No. IX.
p p S » T f - f
— |*-i
i d . ^ _
- r F
P t -F t
-;U _I
T h e y have no other notion o f noting down mufic than that
o f employing a charafter expreffing the name o f every note in
thefcale ; and even this imperfedt way they learned from Pereira
the Jefuit. T h e y affected to dilllke the Emhafiadors
band which they pretended to fay produced no jnufie,. b u t,a
confufion o f noifes; yet the Emperor’s chief mufician gave him-
felf a great deal o f trouble in tracing out the feveral inftruments
on large iheets o f paper, each o f its particular fize, .marking the
places o f the holes, fcrew§, ftrings, and other parts, which they
conceived neceflary to enable them to make others o f a fmrilar
xronilrudtion.
It would be difficult to affign the motive that induced father
Amiot to obferve, that' “ the Chinefe^ in order to obtain their
“ Xcale
“ icale o f notes or gamut perfedt, were not afraid o f fubmitting
“ to the mod laborious operations o f geometry, and to the mod
“ tedious and difgufting calculations in the fcience o f numbers;’’
as he muft have known, that they were altogether ignorant
*)f geometry, and that their arithmetic extended not beyond
their Swan-pan. O f the fame nature is the bold and unfounded
affertion o f another o f the Jefuits, “ that the mufical
“ fyftem o f the Chinefe was borrowed from them by thé
‘I Greeks and Egyptians, anterior to the time o f Hermes or
“ Orpheus !”
With regard to painting, they can be confidered in no
other light than as miferable daubers, being unable to pencil
out a corre£t outline o f many objeils, to give body to
the fame by the application o f proper lights and Ihadows, and
to lay on the nice ihades o f colour, fo as to refemble the tints
o f nature. ! But the gaudy colouring o f certain flowers,‘ birdÿ,
and infeâs, they imitate with a degree o f exa&nefs and brilliancy
to which Europeans have not yet arrived. T o give
diftance to objedts on canvas, by diminifhing them, b y faint
colouring, and b y perfpeûive, they have no fort o f conception.
A t Yuen-min-yuen I found two ve ry large paintings o f
landfcapes which, as to the pencilling, were done with tolerable
execution, but they were finilhed with a minutenefs o f
detail, and without any o f thofe ftrong lights and mafles o f
{hade, which give force and effedt to a pidture ; none o f the
rules o f perfpeûive were obferved, nor any attempt to throw
the objedts to their proper diftances ; yet I could not help fancying
that I difcbvered in' them the hand o f an European. The
t t 2 old