A most interesting lecture was delivered at the Masonic Hall, on Tuesday evening, by Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, W. H. Medhuret, Exq., as the last of the series of lectures for the season. The audience was somewhat smaller than we have observed on other occasions, but was highly appreciative of the rich store of information supplied, on the interesting subject of "Chinese Poetry," by one so well qualified to enlighten his hearers as the lecturer of the evening. H.E, Vice-Admiral Ryder occupied the chair, and His Excellency Wade, Esq., 0.B., Her Majesty's Minister, was also present.
Mr. Mepuorst began by defining what in Chinese is considered to be poetry. The language, he remarked, contains a term which precisely corresponds to the English word ''verse,"—i.e, words arranged in metrical order, according to certain recognised rules; and metrical composition is in China regarded as an essential acquirement of the educated man. The general superficial, or rather mechanical, anole, between Chinese and European ideas of the art of poesy having been traced to a certain stage, the lecturer proceeded to point out the more radical fotuis of divergence. Chinese verso is so hampered by rigid and complex rules of prosody and construction, that the spirit of poetry has not had fair play. Poetry in China is consequently but a cramped and stunted representative of the sister art in other countries, The basis of Chinese verse-inaicng, it was shown, is the system of "tones" or vocal inflections. 1n regular verse, the monosyllables or "feet" of which the verse consists must not only be assigned each to particular tone, but the tones of the words or characters making up each line must stand ina definite relation one toward the other. Chinese stanzas are usually in verses of five or seven feet each, and the construction was exemplified by combining the monosyllables yes and no to form the following stanza d la Chinoise 1. No, no; yes, yes, 1 2, Yes, yes; no, no, yes.
3. Yes, yes; yes, no, no, 4, No, no; no, yes, yes.
A regular alternation, line for line, will be here observed, and the same rule holds good with verses of seven fect or characters, 'A pause or cawsura in each line is an tial clement of Chinese versification, falling in pentameters after the second and in heptameters after the fourth syllable. The peculiar arrangement of the tones in Chinese verse is thought by Sir John Davis, whose valuable treatise on Chinese erty was becomingly referred to by the lecturer, to have been adopted with a view of avoiding the too frequent recurrence of the same tone in ensuing lines. The antitheses and parallelisims which go so far to make up the distinctive style of Chinese' poetry were further expatiated upon, and their resemblance to similar characteristics of Hebrew verse, as exemdin the Psalms of David, was ith numerous examples from In conclusion, it was reservations, both taste and imayiuation must be admitted to be shown in abundance in Chinese poetry, and it was suggested that thoughts an imagery present themselves in this field which even our own writers might study with advantage. At the same time, the actual impossibility of rendering the peculiar graces of Chinese versification English dress, with any resemblance to the original, was demonstrated.
At the conclusion of the lecture, which audience to Mer Medhvirst were invited by was warmly applauded, the thanks of the the Chairman, in afew well-chosen remarks, Mr. Was, rising next, said that he had great satisfaction in supporting this motion, having himself listened with great plea sure to Mr. Medhurst's lecture. Although he had no intention of ing the audience at length on the subject, being entirely unprepared to do s0, he nevertheless thought it due to Mr. Medhurst to say afew words on the subject he had selected. He differed to some extent from the lecturer in his appreciation of Chinese poetry, which he considered of too purely mechanical a type to deserve any high degree of praise. The limited scope within which a Chinese writer's debars him from reaching those heights imagination and diction are confineds epic grandeur and lyric passion which constitute the glories of Kuropean verse and the absence of all reference to any higher sphere than that of man himself—to the Creator as well as the created—marks also a striking contrast between our own and the poetry of the Chinese, As regards. the mechanism of the verse taelf, the stringency of the rule of Chinese ited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.