THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY
PALAFOX Y MENDOZA, Juan de.
The history of the conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an account of several remarkable things, concerning the religion, manners, and customes of both nations, but especially of the latter …
London, W. Godbid for M. Pitt, 1671.
8vo, pp. [24], 588, [4 (advertisements)]; title within ruled frame, woodcut initials; pages lightly cockled, a few light spots and marks; a very good, clean copy in contemporary sheep, rebacked, gilt-lettered spine label; some wear to extremities and front turn-ins and small abrasions to lower cover.
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The history of the conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an account of several remarkable things, concerning the religion, manners, and customes of both nations, but especially of the latter …
First edition in English of Palafox's Historia de la conquista de la China (1670), an account of the Manchu conquest of Ming China based on reports sent to him from Macao and the Philippines.
The work deals also with Chinese customs, manners, religion and costumes, and one chapter discusses Japanese relations with China, remarking that though the Japanese are very powerful, they have reason to fear the Tartars. Palafox (1600–1659) was an influential Spanish priest, bishop of Puebla de los Angeles, historian, writer, and statesman, later nominated viceroy of new Spain. The manuscript of this work was found amongst Palafox's papers after his death and given by his kinsman Don Bernardo de Palafox to a French gentleman, M. Bertier, who then published it in Spanish and, in the same year, in French. ‘His purpose in writing was avowedly “to take some measure of the present state of China under its new masters” and to point up a moral lesson to the princes of Europe about what happens to a state when internal decay and division are permitted to go unchecked. While he shows considerable skill in weaving together a coherent story from the tangled skeins of his sources, Palafox cannot always be relied upon for accuracy in dating or in depicting the roles of particular actors. The failure of the Ming dynasty he attributes unreservedly to its contempt for and neglect of the military’ (Lach).
Cordier, Sinica 627; ESTC R33642; Howgego P9; Lach and Van Kley III, pp. 356–7; Löwendhal I, 152; Lust 449; Palau 209795.
