changed that their original nature cannot be discerned, were never more than a few hundred; and most of them are retained in what are generally called radicals, under one or other of which all the other characters of the language are arranged in the K'ang-he dictionary. To meet the requirements of thought and composition, the device was fallen on of forming characters that should be phonetic or representative of sounds,-that should be so, not as embodying in their form the elements of the compound sound as in an alphabetic language, but which should be understood and treasured in the memory as indicative each of its particular sound, whether that was of a single vowel, a dipthong, a triphthong, or a vowel and consonant together. Several of the radicals were set apart for this object; other phonetics had their own individual meaning as ideographs; and some hardly seem to have served any purpose but that of phonetics. By the combination of them with the radicals, the number of ideographs became capable of indefinite multiplication. In fact, the great body of the characters in the language is formed by the union of a radical and a phonetic, the former element giving for the most part some general intimation of the meaning, and the latter of the sound. As Twan Yuh-tsae says, 'In defining dictionaries, the meaning is the principal thing, the warp, with the sound as the woof; in rhyming dictionaries, the sound is the warp, and the meaning is the woof.'16 Thus in the Shwoh-wăn, as it came from Heu Shin, about A.D. 100, after the lexical definition of the meaning, it is generally added, 'Formed from such a radical, taking its sound from such and such a phonetic.'17 The spelling by means of an initial and final is an addition by the Sung editor. It was by means of these phonetic characters that rhyme became possible in Chinese writings. And we may assume it as self-evident, that a phonetic on its first formation had only one sound and one tone; for if it had had many sounds and tones it would have ceased to be a phonetic. Much of this happy simplicity continued well on into the Han dynasty. But later on we find characters into which the same phonetic enters quite variously pronounced, though some one 16 See the 六書音均表古諧聲說:-諧聲之字半主義半 主聲凡字書以義為經,而聲緯之凡韻書以聲爲 而義緯之 17 Callery has called attention to this characteristic of the Shwohwan in his Systema Phoneticum, p. 16. Twan Yuh-tsae does the same in the paragraph just quoted, adding that there must have been similar dictionaries during the dynasties of Shang and Chow, which are long lost. It may be doubted if such dictionaries ever existed. or more of them will generally be found to retain the original sound. 18 How it was that phonetics came in process of time to assume several different pronunciations or sounds, some of them widely diverse from the original sound each was intended to suggest, is an inquiry that has considerable attractions for the minute philologist. The facts of change may be collected and the dates approximated to, while the cause was more subtle and is difficult to ascertain; but it would be foreign to my present purpose to enter on so wide a question. What has been stated affords to my own mind an account of the peculiarities of the rhymes of the She entirely satisfactory. We are placed by them near to the fountain-head of the Chinese language. We are shown it in its first appearances; and the one point of the phonetic having been made to represent only one sound sufficiently vindicates and establishes the system of the modern researches into the ancient rhymes. Before leaving the subject of the present section, I will venture to state my own opinion that the nature of the Chinese language is even at the best ill-adapted in one important respect for the purpose of agreeable rhyme. It does not admit the variety that is found in an alphabetical language, and which is to us one of the charms of poetical composition. The single rhyming endings in English are 360; and if we add to them what are called double and triple rhymes, where the accent falls on the penultimate and antepenultimate syllables, they cannot come short of 400. In Chinese on the other hand the rhyming endings are very few, and though there may be a great number of words to any one ending, yet, through the comparative fewness of the initial consonants, many rhymes are to a foreign ear merely assonances, and the effect is that of a prolonged monotony. This defect, inherent in the nature of the Chinese language, has been aggravated by the course which poetry has taken for more than a thousand years. In the She we find characters rhyming with one another in the different tones, and changes of rhyme in the same. piece, and even in the same stanza; but since the era of the T'ang dynasty, it has been established that the rhyme in a poem must always fall on a character in the even tone, and the liberty of the 18 Twan instances , which originally was sounded me, but is now called mow, and classed under, with, and other derivatives, while, and others, are classed under, and sounded mei; and, originally sounded me, some of whose derivatives are sounded mei, one at least() min, and several mow. writer is farther cramped by the method of alternating in all the lines, according to certain rules, the even and deflected tones. It is in consequence of this that poetical compositions now are necessarily constrained and brief, and we never meet with the freedom and seldom with the length which we find in the Book of Poetry. Some Christian Chinese of genius, addressing himself to the work of a hymnologist, and breaking down, not rashly but wisely, all restrictions, may yet do more to develope the capabilities of his language for the purpose of poetry than has been hitherto accomplished. SECTION III. THE POETICAL VALUE; AND CERTAIN PECULIARITIES OF COM- 1. My object in translating the Book of Poetry as a portion of the Chinese classics does not require that I should attempt any estimate of the poetical value of the pieces of which it is composed; Poetical value of the odes. and I touch upon the subject only in a slight and cursory manner. The Roman Catholic missionaries, who were the first to introduce the knowledge of Chinese literature into Europe, expressed themselves with astonishing audacity on the merit of the odes. In the treatise on the antiquity of the Chinese with which the Memoires concernant les Chinois' cominence, it is said:-'The poetry of the She king is so beautiful and harmonious, the lovely and sublime tone of antiquity rules in it so continually, its pictures of manners are so naive and minute, that all these characteristics give sufficient attestation of its authenticity. The less can this be held in doubt that in the following ages we find nothing, I will not say equal to these ancient odes, but nothing worthy to be compared with them. We are not sufficient connoisseurs to pronounce between the She-king on the one side and Pindar and Homer on the other; but we are not afraid to say that it yields only to the Psalms of David in speaking of the Divinity, of Providence, of virtue, &c., with a magnificence of expressions and an elevation of ideas which make the passions cold with terror, ravish the spirit, and draw the soul from the sphere of the senses.' Such language is absurdly extravagant, and we are tempted to doubt whether the writer who used it could have had much acquaintance with the poems which he belauds. And yet it would be wrong to go to the other extreme, and deny to them a very considerable degree of poetical merit. It is true that many of them, as Sir John Davis has said, 'do not rise above the most primitive simplicity,' and that the principal interest which the collection possesses arises from its pictures of manners, yet there are not a few pieces which may be read with pleasure from the pathos of their descriptions, their expressions of natural feeling, and the boldness and frequency of their figures. The comparison of them to the Psalms of David is peculiarly unfortunate. God often appears in them, indeed, the righteous and sovereign lord of Providence; but the writers never make Him their theme for what He is in himself, and do not rise to the distinct conception of Him as "over all," China and other nations, "blessed for ever," to be approached by the meanest as well as the highest. 2. Sir John Davis contends that 'verse must be the shape into which Chinese, as well as other poetry, must be converted in order Ought the odes to be to do it mere justice,' adding that in his own translated in verse? Streatise on the Poetry of the Chinese, while giving now a prose translation, now a faithful metrical version, and anon an avowed paraphrase, he has deferred more than his own judgment and inclinations approved to the prejudices of those who are partial to the literal side of the question. It may be granted that verse is the proper form in which to translate verse; but the versifier must have a sufficient understanding of the original before he can do justice to it, and avoid imposing upon his reader. Sir John has rendered in verse two of the odes of the She. Of the former of them, where the meaning of the ode is entirely misapprehended, I have spoken in a note appended to it (p. 21). The second is given with more success; but not in what I can regard as 'a faithful metrical version.' He observes that the style and language of the odes, without the minute commentary which accompanies them, would not always be intelligible at the present day. 1 The Poetry of the Chinese (London, 1870), p. 34. But the earliest commentary on the odes is modern as compared with their antiquity, and what, it is to be presumed, he calls the minute commentary often differs from it toto cœlo. Every critic of eminence, indeed, has his own to-say on whole odes and particular stanzas and lines. I have not delivered myself to any commentary. Where the lines are now and then all but unintelligible, we may suspect some error in the text;-no commentary will be found to throw any satisfactory light upon them. them. But But upon the whole, the Book of Poetry is easier to construe than the Book of History;—it is much easier than the poetry of the T'ang and subsequent dynasties. My object has been to give a version of the text which should represent the meaning of the original, without addition or paraphrase, as nearly as I could attain to it. The collection as a whole is not worth the trouble of versifying. But with my labours before him, any one who is willing to undertake the labour may present the pieces in 'a faithful metrical version.' My own opinion inclines in favour of such a version being as nearly literal as possible. In Bunsen's 'God in History,' Book III., chap. V., poetical versions are given of several passages from the She, which that various writer calls The Book of Sacred songs.' Versified, first in German, from the Latin translation of Lacharme, and again from the German version in English, if the odes from which they are taken were not pointed out in the foot-notes, it would be difficult, even for one so familiar with the Chinese text as myself, to tell what the originals of them were. Such productions are valueless, either as indications of the poetical merit of the odes, or of the sentiments expressed in them. 3. Nothing could be more simple than the bulk of the odes in the first Part. A piece frequently conveys only one idea, which is rePeculiarities in the peated in the several stanzas with little change in structure of the odes. the language. The writer wishes to prolong his ditty, and he effects his purpose by the substitution of a fresh rhyme, after which the preceding stanza reappears with no other change than is rendered necessary by the new term. An amusing instance is pointed out in the 3d ode of Book XIV., where the poet is reduced, by the necessities of his rhyme, to say that the young of the turtle dove are seven in number. Some of the pieces in Parts II. and III. are marked by the same characteristics as those of the Fung,-the repetition of whole lines and more, merely varied by a change in the rhyme. This peculiarity |