of the Past Tense, originally it was the province of Yueh.' But to express the Future it admits the characters already mentioned as the signs of the future. Speaking of the effects of just government with reference to a certain territory, Mung says, that if well governed, though it be small,

“ Therein will be the superior man; therein will be the husbandman.”

Mung, vol. i.

That is found in the Oblique Moods, is evident from the following

"In name although they be men, yet in reality they differ nothing from beasts."

Mung, vol. ii.

In this example the verb wy has the force of the Subjunctive mood. Of its being used in the Infinitive Mood, several examples have been already given ; and the following sentence from Mung, contains two;

"To be rich is not to be virtuous; to be virtuous indeed is not to be rich."

Mung, vol. i.

Of the Auxiliary Verbs.

Relative to the Auxiliary Verbs, the reader has already seen, that certain. of them are used to form the various Moods of the verbs; as tuh, 'get ;' syu, necessary;'

khó, able;

others, as Leé;

the Tenses.

yuèn, to desire,' &c. and that

kee; tsyang; pih, &c. are applied in forming

Some of these however, as yuen, and khó, are occasionally found as principal verbs; when they are conjugated precisely like the other verbs, in the moods and tenses wherein they occur.

Respecting the rest, little remains to be said. The verbs yéu, 'to have,' tsò,' to do,' are not used as auxiliaries in the manner we in English apply 'have, do,' &c. They are regular verbs like habeo and facio in Latin; and the reader has already seen, that the office of the verb to have,' in forming the English preterperfect, is performed by the verbs

The verb

eé,

keè, &c.

kán, 'dare,' which is often united with other verbs as an auxiliary, is almost the only auxiliary which remains to be noticed. Of this,

Fff

examples may be found in Confucius and Mung, and indeed in their best

commentators; nor is it unfrequent in conversation. It is applied thus,

In this sentence kán is an auxiliary uniting with the verb wàng, to look up.' In the past tense, which sometimes occurs, it becomes ‘durst.'

Thus then have the different kinds of verbs been examined, and the moods, tenses, and persons, carefully ascertained and substantiated by nearly a hundred examples selected from the standard works of the Chinese. Should any one enquire why a course attended with so much labour, has been preferred to the more obvious and easy mode of giving at once a paradigm of a Chinese verb both active and passive, in the European mode; the reply is, that it has been done from a consideration of the very different nature of the Chinese language. To illustrate the peculiar nature of the language of which it treats, is the grand object of a grammar; and when two spring from the same root, and have a close affinity with each other, this may of ten be done by taking a verb in one language, and giving the correspondent expressions in the other. But when a language is radically different from all others, this does not seem the most likely way to develope its true nature. Were a man to translate a Latin verb into Sungskrit, or Arabic, for the sake of laying open the peculiar nature of these languages, he might, it is true, find expressions agreeing with every mood and tense, particularly

if he formed them ad libitum, without supporting them by quotations from the standard works in these languages. But how little this would do towards laying open the peculiar nature of these languages, they who are skilled in them, can easily judge. To a course of this kind we owe our remaining so long unacquainted with the true nature of the English language. Numerous were the attempts made by men of real learning, to explain it by giving us a grammar in the form and on the principles of the Latin grammar. At length an English grammarian arises, who carefully weighing the nature of the language itself, does more towards elucidating it, than all the men of learning who had preceded him. It must indeed be evident, that whoever would lay open a language, must view it as it stands separately from all others, carefully examine it in the style and construction of its best authors, and on them found all his grammatical positions; availing himself of other languages merely by way of illustration..

It is on this principle that the author is constrained to differ entirely from Fourmont, highly as he esteems him for his general knowledge. Following the mode first described, he has filled thirteen folio pages with a paradigm of a Chinese verb in the active and passive voice, without substantiating a single sentence by authorities from any Chinese work: hence the greater part of them are combinations of characters unknown in the best Chinese writers. Were a writer, while thus attempting to mould a language into the shape and form of another, rigidly to substantiate every sentence by quotations from standard works, the student might depend on what he advanced, however much of the language might be left unexplained. But when grammatical positions are thus supported by the fancy of the writer, even though

Lindley Murray.

assisted by a native, (as Fourmont was doubtless assisted by a native of China, since many of his phrases are to be found only in the most familiar conversation,) it is not strange if he should form combinations of characters which never occur in respectable works. What would Lowth, or Murray have done toward forming a correct English grammar, had they confined their attention to examples formed by themselves, instead of recurring to the best English authors? A great part of the familiar conversation even of our own country, is wholly excluded from works respectable for style. But in a language not indigenous to the writer, and in which he must have recourse to an assistant, the examples furnished by a native, in answer to sentences given him, must be in reality a translation; and a native who may have a question thus given him respecting a thing or an idiom foreign to his own tongue, may, without the least wish to deceive, clothe it in terms widely differing from the natural and genuine expression of the best authors in the language. But who, with Cicero, Horace, and Virgil before him, would select examples of Latin style and construction from the version of Arius Montanus? Yet few doubt either his fidelity, or his knowledge of Hebrew and Latin.

Examples of this kind in a grammar, not only fail to assist a person in studying a language; they mislead him by giving him an idea of it which he cannot realize in studying its best authors. Such was the effect which, according to the acknowledgement, some years ago, of a friend who was studying Chinese, the study of Fourmont had on him; who added indeed, that he often wished he had never seen his work, that he might have entered on the study of Chinese, with at least nothing to unlearn.-Considerations of this nature determined the author to pursue a different course, and in these