Mr. Davis on I he Poetry of the Chinese. 431 



tending against each other for sovereignty. The following lines are sup- 

 posed to have been written by a certain emperor to his victorious general, 

 of whose successes in the south he had just heard. The third and fourth 

 lines are transposed in our version. 



^k k 'y^ f^ '^ ^ m k 



^ ^ -^ 2c. n ^)^ kk ^ 



^ # * ^ ^i I. li ^% 



]k n ^ Mf %% It /K 4£ 



il^ If ^ yf, a A, M^ m- 



IX 1. 11 M )\ >^ m %. 



^'& a ^ II .1) # ^ ^ 



" The South subdued." 



" Servant, well done — the erring south restor'd. 

 Bends to the prowess of thy glittering- sword ; 

 High as the orbs thy light'ning standard gleams. 

 Thy drum's loud music shakes the mountain streams : 

 And heaven's own race alights on earth again. 

 The foe to scatter to their murky den! 

 Know, when with pride thy glad return we hail. 

 Thy sovereign's hand shall loose his hero's mail !" 



No composition, however, to which the name of Epic could properly be 

 applied, has ever rewarded European research. Though poetry exists in 

 some shape or other all over the world, the same universality haidly 

 attaches to that modification of it which we style the Epopee : and, but 

 for the two great prototypes of Homer, there seems to be no absolute 

 necessity for supposing that it must have arisen, or at least been so fre- 

 quent, in our western literature. It was confessedly in imitation of Homer 



3 K 2 



