THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ~ 
 ApRiL 1 
Nastia. 
, 1804. 
[2/08 VoL. Is 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N the eve of publithing, under ve- 
ry powerful aufpices, a Profpec- 
tus and Specimen for editing a Chinefe 
Di&tionary, with a Latin and French 
‘Tranflation, to be delivered in Numbers, 
IY pray you, Sir, to allow me to in- 
vite the Literati of Europe te come for- 
ward as fub(cribers, by communicating to 
them, through the means of your excel- 
Jent Mifcellany, the contents of the fingu- 
lar MS. Dittionary, of which I intend to 
propofe an edition, with leave likely to be 
obtained from the liberal proprietor, Ma, 
thew Raper, Efy. F.R.S. ThisMS. Diétio- 
nary has not its equal in per(picuity of plan, 
or in abundance of Chinefe characters. 
The Chinefe Dictionaries, with the pro- 
Runciation alone, or with the tranflation 
and pronunciation, already feen by me, - 
are the following : 
That printed in China, and defcribed by 
F. Mailla,* as follows : §* Di&tionnaire Chi- 
nois, qui, a cdté de chaque Caractére, a la 
Pronunciation Européenne, pour aider les nou- 
vaux Miflionaires, qui arrivent a la Chine.” 
—I have poffefled this invaluable and elegant 
follo volume ever fince 1791. ,Every cha- 
racter is accompanied with an Arabic figure, 
proceeding from 1 regularly to 9520 ; but 
witiy the various forms of each charaCter ar- 
ranged under the fame figure, the number of 
them might be between ro and 72 thoufand 
in all, 
The fecond, which I have often confulted 
in 1792, with the permiflion of the late pro- 
prictor, Thomas Fitzhugh, Efg. although in 
point of elegance fuperior perhaps toany MS. 
in Europe; yet the number of characters 
therein exhibited and explained does not ex- 
ceed gooo. 
The third, I faw the fame year, belonged 
to the Society Dz Propaganda, at Rome, a 
quarto volume of a moderate fize, which had 
the fingularity of being arranged by the order 
of keys, or elementary charaéters, and not 
alphabetically, as all others feenby me; but 
wpon an attentive examination, I found thatit 
Was not more copious than that printed inmy 
poffeffion. 
The fourth is that formerly of Sir Wil- 
liam Jones, now in the Royal Society, which 
for exaétnefs and corre€tnefs has no equal ; 
yet even reckoning all the various forms of 
each charaéter, the number exhibited does 
not exceed 10,500, and correfoonds in order 
and fubjeé to my printed one above defcribed, 
having, befides, the tranflation with phrafes 
I A I rE, 
vf See ‘* Le Chou King” publithed by De 
Guignes, a Paris, 1770, 4to. p2g. 393- 
MONTHLY Mag, No. i123. 
added to it, and the definitions in Chinefe 
and European characters, which indeed renders 
this velume precious beyond all eftimation. 
In the fame library another is to be found, 
fent tothe late Dr. Morton, much fcantierthan 
that of Sir William Jones, but more neatly 
written, andin a much better prefervation. 
In the Chinefe Collection entrufted to me 
for fale,* there is a very interefting one in 
Chinefe and Portugueze, having regularly 
20 characters on each page, which are exactly 
§30 innumber 3 fo that the characters cons 
tained amount to £0,600, and no more.— 
The finguiarity of this volume confifts in its 
being interleaved ; and onthefe blanks are 
very fiagular obfervations, in Latin or French, 
concerning the analyfis and true fignification 
ef the moft important characters. The whole 
is written on Chinefe paper, 
From the above enumeration it appears, 
that 11,000 Is the greateft number of 
characters contained in any of the above 
volumes. | 
In this clafs we may fafely comprize all 
the eight Chinefe Digtionaries in the Na- 
tional Library at Paris, if we attend ta 
the defcription given of them in the Ma. 
gaxin Encyclopedique, tom. ii. 6.me ann, 
from p. 189 to 195; from which it igs 
plain, that even the famcus one marked 
No. I. formerly belonging to.the Vatican, 
notwithitanding the great number of its 
pages, cannot: poflibly contain beyond 
11,000 charaéters at moft. For if it be 
true, that, as the account fays, p. t990——_ 
“< Ii eff écrit avec le plus grand ordre, eft 
toute la clarté que Von peut défirer,” we 
are enabled to afcertain the fcale of ar- 
- rangement of the whole volume, from the 
extent of fome parts of which the number 
of characters is well known; and how 
very wide this fcale of arrangement is, it- 
evidently appears—r. From the Table of 
the Keys, No. 3, occupying three pages. 
-—2. From the Tables of the Cycles, Nos 
7, which fill four pages ;—and 3. From 
the Pe-kia-/im, or compofition on the Fae 
mily Names, No.9, which cannot have 
more than 476 characters, as we fhall fee 
hereafter, and yet it extendsto feven pages. 
The Diéticnary I am going to de{cribe, 
contains, however, no lefs than 14,000 
characters, twice over; once in the Indcxy 
arranged by keys, and again in the expla- 
natory part difpofed alphabetically, ace 
cording to their founds. . 
Mr. Raper’s Dictionary confits of two 
immenfe royal folio volumes, 19 inches 
by 11, on Englifh paper. 
* Sce Monthly Mag. for Feb. 1804, p. 64. 
Fi The 
