There is no nation on the planet, which has a greater regard for antiquity. and with more reason, than the Chinese, But there is no country in which it is possible to find so few niaterial relics of the distant past, as in China, We have already spoken of the Chinese hunger for fame, as well as of the disregard of foundations.' We have now to notice the relation which these two characteristics bear to one another, and their connection with the in-stiner of conservatism. The Chinese are very desirous of transmitting to those who come after, as well as of making known to contemporaries, a knowledge of whatever tends tu make themselves, their families, or their dynasty great or notable. This is an impulse which they share with the rest of the human race. 'The means by which they seek to accomplish this end, are the erect tiou of memorial temples, memorial portals "ai-fang,' stone or wooden tablets, and in the Ming dynasty the use of stone Sgures of men and animals lining the avenues to cemeteries. Of the swift ruin which overtakes every form of building constructed ona Chinese plan, and of the ruin of the public roads, we have already spoken. Strictly speaking, there are nu old temples in China, because no Chinese temple can withstand the elements more than a few score years at most, when it gives way to a new and revised edition, if it does not totally disappear. Temples, like fruit trees, have a definite period of life and if that grafted, or cles how setons most be raised to be prolonged, they must be perpetual
from the seed. The wooden lacquered! tablets, which are so highly ornamental when new, and so dismal when old, and which play so important a part in gratifying the Chinese desire for face,' aid fame,' have but a limited duration, and then disappear for ever. More permanent by far are the portals which are rected to the great scholars, famous officers, virtuous widows and maidens who may be so hou-oured as to have the right to them conferred by imperial favour. When these structures are made of well cut stone, are of the most advantageous size and) well situated, they are the finest representation, of Chinese architecture to be met with iny the Empire. A wealthy citizen of Paris, London or New York, who wished to camber upon these cities a gift which should convey: an accurate and attractive view of what the Chinese can achieve in ornamentation, could not do better than tu order one of these P'ai-fangs, and have it set up in a public park, where it would be admired for maw generations. 'The Chinese lavish, great sums on these structures, which are: to be seen in immense numbers just ins Howes, If stones' aru nut to be had, the: proportion to the proximity of a supply ati
portals are made of wood, as in Peking, and very uch less than one generation is. royuired to reduce them to " condition of ruin. Like all other Chinese erections, they give way at the bottom, the tall posts begin to lean in different direetious, the lnequer scales off as if they had the leprosy in an exaggerated form, and large sections of the complicated orman mental woodwork at the top are seen te be on the point of falling. The sawe thing occurs in the ense of the stone portals, but on a more impressive scale. Although built of materials which ought to endure for centuries, and although put up at great expefise, it is rare to find specimens which are thirty years old and yet in good re-'The' foundations sink, the strong iron clamps give way, the heavy transverse Vlocks of stone are wrenched frum their mortises, and crack, Every projection appears to be starting from its socket, and however interested the traveller may be to ascertain the aye of the work, or to study the curious caving which it displays, his' first and instinctive anxiety is to get. out from: under it, before it falls, It 1s impossible to refrain from speculating as to the length 1 of time ere the crazy framework will come down, and whether the low of chances will it of its fall without killing anyone, Tf comparative brevity of existence is true aff such massive structures as the portals, it is much more the case as regards stone tablets, which constitute the ordinary vehicle for the conveyance of fame to posterity. If erected ona large scale, they stand on the back of a gigantic tortoise, emblem of longevity, sot appear at first adapted to execute the commission with which they are charged, to perpetuate fame for an hundred generations," if n ten thousand antiquities." But the same vicious mode of construction, or rather destruction, rules the tablet, the the portal and the temple. The foundation is inadequate, and sooner or later they all godown. The tortoise is decapitated by the attrition of ages, and buried up to the stump of his neck in the soil, while the precious fame-bearing tablet Ties prone on the earth, or shattered into many pieces, the fame being thus administered in what the physicians call "divided doses.' Orif the tablet asa whole holds together, itamty form the seat at a way-side restaurant, a doorstep, or even the pavement to a bridge.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.