mersed in the savage state. The spoken lan'guage, in the first place, is left in a deficient state. The ideas of the people receive no enlargement, because the higher classes cannot express their thoughts except in a language totally distinct and understood only by the select few. The information of the privileged class has no means of becoming disseminated by speech, where the signs for representing ideas have no corresponding words. This information must become obscure or utterly extinct, even among those to whose care it is confided; for a dumb language of this sort, which excites no feeling of the heart, and gives no picture to the imagination, is a mere barren repository, in which reflection and memory alone are concerned. The human mind has many faculties, all of which require to be developed..... The stupid fixedness of mind which holds the Chinese in a state of eternal childhood, bears an exact resemblance to that nullity of sentiment and of judgment which the exclusive study of a single science is sometimes observed to produce on geometricians, grammarians, or naturalists of classification and nomenclature."* Yet, of this system, even Dr. Morrison was at one time so far misled by his philological enthusiasm, so honourable to himself and so serviceable to the world, as to say, that, "to convey ideas to the mind by the eye, it answers all the purposes of a written medium, as well as the alphabetic system of the West, and perhaps in some respects better;" that, "when fully understood," these pictures "dart upon the mind with a vivid flash, a force and beauty, of which alphabetic language is incapable." M. Malte Brun may, perhaps, be considered as going to the other extreme, in denying that these symbols make any appeal to the heart or imagination. The radical, and we should fear, incurable defect of such a written medium, is, that while it may serve to call up ideas, to suggest and convey simple sentiments and a certain degree of information,-we will not say so well as alphabetic writing, but, perhaps, as impressively, when the minds of children, or men in a state of childhood, are concerned,-it affords no facilities for the acquisition of new ideas. It is knowledge in stereotype: the impression may be indefinitely multiplied, but the characters are fixed. Its advantage is, that, as Dr. Milne remarks, "this written language possesses a uniform identity unknown to some others. The dialects of the Greek tongue," he adds, "required not only to be distinguished in the pronunciation, but also to be marked by variations in the orthography of its nouns, in the formation of the tenses and moods of its verbs, &c. In Chinese, scarcely any thing of this kind takes place. Throughout the whole of that empire, as well as in most of its tributary, and several of its neighbouring countries, the written character and idiom are, with a very few trifling exceptions, the same." This identity is the more important, when it is considered that the Chinese written is read by a much larger proportion of than that of any other people,-by less than a fifth of the human race. through this medium can knowled fused among so many millions. T disadvantage is, that the language is of the ideas received into it, rather body which they assume, and throu they develop themselves; and that it provision for the expansion of the mind. It depends, for being underst certain fixed associations of ideas, but absolutely impotent to express foreign associations. It gives us la its crude state, in which the only m pressing ideas relating to immateri is by palpable metaphor. For the n in the progress of language, in which rical terms become the simple signs ideas, such a system of symbols is v suitable. The difficulty of translatin poetry into a foreign language, is all perable; and a verbal translation wo intelligible, because it would not ex allusion on which the meaning depe what must be the difficulty of transf such a language, European notions a tian ideas? "A European," Dr. Morrison rema have little motive to enter upon the Chinese, or, at least, can scarcely ha sufficiently strong to carry him su through;" so far, he means, as the value of their literature is concerne stract science or the Fine Arts can thing from China; and perhaps, as already known as can be known, t general philosopher in his reasoni history will not bear out the fond ex of the opposers of Christianity, in the Jewish and Christian Scripture the friend of Christianity obtain addition to his religion or code of m her sages."* All that was to be d way, all that was necessary to mal ciently acquainted with the meag Chinese literature, and the shallown nese wisdom, has now been effect Chinese scholars in this country a Continent. But the language was conquered, when it was thus made t enigmas and to disclose the treasur by its talisman. The great difficu make it speak for its new masters, China what it greatly concerns h from Europe. This task, the Romi aries attempted, and some of the good beginning; but the work was whether through discouragement, w severance, or in despondency. In Museum, there exists in MS., a I the Gospels in Chinese. By what or individuals, or at what period e not known: it must have been t some one or more of the Romish M who, though belonging to a corru thereby proved themselves to be t vants of their heavenly Master. this valuable MS., taken by a Chi ther with a MS. Latin-Chinese Dictionary, was of material assistance to Dr. Morrison at the commencement of his arduous labours. To give the whole of the Sacred Scriptures for the first time to the Chinese, and to create for their use, an elementary literature, was reserved for the Protestant Missionaries of our own times and of our own country. Of their stupendous achievements, which have attracted the admiration of the literati of Europe, and drawn forth the plaudits of learned members even of the Romish communion, it is mortifying to reflect, that there should be found in our own country, men so far besotted by prejudice as to speak in terms of depreciation and contempt. That same Quarterly Review which pronounced Dr. Morrison's Dictionary of the Chinese Language, to be "the most important work in Chinese literature that has yet reached Europe," has been stultified and disgraced by an ignorant and malignant attack upon the Serampore and Canton Translators. We had intended, before this, to notice more at length, the blunders and misrepresentations contained in that article; a task, however, which Mr. Pell Platt's very calm and triumphant Reply renders almost unnecessary. We shall now confine ourselves to their attack upon the Chinese Translations. The following paragraph, which appears in No. lxxi. of the Quarterly Review, is one of the most amusing specimens of ignorant self-sufficiency and arrogance that ever issued from the pen of a Reviewer. "The character of the Society's management will be placed in a still stronger light by a reference to the translation of the Scriptures executed and circulated under their auspices in the Chinese language. The first complete version of the New Testament in that tongue was printed, at their expense, at Canton, in 1814. The gospels, the closing epistles, and the Book of Revelation were translated by the editor, Dr. Morrison; the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul, being taken from an old MS. which he had carried out with him, and which he is stated to have corrected in such places as he thought necessary. Some time afterwards, the Old Testament was translated by the same person, who is, we understand, a self-instructed missionary, in conjunction with Mr. William Mylne, and printed at Malacca. "The estimate formed by Dr. Morrison himself of the character and value of his performances is so humble, that, in any other case than a translation of the Bible, his language would disarm criticism. In a letter dated Canton, 11th January, 1814, he thus writes: "I beg to inform the Society, that the translation of the New Testament carrying on at this place into the Chinese language has intentions, and I have done my best."-Eleventh Report, App. p. 26. "In a letter dated the 8th June, 1815, that is to say about a year and a half after this translation was printed, the same translator writes to the same Bible Society: "The Chinese dictionary in which I am now engaged, will gradually mature my knowledge of Chinese.'-Thirteenth Report, App. p. 16. "It would, indeed, be difficult to believe, except upon the evidence of Dr. Morrison himself, that the managers of any Bible Society could have given their sanction to a version of the Bible published under such circumstances. This was not a Chinese version executed by Chinese penmen; this was not even the production of a foreigner of eminent learning, who had devoted sufficient time and labour to the acquisition of the Chinese tongue; but that of a self-instructed missionary, little, if at all, acquainted with Biblical criticism, and whose knowledge even of the language into which he undertook to translate was, on his own evidence, immature. We shall be curious to learn on what principle the committee will endeavour to justify such manifest tampering with the sense of the sacred records. Why, we beg leave to ask them, was not the publication of this version delayed until its author had acquired what he considered a mature knowledge of the Chinese language? It is obvious, that Dr. Morrison executed his version as an exercise while learning Chinese. One might have imagined, that the maturity of knowledge at which he fondly hoped to arrive by most laborious subsequent study, would have been deemed by others, if not by himself, an indispensable prerequisite for the commencement of a work of this nature intended for the press! Is it in the announcement of new versions such as these, that the directors of the Bible Society condescend to find means of amusing the imaginations, and promoting the liberality of its subscribers." pp. 18, 19. We have hitherto been accustomed to look upon Quarterly Reviewers as at least men of information; and we should hardly have supposed that the name of the late Dr. Milne, which is here mis-spelt, had been quite unknown to them. Waiving this, the facts of which they are willingly ignorant, if they do not intentionally conceal them, are these. In September, 1807, Mr. Morrison, the first Protestant Missionary ever sent out from this country to China, arrived at Canton. In the year 1813, appeared the first complete Translation of the Chinese New Testament, in part founded upon the "old MS." which the Reviewer ignorantly speaks of, and in part original. In Nov. 1819, six years after, and twelve voare from the as-: 1 224 and three of the younger branches of the Mission family. In seven years, a new and independent version of the New Testament in Chinese was completed at the Serampore press; and in 1822, after the incessant labour of sixteen years, Dr. Marshman had the happiness of bringing to a completion his Version of the whole Bible. Of the laborious process adopted in this translation, we have on a former occasion furnished a minute account, given by the venerable Translator himself, from which it appears, that the Version of the New Testament was diligently compared with the text of Griesbach, and a similar use was made of the Hebrew in preparing that of the Old Testa ment. This Version was printed with moveable metallic characters cut at Serampore; the first of the kind ever executed. Thus, nearly at the same time, the simultaneous but independent labours of the two learned Translators, sent out by different Missionary Societies, and occupying stations so remote from each other, were, after sixteen years, brought to a conclusion. "And I cannot but view it as a part of Divine Wisdom," remarks Dr. Marshman, "to put it into the hearts of two persons, labouring independently of each other, (Mr. Morrison and myself,) thus to care for the translation of the sacred Scriptures into a language so peculiar in its nature, and understood by such multiShould we have wisdom given tudes of men. us rightly to profit by each other's labours, I suppose that the translation of the Scriptures will be brought to as great perfection in twenty years, as they might have been, in the hand of one alone, in the space of fifty." With both translations in view, a second edition of the Chinese Bible has now been commenced at Serampore, which is advanced as far as Leviticus.t deprecate; since the invidious compli evidently meant to disparage the phil labours of men whom he must honour lars, in whatever respect he may diff them in sentiment. The sentence is lows: "For the knowledge we now posses Chinese language, which has of late y come familiar to many of the East Ind pany's servants in China, to most of th tal Missionaries, and to several indivi England and France, we are much ind Sir George Staunton, the translator Statute Book of China, and various oth of a lighter kind; and we take some lit to ourselves for having endeavoured to the nature of that language, and to ev great utility which a knowledge of give to those who conduct our valua mercial concerns with the celestial en Quart. Rev. No. lxxii. p. 497. To Sir George Staunton belongs th as we have remarked on a former o of having been the first translator of a book into the English language; and I lation of the Ta Tsing Leu Lee is a n ourable monument of the proficienc unwearied diligence, added to the v liar advantages he enjoyed, enabled make in that most difficult tongue. disparagement to his labours to say, at time, that, for their knowledge of the language, neither the Company's serv the Oriental Missionaries can be, in t of things, indebted to his translations Chinese. The English Public owe their knowledge of Chinese laws and to his various publications; but the k of a language, with submission to learned Reviewer, must be obtained other means; and we should have that the Author of a Chinese Gran Dictionary might have put in a clai tinct notice, instead of being lumped "most of the Oriental Missionaries" they?) whose familiarity with the made apparently to spring out of S Staunton's Translations and certain the Quarterly Review!! Those pa Most of these details have long been before the Public; and if the Reviewer was ignorant of them, he was ill qualified for his self-assumed office. But from what singular fatality does it arise, that his information appears, on the face of his statement, to come down no lower than the year 1817? How is it that the Thirteenth Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, issued in that year, is the last document relating to these Translations which the Re-highly creditable to the Journal in w viewer affects to have seen? Where has he been all these years, never to have heard of the subsequent labours of these "self-instructed" Missionaries, which have made their names familiar to all the learned in Europe? We are now about to lay before our readers the opinion of two of the first Oriental scholars in the world, witnesses equally competent and impartial, as to the nature and results of their labours; of which these translations, be it remembered, form only a part, although the most important part. But we must first advert to a paragraph in the last Number of the Quarterly Review, in which a use is made of Sir George Staunton's name, which we are persuaded that learned person would himself be the first to * See Eclectic Review, vol. xx. pp. 454-6. Art. Dubois on Christianity in India. Brief Memoir relative to the Operations of the Serampore Missionaries. 1827. p. 5. appeared; but we cannot let this Re his Editor take that credit to themse vos non vobis. No Chinese scholar w indited this paragraph, which serves dicate the bad spirit and bad faith spite of the rebuke they have receiv nue to actuate these Reviewers. We give, from Mr. Pell Platt's pamphle referred to, the testimony of this George Staunton to the competenc lity of one of the Translators. "I beg to assure you, that it was and surprise that I read, the other d Quarterly Review, the animadversi Morrison's Translation of the Script that I have examined Dr. 1 cannot say Translation so critically as to be able positive opinion on its precise degree but I have no hesitation in saying, t ceive his qualifications for the execution of the task to be far superior to those of any other person whatever. He is, unquestionably, our best Chinese scholar. He had made himself fully acquainted with the previous labours of the Catholic Missionaries; he was in constant communication with intelligent natives, during the progress of the work; and his general zeal, diligence, and integrity, in the cause to which he has devoted himself, are too well known to need any confirmation from my testimony. "G. T. Staunton." The other testimony goes more into detail; but our readers will find no fault with the length of the extract, as it will serve to show in what light the labours of our Missionaries, and the proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society, are regarded by foreign literati. For it must not be forgotten, that the Reviewer's malignant attack on the Versions, is aimed at that Society; and that the Chinese Versions are held up as a flagrant instance of their incompetent and unfaithful management. In reviewing the Chinese Version of St. Mark's Gospel executed at Canton, the only one that had at that time reached Paris, the learned Author of the Mélanges Asiatiques prefaces his criticisms with the following remarks. much less a continued parallel of the two Chinese Versions of the Bible. Such an examination would lead us into endless details, and would be of little utility. Equal praise is due to the respectable men whose zeal, patience, and abilities have brought to a termination this double enterprise. In paying a just homage to the merit of his rival, Mr. Morrison has had the modesty himself to point out, how much the manuscript Harmony of the Gospels must have contributed to the perfection of his own labour. Mr. Marshman has had to supply, by dint of application and labour, what was wanting to him in point of help. If, however, one wished to characterize the result of the studies of these two interpreters of the sacred volume, one might say, that the Serampore Version is the most literal, and the Canton one the most conformable to the Chinese taste. It must at the same time be acknowledged, that the plan to which it has been thought necessary to adhere, in the one as well as in the other, of abstaining from the smallest note or the slightest expla nation,-of confining themselves, in a word, to printing the text of the Bible without any illustration,-this plan, conformable as it is to the spirit of the Protestant communions, will always render the perusal of these two versions almost equally toilsome and uninviting to the Chinese." Ib. pp. 16, 17. In a subsequent paper, the learned Editor gives an abstract of Dr. Milne's, "Retrospect of the First Ten Years of the Protestant Mission to China," reviewed in our eighteenth volume;-an important and interesting document, which the Quarterly Reviewer appears never to have seen. He might have heard of it at Paris. From this paper, we must take the following paragraphs. "The Syriac, Arabic, and Coptic Versions of the Old and New Testament, are among the number of the most precious aids which piety has rendered to learning. Executed, for the most part, by men profoundly versed in the knowledge of languages, they have the advantage of presenting to the student, various texts, of great extent, the sense of which is known beforehand, and the exactness of which is well ascertained; since the importance and weight of the subject do not permit the Translators to depart for a single instance from the most "The English," says M. Rémusat, "expesevere attention and the most scrupulous fide-rienced, at the outset, considerable difficulties lity. It must always, then, be a most important in the printing of their Chinese books. The service rendered to philologists, to multiply the natives whom they were under the necessity of number of similar versions; and, indepen- employing as translators, revisors, engravers, dently of every other motive, it would be very or printers, aware that they were being redesirable, that the Bible should be translated quired to labour in works prohibited by the into the languages of all nations who have laws of the empire, made their employers pay books, and that we might be able to enrich, and high for their co-operation. These expenses, even complete, those magnificent collections and the risks attendant upon them, merit some of Versions which are called Polyglots. attention, when it is known, from an exact list given by Mr. Milne, that the total number of copies of Chinese books published in 1818, as well at Canton as at Macao and Malacca, amounted to 140,249; that of Malay books to 20,500; without reckoning the Chinese Grammar of Mr. Morrison, printed at Serampore, two Chinese-English Dictionaries, Familiar Dialogues, the Indoo-Chinese Gleaner edited by Mr. Milne, the translation of the Sacred Edict by the same Missionary, and the work from which we have borrowed these details. Among the Chinese works which have been published in this manner, the Author specifies thirty-two, of which he gives a particular account. Among these, we remark, the 'Bible al i was in 1818;) "Views still more noble and considerations of a higher order have led to the establishment of that Bible Society which has undertaken in England, to publish the sacred books in all languages. Whatever success it may obtain in relation to the principal end which it proposes to itself, its exertions cannot but be highly serviceable to the advancement of literature and the progress of philology. It is an undertaking honourable alike to those who conceived the project, and those whose talents shall contribute to its execution; and their names will rank, in the memory of the learned, by the side of those of Ximenes, of Walton, and of Montanus. Mélanges Asiatiques. Par M. Abel Rémusat. Tom. i. pp. 1, 2. At the close of the critique, referring to the an Outline of the Old Testament history; our knowledge, by two or three indefatigable men, assisted by a certain number of zealous and liberal individuals. These great enterprises of religious zeal have something about them remarkable at the era in which we live; the more so, inasmuch as those who direct them, or at least those who carry them into execution, seem, for the moment, to remain strangers to any political or commercial views. "We find in Mr. Milne's work, precise information, generally reduced to tables and expressed in figures, as to the operations of the Missionary Society in the countries beyond the Ganges. It has, in all, five stations; namely, China (Canton), Malacca, Penang, Batavia, and Singapore, under the direction of nine Missionaries, six among the Chinese, and three among the Malays; twelve schools for the natives, five for the Chinese, of which one is in China, one at Batavia, three at Malacca, two at Penang, and five others for the Malays. The Gospel is preached in Malay and in three Chinese dialects; that of Canton, that of Foukien, and that which is vulgarly called the mandarinic. Encouragement is given to the emigration of Chinese families; and they are invited to come and establish themselves upon the lands which the Britannic Government has at its disposal, on the coast of Malacca and in the island of Singapore. The Missionaries see, in this concurrence of circumstances, grounds for calculating on the success of their evangelical preaching. There are many of their countrymen who do not participate in their hopes in this respect; but there is doubtless no one who does not view with lively interest these proceedings (excursions,) these literary studies, this abundant harvest of documents of all sorts, which seem to have for their principal effect, if not for their immediate object, to open new markets to their industry, and to prepare the way for their commerce and their policy." Ib. pp. 43, 44; 50. Unfortunately, there are individuals in this country, who can view all this with any thing but complacency; whose bile is stirred, because these "self-instructed" men had not "the benefit of a regular and learned education,"--that is to say, were not educated at Oxford and Cambridge; who sicken at the success which cannot be made to reflect glory upon their own party; and who, in the plenitude of their selfsufficiency and arrogance, "venture to predict," that these Versions, and, with scarcely a single exception," all "the existing Versions of the British and Foreign Bible Society, will be remembered hereafter only for the errors and blunders which disfigure them." Preju * This was the state of things in 1819. According to the Survey contained in the Missionary Register for January last, Dr. Morrison was returning to occupy the Canton station, with the aid of a native teacher. At Singapore, there is stationed one Missionary; at Malacca, four; at Penang, two; one being lately deceased. At Malacca, there are seven Chinese schools, containing 250 scholars. In the Anglo-Chinese college, there are 26 students, of whom 16 are on the foundation. At Penang, there are five Malay schools, and one Chinese. dice and malignity were never perha conspicuously, and at the same time in displayed. We wish to put upon re prediction of the anonymous Review ta-position and contrast with the one cited from M. Remusat, which assig names an equal rank, in the estimat learned, with those of Ximenes, W Montanus. It needs no other comm These observations, we must con no very close connexion with the vo fore us, except as they relate to they have been partly suggested by sentence of the Translator's preface "The reader who was not previo of the fact, will probably be surprise ing, that the Russian Government h this century past, a regularly establ gious and scientific Mission at P merely tolerated or connived at by t Government, but openly existing sanction of a formal treaty. This mised, it is natural to inquire, what literature and science have derived Russians having thus possessed for years an opportunity which no othe nation has enjoyed, and which, if natives of England, France, or would most probably have long sin fully acquainted with every thing the history, institutions, governme this great empire and its extensive cies. To this no satisfactory ans given. So far as we are aware, n members of any of these successiv each of which remains at least te Peking, have ever published any t subject of China, even in the R guage.......If any valuable infor really been gathered by the membe missions, it seems that the Russian g if it has not prevented, has at lea: thing to promote the publication of We cannot doubt that, had any r ble information been collected, it some means have found its way in or French. The fact appears to Mission, as perhaps might have pated from all the circumstances, nothing, has had good reason to be article of the treaty which stipulate tablishment, will show, that the 1 not likely to be very effective. "The Russians shall hencefort Peking the kouan or court which t habit. According to the desire of Ambassador, a church shall be bu assistance of the Chinese govern priest who now resides there, an others who are expected, shall live above mentioned. These three pri attached to the same church, and same provisions as the present Russians shall be permitted to w God according to the rites of th Four young students and two of vanced age, acquainted with the Latin languages, shall also be r this house, the Ambassador wish them at Peking, to learn the langi country. They shall be maintaine pense of the Emperor, and shall be |