420 Mn. Davis on the Poetry of the Chinese. 



veying juster notions of wliat lie represents besides. On this occasion, too, 

 it has anotlier, and a peculiar use : for every thing concerning China stands 

 unfortunately so insulated and remote from whatever generally constitutes 

 a source of interest to Englishmen, that the only effectual way of attracting 

 attention to it, is by bringing it in contact with objects nearer home, and 

 thus allowing it to derive, from association, its fair share of advantage. 



Unless submitted with some degree of allowance to the touchstone of 

 European taste, the poetry of China might possibly succeed but indif- 

 ferently. The test, if it be not considerately applied, is not only an illiberal, 

 but an absurd one ; and we have no right hastily to condemn the devotion 

 which the ultra-Gangetic muse (however foreign to ourselves may be her 

 features and garb) inspires in her own native haunts ; or to be surprized at 

 the number of her exalted admirers, from Confucius down to Keenlong, — 

 considering that national taste is the most conventional and capricious thing 

 in the world; that it is determined by the infinite varieties of national 

 character, national models, and national associations ; and that even with 

 the same old copies to refer to, and with a general similarity of institutions 

 and customs, the different nations of the great European community vary, 

 on such points, not a little among themselves. 



Scinius, — ct lianc veniam pctimusque damusque vicissim. 

 There seem to be two causes, to which Chinese literature, of the ligliter or 

 ornamental kind, has owed its indifferent reception in the West — first, a 

 want of choice and selection in liie subjects — and secondly, a considerable 

 absence of taste and judgment in the mode of treating them. It is really 

 too much to expect that people will trouble themselves to look at what is 

 either stupid and good-for-nothing in itself^ or so marred in tiie interme- 

 diate process, as to have lost all the attraction that it possessed in the 

 original state. Let us only place the Chinese in our own situation on such 

 occasions, and imagine the dismay of some fastidious scholar who should 

 unluckily stumble upon one of oiu' street-ballads, done into bad Chinese, 

 that is, witii a verbal adherence to the original. It would eitiier prove a 

 perfect enigma, which is supposing the most fortunate case, — or he would 

 thank his stars that the broad ocean divided him from such savages, and 

 burn a supernumerary stick of incense before the shrine of his deified 

 patron. The interests and reputation of Chinese literature in Europe there- 

 fore seem to demand, that its professors take some pains to render its intro- 

 duction as attractive as possible, by a careful selection of the best subjects, 



