Origin of the Tai-ping Insurrection. 525 



liimself forth as a poet,* and at the same time issued proclama- 

 tions under the designation of the " Heavenly King." The 

 severity with which the regular Government treated the insur- 

 gents, and all who consorted with them, only served to augment 

 their ranks, to which the mysticism of their doctrine contri- 

 buted in no small degree ; for the credulous masses have in 

 all lands the same love of the marvellous and unintelligible. 

 Such a result only increased the courage, the energy, the 

 arrogance of Hung. He no longer was content to an- 

 nounce himself as '' the mouth through which God the 

 Father, and Jesus the Elder Brother, declared their will ; " 

 he now proclaimed boldly the intention of himself and his 

 followers to overthrow the unworthy Mantchoo dynasty, and 

 raise to the throne a new native dynasty, that of the Tai- 

 ping, or universal peace. Althougli stigmatized by the 

 official PeJcin Gazette as '' local banditti," they were neverthe- 

 less strong enough in March, 1852, to storm even such a 



* One poem of the Chinese Imperial Pretender, which is not inchided in Dr. Med- 

 hurst's collection of the writings published by the insm-gent press at Nankin, and for 

 a copy of which we have to thank Mr. Meadows, Government interpreter at Shang- 

 hai, has lately been translated by our learned countryman. Dr. Pfitzmaier. The 

 splendidly got up binding of this Uttle book is of a golden yellow on the title page, 

 and red on the reverse ; the river Yang-tse-kiang appears to pay homage to the 

 Tai-ping, whose residence it surrounds. The title printed on the exterior of the 

 wi'apper runs as follows : " Imperial announcements in theses upon the words of 

 the Heavenly Father, the Most High Ruler." The title within is : " Ten poems 

 upon Supreme Felicity," although these so-called poems are simply strophes, never 

 exceeding four verses of seven feet. The writing bears date the number Kuei-hao 

 (50), corresponding to .\.D. 1853, the third year of the reign of the Heavenly King, 

 Tai-ping. The whole production is, if that be possible, yet more bombastic, unin- 

 telligible, and stupid than Chinese poems usually are to Western readers. 



