CHAP. VII.: Fatal Consequences of Luxury in China.

IN the history of China, we find it has had twenty-two successive dynasties; that is, it has experienced twenty-two general, without mentioning a prodigious number of particular, revolutions. The three first dynasties lasted a long time, because they were wisely administered, and the empire had not so great an extent as it afterwards obtained. But we may observe, in general, that all those dynasties began very well. Virtue, attention, and vigilance, are necessary in China; these prevailed in the commencement of the dynasties and failed in the end. It was natural, that emperors, trained up in military toil, who had compassed the dethroning of a family immersed in pleasure, should adhere to virtue, which they had found so advantageous, and be afraid of voluptuousness, which they knew had proved so fatal to the family dethroned. But, after the three or four first princes, corruption, luxury, indolence, and pleasure, possessed their successors; they shut themselves up in a palace; their understanding was impaired; their life was shortened; the family declined; the grandees rose up; the eunuchs gained credit; none but children were set on the throne; the palace was at variance with the empire; a lazy set of people, that dwelled there, ruined the industrious part of the nation; the emperor was killed or destroyed by an usurper, who founded a family, the third or fourth successor of which went and shut himself up in the very same palace.