AFTER the fketch I have exhibited of the ftate of fociety among the different ranks in China, a tolerable notion may be formed of the general character and complexion of the court. It is, as Lord Macartney has juftly obferved, “a fingular mixture “of oftentatious hofpitality and inbred fufpicion, ceremonious “civility and real rudenefs, fhadowy complaifance and fubftan-“tial perverfenefs; and this prevails through all the depart-“ments connected with the Court, although fomewhat modi-“fied by the perfonal difpofition of thofe at their head; but as “to that genuine politenefs, which diftinguifhes our manners, it “cannot be expected in Orientals, confidering among other “things the light in which they are accuftomed to regard the “female part of fociety.” Whether the great minifters of ftate, who have daily intercourfe in the different tribunals, fometimes relax from the ftiff and formal deportment obferved towards each other in public, I am not able to fay, but when at Court they invariably obferve certain fated forms and expreffions as ftudied and ceremonious as if they had never met before. It appeared to us highly ridiculous to fee our friends, the two colleagues Van-ta-gin and Chou-ta-gin, on meeting in the precincts of the palace, performing to each other all the genuflexions and motions of the body which the ceremonial inftitutes of the empire require.