The number of young men now living in China who are natives of western lands, is probably greater at the present time than it has ever been before, and is steadily on the increase. Most of them have doubtless come to the Celestial Empire with a definite purpose, the accomplishment of which is expected to occupy the main portion of their time and strength. But a young man who has the qualities which lead him to seek for a life-work in China, is not unlikely to be a young man who has an ambition higher than simply to get through the round of duties to which he disappointed, and who naturally desires to go in' for something in addition, as the best way to} cultivate his faculties in an all-round way, and to keep himself from that intellect tual stagnation, which he is well aware is the preliminary symptom of decay. If he has any ambitions ut this nature, he will of course give a certain proportion of his time to learning something of the lan-if he be a person of at all studio it will not be singular if by the time he has been drawn into this maelstrom, the idea has developed itself of making himself such a proficient in the same, that he will take a very front rank. He cherishes a vague longing to climb up somewhere bearing aloft on which hall be inscribed Excelsior!" The Radicals are a good deal of a damper on this initial enthusiasm, especially as the general testimony of others unites with his own experience, in suggesting to him after he has (apparently) mastered them, the remark of the Charity Boy in Pickwick, that it is a pity to go so far to get so little. But even the study of the Chinese language has its features of amelioration, and its dark ways are often lit up with some lines of natural beauty, which are all the more appreciated because of the general sterility of the region traversed. By and by comes the inevitable suggestion, that the particular field in which the ambitious young man may excel, is to be found not in the colloquial, but in gathering into a mass the results of his own labours, as well as those of others, and, yes, and making Dictionary. There are maby things which he has come across, which every one ought to know, but which are not to be found in any dictionary that he has access to. So he makes notes, and incessantly collects hi data, until he finds that he has a large mass of material. He has not breathed his secret, purpose to any mortal, but by and by he is dismayed to learn in the most incidental way that an idea similar to his own has occurred to several other persons, all of whom have their little piles of notes and manuscripts of memoranda, anyone of them, it is said, threatens to publish very soon. Then he hears of the formidable work left by the lamented Persian Patriarch, which i paragon of thoroughness, only that it is in language that nobody ' knows, and there are two others, also said to be just the thing so long needed. So the dictionary project is given up, and the neat blank books which cost several taels, and which are all con veniently lettered, are suffered to repose on his bookshelves. He is afterwards very lad that he had the resolution to give up task, for some time later the Oracle of the Orient has a double-leaded article on the need of anew dictionary, and nominates 'a committee composed of a large proportion of the distinguished foreigners in the empire (among whom, however, the youn, man's own name is not to be found) all whom are said to be ' ready' for the cosmolitan undertaking. He congratulates unself on his narrow escape from a ridiculeus competition with the foremost intellects of the East, and relapses into contemplation, From this unhappy reverie he gradually arouses himself months later, with the thought that there may be a field for the powers of which he is becoming daily more conscious, in the examination and illumination of the Chinese Classics, with which he is as yet not very familiar, But on inquiry he is sorry to hear that the Classics have all been translated already, some of them several times, and while he finds Dr. Legge's translation often "damned with faint praise," he does not hear of any better one, nor does he find anyone who has a strong sense of the need of any other. A learned acquaintance whose opinion he values informs him that the k of Changes is the work of which a revised rendering is most indispensable, but while ho is looking up the matter, Dr. Legge's new translation is anounced, and the reviews of the same which soon after appear, convince the young mai that itis fortunate for him that he had not set his heart ondistinguishinghimself in this ineof effort. Finding that the field of Chinese Literature asa whole does not seen to be very attractive, our ambitious student conceives that his forte may be in connection with one of the leading religions' of China, the effect of which upon so many millions he has often heard spoken of as a marvellous phenomenon. Aftera few webs of examination into the needs of the field, and the scope of the same, he learns that exhaustive articles upon all phases of Taoism appeared before he was born, in the Transactions of the Society for the Diffusion of Sawdust
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.