different cabinets of Germany. This engaged | tions, as of individuals, must be to assure the him till day-break; presently, some one means of existence by internal exertion and knocked violently at the door of the house; increase of the necessaries of life; and thus it is opened; and in comes Monsieur * * * * ambassador from one of the German courts, who, absent from Bern since the day before, had returned in haste, and presented himself to his colleague to ask him the details of an event which was in every body's mouth.What was the astonishment of his German excellency, on entering Monsieur de Talleyrand's closet, to see him dressed as a miller. As the carnaval had long been over, he thought that this diguise was the effect of a too early apprehension.

"This anecdote ran through the whole city, and since that time Monsieur de Talleyrand was never designated by any other title than of the ambassador-miller."--vol. iv. p. 96.

progressively to concentrate such a mass of provision and its resources, of wealth, and of numbers, at home, as to render its commercial, and next, its political relations with oth. er powers an object of national interest abroad. The rapid progression of domestic colonization and agriculture, the ceaseless development of manufacturing and trading activity, and the eager spirit of enterprise and speculation thus generated and borne with avidity into foreign lands, have secured for America a broad basis of stability at home, and a weight and consideration amongst the ancient states of the eastern The style of these volumes is slight, and hemisphere totally unparalleled in the history of the world. But, comparing with honest they are serviceable chiefly, as already ob- and rational pride her actual growth and exserved by us, in displaying the general ami- traordinary development of resources, the ability of Madame Hortense, and the system American nation appears in some measure of scandal so active and widely ramified to have overlooked the fact that growth and through French society, where every report, maturity were necessarily successive; and however obviously impossible, obtains ample that in the physical as well as political world belief throughout its day. The details we the activity of the limbs impedes to a cerhave quoted assist our impressions, and give tain degree, though it cannot altogether prefair, though slight and incidental lights into vent, the loftier efforts of the mind; and characters for whom once all the world therefore, that the highest class of intellectu

was a stage.

al exertion, requiring the absorption and concentration of all the mental faculties for its own object and purposes, though likely to need an occasional stimulus from physical motion, was yet incompatible with a gener. al system of movement. While foreign naART. III. A Dissertation on the Nature tions therefore, and England in particular, and Character of the Chinese System of supplied the staple of American literature, Writing, by Peter L. Du Ponceau, LL. the latter claiming, and with justice, the earD. to which are subjoined a Vocabulary lier triumphs of British achievements as, of the Cochinchinese Language, by Fa- equally with ours, her just inheritance of ther Joseph Morrone, Roman Catholic fame, yearned also for intellectual distincMissionary at Saigon; with References to tions of her own; and felt and resented Plates, and Notes showing the Affinity of with a national and pardonable prejudice the the Chinese and Cochinchinese Lan- apparent injustice when her writers in a guages, &c., by M. de la Palun: and, a common language were not admitted to the Cochinchinese and Latin Dictionary, in full participation of modern British literary use among the Roman Catholic Missions glories. in Cochinchina. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1838.

THE short existence of the United States of North America as an independent nation, and the fact of that existence having been engendered in a high state of civilization, has naturally led, on the part of the American nation itself, as on that of its contemporaries in Europe, to a considerable degree of invidious comparison. The newly-formed people, conscious of individual intellect and civilization on the one hand, and of collective energy on the other, have been but too prone to forget that the first aim and business of na

On the other hand, the rapid and eager development in America of energies and resources already alluded to as unparalleled in the pages of history, created in the older world, and most of all in Great Britain, a feeling of jealousy on some points, and a tendency to disparagement on all. England could not behold the successful rivalry in commerce of her own political offspring without an indefinite sense of doubt for the future, and of mortification at the remem. brance of a portion of the past. She was therefore no way disposed to grant to her forward child a single concession that could be fairly withheld from her; and to the

claim for literary distinctions she replied, as Leonidas to the Persians' demand for arms -"Come and take them." Equally in either case the first assumptions of an untried power could expect no other answer.

has produced union where only discord existed, lulled the clash of arms by the deep breathings of the lyre, converted hostile rivalry into generous emulation, soothed jarring interests into consentaneous intercourse, But with nations as with individuals, a brought countries that the ocean separated to state of mutual distrust and irritation is less rejoice and hail openly a facilitated commuoften the result of malevolence than of mu- nion, and even led the sterling sense of the tual ignorance. A freer intercommunication great American nation to reprobate the wild is re-knitting the ties which war and jea outbreak of their borderers against their lousies had broken asunder; and perhaps peaceful sister. To the just and impartial in the political as in the human frame, the tone so nobly assumed by the best periodiunion of the severed parts, if not carried on cals of America in the late unfortunate through precisely the same channels as be- events, a tone in which her literature prefore, may yet be confirmed and maintained scribed and echoed abroad the real honesty, by an increase of vessels at each point, mul- honour, and interest of the nation, we may tiplying simultaneously on both sides, and firmly attribute the discouragement shown sympathetically and instinctively seeking by the government at Washington to lawand uniting with each other. The name less outrage, and the continuance of peace, and fame of Washington Irving in Great so jeopardized by those acts. "The weaBritain were tangible evidences to the United pons of war, we will trust, have perished;" States that no mean jealousy of her literary and Jonathan must claim from us hencepowers depreciated the merit of her writers forth the remembered "pleasantness" of a amongst the English. The author in ques- brother. tion, it is true, won golden opinions from ourselves by his eager and almost sacred veneration of this his ancestral land; but in all cases of irritation a generous concession on one side produces corresponding conces sion on the other; and our "nation of shopkeepers' rendered the truth mathematically demonstrable to their brethren of "the stores" by the irrefragable evidence of hospitality and money. The heads of houses vied with each other in their welcome to the stranger: the peers opened to him their doors; the booksellers their purses; and all was triumph and gratulation, from Melbourn to Murray.

It is with these feelings we open the volume before us, in a spirit of frank and friendly criticism; the more so as being the first work of this nature which it has fallen to our lot to review, and the candid and moderate tone of the writer invite us to a discussion, for the purpose of ultimate union rather than difference. Though we must confess ourselves to differ widely from the author on many points, and more particularly on the first of his two propositions, we trust to be able to express, with our dissent, our high opinion of that independence of judgment, which spurns following a tract merely because it is usual, and assumes for If of all literature the wings of imagina- itself a course of inquiry which is certainly tion were foremost in crossing the broad open to all. In England, we are aware, it Atlantic, the praise which has since attended is but too much the fashion to hold certain the names of Bryant, and Percival, Brown, opinions on oriental language and history Cooper, and Willis, has had its consequent as so many articles of faith, and the more so ly due effect in the west. The theological when all known facts militate the most labours of Dwight and Channing, the sci- strongly against them. Herein, it is true, ence of Silliman and a host of fellow-labour. consists the merit of such faith, but the ers, following in the same train of distinc- credo quia impossibile est, is the favourite tion, have strengthened the cordialities of dogma of the philological Catholic; and all brotherhood in birth and pursuits; and the who gainsay that doctrine, upon whatever learned labours of Doctor Du Ponceau grounds, are guilty of the sin that shall not evince how frank and honest is the literary be forgiven unto men. feeling subsisting between the two countries. Every page of the volume before us bears evidence for the author of the sympathy he entertains, and justly expects from us in return, for all that refers to the advancement of knowledge. Were there no other, this in itself would be the proudest of triumphs for literature; that by acting on the common ment-springs of feeling, and searching out the 2dly. That other nations cannot, as is common sources of our best emotions, it asserted, employ or understand the Chinese

Doctor Du Ponceau's work is put for ward to maintain these two propositions:

1. That the Chinese characters primarily represent words; and not ideas, as is gene. rally asserted.

And he deduces from this as an absolute corollary-so at least we consider his argu

character, independent of the Chinese language, for a system of pasigraphy, or universal writing.

To the first of these propositions we must distinctly demur.

To the second we reply, that it is a question of fact, not of argument; requiring, as the learned author renders evident, very distinct proofs to maintain it.

But we hold that, whichever way the fact may lie, the second proposition has no connection with the first.

The station held by Doctor Du Ponceau as President of the American Philosophical Society, of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and of the Philadelphian Athenæum, &c., entitle his opinions to careful consideration. But in our quality of Reviewers, looking less at persons than things, we are bound to say, that the arrangement of his book appears to us defective; that there is a want of the first principle of logic, definition; that assertion, however frequently made and dexterously managed, requires the aid of argument and proof; and that from the vocabularies, furnished by the volume, the author ought to have drawn particular

illustrations of his argument.

phors instead of plain intelligible language, and by looking beyond nature for the explanation of her most simple operations." -p. ix.

The remark concerning China seems a favourite with the learned Doctor, for he subsequently quotes it a second time (p. 16) with a similar expression of concurrence; yet it can scarcely be just and true, we submit, since India and Egypt have both of them puzzled the learned world as much, if not more, than the Chinese language-nor can we discover the slightest evidence throughout the volume, of metaphors substituting plain language by way of cause, or of any one "looking beyond nature" for it.

Doctor Du Ponceau proceeds to say,

"The learned writer above cited does the Chinese language. If he meant the not tell us what he means by the words spoken idiom (as it is affected to be called,) there does not appear any difficulty or cause of embarrassment. The Chinese language, (properly so called) is a simple idiom, and peculiarly the Kou-wen, or ancient language, essentially elliptical; its chiefly consists in the juxtaposition of those words are monosyllabic, and its syntax words, aided by a certain number of partiIn the course of our inquiry we shall cles, which stand in the place of our gramcome to the remainder of the objections, and matical forms and inflexions. A great therefore only the first needs notice here. number of those words are homophonous, The question is opened and discussed in an but they are distinguished by accents and Introduction of thirty-two pages, which, it tones; and, upon the whole, the peoappears, was written last; then follows the ple who speak this language find no difbody of the work, consisting of 102 pages, perhaps more elliptical than any other; ficulty in understanding each other. It is and going over, of course, the same line of more is understood by it than is actually argument which appears for the third time expressed; but no difficulty arises from as A. in the Appendix, and is condensed it. Ideas and perceptions are awakened there into a letter of fourteen pages addressed by the Chinese monosyllables, as well as to Captain Basil Hall. These successive by those grammatical forms which may discharges may be extremely serviceable in be called the luxury of our idioms. the way of platoon firing; but we doubt whether any American tactitian would make this main battle against so formidably trained a host as the Chinese scholars whom the Doctor so gallantly assails: he should bear in mind that this is not a mere question of bush-fighting at Saratoga, but that his adversaries are the learned of all Europe and China itself, whom he attacks upon their own ground, confessing himself ignorant of the locality.

We must differ from our author in the first sentence of the Introduction.

"It is a just and true remark of the Rev. M. Gutzlaff, that nothing has so much puzzled the learned world in Europe as the Chinese language.' We need not go very far to find out the cause of this embarrassment. It is produced, like many other difficulties that occur in almost every science, by the abuse of words, by the use of meta

the philologists of Europe. But if, by the "Here, then, is nothing that can puzzle Chinese language, the learned author meant the written characters, (and in that sense only I can understand him,) he says what is unfortunately too true; and by the use which he makes of the word language, he shows that he has not yet discovered he very properly notices, and which must the true cause of the embarrassment which strike every one who has attended to the subject.

"The Chinese characters do not, more than any other graphic system, constitute a language in the proper sense of the word. Metaphorically, indeed, they may be so called, and so may the groups formed by the letters of our alphabets. We do not read by letters; we read by groups of those little signs, representing words and sentences. No one, who is not in his A B C, will spell a word when he reads, or even think of the sounds of its component figures. This is so true, that there are words,

ploys in its writing the Chinese characters, will, I think, sufficiently show. However it may be, it will not affect the principles on which I intend to demonstrate that the Chinese graphic system is founded; nor will it in the least support its pretended extraordinary, and I might say, almost miraculous pro

such as the word awe, in which not a single | use of the same characters. How far this is one of the sounds attached to the three founded in truth, the subjoined vocabularies letters that compose it is heard when it is of the Cochinchinese language, which emread. In the word ought, none is heard but that of the letter t. Our eye catches the group, and our mind the sound and sense of the written word, all at the same moment; it does not stop to take notice of each letter; the physical and mental processes are performed at the same instant, with the rapidity of thought, which is ex-perties. ceeded by nothing that we can form an idea of. These groups, therefore, might also receive the name of ideographic signs or characters, and their aggregate and various combinations might be called a written language. But every one will understand that this word, so applied, would be only metaphorical."-pp. ix. x.

We shall pause here to remark, that if we do not read by letters, we read by the sounds they recall. By these sounds we do not mean the names we give to these letters; but though letters when grouped are sometimes modified in sound as regards each other-and this is all the Doctor's argument can fairly reach-do they therefore lose their essential nature in the group? How can we judge of the whole group without its parts? not separate, certainly, but in combination. What is the whole but the sum of components? And can this sum, or combination of parts, exist without them? What is awe, but the short a or uh (one of the sounds of a in English ;) the w, (u, u,) prolonged by the final e? the three letters, or elementary sounds, collapsing into one complex sound, or word, so received and recognized for the purpose of speech.

"I endeavour to prove, by the following dissertation, that the Chinese characters represent the words of the Chinese language, and ideas only through them. The letters of our alphabet separately represent sounds to which no meaning is attached, and are there. fore only the elements of our graphic system; but, when combined together in groups, they represent the words of our languages, and those words represent or recall ideas to the mind of the reader. I contend that the Chinese characters, though formed of different elements, do no more, and that they represent ideas no otherwise than as connected with the words in which language has clothed them, and therefore that they are connected with sounds; not indeed as the letters of our formed by them when joined together in the alphabet separately taken, but as the groups form of words."-pp. xi. xii.

In opposition to this we must assert, that the Chinese characters do represent differ ently from ours; for they are arbitrary and convey their object, not the name of it, to the mind; and this without direct reference to its sound: whereas our alphabetic forms always refer primarily to sound.

Doctor Du Ponceau seems much embarrassed by the want of a term familiar enough, "To apply these principles to the Chinese we should have imagined, in England, to system of writing is the object of the follow-render it so in America likewise; we mean ing dissertation. All those, I believe, (imay syllabary, or table of syllables, as distinct say almost without exception,*) who have from an alphabet, or table of letters. written on the subject, have represented the All savage nations began with picture writing of the Chinese as a separate, inde- writings, says Doctor Du Ponceau; "the pendent language, unconnected with the original forms of a number of their characounds of the human voice, and consequently ters show that the Chinese began in the with speech; a language acting vi propriâ, same manner." We would refer the Docand presenting ideas to the mind directly through the eye, without passing through the tor to the oldest specimen extant, as given mental ear, in which it is said to differ from by Hager, from an ancient sculptured rock, our alphabetical system. Hence it has been wherein but two characters bear any resemcalled ideographic, and the language properly so called, the oral language, is represented as nothing more than the pronunciation of that which has usurped its name and its place.

"In proof of these assertions, it is said that the Chinese writing is read and understood by nations who cannot speak or understand one word of the spoken idiom, but who make

blance to actual form, and these are of serpents. We would remark to our readers, that one of these bears the serpent form in combination with a smaller sign; which combination is precisely the form signifying hostility amongst the Nabatheans, as the serpent alone signified with them guile or artifice.

The Chinese in general, we are aware, * "Dr. Morrison is the writer who has said refer to the same origin, and they are, posthe least upon the subject. He has been more sibly, right, judging by analogy: but the cautious than his brother sinologists. He does not, however, contradict the opinion that is gen- inscription referred to; the Chinese tale of erally received." characters drawn from the tortoise's shell,

xiv.

After noticing the three first classes of characters, our author repeats his previous assertion,

from the foot-prints of animals, and from ideas, it only represents words, by means of constellations; the absence of the original the combination of other words, and therepictorial system in that kingdom; and the fore I have called it lexigraphy."-pp. xiii. fact we instanced in a previous number, of distinguishing the genders by perfect and imperfect lines, all seem to point to an op posite conclusion from Doctor Du Ponceau's, and justify the general opinion, (which was also that of De Pauw,) that the two systems are radically distinct. Our author is perhaps right; but how can he take upon himself to affirm positively that their primary signs were in part "the abridged forms of their pictures and metaphors, but so altered as to be no longer recognized?"

He then proceeds to observe,

"It has been seen that the first has long been entirely out of use, and is now superseded by arbitrary signs, which have no con nection with ideas, except by recalling to the mind the words by which the ideas are expressed."-p. xvii.

Now it appears to us clear, that if the form or character did not represent a sound it could not be said to represent a word: "The number of those primary or simple but that simply, the thing which that word characters is not known; it is to be presumed represented to the ear, the character repre. that it was not greater than could be easily sented to the eye: the idea conveyed by the retained in the memory. The Chinese gram. picture of a horse or dog was transferred to marians, under the name of keys, or radicals, the character substituted for that picture: have reduced them to the number of two but as all the world would understand what hundred and fourteen; but of these several the picture itself represented, the natives of are compounded, se that the number was all countries would understand it without a probably still smaller. Be that as it may, reference to the sound of the name, and two hundred words, more or less, having signs or characters to represent them, by joinwithout necessarily recalling that sounding two, three, or more of them together, and But as, if they did recall it, each countryusing them as catch words to lead to one that man would give it a different sound; as had no sign to represent it, could produce an horse, cheval, pferd, asp, &c., it is evident, immense number of combinations; and a still that the character answering to, and recallgreater one, by joining to these, and combin- ing, so many various sounds, could not be ing with them, the new compounds; and so confined to any one of them; i. e. not to they might proceed in the same manner ad infinitum. By means of that system, with any one word. some modifications, the Chinese succeeded in representing all the words in their language. The ideas were only an ingredient in the method which they adopted, but it was by no means their object to present them to the mind unaccompanied by the word which was their model, and which, if I may use a bold metaphor, sat to them for its picture; a picture, indeed, which bore no resemblance to the object, but which was sufficient to recall it to the memory.

But the author proceeds thus, quoting from, and animadverting on, M. de Re musat.

"To express abstract ideas, or the acts of the understanding, they (the Chinese) have altered the sense of those simple or compound characters which represent material objects, or they have made of a substantive the sign of a verb, which expresses a corresponding action. Thus the heart represents the mind; "From this general view of the Chinese a house is taken for man; a hall for woman; system of writing, it is evident that the object a hand for an artificer or mechanic, &c.'of its inventors was to recall to the mind, by Unfortunately for this theory. the sense of visible signs, the words of which their lan- the characters (as corresponding with the guage was composed, and not to represent words) has not been in the least altered; it is ideas independent of the sounds of that lan- the sense of the words that has been changed, guage. But the number of those words being and the characters have followed. In the too great to admit of merely arbitrary signs, Chinese spoken language, a sailor is callthe forms of which could not easily be re-ed a ship-hand, a monk a reason house, or tained, without some classification to help the memory, they thought of some mode of recalling, at the same time, something of the meaning of each word, and that was done by combining together the signs of several of them, so as to make a kind of definition, far, indeed, from being perfect, but sufficient for the purpose for which it was intended. And that is what the Chinese literati, and the sinologists after them, have been pleased to eall ideographic writing; while, instead of

house of reason, &c., and the writing only applies the appropriate character to each of these words. The language is full of similar metaphors; east-west signifies a thing, or something; elder brother with younger brother, signify simply brother, without distinction of age, &c. The writing does no more than represent these words by the characters appropriated to each; the metaphor is in the language, not in the writing.

"Dr. Marshman wonders that he has never