398 CHINESE WRITINGS. 



LIB. vi. Libraries and Yniversities in China and lappon, and that 

 mention is made of their Chapas, letters, and expeditions, 

 yet that which I say is true, as you may vnderstand by the 

 discourse following. 



CHAP. v. Of the fashion of Letters and Booltes the Chinois 



vsecl. 



There are many which thinke, and it is the most common 

 opinion, that the writings which the Chinois vsed are letters, 

 as those we vse in Europe, and that by them wee may write 

 wordes and discourses, and that they only differ from our 

 letters and writings in the diversitie of characters, as the 

 Greekes differ from the Latines, and the Hebrews from the 

 Chaldees. But it is not so, for they have no Alphabet, 

 neither write they any letters, but all their writing is no 

 thing else but painting and ciphering : and their letters 

 signifie no partes of distinctions as ours do, but are figures 

 and representations of things, as of the Sunne, of fire, of a 

 man, of the sea, and of other things. The which appears 

 plainely, for that their writings and cliapas are vnderstood 

 of them all, although the languages the Chinois speake are 

 many and very different, in like sort as our numbers of 

 ciphers are equally vnderstoode in the Spanish, French, and 

 Arabian tongues : for this figure 8, wheresoever it be., sig 

 nifies eight, although the French call this number of one 

 sort and the Spaniards of another. So as things being of 

 themselves innumerable, the letters likewise or figures 

 which the Chinois vse to signifie them by, are in a maner 

 infinite : so as he that shall reade or write at China (as the 

 Mandarins doe) must know and keepe in memory at the 

 least fourescore and five thousand characters or letters, and 

 those which are perfect herein know above sixscore thou 

 sand. A strange and prodigious thing ; yea, incredible, if 



