dates for public honours and offices, peculiar laws concerning the Tartar dependencies, with the courts which take cognizance of their affairs.

In that part which relates to the first of the Six executive boards (that of Civil offices), is a detailed list of all the appointments in the empire, the relative rank of each officer, and the rules for selecting, appointing, removing, rewarding, and punishing. In the management of official people the principle of a comparison of merits and demerits is kept in view, and the one are set off against the other. A graduated record of both is preserved, and an officer is accordingly promoted or degraded so many steps. Some approach to this system has lately been made in our own Indian empire, where it appears that a regular report is sent to the government of even the private conduct and demeanour of every civil mandarin, by his immediate superior. In China, there is a terrible round of espionage in perpetual operation, and mutual jealousy is substituted for the principle of honour. This may be very necessary and proper as relates to the Chinese, but we can hardly suppose it called for in our Indian empire, near as that may be to China. At Peking, members of the imperial house are all required to attend the public boards and listen to what is going on. In case of observing anything amiss, they are permitted to give information to the Emperor. When our last ambassador was in the neighbourhood of Peking, such persons were looking on continually as spies, and one of the conductors of the embassy, by way of caution to the strangers, told them that the Emperor had very long ears; an asinine attribute which no one had the presumption to contest.

Under the head of Science, we shall soon have more par

ticularly to consider that portion of Chinese learning which relates to astronomy, geography, and medicine The two former departments have been infinitely indebted to the Roman Catholic missionaries, and to the patronage which those scientific and learned persons received from Kâng-hy, the most liberal and enlightened of Chinese monarchs, who condescended even to take lessons in mathematics from the Jesuits. In the department of medicine (surgery they do not attempt) we shall see that the Chinese works contain their whole knowledge of natural history, with their peculiar theory of the circulation, and the materia medica of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, as contained in that voluminous work, the Pun-tsaou. Considering the little intercourse that the Chinese have had with other countries, it is perhaps quite as surprising that they should know so much, as that they should know no more; for every thing they possess, with the exception of the two departments of astronomy and geography, may fairly be considered as their own.

Reserving the lighter literature of China, (its belles lettres,) as poetry, drama, and romance, for a separate chapter, we may observe that specimens of more serious works have, in the course of rather more than a century, been but scantily presented, in various European translations, to the knowledge of the western world. It was as early as 1711 that Père Noel's Latin version of the four books, with two other subordinate classics, was printed; at a long interval after that date, appeared Gaubil's translation of the Shoo-king; and in 1785 was published Mailla's voluminous work, in fourteen quartos, entitled "Histoire générale de la Chine," being a version of the native annals, called Tong-kien-kang-mo. Fresh trans

lations of several portions of the "four books" have since been made; among the rest, Mencius, by M. Stanislas Julien; while a complete English version of the whole issued from the Anglo-Chinese press in 1828. A French translation of the ancient ritual, and ceremonial code of China, is said to be at present in preparation by M. Julien. Of some of the missionary translations, especially those of our own country, it may be observed, that if there is much that is obscure or worthless in the original works, this has been rendered still worse by the wretched attempt to render word for word, thus exhibiting the whole in a jargon which has not inaptly been distinguished as "missionary English." This of course must be anything but a faithful picture of the originals, which, with all their defects in point of matter, are well known to be, in respect to manner and style, the models of the language in which they were composed. It is to this foolish and injudicious system of translation that we must attribute the following harsh judgment on that particular department of Chinese letters, which appeared some years ago in a critical work. "The specimens which have reached us through the medium of the missionaries are not the best adapted to convey informa tion respecting the present state of the Chinese. Their labours are sufficiently voluminous, but their choice of subjects is not always the most happy. We may find an apology for the Chinese in endeavouring to make sense of their ancient records; but we cannot conceive what interest a few insulated Europeans can possibly take in toiling to unravel the inextricable confusion of their king, or canonical books." The fact is, that the confusion of the originals has occasionally, by means of uncouth translation, been made "confusion worse confounded.”

CHAPTER XVI.

LITERATURE (continued).

Belles Lettres-The Drama-Passion for Theatrical Exhibitions-Neglect of the Unities-Character of Plays-Comparison with Greek Drama-Plot of a Play-Division into Acts-Analysis of a Tragedy-Poetry-Structure of Verse-Character of Poetry-An Ancient Ode-Poem on London-Romances and Novels-Outline of a Chinese Romance.

"THE Chinese stand eminently distinguished," says a writer in the Quarterly Review*, "from other Asiatic nations, by their early possession and extensive use of the art of printing-of printing, too, in that particular shape, the stereotype, which is best calculated, by multiplying the copies and cheapening the price, to promote the circulation of every species of their literature. Hence they are, as might be expected, a reading people; a certain quantity of education is universal among even the lower classes-and, among the higher, it is superfluous to insist on the great estimation in which letters must be held under a system where learning forms the very threshold of the gate that conducts to fame, honours, and civil employment. Amidst the vast mass of printed books, which is the natural offspring of such a state of things, we make no scruple to avow that the circle of their Belles Lettres, comprised under the three heads of Drama, Poetry, and Romances or Novels, has always pos sessed the highest place in our esteem; and we must say that there appears no readier or more agreeable

*Vol xli. p. 85.

mode of becoming intimately acquainted with a people, from whom Europe can have so little to learn on the score of either moral or physical science, than by drawing largely on the inexhaustible stores of their ornamental literature."-We may therefore proceed to consider Chinese belles lettres, in the threefold division of Drama, Poetry, and prose Fiction.

In a moderate collection of Chinese books belonging to the East India Company, there are no less than two hundred volumes of plays, and a single work in forty volumes contains just one hundred theatrical pieces. The government of the country, though it does not (like that of imperial Rome) provide spectacles for the people at its own cost, gives sufficient countenance and encouragement to such amusements, by permitting them to be erected in every street by subscriptions among the inhabitants. On some particular days the mandarins themselves supply the funds. The principal public occasions of these performances are certain annual festivals of a religious nature, when temporary theatres, constructed with surprising facility of bamboos and mats, are erected in fron of their temples; or in open spaces through their towns, the spectacle being continued for several days together. The players in general come literally under our legal definition of vagabonds, as they consist of strolling bands of ten or a dozen, whose merit and rank in their profession, and consequently their pay, differ widely according to circumstances. The best are those who come from Nanking, and who sometimes receive very considerable sums for performing at the entertainments given by rich persons to their friends*.

* The female parts are never performed by women, but gene