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fmall matter. In effedl, without being well verfed in 
drawing, how could one trace in an ao;reeable man- 
ner lo many figures and fytnbols ? The difficulty 
augments when one reflects, that a good many cha- 
racters were compofed of divers I'ymbolsand images, 
the reduction of which ought to be very well touched, 
not to be difagreeable; efpecially near to other cha- 
racters that were lefs compound. It is natural to 
think, that they would not make ufe of images and 
fymbols intire, and traced in their juft proportion, but 
for great monuments, where room was not wanting. 
And yet it fhould not be denied, that they had recourl's 
to the analyfed characters, for certain places lefs ad- 
vantageous. 
The faCt efiabliffied by what remains of theChi- 
nefe monuments is, that the fhapes and the (ymbols 
have paffied from a contour fufficiently regular, to fome 
lines oddly affembled ; and that the lines themfelves 
have been yet decompounded, and melted, into thefe , 
fix lines, h-JUT. out of which, at this day, are 
compofed all the characters in ufe. The fimpleil are 
made of one or two of thefe lines j and they count as 
far as 20 or 30, or more lines, in the more compound 
characters. To avoid the confufion and oblcurity 
which this great abbreviation would have caufed, they 
have fixed the number of the lines of the characters 
which reprefent the 200 elementary images and fym- 
hols fpoken of. Thefe abbreviations thus fixed are 
called Pou^ Claffes or ‘Tribimah, as Mr. Fourmont ^ 
tranfiates. For example; the Foil ol man, of wo- 
rn; n, of trees, of difeafes, of great, of fmall, of vafe, 
&c. In brief, for greater clearnefs, and to range the 
characters in the dictionaries, there is in each charac- 
ter 
