Duncan, Shanghai: printed and published at the Shanghai Merewry Office, 1889.
Mr. Chesney Duncan tells us that he has been six years in Corea, originally in the Royal Corean Customs' Service, and afterwards, us we gather from his report of his interview with one Yi Che Wun, Censor and cousin to the King (p. 70), as a tencher, and he has given much time and attention' to a study of the polities of that wretched country. 'Wretched' even in Mr. Duncan's eyes, for he tells the Censor that she is "tin a very unsatisfactory condition, commercially und_ politically." She is groaning under the yoke of China," at the same time that Russia is preparing to swallow her, and it is Mr. Duncan's apprehension of this fact that las made him He tells us in his preface "The folly, or rather the madness of the view held by certain sections of Kastern and other communities, that we can altogether, or toa great extent, ignore the. Corean and' East Siberian question—-which undoubtedly affects almost every phase of foreign policy in our respective fatherlands, and concerns, I maintain and endeavour to Prove, every man and woman in the East and West—is made clear by the important influence which Russia at present exerts in the Corean peninsula."
In accordance with this programme Mr. Duncan gives us 96 pages of indictment of Russia, and to the Russophobe his pam-phier will be a valuable storehouse of materials. If anyone doubts how serious the malevolent intentions of Russia are, he has only to read (p. 73) that the plans for a new palace for the King were drawn by Mr. C, Waeber, the Russian representative, "and Mr. Servedin-Sabatin, a Russian, at employs of the Customs in Chemulpo, was selected as the architect. Thus a Russian has daily free entry to the Royal Palace at Seoul." Of the writer's eloquence on occasion the following extract from his conclusion is a fair example:—\" When the storm cones, when the raging, foaming billows burst upon the world's communities, let us hope that those Powers, the weight of whose influence is on the side of the main: tenance of peace, will not be found wanting but that, on the contrary, they will ride over the raging main, successfully, triumphantly, bringing their combined interests into haven of safety, leaving all aggressors—those who may be responsible for the outcome of seriously strained relations—leaving them, I say, a confounded, a contemptible, crushed mass of inert humanity."
The China Review. Vol. XVII, No. 6. May and June, 1889. Hongkong, China Mail Ottice.
The first article in the new number of the China Reriew is a review by Mr. T. W. Kingsmill of Mr. Giles' "Life and Times of Chuang 'Tze." It is a capital Paper, even if it is much more Mr. Kingsmill's opinion of the philosopher than of Mr. Giles' translation. This is not to be wondered at, for the and the reviewer pres his opinion of Mr. Giles in the most udatory terms. We have the highest respect for Mr. Giles asa critic, a scholar, and a metaphysician; we shall freely and without demur accept his translations as representing the ipsissima yerba of our author; we have nothing but admiration to express for his forcible and elegant sentences, and differ from him only in our estimate of the subject and his surroundings." (By the by, is not this constant repetition of the editorial we?
The difference between Mr. Giles and Mr. rather out of place in s signed article?) Kingsmill is not an unimportant one; the former regards Chuang Tze as a mystic, moral and social reformer; Mr. Kingsmill considers rather that he "(was an arrant trimmer, and perceiving that the wind had set in pretty fairly from T'sin was setting his canvas, to catch the prevailing breeze. As Samson found in the jawbone of an ass. a weapon ready to smite the Philistines, Chuang did not despise in his attack on the Confucianists the instrument he found at hand. None the less the absurdity of the implement did not escape him aid more than once he laughs in his sleeve at the strange doctrines of which he finds himself the exponent.
Not having the original before us we cannot say whether Mr. W. Stanton has made so close a translation of the Chinese drama of "The Willow Lute" as internal evidence would suggest that he has done, but if he is a first-rate sinologue, we are sorry to have to say that he is a very prosaic poet. Those who think that human nature in the Chinese is different from human nature in the West have only to read this play to find out their mistake is a modern melodrama, and would suit the Adelphi or the Surrey with very little alteration. For those unfamiliar with the Chinese theatre Mr. Stanton contributes a short introductory prologue in which he remarks that Chinese stage scenery is "about equal to Peter Quince's scenery his most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby,' as shown in the Midsummer Night's Dream,' where a man with loam over him represents a wall and his spread-open fingers a cranny for lovers to whisper through." The play has a sufficiently interesting plot and, as usual in Chinese comedies, the authorities are here and there gently sati-rised; the following lyric sung by the Magistrate who has just ordered. the virtuous merchant to be tortured until he confesses to a false charge of murder, is fair example of this satire, and of Mr. Stanton's poetic powers, Wu Teb-tsing (the Magistrate) sings By purchase I grade Yad di hing And till 'm repaid Till scrape every jot.
Venal judges acquire Foth money and land Their families aspire To offices grand.
Let others go beg, As through life they dance, Til stick to my peg And mind the main chance.
It is impossible in a brief notice of this kind to do any justice to Dr. Eitel's
Shan Hai legomena to te Shr Hat King." The King is a book supposed to have been compiled by actual contemporaries of Yao and Shun (B.C. 2356-2205), and it tells of the labours of the great Yii, who first regulated the rivers of China, named the mountains, classified the fauna and flora, divided' the empire into provines, and, in fact, made it a civilised State.' In course of time it has gathered to it fables, errors and blunders of all Kinds, and various editors have written prefaces to it, which Dr. Eitel here translates.
The last extract he gives, which is from the " Critical Catalogue of Kien-lung's Library," is the most critical, in the modern sense, and the writer's conclusion is:—'Judging from the real merits of the book and determining accordingly the category to which it belongs, we should say that' it is really the most ancient of existing Story books.
The "Notes and Queries" contain an unusual amount of very readable matter. The Rev. John C. Gibson defends with much ability his contention that the art of reading is really very thinly diffused in China, and that the only way to suecessfully encourage a knowledge of the Bible among the illiterate people is by the use of the tromanised vernaculars." "The simple alphabetic method," he says, itself not a Western but an Oriental device, jives us the power of doing this." Mr. A.
sends from Dunedin a learned note on the Chinese numerals over 1,000. There is a characteristic attack on Mr. P, G. von Méllendorff by Mr. Giles anent the former's recent note on the Burning of the Books, which Mr. Parker also corrects, but in a less og jive manner, There is an unexpected lightness of hand about Mr. Parker's answer to Mr, Giles as to Honour amongst Thieves," and those who know how sinologues love to rend each other will be delighted with Mr. Parker's lamentation that Mr. Giles almost says in as many words that the first thing he did on his return was to run through the China Review in order to see what further mischief I had done during his absence." Mr. C. H. Brewitt-Taylor has a very pleasant note on Handful of Cash," and it is interesting, to know that if you examine the first handful you meet, you are as likely as not to find among them pieces that were stamped before William the Conqueror landed in England. Mr. Taylor's account of the deposition of the Emperor Pien (189 A.D.) is very quaint. The Notices of Books are sufficient, though Mr. Ross would hardly accept with equanimity E.J.E.'s estimate of the system which created Old Wang. E.J.E. doubts "whether or not it is unbecoming a servant of Christ—as old Wang appears to have occasionally felt it to be—to hire himself out to preach the gospel at so much a year, with the additional risks of being petted and eulogised or chance shi hited anid turned off at the will of men and all that for the sake of money, Old Wang seems to have had a suspi now and then that the whole system is fundamentally wrong."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.