THE PHOENIX,

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

FOR

INDIA, BURMA, SIAM,

CHINA, JAPAN & EASTERN ASIA.

EDITED BY

THE REV. JAMES SUMMERS,

PROFESSOR OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON,

VOLUME II.
JULY 1871 TO JUNE 1872.

LONDON:

OFFICE, 3, GEORGE YARD, LOMBARD STREET, E.C.

All Rights Reserved

PREFACE.

The Editor of the Phoenix respectfully thanks the Subscribers at the end of this second year for their continued support of his undertaking, and he has reason to congratulate himself that so much interest has been shewn in the objects he has had in view. He is sensible of the imperfections of the work, and he hopes that they will excuse his shortcomings when they consider the arduous nature of his engagements. He has to thank especially the contributors who from time to time have rendered so much assistance, and in so able a manner. When these contributions are perused, Oriental scholars will know how to give them due appreciation, and they have we trust found them serviceable as units of a vast whole,-the knowledge of the Eastern world.

The Phoenix has now reached its third year with every prospect of success; still much more is required to enable the Editor to carry out efficiently the task he has set before him of enlightening the Western world on the history of the East. The papers presented to the subscribers are necessarily fragmentary, but still they are valuable, as they concern a very wide field about which we are still comparatively ignorant. The object we have before us is to accumulate materials, and every item of information adds to the heap. The work of generalization must be left to the heroes of science, who will not despise the meanest particles of truth. Borrowing the quotation from Li-sz, (a Chinese scholar and statesman, B.C. 231,) used by our present Minister in Peking on the title-page of one of his books, we may say :— T'ai-shan pu jang t'u-jang

Ho-hai pu che si-liu.

細 不 河 土不泰

流擇海壤讓山

The Great Tai mountain* does not decline the soil;

The Rivers and Seas choose not the little streams.

Mr. Wade has freely rendered these lines thus:

"The Hill doth not decline its clod of earth
Nor doth the flood elect what stream shall feed it."

*Famous Mount in Shantung.