CHINA. 



279 



Literature. 



Oratory. 



Moo-lee-tvha. 



1. 

 1234 5 



Hau ve-to si-'n wha 



G 7 8 ? 10 11 12 13 

 Yen tcliau yen jie to tsai go kia 

 H 15 16 17 18 19 

 Go pun tai poo tchoo mun 



20 21 22 ?:J 24 25 

 T\. ce tc'.io sien wha ul lo 



II. 

 1234 56 



Hau ye to moo-lee wha 



78 9 10 11 12 13 14 

 Man y.icn w ha kai soy poo quee ta 

 15 16 17 18 19 20 

 Go pun tai tsai ye ta 

 21 22 23 21 2.5 26 27 

 T..i you kung kan wha jin ma. 



I. 

 123 45 



How delightful this branch of fresh flower*! 



67 89 10 11 12 13 



One morning one day it was dropped in my* house. 



14 I.-, 16 17 18 19 



I, the owner, will wear it not out of doors ; 

 20 21 22 23 2* 25 



But I will hold the fresh flower and be happy. 



II. 



123 4 5 



How delightful this branch of the Moo-lee flower ! 



78 9 10 11 12 13 14 



In the full pot of flowers blowing freely none excels it. 



15 16 17 18 19 20 



I, the owner, will wear this gathered branch ; 



21 22 23 24 25 26 27 



Wear it, yet fear, the flower seen, men will envy. 



The oratory of the Chinese is founded chiefly upon an 

 imitation of their best ancient writers ; and may be said 

 to consist merely in an elevated style of writing, or to be 

 the same as their poetry, without the musical notes. Its 

 excellence consists in conciseness of expression, boldness 

 of metaphor, a happy application of ancient maxims, and 

 above all, in brevity of illustration. No superfluous or- 

 nament, or useless expression, or accumulation of incon- 

 clusive argument, is admitted in such compositions; and 

 the best orations arc those, which produce their effect, 

 without exceeding the compass of a few lines. In what 

 may be called the academical compositions of the literati, 

 who are aspiring to degrees, there is a sufficient display 

 of false eloquence, of unnatural images, unmeaning words, 

 and excessive brilliancy ; but such orators are denomina- 

 ted golden mouths and wooden tongues by their best jud- 

 ges, who approve only what approaches to the elegant 

 precision and manly simplicity of their ancient authors. 

 The Chinese rhetoricians pretend to distinguish oratory 

 into an inconceivable number of varieties; butthe designa- 

 tions of the several kinds are merely epithets, expressing 

 the quality of the piece, or the disposition of its author. 

 Thus they speak of the eloquence of things, which con- 

 sists in the power of truth ; the eloquence of sentiment, 

 which is the effusion, as it were, of the orator's soul ; 

 thr eloquence of candour, which banishes doubt or suspi- 

 cion ; the eloquence of combination, which is the fruit of 

 much study ; the eloquence of wonder, which subdues 

 reason by astonishing the imagination ; the eloquence of 

 tingularity, which contradicts received truths, and at- 

 tracts by the appearance of original discoveries ; the elo- 

 quence of subtleties, which is wrapt up in obscurities; 

 //. eloquence of depth, which produces reflection by its 



weighty instructions ; (lie eloquence of grandeur, which Literature, 

 approaches to the sublimity of the ancient classics, &c. " **"Y~ 

 Strictly speaking, indeed, there is no real oratory in Chi- 

 na, as there is no oral address in the presence of judges or 

 assemblies. It is only by memorials, petitions, and re- 

 monstrances presented to the emperor, or his tribunals, 

 that a rhetorician can influence any proceeding ; and, in 

 no instance do the Chinese admit ,of those powerful mo- 

 dulations of voice, expressive gestures, and animated de- 

 clamations, which contribute so much to the success of 

 European orators. Affecting always to be grave and 

 composed hearers, they wish their understanding to be 

 calmly and gradually enlightened, and would be offended 

 by any appearance of a wish to impress their feelings. 



The Chinese drama possesses none of the requisites of Drama, 

 the European stage ; observes none of the unities of time, 

 place, or action ; makes no distinction between tragedy 

 and comedy ; and exhibits the whole life of the hero, or 

 even the duration of a whole dynasty, without any regard 

 to regularity or probability in the plot. Every piece is 

 generally divided into several parts or acts ; every actor, 

 when he comes forward, begins by informing the au- 

 dience of his name, and the character which he is to sup- 

 port ; and the same person generally performs several 

 parts in the course of the piece. The dialogue, like the 

 Italian opera, is delivered in a monotonous kind of reci- 

 tative, with occasional risings and sinkings of the voice, 

 to denote the emotions of the speaker; and the more 

 violent passions of anger, joy, grief, despair are always 

 expressed by singing. There is generally an accompa- 

 niment of music throughout the representation ; and the 

 pauses, particularly, are filled up by a confused crash of 

 gongs, drums, trumpets, and cymbals. They have no 

 scenery, but what is produced by the awkward use of 

 human beings to represent inanimate objects ; and Shake- 

 speare's " man with lime and rough-cast to present a wall." 

 is far outdone by a heap of Chinese actors, piled like logs 

 above each other, to imitate a wall in the storming of a 

 city or castle. To assist the imagination of the audience, 

 also, in conceiving some change of scene, an actor rides 

 round the stage upon a stick, humming a song, in- imita- 

 tion of a person making a journey ; or he imitates the ac- 

 tion of a person opening a door, and ascending a step or 

 stair, in order to imitate his passing from one apartment 

 to another. Females are not permitted to appear upon 

 the stage ; but eunuchs or boys are employed in their 

 etead. 



Their select pieces consist of a hundred historical plays 

 published in one work, and supposed to have been chief- 

 ly produced in the fourteenth century. Only one of 

 these, " the Orphan of China," translated by Father 

 Premare, has appeared in a European 1 'Version ; and was 

 the basis of Voltaire's tragedy of the same name. It is 

 not considered, however, as a very faithful translation ; 

 and furnishes no proper specimen of the actual state of 

 Chinese theatricals. The subjects of the more regular 

 pieces are generally of a historical nature, referring to 

 the more remote events, and represented in the ancient 

 costume of China ; and the catastrophe of the greater 

 part, is generally the last paroxysm of a despairing lover, 

 or the violent agitations of a criminal on the eve of exe- 

 cution. The 1 artar Conquest is among the number of 

 these representations; but there are no pieces founded up- 

 on events posterior to that a:ra. It has been affirmed by 

 the French missionaries, that the ancient Chinese sages 

 uniformly condemned theatrical representations ; that 

 they are rather tolerated than authorised by the existing 

 laws of the country ; that the modern literati rarely em- 

 ploy their talents in writing for the stage ; and that even. 



