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Chinese etiquette pays great attention to the question of position; so important, indeed, is it that, when a carriage was taken by Lord Macartney's Embassy to Peking as a present, or, as the Chinese said, as tribute to the Emperor Kienlung, great offence was caused by the arrangement of the seats requiring the driver to sit on a higher level than His Majesty.
She has her gown to keep from creasing, her vinaigrette to play with; besides, that all her nervousness is interesting and feminine, and is laid to the score of delicacy and reserve. Blackwood's Magazine. No corpse is allowed to enter the gates of Pekin without an imperial order; because, it is said, a rebel entered in a coffin during the reign of Kienlung.
An inscription near the entrance states that this tomb, among others, was repaired by the Emperor Kienlung, who reigned in the early part of last century; but like every other ancient building in China at the present day, it is fast going to ruin for the want of ordinary care, large trees being permitted to grow out of the very roof itself, although there are several attendants residing in the inclosure; while, doubtless, certain officials are entrusted with the care of this splendid mausoleum, and draw their salaries regularly.
Until the end of the eighteenth century the minor arts and crafts pottery and bronzes of which there was nothing to speak of in Europe in the corresponding European age were flourishing wonderfully; and in the seventeenth and eighteeenth centuries, under Kanghi and Kienlung, China was once more a great military power.
In the discussion which arose between Lord Amherst and the celestials on this question, the Chinese, to a man, insisted inflexibly that Lord Macartney had performed the Kotow; and Kiaking, the successor of Kienlung, who had been present at the reception of Lord Macartney, personally pledged himself that he had seen his lordship in that attitude.
"The narrative of Sir George Staunton distinctly and positively affirms that Lord Macartney was admitted to the presence of the Emperor Kienlung, and presented to him his credentials, without performing the prostration of the Kotow the Chinese act of homage from the vassal to the sovereign lord. Ceremonies between superiors and inferiors are the personification of principles.
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