For a people who have had very few, if any external aids, the Japanese cannot but rank high in the scale of civilization. The traits of a vigorous mind are displayed in their proficiency in the sciences, and particularly in metaphysics and judicial astrology. The arts they practice speak for themselves, and are deservedly acknowledged to be in a much higher degree of perfection than among the Chinese, with whom they are by Europeans so frequently confounded; the latter have been stationary at least as long as we have known them, while the slightest impulse seems sufficient to give a determination to the Japanese character, which would progressively improve until it attained the same height of civilization with the European. Nothing indeed is so offensive to the feelings of a Japanese as to be compared in any one respect with the Chinese, and the only occasion on which Dr. Ainslie saw the habitual politeness of a Japanese ever surprized into a burst of passion was, when, upon a similitude of the two nations being unguardedly asserted, the latter laid his hand upon his sword!
The people are said to have a strong inclination to foreign intercourse, notwithstanding the political institutions to the contrary; and perhaps the energy which characterizes the Japanese character cannot be better elucidated, than by that extraordinary decision which excluded the world from their shores, and confined within their own limits a people who had before served as mercenaries throughout all Polynesia, and traded with all nations—themselves adventurous navigators.
There is by no means that uniformity among them which is observed in China, where the impression of the government may be said to have broken down all individuality and left one Chinese the counterpart of another. Unlike the Chinese, the women here are by no means secluded—they associate among themselves, like the ladies of Europe. During the residence of Dr. Ainslie, frequent invitations and entertainments were given; on these occasions, and at one in particular, a lady from the court of Jeddo is represented to have done the honours of the table with an ease, elegance, and address that would have graced a Parisian. The usual dress of a Japanese woman of middle rank costs perhaps as much as would supply the wardrobe of an European lady of the same rank for twenty years.
The Japanese, with an apparent coldness, like the stillness of the Spanish character, and derived nearly from the same causes, that system of espionage, and that principle of disunion, dictated by the principles of both governments; are represented to be eager for novelty, and warm in their attachments; open to strangers, and, abating the restrictions of their political institutions, a people who seem inclined to throw themselves into
