Tue sketch of a Shanghai Race Meet-, ing in the Scenery of Shébkiang is not devoid of a certain artistic merit, but; its most enthusiastic admirers would not declare it true to nature. That, of course, is of less consequence to us. We Imow what a Race Meeting really like, what we want to know is how! Chinese culture regards it. The poem which accompanies our sketch is of unusual length, but of quite usual vagueness, It is in the common Chinese metre which bears so strong a resem-blanco to Omar Khayyam's quatrains and opens thus Proud coursers come, when autumn chills are nigh, And west winds whirl the dust and clear the sky, Breast hills, fly brooks, as o'er a greonsward smooth, And like a dream the seaside dunes go by. What the seaside dunes' may be is not clear, but no poet would ever tune up at all, if his most poetical epithets were liable to be ruled out as meaningless, And so we must not bear too hardly on his next couplet, Stout youths of Burope strong of frame and han own tidewaiters too) it is a little hard that we should, in our corporate capacity it is true, be looked upon as nothing more than a nocturnal nuisance. Perhaps we do sometimes disturb the sleepy complacency of China, even in our reams.
Volume 2 comprises the Show-pao office, the Mih-ho-loong, a Fire En-me, the Public Garden, the Gas and ater Works, a Sermon in the Cathedral, the Foreign Cemetery, a Boat Race, the Match' Manufactory, the Woosung Railway, the Club, Chiarini's Circus, a Silk Filature, the French Consulate General, a Sack Race, the Gymnasium, and various scenes of native revelry, as an Opium Divan, a Japanese Restaurant, a Soiree Musicale, a Drive on the Maloo, a Supper Party, a Theatre, and a Billiard Room and Bowling alley. Such a very varied bill of fare cannot be done full justice to. The Ode to Gas might be worth translating, if we had space for it; as it is, we cannot pass it by without noticing the reference to an ancient hero, one Luyang, who when engaged in routing his enemies stayed with his spear the decil sun and set him back through forty degrees.
The Public Garden seems to the poet like a glimpse of paradise wherein wander "fair maidens of twice eight With fey flag thrust in many-coloured ears, beauteous as flowers, slim waisted with white sacs and veil of gauze, a highly decorative donkey race, does! youths." In conclusion he asks the No youth of Europe, except perhaps in; passing to and fro hand in hand with thrust flags into his waistband and so European population generally whether career round the course, but it would' the air of the Garden does not remind certainly add greatly to the effect if he them of their old country homes. Equal did, and effect is what our poet is aim- sympathy is shown in his verses on the ing at. He describes the lush which foreign cemetery which are certainly falls on the spectators, then the sudden appearance of the winner, the general joy and removal of hats, and hints gently at the vast sums of money which have been spent in getting that particular pony down from Mongolia. The race over, he tells us, the riders " get into their carriages and return, for it already dusk, going straight to some inn where they lightly drink themselves drunk. Those who have won rejoice, and the losers treat their loss as a matter of course. Whence," he adds reflectively, "comes this exuberance of spirits The poem on the Bund goes over much the same ground as we have seen oveupied by the preface. How the site was once covered with rotting bones and all abominations, desolate and deserted, whereas since the advent of westerners it has grown into a place the best in his book Poor prisoned souls whose sobs are wind and rain, When ghosts long dead with new-made Feague on longue passed o'er, and sea on hosts complain oe sea, And stately homes once left, a grave to gain. "Beneath the ground they sleep their long sleep while autumns turn to spring, and as cold fireflies are they seen in the storm-tossed trees." For the firefly is a spirit that flits sadly by night over grave and morass, and an image not of canty but of desolation and sorrow. It is strange to our seeming that the Chinese should find a symbol of melancholy where the Brazilian maiden sees a brilliant ornament for her hair, while they take for their emblem of happiness an unclean bat, a vampire.
The sermon in the Cathedral is remarkable for the ingenuity with which of thronging trade adorned by rows of pendent willows, flanked by star-y-point-) Ing masts, and dotted at intervals with tidewaiters. Is it in irony or with all proper seriousness, that the poet concludes, "our Emperor has grudged no territory employing other States to cultivate it; he has bore in mind the proverbial discomfort of a snoring bedfellow, but his glorious domain is spacious enough for all"? After turning an abomination of desolation into a leafy haunt of tidewaiters (His Majesty's the artist has contrived to represent the worshippers as reading, praying and arriving while the sermon is going on. One worshipper has taken the opportunity to lave his forehead at the tent. The poem is very spirited, not to say lively, in its movement, which much resembles the once celebrated ode that began "Up in a balloon, boys, up ina balloon." These beauties unfortunately will not bear reproduction in English dress. We may note, however, the effect produced on the poet by the extraordinary silence and decorum of the audience, who "while the preacher is ceaselessly expounding, dividing and illustrating," sit there "listening in silence as though they accepted everything." He contrasts this with the continual gabble which prevails when the village agreements (whatever they may be) are read over in his own country distriet—for our poet has a candid mind, and likes to drive a useful moral home.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.