A remarkable circumfliance, not eafily tó be accounted for,
occurred in opening a caik o f Birmingham hardware. Every
one'knows the neceffity o f excluding the fearair as much as
poffible from highly poliihed articles o f iron and fteel, and accordingly
all fuch articles intended; to be fent abroad are packed
with the greateft care. The cafks, or cafes, are made as tight
, as poffible. and . covered with pitched canvas. . Such was. the
caik in queftion. Yet, when the head was taken.off, arid a few
o f the packages removed, an enormous large fcorpion was
found in the midft o f the caik, nearly in a torpid ftate, but it:
quickly recovered on expofure to the warm air.
« The thing we knowas neither rich nor rare,
P u t wonder how the deyil it got there Vr 1
Among the prefents carried into Tartary- was a colledibn o f
prints, chiefly portraits o f Engliih nobility, and ffiftingniffied
perfons:; ' and'to make the prefent more acceptablé, they were
bound up iff three volumes in yellow Morocco. J Thè Emperor
w-aSTo pleafed with this colledion, that, ine fent: it exprefs'to
Yuen-min-ynen to have, the name, .rank, and oillcc o f each portrait
tranilated into.the Mantchoo andChinefe languages.- The
Tartar writer got on pretty well, but the. Chinefe. fecretary was
nor a little puzzled with the B, the D , and the R, that fo frequently
recurred in the Engliih names. The Duke o f Marlborough
was Too-ke Ma-ul-po-loo^ and Bedford was transformed
to P e te-fo-ul-te. But here a more ferious difficulty occurred than
that o f writing the name. The rqnk was alfo to be written
down, and on coming to the-portrait, o f this, nobleman, [\vh i ch
was a proof impreffion o f the print, engraved from a pidure by
Sir Joffiua Reynolds, when the late Duke b f Bedford was a
youth,) 1 told the Chinefe to write him down a Ta-gin', or great
man o f the fecond order. He inftantly obferved that I furely
meant his father was a Ta-gin. I then explained to him that,
according to our laws, the fon fucceeded to the rank o f the father,.
and that with us it was by no means neceffary, in order
to obtain the firft rank in the country, that a man ihould be o f
■a certain age, be poffeffed of.fuperior talents, or fuitable qualifications.
That thefe were fometimes conducive to high honours,,
yet that a great part o f the legiflative body o f the nation
were entitled to their rank and fituation by birth. T h e y
laughed heartily at the idea o f a man being born à legiflator,
when it required fo many years o f clofe application to enable
one o f their countrymen to- pais his examination for the very
lowed: order o f ftate-officers. As, however, the defcendants o f
Confucius continue to enjoy a fort o f nominal rank, and as
their Emperor can alfo confer an hereditary dignity, without
entitling to office, emolument, or exclufive privilege, they
confidered h is ’ Grace might be one o f this deferiptiòn, and
wrote down his rank accordingly ; but they pofitively refufed to
-give him thè title o f ‘Ta-gin, or great man, aiking me, if I
thought their Emperor was fo ftupid as not to know the impof-
fibility o f a little boy having attained the rank d i a.-great man.
About the 14th o f September, or three days before the Emperor’
s birth-day, P a d r e Anfdmo, the procurator for the million
de propaganda fid e , delivered me letters from Macao for the Em-
baffador, which the Chinefe refufed to fend to Gehol, though
daily expreffes went to and from that place. Anfielmo hinted to
2 IHG