Tue address delivered by Dr. 8. W. Williams at the Asiatic Society was in every respect worthy of the high commendation which was bestowed upon it by the proposer and seconder of the vote of thanks. We are apt to regard the proceedings of the leaned Body now located in the Gnaomen Road, as devoid of special and peculiar interest. Their deliberations are believed by the careless multitude to be under the guardianship of the Goddess referred to by Mr. Pope at the close of the Dunciad, and we confess that there is some reason in the complaints alleged against their meetings. Yet, as we have always maintained, there is solid stuff in the journals if people would only look for it. At its annual meeting however, the Society condescended to amuse as well as to instruct, and the result was eminently successful. Dr. Williams arrived in China in the year 1832, and has had opportunities of making himself acquainted with all the transactions between the foreigner and the native during this important period. In spite of our Anglo-Saxon habit of grumbling, we cannot deny that a glance backward over the space of forty years exhibits inn prominent light, the advances of European civilization in Far Cathay. The picture of life in old Canton, though highly entertaining, contrasts very unfavourably with our modern life in the most circumscribed and restricted of the Treaty Ports, and the oppressive and repressive rules of the Mandarins, with regard to Foreigners, seem to us now scarcely credible, The attempts to prevent Foreigners from learning Chinese are in themselves startling and extraordinary proofs of the antipathy that was engendered by ignorance in the minds of the official class. Indeed, one of the most remarkable features in the address of Dr. Williams is the strong way in which he exhibits this ignorance of our customs as the root and origin of all the wrong doings of the natives. The truth is very simple, the people—from the Commissioner of the Emperor in his Yamun, to the coolie in the streets—were utterly unacquainted with our character and views, and ourresourees, There was no inten. tional misrepresentation in the case, for there was not a sufficient substratum of facts to be presented in a wrong light. To quote Dr. Williams: "When Amoy was ocoupied, there was evidence that the people knew really nothing of the political difficulties; for when two American missionaries Dr. Abed and Bishop Boone, who could speak their dialect, visited them, they at once asked what the English wanted, and on being told, they came back to their business. With such ignorance all over the country, it is not surprising that there have been mistakes on the pare of the Chinese, and very sad ones too."
The personal and characteristic reminiscences of the Lecturer, however, were the most interesting portions of his address. Little facts were supplied by the faithful memory that are not written either in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.