Tae position of the Chinn Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society cannot, we should think, be very satisfactory to the members of it. In one way, it is true, the Society is showing unwonted signs of activity. Scarcely a week passes without a meeting; and whatever this may prove, it certainly proves that the President has a liberal supply of papers. Butin all other respects there is but little cause for congratulation. The papers that have been rend during the past few weeks cannot, by the utmost stretch of leniency, be called interesting or attractive; and we fear that among some prolific writers theroa tendency to favour the Society with their saperflaous lumber rather than with their best work, This, however, cuts both ways. The andienove at the Society's meetings fluctuate in vampers from about three to twelve} and no man who places a proper value upon his researches and his compositions can be expected to write a really valu.
Jo and attractive paper in order that it may be rend before a sleepy handful of persons and consigned to the limbo of a littlearead compilation a year or eighteen months afterwards, Nor, on the other hand, will there be very much prospect of attracting larger and more interested audiences as long as the papers read before them are of 8o dry, and in some instances frivolous, anne tare, Whut is wanted, therefore, is what is called in an expressive American phrase a new departure, We do not propose to elaborate a scheme; but we may be permitted to mention a suggestion that has reached ne, which may serve us the basis of a scheme to be elaborated Inter on by the collective wisdom of the council. We thin, then, Uhat an occasional soiree in the form of 8 conversazioue would do much towards popalarising the institution, There is 8 fine museum upstairs, which is seldom if ever visited; a fine library downs ataira, the books of which are seldom if ever touched. A bright and interesting paper, not to exceed half-an-hour in delivery, should be prepared, to form, so to spank, the raison d'étre of the gathering, and free discussion ons couraged; and, in order to ensure wakes talness, and impart an air of something like festivity to the proceedings, such light refreshments might be provided as are customary ut lodge-meetings at the Masonic Hall, There is not the slightest reason, that we oan see, why the eéances of the Royal Asiatic Society should not be rendered sufficiently ngreenble to attract Indies. The tedious and prosy manner in which Chinese topics are handled, and the general abstraseness and dryness of the topics themselves, have had the effect of pro-driving a firm and almost unalterable conviction in the minds. of ninety-nine people out of a hundred that all Chinese topics are abstruse and ary, and that they cun only be handled tediously and prosily. This, of course, is a very grave mistake, and virtually debars many por sons from interesting themselves in a most enlertniving and instraotivo study. The Royal Asiatic Society is the public representative of scholarship in Sha Lai, and it devolves upon it, therefore, to do all in its power to make scholarship and research attractive to the public. This is a responsibility which, we humbly think, has not been sufficiently recognised; and the result has been
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.