The Costume of China / Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Chinese

In so arbitrary a government as that of China, it would scarcely be supposed that the press should be free; that is to say, that every one who chooses it may follow the profession of a printer or a bookseller without any previous licence, or without submitting the works he may print or expose for sale to any censor appointed by government; but then he must take his chance to suffer in his person all the consequences that may result from the impression that may be made on the minds of the civil officers as to the tendency of the work. A libel against the government, an immoral or indecent book, would subject both printer and publisher to certain punishment both in his person and purse. The Chinese have not made any great progress in literature, and still less in the sciences: they most excel in the history of their own country, in morality, and in practical jurisprudence. Their dramatic works are constructed on the same model as those of the Greeks, to which it is hardly necessary to add they are infinitely inferior. Their novels and moral tales are better; but the works in most esteem are the four classical books supposed to be written or compiled by Confucius. Their printing is not performed by moveable types, like ours, but by wooden blocks the size of the page; and this mode appears to have been in use long before the Christian æra.