360 Mr. Carmichael on the [Nor. 



word of it when spoken ; * and in perusing a Chinese work, it is 

 their own language they pronounce, and not that of China ; and 

 this because the characters represent things and ideas — not 

 sounds. We should, therefore, be inchned to suppose that two 

 natives of China might use different words, provided their mean- 

 ing was similar, in reading the same, passage. For example ; 

 one man, according as his style was familiar, formal or easy, 

 compressed or diffuse, might read certain characters thus :— 

 " The deeds of talented men weigh more than the precepts of 

 wise ones." Another: " Genius that acts is of more import- 

 ance than Wisdom that declaims." A third : " The actions of 

 the able are superior in value even to the words of the wise." 

 And there can be little doubt but that this was the case in the 

 infancy of their written language. It has now, hovvever, arrived 

 at the highest perfection of which, perhaps, it is susceptible. 

 The prodigious number of its words, for each of which there is 

 a separate character, comprehends a multitude of synonymes. 

 Most of the words are monosyllables ; and as each is designated 

 by a distinct character, the sound is as perfectly ascertained as 

 if it was intentionally represented ; and the only inconvenience 

 (but which is almost an insurmountable one) is the incredible 

 number of characters that become necessary, when every word 

 must have its own peculiar representative. 



There was a time, however, among the Chinese, Egyptians, 

 and other nations, using similar symbols, when the art of writ- 

 ing was yet in its infancy, and its progress in improvement but 

 little advanced. At such a period, the characters must have 

 been confined in the strictest sense to the representation of 

 things and ideas only ; and in pronouncing them, any word 

 might be used in the place of one which was synonymous. The 

 meaning might still be certain, though not so precise as if 

 sounds had been represented by those characters ; yet there 

 could not be that strong necessity for the signs of sounds, which 

 would be sufficient to instigate the mind to labour after so pro- 

 found and recondite a discovery. What then, it may be asked, 

 could create this strong necessity ? I reply, in a word, Poetiy ; 

 and Poetry alone. 



Circumstances may be picturesque and ideas poetical, but 

 they do not constitute poetry, unless they are clad in the lan- 

 guage of the Muses. The harmonious flow of sounds is the 

 very essence of a poem ; and to fix and consolidate their volatile 

 and evanescent nature, to give them stability, and render them 

 permanent, can only be accomplished by marks which represent 

 them ; and not by the symbols of ideas, or the pictures of things. 

 Hieroglyphics, or the improved characters to which hierogly- 

 phics in the first instance gave birth, could never have become 

 the record of an Iliad or iEneid. An alphabet was necessary to 



* Staunton's Account of (he Embassy to China, vol. iii. p. 420, second edit. 



