Mr. D.tris on I lie Poeti-y of the Chinese. 397 



may not be unimportant first to shew, tliat the native and original quahties 

 of the language are such, as not to unsuit it altogether to the purposes of 

 melodious composition, — that the raw material is not unfitted for the manu- 

 facture. A notion seems to have existed, that the whole merit of Chinese 

 poetry lay in souae curious and fanciful selection of the characters, with a 

 reference to their component parts. As a medium for the communication 

 of ideas, the written language certainly differs from alphabetic systems : 

 but, after all, the characters are the means only, and not the end. The 

 melody of the sound — the harmony of the structure — and the justness of 

 the sentiment, or beauty of the imagery — constitute, as they do everywhere 

 else, the merits of poetical composition. 



2. Such being the natural qualifications of the Chinese language, con- 

 sidered in its oral capacity, for poetry — it derives cadence and modulation 

 from the artificial use of the tones, or accents ; which appear, however, to 

 have been originally adopted for a very different purpose, and to have owed 

 their existence, rather to the necessity of perspkiiiti/ in speech, than of 

 melody in verse. It may easily be imagined, that where a whole spoken 

 language consists of not more than about four hundred words of different 

 sounds, there would be great danger of two interlocutors misunderstanding 

 each other, from the unavoidable use of the equivoque ; and hence the 

 necessity for the tones, or accents, consisting of what may, in suflScient 

 conformity with the meaning of their original names, be styled the even or 

 natural, the acute, the grave, and the short. In point of fact, the first is 

 no accent at all, but rather a negative quality — the absence of all marked 

 intonation ; and accordingly the Chinese themselves call it ping, ' even or 

 smooth,* while the three others they class together, under the general name 

 of tsee, ' deflected,' — that is, deflected from the natural tone. These last 

 are, in regular poetical composition, used indifferently for each other : they 

 are considered as being opposed to, and required in verse to be alternated 

 with, the even-toned or unaccented words. It would be quite unprofitable to 

 dwell here upon their minute distinctions, or to endeavour to give par- 

 ticular description of them, because nothing but the mouth of a native 

 can illustrate them properly : they are leally — voa: et j^rwterea nihil, and 

 have already been as fully noticed, as such a subject admitted of, by 

 several writers on Chinese grammar. SuflSce it then to say, that by their 

 use the original sounds of the language are varied or multij)lied about four- 

 fold, and a great accession made to its fitness for metrical composition. 



Vol. II. 3 r 



