L9fi REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



que vingt ans apres la mort du roi Srong-btsan-Sgam-po : or le roi avait 

 recu l'ecriture dont son envoye Thon-mi rapportait les elements. 



Dans une epigramme finale, M. Laufer dit : "Turkistanitis is a 

 new form of learned disease." Je suis pourtant d'avis que l'importance 

 de revolution du Buddhisme au Turkestan a reellement. ete consider- 

 able et que nous n'en connaissons pas encore toute l'etendue. Mais je 

 suis d'accord avec M. Laufer pour regarder comme inadmissible la 

 these de M. Francke et de M. Hoernle analysee ci-dessus. 



J. Ch. T. 



An English-Chinese Dictionary of Peking Colloquial. By Sir 



W. Hilliee. c.b. New Edition enlarged by Sidney Barton, c.m.g. 

 and Edmund Backhouse. Shanghai. Printed at the American 

 Presbyterian Mission Press. $7.00. 



Of the making of dictionaries there is no end. This is a good 

 thing for students. Dictionaries are the most useful and fascinating of 

 all books ; and the person who can use properly, and enjoy the treasures 

 of a dictionary has entered into great possessions. It is fortunate that 

 there are persons of ability and leisure to compile them. When Sir 

 W. Hillier published his work he became a public benefactor. And 

 Sir E. Backhouse and Mr. S. Barton share in this philanthropy. The 

 revision and additions of these two scholars must have involved great 

 drudgery. And the least the public can now do is to use the book that 

 has cost so much labour. It will not be a matter of hsi?ig shan for 

 them to do so. they will have their money's worth. We cordially 

 commend this work to our readers. It will often help them in a 

 difficulty, and open up avenues of suggestion and lines of thought. 

 It is compact and handy and can be easily taken with one. The 

 revisers give the reason in the preface for this new undertaking. They 

 say, 'The eight years which have elapsed since the first edition of this 

 dictionary was published have witnessed the advent of a Republican 

 regime in China, followed by a development of parliamentary and 

 legal institutions and of the press, all of which events have had a 

 marked effect on the language. New terms have been found necessary 

 in order to enable public and private speakers and writers on the events 

 of the day to convey to their audiences the new ideas connoted by 

 revolution and progress. It was inevitable under the circumstances 

 that, in order to meet this need, recourse should be had in the first 

 instance to the kindred language 'of the neighbour Japan, where large 

 stocks of expressions coined in recent years to give currency in the 

 East to the ideas of the West were ready at hand. So marked has been 

 the Japanisation of the modern Chinese vocabulary as a result of this 



