[ 502 ] 
The fifth fort, Tfao-tfee, (fee plate 4. Tab. XXIII.) 
was invented under the Hariy and would have deftroyed 
every thing, if it had prevailed. It is a fort of writing 
with the ftroke of a pencil, with a very light and 
well-experienced hand : but it disfigures the charaders 
beyond expreffion. It has no courfe, but for the 
prefcriptions of phyficians, prefaces of books, infcrip- 
tions of fancy, &c. 
To return to the various readings, and abbreviations; 
although it be true that thefe different forts of writing 
have augmented the number of them ; neverthelefs ~ 
the three laft have done no great harm ; becaufe they 
have been dircded by learned men, confecrated by 
publick authority, and bear more on the general form 
of the charaders, than on their orthography. Thus 
the literati do not complain, further than their having 
caufed the lofs of the antient charaders, which it 
would have been well to confult, to have had the 
true analyfis of feveral of the charaders of this day, 
which they think ill written, and disfigured. 
And thus, at length, having compleated his hiflo- 
rical detail, (which I have here reprefented very ira- 
perfedly) our author decides concerning Mr. Need- , 
ham, viz. that the charaders of the buff of Turin, 
(though four or five of them, viz. N° 2, 3, 8, 9, 3^1, 
have a feniible refemblance to the like number of cha-* 
raders in the Chinefe didionary), arc not genuine 
Chinefe charaders ; having no connedcd fcnfe, nor 
a proper refemblance to any of the different forms of 
writiii"; indeed the whole inferiotion has nothins: of 
Chinefe in the fiicc of it. As a farther proof, our 
author took the opinion, of divers of the Chinefe. li- 
terati, wliofe province it is to fiudy the antient wri- 
