672
Travels of M. Hue.
DEC.
of the ready duplicity and presumptuous vanity of Orientals, will best assist the reader in eliminating the real from the unreal, and the graphic from the too-highly colored.
The history of the Roman Catholic missions in China is, it may be here observed, a very remarkable one.
The labors of the first mem- bers of the Society of Jesus in these countries were recorded in letters, written to the father-general of the Inquisition, published at Rome as early as in 1596, and again in 1591. In 1601, Luis Guzman published, at Alcala, the "Historia de las Missiones," &c. In the same year a Dutch history of the missions was published at Dillingen ; and a French account appeared at Lille in 1617, and at Paris the same year. This latter work, by Father Ricci, was one of the best of its time; but the Jesuit was true to his calling: when ordered to make a general geo- graphical map of the world for the emperor, he contrived to place China in the centre.
Numerous works continued to make their appearance, recording the labors or special travels of the Jesuits during the seventeenth century. Among the most remarkable of these was the now rare and valuable work of Navarrete, "Tratado Historico, Politico, y Moral de la China," published at Madrid in 1676. The author being sent to Rome, to remonstrate for the Chinese missionaries against their customary mode of conversion, they induced the Inquisition to suppress the second volume, and to prol:ibit the third from going to the press. The works of Father Lecomte, “Nouveaux Mémoires sur l'Etat présent de la Chine," published in Paris in 1696; and that of Father Le Gobien, "Histoire de l'Edit de l'Empéreur de la Chine en faveur de la Religion Chrétienne, et un Eclaircissement sur les Honneurs que les Chinois rendent à Confucius et aux Morts," published in Paris in 1693, were far too liberal and comprehensive for the age in which they appeared, and were burnt by order of the Parliament of Paris. It is quite evident, that in the latter part of the seventeenth century the Chinese were in advance in toleration over those who pretended to preach to them. The works of Fathers Gobien and Lecomte were reprinted in 1701-2, and were the foundation of Du Halde's great work. The most valu- able work published by the Jesuits on China," Mémoires concernant l'Histoire," &c., in sixteen volumes, did not appear till 1775, and following years.
Tibet and Central Asia are still almost terra incognita. Modern geo- graphers and philologists, as De Guignes, D'Anville, Malte-Brun, Ré- musat, and Klaproth, are all at variance as to where Karakorum, the capital of the vaunted but imaginary Prester John, and of his conqueror,