Pekingese Rhymes, first collected and edited with notes and translation by Baron Guido Vitale, Chinese Secretary to the Italian Legation, Peking: Pei-tang Press, The acquisition of knowledge, on almost any subject under the sun, is mostly effected by accumulation. Occasionally, a now truth bursts suddenly on the world, as a volcanic island appears in the sea or 'a fresh star, born we can hardly say how or whence, flashes suddenly in the sky; but as a rule discoverers, the augmenters of the sum of human knowledge, march on the traces of their predecessors' earlier footprints on the sands of tine. It the coral polype which, one among mi lions of fellow-workers, patiently doing his part, ends -by -bringing into being those atolls and islets, which with their coronals of palm, beautify the southern seas and have, again and again, evoked the poetic admiration of the explorers of jeceania.
We trust Baron Vitale will not take it ill to be compared to a coral polype; but in truth, the work he has just produced is precisely of the kind which, though not perhaps, of meteoric importance in itself, is most useful as opening to the light another dark place for the students of things Chinese. Since Folk-lore became a recognised branch of ethnological and philological science, the songs of the nursery and the playground have always had a definite niche assigned them. Solar myths, popular customs and national traditions are admitted to be flies in the amber of popular songs and genuine gratitude is due to those by whose painstaking researches such treasures are made; available for the savant, whose view embraces a more general range. This isthe meed of praise which the Chinese Secretary to the Italian Lega-circumstance that his collection embraces tion at Peking has earned. The' mere
170 songs is sufficient to demonstrate the enthusiasm and industry with which he has fulfilled the task he set himself. Wo congratulate him on having so' usefully employed his leisure and we are sure that our pleasure will be shared by the students o Folk-lore who will benefit by disposal. the mine of wealth he has placed at their The nursery rhyme of any country' is seldom a poetical gem; and frankly a perusal of the series Baron Vitale has collected in his volume has not persuaded us to make the effusion of the Peking gamin or of the Peking mother an exception. There is a certain prettiness about some of them, no doubt. But it is due rather to the tenderness and incoherence of baby-language babbling; "ith which nothers flatter than to any liter elegance. e vague and hush their little ones are the same all the world over; and the art of a Tennyson isnot required to make them attractive. No. TEL is a good instance: The poplar leaves are stirring—the baby is about to sleep and looks for his mother—be a good boy, my treasure, "got asleop—if the bogie comes Till beat him." So we have overheard a nurse saying to an English baby. Did they do it then? nursey will take a gun
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.