Some fans' are not fans at all. The 'steel fan' is simply a bar of metal, shaped and painted to resemble an ordinary closed fan, and carried sometimes as a life-preserver, sometimes by the swell mobsmen and rowdies of China, to be used at close quarters with murderous effect. Of the same species is the wellknown dagger fan,' which consists of an elegant imitation in lacquer of a common folding fan, but is really a sheath containing within its fair exterior a deadly blade, short and sharp, like a small Malay kris. This dagger fan was invented by the Japanese, and its importation into China has always been strictly forbidden. Great numbers have, however, been successfully introduced into Canton, Foochow, and other large maritime cities, and they are now even manufactured by the enterprising natives of the first-mentioned port. It A curious specimen of the fan is produced in Formosa, consisting of a thick pithy leaf, shaped like a cone with the apex chopped off, and a short handle fitted to the line of severance, and bearing upon its face a landscape or group of figures burnt in with a hot iron. was the invention of a needy scholar of Taiwan Fu, the capital city of Formosa, who being in distressed circumstances hit upon the above novelty as a means of replenishing his empty purse. The fan took immensely for a time, long enough in fact to make the fortune of the inventor, who for a considerable period was at his wits' end to meet the demand. The rage for them has been now for some time spent, and they are only made in small quantities, for sale more as curiosities than anything else. For there are fashions in fans as in other articles of human luxury in China as elsewhere. Every year sees some fresh variety, differing perhaps imperceptibly to the European eye from the favorite of the preceding season, but still sufficiently so to constitute a novelty, a new fashion for the wealthy Chinese exquisite. A foreigner may live for years amongst the Chinese and never notice any change to relieve the monotony of their dress. Yet, as a matter of fact, some variety, even of hat or shoes, is introduced almost annually. The fashionable cap is squarer or rounder at the top as the case may be; the shoes more or less pointed, or ornamented after some novel design. And so it is with fans, which are made of different material and of different sizes for different seasons of the year in proportion to the quantity of breeze required. In the Miscellanies of the Western Capital* we read: The fans of the Son of Heaven are, for the summer, of feathers; for the winter, of silk;' and in a poem by Ow-yang Hisu occurs this line : In the tenth moon the people of the capital turn to their warm fans. At the present day the distinction between warm and cold fans can hardly be said to exist. Those for spring and autumn are smaller than those used in man luxury of summer and winter rings. summer, reminding one of the old RoIt is also mauvais ton to be seen with a fan too early or too late in the year. There are indeed no days absolutely fixed for the beginning and end of the fan season, as in the case of the summer and winter hats worn by all employés of the Government, and which are supposed to be changed simultaneously all over the Empire; but Chinese custom has made it as ridiculous for a man to carry a fan before or after a certain conventional date as it would be with us to wear a white waistcoat in March or November. During the summer months a bird'seye view of China would disclose a perfect flutter of fans from one confine to the other. Punkahs are unknown to Oc the Chinese, except as an innovation of the foreigner; and it has been necessary to coin a term expressly for them. casionally they may be seen in the house of some wealthy Chinese merchant, as, for instance, in the establishment of the but even then they are regarded more as celebrated Howqua family at Canton; a curiosity than as appliances of everyday use. On the other hand, it can hardly be said that the idea of a general fan or punkah has escaped the searching ingenuity of the Chinese; for in the work last quoted we are informed that 'under the Han dynasty [between sixteen hundred and two thousand years ago] there lived at Ch'ang-an a very skilful workman, named Ting Huan, *Ch'ang-an, now Hsi-an Fu, the capital of the province of Shensi. who made a seven-wheel fan. This consisted of seven large wheels, ten feet in diameter, joined together, the whole being turned by a single man, and keeping the place quite cool during the summer months.' This description is a trifle too meagre to enable us to state with certainty the exact shape of the machine in question. The paddle wheel of a steamer seems to come the nearest to it; and from the loftiness of Chinese halls and reception rooms in general, both official and private, no objection could be offered on the score of height. Be this as it may, such a machine would at any rate be free from what is in Chinese eyes the weak point of a punkahnamely, its position with regard to the person operated upon. A Chinaman fans his face, arms, legs, chest, and even back, as he may feel disposed at the moment; but he objects strongly to a draught of air falling on the top of his head, and avoids it as much as possible. At meals, during the very hot weather, servants usually stand behind their masters and slowly but steadily ply the large feather fan, originally made from the feathers of a pheasant's tail, because the Emperor Kao Tsung of the Yin* dynasty on one occasion connected some fortunate event with the auspicious crowing of a pheasant. Burden-carrying coolies of the lowest stratum of Chinese society fan themselves as they hurry along the streets weighed down by their back-breaking loads. Little boys are engaged to fan the workmen whose business is carried on in the hot shops of a crowded Chinese city. The very soldiers in the ranks fan themselves on parade; and among the insignia carried in the procession of every mandarin above a certain rank there is to be found a huge wooden fan more resembling a banner than anything else. And this brings us to a rather curious phase of Chinese etiquette. A Chinaman on horseback or in a sedan chair, meeting an equal of his acquaintance on foot, must forthwith dismount, be it only to make a passing bow. It is a serious breach of politeness to remain sitting while the person to whom you are ad * More commonly known as Wu Ting, 1324 1265 B.C. This story is told by Ts'ui Pao, in his Kuchin-chu, or * Antiquarian Researches.' 19 dressing yourself stands. And, similarly, two friends meeting in chairs should, strictly speaking, both dismount to salute. But to avoid the obvious inconvenience of perpetually stopping and dismounting, in perhaps a crowded thoroughfare, at the appearance of every friend, it has been arranged that the occupant, say of the chair, may hold his fan up so as to screen his face from view, and the two pass without further ceremony, as if, in fact, they had never met. And such is the use to which, apart from their emblematical significa tion, the above-mentioned wooden fans would be put should the almost impossible contingency arise of two mandarins of equal rank meeting face to face in the street. The servants of each would hasten to interpose these great fans between the passing chairs of their respective masters, who, by the aid of this pleasant fiction, would be held not to have become aware of each other's presence. A subordinate would turn up a side street and yield the road to his superior officer. . Formerly there was a certain kind of fan specially used as a screen to separate the sun, screen off the wind, and obstruct the dust,' just as well-to-do Chinamen now use the ordinary fan to save their half-shaven heads from the scorching summer rays while they stroll along or hurry by on business or pleasure bent. The common coolie has his wide mushroom-shaped hat, and the official rides in a sedan-chair with his red umbrella carried like the wooden fan in procession before him; but the middle-class Chinaman, who may be unwilling to throw away money in chair hire, trusts to his fan alone. As a matter of fact, from the narrowness of the streets in most Chinese cities, and the matting with which these streets are in many cases roofed over, sufficient shade is afforded to enable persons to move freely about without further defence against the sun; and for a walk across country the inevitable umbrella would of course be called into play-no longer, however, the characteristic model of antiquity, with clumsy handle and coarse oil-cloth top, but some cheap importation in European style, the convenience of which in point of portability has long since been recognised by the Chi nese. In such a city as Canton two open umbrellas would more than fill the narrow roadway, and the risk of constant collision would be great; consequently, umbrellas are only to be seen on wet days, when the ordinary crowd is at a minimum. Even in Peking, where some of the streets are as wide as Regent Street, the convenience of the fan recommends it as a sunshade in preference to the more unwieldy umbrella. The fan plays no inconsiderable rôle in Chinese decorative art. Besides being the vehicle of both poetry and painting, it is itself often introduced into designs of all kinds. Mullioned windows are not unusually made in the shape of the top part of a folding fan spread out, that is, the paper or silk part without the ribs; and the full outline is often used to contain pictures or verses painted or inscribed upon walls, as if an open fan had simply been nailed over the spot. History indeed has recorded the case of one painter, Wang Yiian-chün, who so excelled in this particular line that people, like the birds pecking at the grapes of Apelles, would often try to take down and examine more closely some of these beautiful specimens of wall painting, which appeared to be really fans hung up by a thread or attached to a nail. It has been mentioned above that, with the more refined of the Chinese, fans, including both the screen' and the folding' varieties, are almost invariably painted on one side and left blank on the other for the insertion of some appropriate verses, which may be either original or borrowed; from which it will be seen that fans occupy to some extent in China the position of albums with us. To give any idea of the quaint designs in figure and landscape painting, the marvellous birds, beasts, and insectsespecially butterflies-which are to be found on the more highly finished Chinese screens, is next to impossible without reproducing the originals; but a few words on the versification just alluded to, and on the fan language in general, may not be uninteresting to some. There is, however, in the long list of fan-painting celebrities the name of one single artist, the nature of whose works is expressed by a term with which they have ever been associated in his tory. That term is 10,000 li,' or a distance of over 3,000 English miles. The painter in question was named Wang Fei; and the extent of a landscape he was able to produce on the surface of a mere ordinary fan was said to be limited only by the hyperbolical range of 10,ooo li. The fan is metaphorically known in the Chinese language as the Phoenix Tail' or the Jay's Wing,' terms which point to what were possibly the archetypes of all fans, namely, the wings and tails of birds, from which has been developed the modern feather fan. The folding fan, by the way, is said by one authority* not to be a Chinese invention at all, but to have been introduced into China by the Coreans, who sent a quantity of them to the Emperor Yung Lê of the Ming dynasty, amongst the other articles offered as tribute by the vassal State. The Emperor is further stated to have been so pleased with the novelty that orders were issued for their imitation by Chinese workmen. A fan is also alluded to in figurative language as a strike the butterfly,' or a flies,' as a 'like the moon,' or a 'call the wind,' and as a 'screen the face,' a name which should be taken in conjunction with the point of etiquette previously mentioned. It is called a 'change the season,' from its power of cooling the person fanned. This power has been enlarged upon in an ode to a fan, written by a poet named Poh Chü-I,† of which the following are specimen lines : With thee, hot suns shall strike in vain the snow; By thy aid gentle gales perennial blow; Thou mov'st an autumn breeze 'neath summer skies; Cease, and the round moon in my bosom lies. From the last line of this effusion, which, as a translation, aims only at literal fidelity to the original, it is clear that the particular kind of fan here alluded to must be the round screen fan, which Chinese poets never tire of comparing with the full moon, and which, when not in use, is often laid in the bosom,' between the folds of the flowing outer robe. As to inscriptions upon *The Ch'ien-ch'o-lei-shu, an encyclopædia published in 1632. Flourished A.D. 772-846. fans, they vary with every variety of human thought and feeling. The more usual kind treats in stilted language, pregnant with classical quotation and obscure historical allusion, of some one of the ever-changing aspects of nature. Others again are didactic; and some are literary tours de force, occasionally of a not very high order. The most celebrated of the latter class has been acknowledged by universal consent to be a couplet consisting of only eight characters, written at the eight corners of an octagon fan belonging to the Emperor Chien Wên, of the Liang dynasty,* and said to have been the composition of the monarch himself. The peculiarity of this couplet is that the reader may begin at any one of the eight characters, and by reading round the way of the sun find a couplet of perfect sense and perfectly rhymed. Yet of all inscriptions on or about fans in China, few are to be compared in point of pathos and poetic vigor with a certain stanza penned many centuries ago by a favorite of the Emperor Ch'êng Ti, of the Han dynasty.† The lady in question, whose name was Pan, had been for some time the confidante of his Majesty, and the queen of the Imperial seraglio, and appears to have believed that something more than an ordinary attachment of the hour existed between herself and the Son of Heaven. Gradually, however, she began to find that her influence was on the wane, and at length, unable to bear any longer her mortification and grief, she forwarded to the Emperor a circular screen fan, on one side of which were inscribed the following lines: O fair white silk, fresh from the weaver's loom, At home, abroad, a close companion thou; them. Since the date of this poem, a deserted wife has constantly been spoken of as an autumn fan.'-Fraser's Maga zine. MR. BROWNING'S DRAMATIC IDYLLS.‡ BY MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. MR. BROWNING'S "Dramatic Idylls" contain all that the terms properly imply; very little of that which popular association connects with them; and though the graceful unrealities suggested by the word Idyllic could never be looked for in any work of his, he has exceeded forecast in the opposite direction. The concentrated vigor of his latest volume may startle even those who have learnt by long experience that his genius is incapable of attenuation, and that writing six short poems, instead of one long one, means with him, not the suspension of constructive effort, but a constructive effort multiplied so many times. It justifies the stereotyped opinion concerning him by dealing chiefly with the unusual in character and cir cumstance, and with emotions more startling than sympathetic. It belies it in so far that the unusual in its pictures adds often not only to their impressiveness, but to their truth, recalling, as they do, forgotten, rather than improbable aspects of human life; and rough-hewn possibilities, rather than over-specialized forms of human feeling. That the result is on the whole somewhat stern and sad will be approved or disapprov ed according to the temperament of the reader. It seems superfluous to say, what is implied by the shortness of these poems, that they are free from all tedious elaboration; or to add that the intellectual matter which they contain is strictly subordinate to their dramatic form. "Pheidippides" differs from the five other Idylls as the classical conventionalities of a Greek subject differ from any possible romance of northern life. It differs also in this respect, that though the most historical in treatment, it is the most pathetic. It is an episode in the life of an Athenian "runner," who was despatched to Sparta to invoke aid against the Persian invasion, and covered the distance of 150 miles in 48 hours; and who ran again, and for the last time, from Marathon to Athens to tell the result of the battle. The earlier feat is recorded by Herodotus, and referred to by other writers, together with the ambiguous reply of Sparta, and the meeting with Pan at Mount Parnes, and receiving from him a promise of assistance. Lucian mentions the death of the messenger in the act of announcing the victory. Mr. Browning has filled in this outline of semimythical fact, and placed Pheidippides before us, not only in the passion of his patriotic impulse, but in all that poetry of visible motion with which the Greek imagination would have clothed him. Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return ! See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks! Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come, we are here, where is She ?'' Your command I obeyed, Ran and raced like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks. Into their midst I broke breath served but for "Persia has come ! Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria-but Athens, shall Athens sink, Drop into dust and die—the 'flower of Hellas utterly die, Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by? Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink? How, when? No care for my limbs !-there's lightning in all and some Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!" O my Athens-Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond? Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, Malice,—each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate! Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood Yet, O Gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, named, rushing past them again, 'Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome liba. tion! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!" The beautiful imagery which illustrates the first race is repeated in the second., He flung down his shield, Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through. 66 The metre itself, which Mr. Browning employs for the first time, denotes this blending of athletic force and heroic inspiration, and seems to throb with the unresting flight and rythmic footfall of the day-long runner" who runs for his sonal interest is supplied by the hope An element of more percountry's life. which speeds Pheidippides on his last errand. Pan has promised him release from "the racer's toil," and he can only construe such a release into freedom to marry the maiden whom he loves; but the promise is more poetically fulfilled in the death which overtakes him in the hour of his crowning achievement and of his country's |