Tue Chinese are a historical nation. They ave, as-we ave frequently reminded, constantly going back to former ages, and regulating all their actions by precedent. Now, Carlyle somewhere says that we should be able to understand the present far better, had not the past been so grievously misrepresented. If this statement be true, in any degree, of European history, it is far more so, of Chinese history. Those who devote themselves to the -arduous and thankless task of anrolling the scroll of those ancient chroniders and annalists who have attempted to do, in this country, what Bede did in England, find stories of bye-gone days that appear strangely absurd, but yet possess interest. Of course, the most expert sinologue is unable to do more than touch upon the margin of the recondite theme, bat we may glance at some of the subjects on which infor-motion is really needed. Some attempts, but by no means satisfactory ones, have been made to explain Chinese cosmogony. We are informed that, when the primeval vapours and ether germinated, there was a commencement of things; heaven and earth were separated; the male and female principles came into existence; the yang scattered the primeval ether, the yin conceived, and man was produced by their union. The first born was Pwan-Koo. At the approach of death, his body was transformed, his breath was changed into wind and clouds, his voice into thunder, his left eye into the sun, ete. Now this is the fantastic foundation of Chinese history, and we cannot marvel, when we find such an absurd myth as the basis of the figure of the historic muse, that the statue which rests thereon is monstrous and deformed. Thus, throughout the multitudinous mass of volumes that repose on the tables and shelves of erudite native students, we find exaggeration and caricature. Above all, we discern nothing save the figures of the sovereigns. Fastond of allowing that ordinary men and women had any concern in the affairs of the world, they speak only of the Emperors. who then reigned. La Rochefoucauld says, "il est plus diffi dle de s'empecher d'etre gouverné, que de gouverner les autres," and so the Chinese historians seem to have found it, for they have never been able to shake themselves free from the' tyrant nons sway of servility to the throne. he chroniclers nowhere give us_pictures of the manners and customs of the various orders and ranks of society, they never panse to give a graphic story illustrative of the state of society, as the Hebrew writers do, bat they talk of kings and kings' houses. "They represent the Emperors as the sources from which the whole order of things emanated, and the subjects as mere puppets who moved at the pleasure of the autocrat." Still, there is, no doubt, a wide and interesting field for the student, in the examination of these fragments of antiquity. Scholars like Jullien and Dr. Legge are required, to draw aside the curtains which veil many interesting epochs. We will, for the moment, put aside the very remote period which produced Yaou and Shun, and simply note other eras that await the approach of the elucidator. The great straggle against the Tartar hordes of the North and West, the Tang and Sung dynasty event of which the world really knows very little. It is probable that a vivid and minute account of the great Kublai, of whom Marco Polo wrote and Coleridge sang, is not obtainable in Chinese, Still there is something to be gleaned about the conqueror. We are assured that the Chinese considered the Mongols as hateful usurpers, sprang from the bar-parians who first laid waste the Celestial Empire, and then trampled the flowery nation' under foot. Therefore they-say less about Kublai than about Mings. Yet we should like to know what they do say. Concerning the Princes Whose strange tombs are visible at Nanking, there are more than sixty volumes. We are often reminded that Europe and China are always boldly contrasted with each other; and so, as usual, "the rale of contrary" prevails in literature. When the nations of the West were sank in ignorance, China boasted a wealth of books; when learning revived in Europe, it declined in China. To the careless observer, all thatis past appears of little moment, and an impatient generation is disposed to approach so obscute a theme as Chinese history mach in the spirit of Mr. Francis Train, when he tured on "the Fogies of the Bible;" bat, really, these chroniclers would, in all likelihood, repay our perusal and attention. Though we cannot expect to find, in the venerable Chinese Froissarts, the philosophic spirit of modern historical research, we should find glimpses of light, and it is more than possible that the rays might fall on portions of his tory that specially need the illumination. To be practical, as official documents at Peking are notoriously easy to bay, one would like to catch a sight afew pages of the history which grave graduates of the Hau lin are oven now writing, as, therein, we should doubtless find a strange version of the convention between the Lord of the Dragon Throne and the Western barbarians.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.