210 
The firft volume, confifting of 240 
pages,.contains : 
1. Two very copious and ufeful Chinefe 
Vocabularies, with Dialogues. The Voca- 
bulary at the beginning of the volume is 
tranflated in Latin 5 and the other, at the end 
of it, is tranflated in French. The former 
contains all words relative to all that 
concerns religion, fcience, or the feveral 
wants of human life: the whole preceded by 
fome concife, but exceeding ufeful gramma- 
tical rules, and a lift of 100 nouns of oppofite 
fignification. The latter contains many of 
the fubjects of the former; but what is pe- 
culiar to it, is thedouble pronunciation affixed 
to each word, according to the Mandarinic 
Language and the Dialect of Canton. It 
contains, befides, all the various names of 
teas; and no lefs than 250 names of filks, 
gauzes, and other weavers’ articles, which 
form the commerce of Canton. 
2. The fame firft volume contains above 
400 names of drugs, and other articles of na- 
tural philofophy and pharmacy, alphabetically 
arranged according to the Latin tranflation, to 
which the French is alfo added. 
3. It contains, befides, the method of 
counting days, hours, and years, according to 
the Chinefe cycles, &c. and the method of 
writing Chinefe arithmetical figures in three 
éifferent ways. 
4. The above Treatifes occupy all the 240 
pages, with the exception of fixty-two only, 
which are filled with Chinefe characters, in 
eight vertical columns for each page; each 
column containing, when full, as moft of 
them are, thirty. five characters: to each of 
them a figure is annexed, on the left, thewing 
the number of its component ftrokes ; and on 
the right, its pronunciation. 
The firft page of thefe fixty-two, with 
nearly two columns more of the next, con- 
tains acomplete lift of all the elementary 
characters, or keys. 
On the remainder of the fecond page, down 
tothe end of the fixty-firft, we find adifplay 
of all the characters, arranged each in regular 
progreflion of its component ftrokes, and 
under its refpective key, with pronunciation, 
&c. as defcribed above. Whena key has few 
characters, a little fpace is left, and another 
key follows in the fame column. The pages 
being all in eight columns each, and with 
thirty-five characters in each full column, it 
is plain, that, with faying that this Index 
contains no lefsthan fourteen thoufand cha- 
racters, we make the great allowance of 
2800 characters for blanks, while thefe are 
quite trifling in the Index. 
The fixty-fecond page exhibits a catalogue, 
arranged as the others, of characters difficult 
ta betraced to their keys. They are only 
ninety in all. 
The fmall number of thefe irregular 
characters, Mr. Editor, far from being a 
proof of imperfection, is therefult of the 
adimirabie plan of this fingular Dictionary. 
‘The author, in the arrangement of thie 
charaéters by their keys, has-forfaken the 
mott philofophical diftribution of the ioz- 
Profpeéius of a Chinefe Diétionary. 
[April 1, 
mer (common to all dictionaries feen by 
me) under only 214 elements, which with 
their variations of form, fcarcely amount 
to 240, 3nd has adopted a more extenfive 
one, which greatly contributes to the faci- 
lity of finding’ any character whatever. 
The index to the keys contains precifely 
323 elements, as the fpace which they — 
occupy of a page and nearly. two columns 
fufficiently demonftrates ; 1f we advert to 
the above defcription of the immente fize 
and copioufnefs of cach page. is 
It is obfervable that the author has had 
his authority for encreafing the number of 
the keys; fince the great Imperial Diétionary 
by Karn-hi, a copy ef which is in St. John’s 
College at Oxford, exhibits in the firlt 
volume, a lift of elementary charaéters be- 
ing 444. in number, which Kam-hi fays to 
have been adopted by the author of a die- 
tionary entitled Pien-baz *. 
The author of Mr. Raper’s Didtionary, 
not contented with the amplification of 
elements in the difplay of the 14,000 cha- 
racters, not only has arranged them in re- 
gular progreflion. according to the number 
of their component ftrokes in 323 feries as 
the keys were, but he has given two, 
three, or four feries in the fame key, 
whenever, belides its ufual pofition at the 
left of the characters, it was fometimes 
fituated vertically, or at the bafe, in the 
middle, or at the right of them. “Thus 
the elemént giv, meaning man, has two 
feries, one exhibiting the characters that 
have the key giz on the left, and the other 
thofe that have it vertically ; the element 
keu, the mouth, has four feries ; the firft 
containing thofe characters where this ele~ 
ment is in its ufual place at the left; the 
fecond, where it is vertically placed ; the 
third, where it is in the middle ; and the 
lat, where the fame element is at the bafe 5; 
and fo on for many more keys. 
This admirable arrangement gives the 
index a peculiar degree of perfpicuity, and 
an incomparable facility in confulting it. 
The fecond volume of Mr. Raper’s 
Dictionary confifts of 420 pages, exhibit~ 
ing again the fame 14,000 characters regu- 
larly difpofed according to their founds 
and tones, which are exprefied with French 
Orthography, and alphabetically arranged. 
Each page is divided by vertical red 
lines into four columns, which are all 
again divided by horizontal lines into ten 
rectangles each; fo that every page exhi- 
UB EE, Sie ig SI8 LEN ET BRI ee 
* We muft obferve, that, from a lift of dic- 
tionaries, &c. in that voluminous one called 
Chim-fu-tum, this diGtionary Pien-bai is a dif- 
tin€& one from the other Hai-pien fo often 
mentioned by all the Miffionaries. The ac- 
count of this lift of 444 elementary charac- 
ters in Kam-hi’s diGiionaryds quite wrong in. 
Fournisat’s Adediz, Sia. page 1240 
t bits 4% 
