Mr. Davis on the Poetry of the Chinese. 451 



lady, who asked if London were not thrown into a great bustle by the arri- 

 val of the India fleet. 



" In the regulationof the annual period, they have no intercalary moon, 

 but the new year always commences ten days after the winter solstice. On 

 this occasion they powder their heads with white dust, and all get tipsy." 

 This evidently refers to good old times, and to manners now gone by. 

 The author himself adds in a note : " This habit has of late years worn 

 out." — There is a variety of other detached observations, less worthy of 

 notice, and the poem concludes with mentioning, that " the foreigners had 

 been fighting together for some twenty years ; but it was to be hoped they 

 would soon make peace with one another, and all have an opportunity of 

 improving themselves by an intercourse with China." 



A retrospect of our subject might tend to sliew, that the poetry of China 

 most naturally arranges itself under three general heads. 1. Odes and Songs. 

 — 2. Moral and Didactic Pieces. — 3. Descriptive and Sentimental. These 

 different kinds are, however, so blended together occasionally, and run so 

 much into one anotiier, that it is not always very easy, nor indeed perhaps 

 is it of much consequence, to separate them. It has been remarked before, 

 that as the substance and dialogue of their drama is always in prose, and 

 the musical parts come properly under the definition of songs, tlie Chinese 

 cannot with strictness be said to possess what we mean by dramatic poetry, 

 that is, tragedies or plays of any kind composed mainly in verse. 



At the end of this treatise will be found a miscellaneous selection of 

 poetical pieces, extracted at random ; and for the satisfaction of those who 

 may prefer such a mode, they are accompanied, not by metrical versions, 

 but by prose translations, as literal as they could be well rendered ; — 

 although it must always be kept in mind, that this is a most disadvan- 

 tageous dress for the poetry of any language whatever. 



In thus coming to a conclusion, the author feels himself bound, as well 

 for the sake of the subject, as his own, to notice the manner in which 

 Professor Ilemusat, of Paris, has done him the honour to quote his opi- 

 nion regarding Chinese poetry. In the preface to his translation of the 

 Yu keaou le, when treating of the passages in verse with which that 

 novel is interspersed, and of their frequent obscurity, M. Remusat ob- 

 serves, " Le traducteur des Nouvelles dont j'ai precedemment fait mention, 

 assure que les vers dont il s'agit sont principalement destines a flatter I'oreille, 

 et que le sens y est trcs souvcnt sacrifie a I'harmonie." Now the passage to 



