2»4 S. IX. Jan. 14. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



35 



Stanislas Julien, Membre de l'lnstitut. 2 vols. 12mo. 

 Paris, L. Hachette. 



The study of Oriental literature is now growing rapidly 

 in France as elsewhere, and we can already anticipate the 

 time when a knowledge of Sanscrit will be considered an 

 essential element in every gentleman's education. Messrs. 

 Kenan, Caussin de Perceval, Renan, Eugene Burnouf, may 

 be named amongst those who have chiefly aided in bring- 

 ing about this result, and the two volumes to which we 

 would call the attention of our readers are attempts — and 

 very happy ones — to interest the reading public in re- 

 searches which must open up literary treasures of the 

 most remarkable character. 



Both India and China have contributed to the volumes 

 translated by M. Stanislas Julien, under the title Contes 

 et Apologues Indiens, for the amusing tales there collected 

 originally came from the banks of the Ganges; the San- 

 scrit text, however, exists no more, and it is from a Chinese 

 version that the French savant has been obliged to perform 

 his own task. The development of Buddhism in the 

 " celestial empire " sufficiently explains why the Indian 

 Avadanas, or similitudes, should exist at the same time in 

 the double form just now mentioned. An additional 

 value is imparted to the Contes et Apologues by the fact 

 that they have hitherto escaped the observation of all 

 those whose pursuits are directed towards either Sanscrit 

 or Chinese literature. M. Stanislas Julien discovered the 

 whole collection in a Chinese Cyclopaedia, where it occurs 

 with the metaphoric title Yu-lin (the forest of similes). 

 The author of this work seems to have been a man named 

 Youen-thai, or Jou-hien, who. after having obtained (so 

 says the Catalogue of the Imperial Library at Pekin) 

 a doctor's degree in 1565, rose, at a later period, to the 

 important post of chief justice. The Yu-lin is compiled 

 from eleven recueils of similes or comparisons, the titles 

 of which are enumerated by M. Julien ; it is an extremely 

 valuable production, if we either examine its intrinsic 

 qualities or compare it with analogous works of Greek or 

 Latin origin. We can only hope that the learned trans- 

 lator will be induced to proceed with his undertaking, and 

 to give us his promised version of the Fa-youen-tchou-lin, 

 as also another volume of Chinese fables. By way of 

 sequel to the Indian Avadanas, which make up the 

 greater part of the work, M. Julien has added a few 

 pieces purely Chinese by origin, and these are not the less 

 curious feature in the series. 



2. Nouvelles Chinoises, traduction de M. Stanislas Julien. 

 12mo. Paris, L. Hachette. 



M. Stanislas Julien informs us in the Preface to this 

 volume, that " les Chinois possedent plusieurs romans his- 

 toriques fort estimes," and he now offers a specimen of 

 mandarinic fiction both to the readers who are fond of 

 Oriental literature, and to the more frivolous who like 

 novels and tales in whatsoever garb they may appear. 

 Certainly, after studying the sayings and doings of 

 modern heroes and heroines, the chronicles of modern 

 fashionable life and the mysteries of French boudoirs, it 

 must be uncommonly piquant to know bow love-affairs 

 were conducted in China during the fourteenth century, 

 and to be engrossed by the adventures of Mister Wang- 

 yung and Mademoiselle Tiao-tchan. However, it would 

 have been quite impossible to translate in extenso one of 

 the aforesaid Chinese novels, reaching, as they do, to the 

 enormous proportions of twenty volumes — and such vo- 

 lumes ! Clarissa Harlowe, Scudery's Clelie, Alexandre 

 Dumas' Three Musketeers, it is true are fascinating enough 

 to make us forget their rather undue length ; but who would 

 undertake to wade through twice ten quartos of descrip- 

 tions, conversations, and narratives, about John China- 

 man ? Not half a dozen persons, we would venture to say, 



amongst the subscribers to the Bibliotheque des Chemins 

 de Fer. M. Stanislas Julien has therefore very wisely 

 limited his enterprising spirit to a selection of three epi- 

 sodes, which, complete in themselves, will give a suffi- 

 ciently correct idea of the imaginative literature of the 

 Chinese. They are borrowed from an historical romance 

 entitled San-Koui-tchi, or History of the Three King- 

 doms. 



It is well known that, about the year 220 of our era, 

 when the Han dynasty became extinct with the emperor 

 Hien-ti, China was divided into three kingdoms, Cho, YVeT, 

 and Wou, Under the reign of Hien-ti lived a remarkable 

 man, Tong-tcho, who from the rank of a general quickly 

 rose to become prime minister. Then, carried away by his 

 ambition, he rebelled against his master, dethroned him, 

 usurped the title of Governor-general of the empire, and, 

 after a long series of atrocities, would have seated him- 

 self at the helm of the state, if another minister, disgusted 

 at his crimes, had not caused him to be murdered. It is 

 the death of Tong-tcho that M. Stanislas Julien selects 

 as the opening chapter of his volume ; the name of the 

 historian who compiled the annals of the three kingdoms 

 is Tchin-tcheou, and from his narrative the novelist To- 

 kouang-tchong borrowed the chief incidents of his cele- 

 brated romance, San-koue-tchi, in which, according to 

 M. Stanislas Julien, " il releva l'aridite' des faits par tfn 

 style noble et brillant, et entremela son recit d'episodes 

 d'un interet dramatique . . . .qui sont de son invention, 

 et qui ont puissamment contribue" au succes de son ou- 

 vrage." 



The second extract is called Hing-lo-tou, or The 3Jys- 

 terious Painting; and the third, Tse-hiong-hiong, or The 

 Two Brothers of Different Sexes, the plot of this last 

 tale being" founded on one of those disguises, or traves- 

 tissements, so common even among novelists of the present 

 day. 



3. Les Moralistes Orientaux, Pensees, Mazimes, Sen- 

 tences, et Proverbes, tire's des meilleurs ecrivains de l'Orient, 

 recueillis et mis en ordre alphabetique par A. Morel, 

 12mo. Paris, L. Hachette. 



The third publication we have to mention is, like the 

 two previously noticed, derived from Eastern sources^ In 

 a collection of extracts on moral philosophy, the first place 

 must necessarily be given to those nations whose penchant 

 for proverbs and pithy sayings has always been so strong. 

 It is interesting to see how other men have thought on 

 the subjects which will always interest the whole of hu- 

 manity, and if, to quote from the Preface of the book now 

 under consideration, " la nature des proverbes nous ap- 

 prend le caractere et le genie propres de chaque nation," 

 no better guide can be suggested to an accurate know- 

 ledge of nationalities than a work like M. Morel's Mo- 

 ralistes Orientaux. " Les pense'es," the translator conti- 

 nues, " sur notre destination et notre nature sont force- 

 ment plus sobres ; le sujet y contient et refrene l'ecrivain, 

 sans le priver d'esprit et d'agrement. Ainsi les Chinois 

 ont le style ingenieux quand ils moralisent ; les Semites 

 brillent par l'energie pittoresque ; les Persans, par la dou- 

 ceur facetieuse ; les Turcs, par la gravite hautaine; les 

 Indiens, par une elegante simplicite - ." This enumeration 

 includes all the sources from which M. Morel has bor- 

 rowed ; the Zend-Avesta, the Hitopadesa, the works of 

 Confucius, the Koran, and the Gnlistan of Saadi, will be 

 found largely quoted from in this volume, which embraces, 

 besides, a large variety of extracts supplied by the canonic 

 and apocryphal Books of the Old Testament. A short 

 account, both biographical and bibliographical, of the 

 authors laid under contribution, has been prefixed, and 

 also a very copious Index, for the purposes of reference. 



4. La Vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr, Archevique de 

 Canterbury, par Gamier de Pont Saint Maxence, poete 



