In this sentence, four examples occur wherein the agent or doer is formed by the addition of this auxiliary character to the verb and its object; of which application of it multiades of other examples might be produced.

It must, however, be remembered, that although this character when it follows a verb, generally denotes the agent or doer, this is not the only office which it performs; in certain cases it forms a substantive denoting a thing. One instance of this is found in the sentence just given: the phrase "počk yin tchyéa," in the sixth perpendicular line of the Chinese text, denotes the opposite of virtue, vice; the tchyéa, added to the negative pooh, and to yin, the character for virtue, serving to form them both into a substantive. Nor is it necessary to this effect, that the character which it immediately follows, be a substantive. In the sentence already given, it follows a substantive; but many instances of its following an adjective might be adduced. When travelling in a state of exile, the sage remaining some time in the province of Wy, Nan-ise, the wife of Ling-koong, the reigning prince, moved by the fame of so illustrious a man, sent to him, desiring to see him. Good manners not permitting the sage to refuse, he paid her a visit. His ardent, but inconsiderate disciple Tse-loo, was highly displeased at his master's condescending to visit a woman, whose character by no means stood high; upon which, by way of vindicating himself, the sage uttered the following imprecation;

厭 yèn 之 tchee
tchee 天thyen 否 feá 予u

Yu

老tchee 天 thyen 厭yèn

chyia só

"If I have done that which is improper, may heaven abhor me,-may heaven ab

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Here tchyéa, added to the relative so, "what," and the adjective féu, "improper," forms them into a substantive denoting a thing improper or unlawful.

There are cases indeed, and these not unfrequent, wherein this character is placed after a clause of some length, which it then unites, and turns into a kind of substantive. Thus in the second book of Lun-yu, Confucius, declaring that a man of letters who might appear desirous of applying to the study of his doctrine, but felt ashamed of coarse food and mean apparel, was as yet incapable of conversing about true philosophy, uses this character to

close the sentence and form the adjunct by which he describes the man in question; thus:

"The man of letters whose mind is toward the path of virtue, but who is asham-Lun-yu, book ii.

ed of mean clothing and coarse fare.".

To enter more particularly on the nature and use of this character, belongs rather to the syntax of the language; but it is easy to perceive, that it performs in Chinese nearly the same office as the article, in certain cases, does in Greek, and nearly agrees with certain terminations in Sungskrit used to form substantives from verbs.

5. What in other languages are termed gentile nouns, or nouns descriptive

of country, &c. are formed in Chinese generally by the addition of yin, a man. Thus a Chinese in his own country terms himself" choong-kybhyin;" a man of the mid-country, or that which fills the middle of the world. In Bengal he calls himself, "Thang-yin," a man of the T'hang dynasty, that of the great Yao. Examples of gentile nouns thus formed, are not unfrequent in their standard works. In the second book of Lun-yu, a man contemptuously terms the sage, "the son of the Tsyeu yin," because his father was from the district of Tsyeu: and in book the fifth, Confucius himself uses this form to designate the men of the province of Khwang, in which he then was, and where his disciples imagined his life to be in danger. In this situation, however, the sage encouraged himself with the persuasion that heaven had raised him up to revive and restore to their pristine vigour, the excellent institutions of the great Wun-wang,* who lived about eleven hundred years before the Christian æra, and who is deemed the founder of the Tchyéu dynasty. He himself however did not mount the imperial throne, but supported thereon the weak tyrant Cheu, the last of the Shyang dynasty; whom

his son Woo-wang, speedily dethroned after the death of his father. Under the influence of this persuasion, the sage exclaims respecting the people of Khang who threatened his life;

其 kheed yea 喪 sàng 天 Thyen

"If heaven have not yet intended to consign this great man's institutions to oblivion, the Khwang-men, what can they do to me?" Lun-yu, book v.

The use of the character yin is also extended farther, to the formation of substantives denoting certain of the professions of life. An instance of this occurs in the last volume of Mung-tsee; where that philosopher, conversing with his disciple, Wan-chang, relative to the manner in which a philosopher who seeks the good of mankind, ought to be nourished by his prince, says, that he ought to receive from him an order for being supported out of the public stores; "after which," says he,

"The store-keeper, (literally, corn-man) supplies (him with) corn, the butcher supplies flesh." Mung-tsee, vol. ii.

Another instance occurs in the first volume of Mung in which yin is united with tsyàng, (an artificer,) to denote a carpenter. Mung wishing to impress the petty sovereign of T'shee with the impropriety of neglecting the education of a young prince, introduces this comparison: A king wishing to build a magnificent edifice, employs a skilful builder to procure very large timber for beams, &c. On his procuring such, the king rejoices from the view of its being able to sustain the weight of the vast edifice; but if the carpenter hew it till it become too small, he feels angry at his expectations being frustrated by its being thus rendered incapable of sustaining the

weight of his intended building. In this comparison the following sen

tence occurs,

小syáo 斲 tyóh 匠 Tsyàng

之 tchee irr

人。

yin

"If the carpenter he wing, render it too small." Mung-tsee, vol. i.

There are several other peculiarities relative to forming substantives; to notice and exemplify which, however, would swell the work without necessity, as a person who applies to the study of Chinese authors, will find little difficulty in this respect. These may therefore serve to give some idea of the nature of substantives in the Chinese language.

Of the Gender of Substantives.

Having thus glanced at the various kinds of substantives, we proceed to the accidents which attend them, Gender, Number, and Case. Of these three, that which can be omitted with the least loss, seems to be Gender. This distinction is of importance in those languages alone which admit a varied expression of gender in the adjective; but where there is no distinction of this kind found in the adjective, the variation of the gender in the substantive, seems of comparatively small utility. Hence in English it is reduced to the natural state of things, and restricted to the pronouns. In Chinese therefore, where, as in English, gender is wholly excluded from the adjective, we have no reason to expect any traces of this distinction