shyness of strangers and aliens. In former times, a great many young Englishmen obtained a part of their education at Geneva, and made connections of friendship which remained unbroken during the rest of their lives; a still greater num-. ber of Genevans were accustomed to come over to England, either for instruction or to improve their fortunes; and most of the well-educated of both sexes speak our language. Bonaparte, who disliked the Genevans, once said when talking of them, "They speak too good English for me." We are sorry to be informed that, from some circumstances, a degree of coolness has now taken place: the English who cluster at Geneva delighting but little in the society of the inhabitants; and the latter declaring that they no longer recognize their old friends the English.

6

Formerly, they say, we found them grave and reasonable men, in whom a certain roughness of exterior set off to advantage that chivalrous generosity and cultivated sense which were the foundation of their character. Their young men, indeed, were occasionally hot-brained, and indulged in excesses, but before they reached to years of maturity they had become steady and wise, like their fathers. At present we have a countless and increasing multitude pouring on us, like crusaders going to Rome instead of the Holy Laud; and the former roughness of their character is converted into disdain, or sometimes degenerates into grossness. If these modern English are invited to our houses, they get into a corner, speak little or nothing, and make us the object of their jokes and ridicule. Nay, whether from jealousy or contempt, they shun even one another, as if infected with the plague. It is no easy matter to know how to conduct ourselves towards them. If we invite many, we give offence; for this is forcing them to recognize some whom they are shocked to see placed beside them. If we invite them singly, they are wearied to death! Speak to them of the English of former times- Ah! antediluvians! Talk of literature, it is mere pedantry, and they begin to yawn! Of politics, they burst forth into an ecstacy about Bonaparte! The dance is their only source of amusement: at the sound of the fiddle, this thinking nation" is roused from its slumber, and begins to jump about. Their young people frisk with wondrous activity, and spare no pains to learn, for they pass half their time with the dancing-master. We may know the houses where they lodge by the scraping of the kit and the shaking of the floors. Their neighbours every where complain of them. The major part bring no letters of recommendation, and yet are angry that they are neglected by good company. They find fault with the innkeepers for extortion; while the latter, once accustomed to Milords Anglais, now find only Les Anglais pour rire, who bargain at the very door, and before they enter, for the price of an omelet or the leg of mutton which they want for dinner. Situated as I am, between the two parties, I hear the young English repeating what they have

-

. been

been told in France, that the Genevans are cunning, cold, and self-interested, and their wives precious quizzes: that, even down to mantua-makers and milliners, they give themselves airs of wisdom and learning'; that they have no Opera, no Théâtre des Variétés, no girls; and that they (the English) are half dead of ennui. The Radicals assert that Geneva is only a spurious edition of England; that the people mimic its manners, its solidity, and its instruction; and that this little Republic is a mere quack in politics as it is in philosophy. In short, the number of those among English travellers who are friends of Geneva is very small, but it is very reputable and excellent. They have distinguished themselves by their humanity and generosity towards the poor during the present season of scarcity; not indeed so much towards the poor of the city itself, who were sufficiently assisted by their fellow-citizens, as towards those of the neighborhood, and particularly of Savoy, where almost an absolute famine has prevailed. If the English appear to be different now from what they were formerly, it is because those who travel are not confined to the same class, but, on the contrary, are composed of all classes, and by no means of the best specimens of those classes. The English are aware of this fact, and acknowlege it themselves; their numbers excite a smile ; they are often ashamed and vexed at their own conduct, and relate many appropriate anecdotes with the most bitter irony. I am sufficiently acquainted with the English character, to know that there is at least as much timidity as pride in the reluctance which they manifest to make the first advances towards each other: for the ice is no sooner broken between two travellers, than they become inseparable. Instances occur of some who have met every day for six months together without speaking, and yet at the moment of departure know not how to break away from each other! In former times, the English travellers were composed of young men of family; who, on leaving the University, ran over Europe during two or three years, accompanied by their tutors, who were generally men of distinguished learning. These young people, become parents in their turn after a number of years devoted to the duties of their respective stations in society, often returned to visit once "more the friends of their youth, accompanied probably by a respectable family, whose education shed a lustre on their rank and fortune. At a time when no Englishman left his country for refuge or concealment, and we saw them only immensely rich, and generous as well as rich, an English nobility, intelligent and liberal,

surely their nation enjoyed a high pre-eminence of character over others; and a great pity it is that such a character should ever have been compromised. Were I an Englishman, I would defer my travels till the rage for " seeing foreign parts" had somewhat subsided.' (Vol. i. p. 363–367.)

It is amusing, and far from uninstructive, to read the observations of intelligent foreigners on the English character, and to learn what opinion is formed of us abroad from our conduct and manners. Our countrymen commit abundant

Hh 2

fooleries,

fooleries, no doubt, and are sometimes sulky, sometimes proud; our national roughness occasionally wearing the similitude of disdain, and at other times degenerating into grossness. Let foreigners, however, look at those sterling virtues of humanity and generosity which the English extended, in the season of dearth and famine, to the poor in the vicinity of Geneva and in Savoy! Of these virtues, which are never dormant in British bosoms when an object of distress is pleading for their exertion, they may not boast indeed, but they must have a satisfaction in the nurture of them "which passeth all understanding;" and they may feel that their generosity covers a multitude of venial sins. As to their disliking the Genevans, the fact is disproved by their residence among them in such great numbers. There must always be a proportion of fait-néants and vaut-riens every where: but if any of our countrymen who belong to either of these denomin ations have gone to Geneva to take up their abode, they have committed an egregious blunder; and we advise them to quit its territory as soon as possible, and look out for some society more congenial to their taste and habits. The Genevans are too industrious for idlers, too moral for reprobates, and too literary and scientific to look with complacency on fops and fools.

These amusing volumes present us with a multitude of other topics, on which we are tempted to expatiate but the uncut leaves of a newly imported parcel from our foreign booksellers exclaim "Desist, desist," and demand attention to their fresh and varied claims.

ART. II. Elémens de la Grammaire Chinoise, &c.; i. e. Elements of Chinese Grammar; or General Principles of the Kou-wen, or Antique Style; and of the Kouan-hoa, or Vulgar Tongue in general Use throughout the Empire. By M. ABEL-REMUSAT, Professor of the Languages and Literature of China and Tartary in the Royal College of France. 8vo. Paris. 1822. Imported by Treuttel and Co. Price 17. 10s. sewed. THE oldest and scarcest Chinese Grammar, of which we

possess notices, is the Arte de la Lengua Mandarina, printed at Canton in 1703, and composed by the Spanish missionary, Father Francisco Varo. It teaches the vernacular and familiar style of the Chinese, but is deficient in its directions for acquiring the literary style. In the public library of Paris are preserved Father Prémare's Notitia Lingua Sinica, which have not yet been edited, but which supply the deficiency of Varo's Grammar, and treat separately and neatly

of the two styles, which it is necessary to acquire for the complete understanding of Chinese literature. These styles are called the kouan-hoa, or vernacular, and the kou-wen, or historic, dialect.

In the Museum Sinicum of Bayer, printed at Petersburgh in 1730, are about 180 pages of grammatical matter: but, as the characters, which supply the examples, are separately en graven on copper-plates, and not printed with the text, of which they ought to form a running portion, the learner finds great inconvenience in consulting this writer's directions, Bayer was recondite rather than profound in his researches, and wrote for the sake of patronage, not for the sake of science, aiming at admiration rather than utility.

Father Horace de Casterano gave an improved edition of Varo's Grammar, the manuscript of which appears to have passed into the hands of Fourmont, and to have been of essential use to him in publishing the Meditationes Sinica, 1737, and the Linguæ Sinarum Mandarinicæ Hieroglyphica Grammatica duplex, 1742. These works obtained reputation at a time when Europe possessed few judges of Chinese studies but they are found to be vague, inexact, erroneous, servilely attentive to the method of Latin grammarians, and to contain nothing trustworthy but the author's plagiarisms.

Dr. Hager, who was a second Bayer, at once recondite and superficial, published at London in 1801 an Explanation of the Elementary Characters of the Chinese, accompanied by a strange analysis of their pretended symbols. His book, however, seems to have awakened in England some attention to Chinese literature, asseveral works have since appeared in English in this deparment; and the names of Barrow, Staunton, Manning, Davis, Marshman, and others, continue to attest a growing interest for the hidden treasures of Chinese language. Still, a good Chinese grammar remained a desideratum among us. Dr. Marshman, indeed, printed at Serampore in 1814 a Clavis Sinica;, but this is rather a special introduction to the style of Confucius, than a general guide to the Chinese tongue; and it has been followed up by an edition of the works of Confucius, containing the original text, with Dr. Marshman's interpretation of the same. Mr. Morrison, also, a missionary zealously industrious, undertook to publish at Serampore in 1815 a Grammar of the Chinese Language. He appears to have trusted to his master, a native of China, for the correct translation into Chinese of our English auxiliaries and tensual inflections, and has perhaps done something to help an English beginner: but his work is rather a record of the imperfection than of the completeness of his own progress. Hh 3

His

His Dictionary, printed at Canton in 1819, is a much more valuable production, and announces greater proficiency in a -language so peculiarly difficult to Europeans.

AM. ABEL-RÉMUSAT, however, has at last supplied the -long deficiency of a good elementary book on the Chinese Janguage. He professes to have been more indebted to -his countryman Father Prémare than to any other of his predecessors, for the method adopted and the examples adduced but he has also undertaken an extensive personal sexamination of such Chinese books as were within his command; and now, after the study of many years, he avails himself of this mass of acquirement to facilitate a like progress to others. It is a task every way worthy of an official professor of the Chinese language. The Grammar is divided into paragraphs, and each paragraph is numbered separately; so that a reference to any preceding explanation of a given word, phrase, or sentence, is rendered easy, and repetitions are avoided. The examples are all derived from written authoricties, and mostly from such as are classical: but it has often been found necessary to employ citations from novels, such as -the Ju-kiao-li, the Hao-kieou-tchouan, the celebrated Kin- · phing-mei, and others.

To the magnificence of the French government M. REMUSAT has been indebted, for having engraved at the public expence the various Chinese types wanted for this "publication. He had already superintended in 1817 a Chinese edition of the Tchoung-young, which is the earliest European specimen of Chinese typography, and which -occasioned the cutting of many characters. These woodcuts have been used again, while others have been newly carved by M. Delafond, and now the number of moveable types amounts to fourteen hundred. A catalogue of them occurs at the end of the volume, arranged according to the two hundred and fourteen elementary characters of the Chinese: so that this index serves as a vocabulary. - The author estimates at about two thousand the number of characters which it is necessary to know well, in order to read without embarrassment a Chinese book; and however singular their forms may at first appear, this oddity of shape is found to facilitate the recollection of them, when once the habit of decomposing them is acquired. They paint objects, not sounds, and appear to be the decayed remains of hieroglyphic or picture - writing.

Although the Chinese books in general are printed in excellent order, aided by indexes, notes, and explanations, and have their pages, sections, and subdivisions always numbered,

yet