400 Mn. Davis on the Poetry of the Chinese, 



work in China.* There, however, the measure of some pieces is altogether 

 irregular, varying from three, to seven or eiglit words in a line. Poetry, in 

 most countries, begins with being the vehicle of religion and morality, and 

 the first record of historical facts. Venerated at first as the language 

 of wisdom or inspiration, it is at length cultivated as a pleasurable art, 

 and never fails to improve in harmony, however it may degenerate in 

 other points, with the progress of time. " II faut distinguer dans la poesie," 

 says Racine, " ce qui vient de la nature, et ce qui est ajoute par X'art : la 

 nature inspire d'abord la rapidite du style, et la hardiesse des figures ; I'art 

 vient ensuite, et pour rendre le style poetique encore plus rapide, et en 

 meme tems plus harmonieux, le resserre dans les bornes etroites de la ver- 

 sification. La poesie naissaute n'a point du connoitre cet esclavage, puisque 

 les regies de I'art ne s'etablissent qu'avec le tems et la reflection." The 

 earliest Chinese poetry, as we find it in the Sheeking, appears certainly to 

 have made use of the embellishments of both measure and rhyme, but with 

 a degree of irregularity very different from the polish of modern versifica- 

 tion. The lines are occasionally of all lengths ; and the rhyme seems to be 

 subject to little rule. It will occasionally occur for six or eight consecutive 

 verses, and tliere will sometimes be none at all. For the same reason that 

 Pope is more harmonious than Chaucer or Donne, Boileau or Racine than 

 Ronsard, Virgil or Tibullus than old Ennius, 



" Sic horridus ille 



Dcfluxit luimerus " 



SO tlie poetry of China, from the Tang dynasty (when this art attained its 

 highest perfection) down to the present time, is in point of wie/r versification 

 a vast improvement on the Sheeking. It would be strange indeed, if this 

 people were an exception to a rule so general ; if an art, in which they took 

 so much delight, had not improved by cultivation, or were, at the present 

 day, devoid of so essential a qualification as the harmony of numbers. 

 Tlie old measure of four words, or feet, is now seldom adopted, being 

 from its shortness unsusceptible of much melody. At the same time it 

 does occasionally occur, chiefly for moral and didactic purposes ; and the 

 following may be taken as a specimen. — They are some lines of the 

 Budhists. 



* For two of the most regular odes of this collection, vide infra, Part II. 



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