IMITATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL. 



315 



which this system of writing had acquired in Mexico, and still exhibits in 

 China, that the ingenious people of both countries stopped so long at the 

 point of abbreviated emblems, significant of objects, and never fairly ad- 

 vanced from a legible language for things, to a legible language for words. 



It should be observed, however, as a farther proof of the tendency of 

 picture-characters to advance towards literal, that even in China itself the 

 Mantcheu, or Tartars, have an alphabet, or system of verbal writing, and 

 that the Mantcheu practice has long been acquiring a growing reputation. 

 It should be observed, also, that tiie Chinese charactei-s themselves have of 

 late been resorted to at Canton, and by Chinese natives, as merely expres- 

 sive of sounds, and been employed in the formation of an English voca- 

 bulary ; in consequence, as Sir George Staunton remarks, of the great con- 

 course of persons residing at this station who use the English language.* 

 In like manner the Japanese, fond as they are of copying from the Chinese, 

 have long since departed from their system of marks for things, and addicted 

 themselves to alphabetic characters ; sometimes writing them horizontally, 

 and sometimes perpendicularly ; both which methods are found in Chinese 

 records, though the perpendicular is by far the most common. 



Attempts have been made to prove that the picture-writing of the Egypt- 

 ians, the Chinese, and the Mexicans, has proceeded from one common 

 source ; yet nothing can be more fanciful, and, apparently, nothing more 



that the professor in the Chinese department is the Rev. Dr. Morrison ; while those in the 

 Arabic, Persian, Bengalee, and Sanscrit are nearly of equnl celebrity, and have the occasional 

 assistance of Professor Lee, of Cambridge ; and that all of them have entered into the under- 

 taking with so much zeal and pubiic spirit as to aftord their vaiuuble assistance gratuitously. 

 Nor has this instruction been offered in vain or unsuccessfully. Even in the Chinese de- 



fartment, wht're many might expect kastto be accomplished, the very learned and excellent 

 'rofessor, in his first Quarterly Report to the Committee, March 1, 1826, has stated, that 

 he has been attended by thirteen students, seniors, and juciors, besides several ladies; with 

 the progress of most ol whom he has h^d great reason to be satisfied ; and two or three 

 of whom, having attained some previous knowledge of the language, are preparing to carry 

 on the design after his own return to China. 



The Institution is also under a deep and inexpressible obligation to Dr. Morrison, for the 

 gratuitous use of his most valuable Chinese library,— by far the first in Europe, — and, per- 

 haps, any where out of Asia ; which is now deposited and arranged at the establishment. 

 As a matter of high literary curiosity, I have requested its distinguished owner to furnish me 

 with a brief account of the library for insertion in the present place, and my reverend friend 

 has been kind enough to comply by the following communication, which I give in his owa 

 words : — 



" In the Language Institution there is deposited an extensive library of Chinese 

 printed books and MSS., together with a museum intended to illustrate subjects referred to 

 in the books. This Library and Museum are the property of Dr. Robert Morrison, the first 

 Protestant missionary to China. 



" There are between nine hundred and a thousand works ; making in all about 10,000 vo- 

 lumes, stitched and bound in the Chinese manner. 



" Tiiese books contain specimens of the literature of more than three thousand years ; from 

 the compilations and original writings of Confucius, five hundred years before the Christian 

 era, down to the present lime. 



<' The materials fiom which Confucius compiledihe works he put forth, are not extant in 

 any other form than that which he gave them : and, therefore, he may be regarded as the 

 oldest Chinese writer whose works have come down to the present daj^. 



" Dr. Morrison has not had time, during his sojourn in Europe, to make out a Catalogue 

 Raisonne of his Chinese library, with a brief accouat of tiie chief works, titles, subjects, 

 authors, date, &c. 



*' They consist of the sacred books of Chinese antiquity, with copious commentaries, written 

 at various periods, and by a great variety of persons ; history, ancient and modern ; geogra- 

 phy, and topography ; astronomy ; biography ; opinions on government ; rites and usages of 

 China: religious books of Laoukeuniisvi ; Bud] asm ; and the morals of Confucianism; 

 poetry ; historical and other novels : medicine; botany ; and the materia medica ; notices 

 of foreign nations, and embassies to China ; v/orks composed by Jesuit missionaries concern- 

 ing Europe and Christianity ; the European geometry ; and the astronomy of the fifteenth 

 century, &c. ; a few works on the rehgion of Mahomet, &o. &c. 



* Embassy, ii. 576 ; Hagar's Chinese Elements, p. Ixi* 



