Everypopy knows that Voltaire had or affected to have a great admiration for everything Chinese. He loved to extol the virtues of the mysterious and multitudinous people of whom the Jesuits wrote, and though in general he distrusted every utterance of a priest, he was prepared to credit any atatgmant of the enterprising missionary Fathers which elevated the wisdom or praised the culture of the remote dwellers in Sericana, It is needless for us to enlarge on the reasons of this prejudice, it suffices to refer to aratiier amusing article on "Glory" in the Philosophical Dictionary, as it suggests, really with some show of probability, what may be the feelings of the Chinese when they read the works of Western Historians and Geographers translated into their own difficult tongue. The author imagines a colloquy between some European savans and a Chinese, "a man of letters and a merchant," who spoke a little Dutch. The scene of the conversation is laid in Holland. Our pig-tailed friend goes into a Bookseller's shop and asks for a book. A translation of Bossuet's Universal History is shown him. "Ah" says he, "how fortunate; I shall now see what is said of our great empire, of our nation, which has existed as a national body for more than fifty thou sands years, of that succession of Fmperers who have governed us for so many ages; I shall now see what is thought of the religion of the men of letters, "of that: simple worship which render to the Supreme Being. How pleasing to see what is said in Europe of our arts, many of which are more ancient among us than any European Kingdom. I guess the author will have made many mistakes inthe history ofthe war which we had twenty-two thousand five hundred and fifty-two years ago, with the warlike nations of Tonquin and Japan"—* Alas!" said one of the learned men to him, "you are not even mentioned in that boo inconsiderable"
Then the Chinaman naturally asks, what nations are mentioned and who are the heroes of the voluminous record.
He is told of the Jews and the Greeks, of the Roman Commonwealth and of Julius Cesar, and is taunted by the Western scholar with his ignorance of the highly interesting stories with which mythology abounds. Now of course there have been many improvements since Voltarie's day, and we of this generation know something more about China than our ancestors knew. Yet we should not be surprised if even now, books were published on History and Geography which contained very imperfect accounts of this Great Empire, and we are certain that its past story would repay a student nearly as well as the legends and chronicles that are inflicted on schoolboys.
This, however, is not exactly the present point. We desire to hint that it is quite possible that a Chinaman who has learnt English and who takes ap an elaborate combination, "for the use of schools," may still be astonished at the extent of ignorance displayed about his own country. Of course he may exaggerate its importance, and in calling it "All under Heaven" and "the Middle Kingdom," he may err on the side of Oriental hyperbole, but he cannot, when he is instructed, shut his eyes to the fact that the nations held up as models to Europeans, are in no respect to compare with his own land, and he cannot fail to be strack with astonish. ment at the small place which China occupies in the European version of universal History. A time will come when this omission will teach him useful lessons, and exhibit the trath that if a realm wraps itself up in isolated dignity, it will never be fairly estimated by the rest of the world; burat first the chances are in favour of his regarding the casual and erroneous notices of China asa proof of the superficial knowledge of the Western civilizers, who profess to be the masters of the sciences and the instructors of the world. Voltaire is' content with the cynical reflection that if Cesar's name is unknown in "the finest, the most ancient, the most extensive, the most populous and well regulated kingdom on earth," renown is of little value. We have striven to examine the witty imaginary dialogue in another light, and to show how our ignorance of China may make the Chinese distrust our arrogation of encyclopeedical knowledge.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.