430 General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. [No. 125. 



at the same time it affords the evidence of the interest the public have 

 in such undertakings; for the translation of the Koran by Mr. Kasi- 

 mirski which it contains, is already the second edition within a year, 

 and the printing of a third one is commenced. Mr. Pauthier has also 

 occupied himself with a new edition of the Moral Books of the Chinese, 

 contained in the volume of which I am speaking, and moreover publish- 

 ed the Statistical Documents on the empire of China, translated from the 

 Chinese, (Paris, 1841, in 8vo.) They are taken from the official statistic, 

 entitled " Tai-tsing-hoeitien," which give a detailed account of the 

 state of population, and the revenue of each province. 



Mr. Bazin advertises the speedy publication of a work, which will 

 highly excite the curiosity of the public ; viz. the complete translation of 

 the Pi-pa-ki, a drama of twenty-four pictures, written by Kao-tong-kia, 

 in the fourteenth century under the dynasty of the Youens. 



Tsai-yong is a historic person, who at the commencement of the third 

 century of our era, was president of the tribunal of the historians. He 

 is one of those savans, often presented to us in the history of China, 

 who became martyrs to their patriotism ; for not being allowed by the 

 emperor to finish the history of the dynasty of the Hans, he died in pri- 

 son of mental anxiety, arising from the frustration of his purpose. The 

 Pi-pa-ka, however, not treating this catastrophe, introduces Tsai-yong 

 in his youth. The Chinese critics cannot find adequate language to 

 praise the elegance and the varied merits of this drama, which in their 

 eyes has no other rival than the Si-siang-ki, and they raise it even 

 above this, as in the Pi-pa-ki they find with equal poetic beauties a 

 more pure morality. Whatever value may be attached in Europe to 

 the Pi-pa-ki, it must always be highly estimated, considered as a picture 

 of the customs of the Chinese in the fourteenth century. 



Round the four great literatures, the Arabian, Persian, Indian and 

 Chinese, must be placed the literature of other Oriental nations, which 

 have not become themselves centres of civilization, but borrowed their 

 ideas from one or the other of those great nations. In them we must 

 therefore not expect works, stamped with originality, which have made 

 an epoch in the history of mankind. Nor may we hope, that a great 

 number of learned men will cultivate them ; but it is desirable that they 

 may not be altogether neglected, and that the wants of government, of 

 commercial transactions, the enthusiasm of the Missionary, or the zeal 





