it; older perfons pafs over it from one fide of the room to the other. [ To be concluded in our next. ] MONTHLY CATALOGUE. [ For APRIL, 1786. ] POETRY. ART. 14. Johnson's Laurel: or Contest of the Poets. A Poem. 4to. 1s. Hooper. 1785. London. OF F all men the moft adroit is he who eloquently exposes his own follies. We honour the petulant man who declaims against illhumour; the covetous, when he exposes the folly of avarice; and above all the hackney fcribbler, who ridicules fuch as are ever on the watch for temporary fubjects. The manner in which our author characterifes his poets is curious. Next Tickel came, whofe elegiac flow Melts every heart to pleasure and to woe' Pray, how came our author acquainted with Tickel's elegiac flow? Has he not unluckily mistaken the author of Anticipation and the friend of Addison for the fame perfon? Next Coleman comes. • He mounts on Pegasus and fly afar, Like man when riding furious to the war.' Coleman is however rejected. Apollo pleas'd, exclaim'd, You've gain'd a name, The fame cogent reply recurs in bar to the claims of Mr. Sheridan; To gain the wreath, who ne'er shall want a name?" |