To the Editor of the "Norrs-Cama Dairy News."
Sin,—In listening to Mrs, Ayscough's lecture last night one could not but be impressed by the great deal of work given to trans-Tating Chinese poetry into English by Mrs. Ayscough and_ also Messrs. Fletcher Budd, Whaley and others during recent years. But, so far as I know, no one has yet touched the numerous works of criticism of Chinese poetry. We foreigners only deal with the best selected poems, but does it ever occur to us to ask how the Chinese have selected those poems, and what standard of excellence they have used to sift out these poems from the huge mass of - poetry published? These criticisms of poetry are called by the Chinese "Shih Hwa" and the first work of that Kind, called Shih Ping" Wag written by Chung Yung in the fifth century (who, by the way, is not even mentioned in Giles' Biographical Dictionary—a__ serious omission) and who took the poems of the Han and Wei Dynasties and divided them into three classes.
After this there were many critics among whom may be mentioned Chi Vu-kung who dealt with the poetry of the Tang Dynasty, and Li Ao who criticized the poetry of the Sung Dynasty. During the late Ching Dynasty Chu I-chun, a well known scholar of Chia Hsing (Kashing, see Giles B.D. No. 453) wrote a book on the poets of the Ming Dynasty. Other well known critics of poetry during the Ching Dynasty were Wang Shih-cheng, Yang Chang (G.B.D. No. 2137) and Yuan Mei G.B.D. No. 2557). Another well known Shih Hwa is that by Wu Ching-chang who in a book of 80 chapters dealt with poetry in general.
At the present moment, in spite of the movement to abolish this fine art of China in favour of colloquial ballads, @ Jo Kipling, I understand that, we have in Shanghai a scholar who ig devoting all his time in writing Shih Hwa strictly according to the ancient forms of China, This is Yang Chung-hsi, a former member of the Hanlin, Academy and sometime Prefect of Nanking. He is a native of Manchuria and now lives in retirement at @Jo. 1708 Avenue Road. Already three editions of his Shih Hwa have been published dealing with the poetry of the Ching Dynasty, and I understand that further books of criticism are course of preparation.
If some of our local sinologues would take up the work of translating one of these Shih Hwa, he would find a new field of Chinese literature quite unexplored and full of hidden treasures of thought.
I am, etc., J. A. Jackson.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.