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secondary male and female characters (the prima donna, &c.), and these are used in every play indiscriminately, whether its complexion be tragic or comic. The musical portions, in accordance with the Chinese theory of poetry, express the most passionate parts, and therefore belong only to the principal characters. In this respect there is no resemblance to the Greek theatre, where the chorus, as a distinct body, sang together, or in responsive parts called strophe and antistrophe; while certain spoken portions were delivered by their Coryphæus, or leader, who therefore speaks in the singular number.

In another specimen of the Chinese theatre, which is of a tragic cast, and turns on the misfortunes of one of the native emperors contending against the Mongol Tartars, the translator has followed the example of Prémare, and having before (for the first time) given a drama in its whole details, including the lyrical portions, confines himself on this occasion chiefly to the spoken dialogue and the principal course of the action. Love and war constitute the whole subject of the piece, of which the moral is to expose the evil consequences of luxury, effeminacy, and supineness in the sovereign. The story is taken from that portion of the Chinese annals previous to the first conquest by the Mongols, when the declining strength of the government emboldened the Tartars in their aggressions, and gave rise to the system of propitiating those barbarians by tribute, and by alliances with the daughters of China. The play opens with the entrance of the Tartar Khan, who thus poλovies:

"We have moved to the south, and approached the border, claiming an alliance with the imperial race. I yesterday despatched an envoy with tributary presents to demand a princess in marriage, but know not if the emperor will ratify the engagement with the customary

oaths. The fineness of the season has drawn away our chiefs on a hunting excursion amidst the sandy steppes. May they meet with success!-for we Tartars have no fields; our bows and arrows are our sole dependence."

[Exit. Then appears the emperor's chief minister and favourite, who in a soliloquy makes known the system by which he governs his master, persuading him "to keep aloof from his wise counsellors, and seek all his pleasures among the women of his palace." To him enters the emperor, and, after a consultation, it is settled that the minister shall proceed diligently through the realm in search of the most beautiful ladies, and furnish his master with faithful portraits of them, as a means of fixing his choice. He abuses his commission, however, and makes it an occasion for extorting bribes from those who seek the benefit of the alliance. The most beautiful of all is daughter to a cultivator of the land, who has not the means of satisfying the rapacity of the minister; and the latter, in order to be revenged, misleads the emperor by presenting him with a disfigured portrait of the fair one. Chance, however, throws her in the emperor's way, who is struck by her beauty, and the secret is now discovered, as he at once learns from her how he has been deceived by his favourite.

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Keeper of the Yellow gate, bring us that picture, that we may view it. (Sees the picture.) Ah! how has he dimmed the purity of the gem, bright as the waves in autumn! (To the attendant.) Transmit our pleasure to the officer of the guard to behead Maou-yen-show, and report to us his execution."

The traitor, however, contrives to escape, and carries his head safely upon his shoulders to the Tartar camp, where he exhibits a true likeness of the lady to the barba

rian king, and persuades him, with ingenious villany, to demand her of the emperor. An envoy is immediately despatched by the Khan, who adds, "Should he refuse, I will presently invade the south: his hills and rivers shall be exposed to ravage." The unfortunate emperor's fondness continues to increase, and the arrival of the Tartar envoy fills him with perplexity and despair. He calls on his servants to rid him of these invaders, but they bewail the weakness of the empire, point out the necessity of the sacrifice, and call on his majesty to consult the peace and safety of his realms by complying with the Khan's demand. He consents, after a struggle, to yield up the beauty, who is now a princess, but insists on accompanying her a portion of the way. The parting scene has considerable interest, and the language of the imperial lover is passionate to a degree that one is not prepared to expect. Then at length comes the catastrophe. The Tartar retires with his prize, until they reach the banks of the river Amoor or Saghalien, which falls into the sea of Ochotsk.

"Princess. What place is this?

"Khan. It is the river of the Black Dragon,* the frontier of the Tartar territories and those of China. This southern shore is the emperor's-on the northern side commences our Tartar dominion.

*In this name the Chinese have translated the Tartar, Saghalien oula, "Black Water River," by Black Dragon River. The same fabulous monster is common to the mythological literature of ancient Europe and China, being always described and represented as a scaly serpent with claws, fraught with fire and smoke.

πυρος

Δρακοντ' αναβλεποντα φοινιαν φλογα.

The Chinese dragon is in reality a hydra, but with one head; and we may perceive in the analogy between the waving track of the monster, and the serpentine course of rivers, a similar origin for the hydras of Greece and China.

Princess (to the Khan). Great king, I take a cup of wine, and pour a libation towards the south-my last farewell to the emperor. (Pours the libation.) Sovereign of Hân, this life is finished: I await thee in the next!' With these words she throws herself into the river, and perishes; and here the tragedy might properly end. The Khan in great sorrow decrees her a tomb on the river's bank, and, with more generosity than might have been expected from him, remits all further demands on the emperor; directing that the wicked cause of these misfortunes shall be delivered over to the Chinese, to receive the just reward of his misdeeds. But the piece continues through another act, in which the emperor's sorrows are either said or sung, until he is at length pacified by the death of the traitor.

Another specimen from the Hundred Plays has been translated in France by M. Stanislas Julien, professor of Chinese at Paris. As in the previous instance of the 'Heir in Old Age,' he has given a version of the whole drama, including both the prose and the lyrical parts, and promises some further samples of the same kind. The name of the piece which he has rendered into French is Le Cercle de Craie, "the chalk ring or circle," founded on the principal incident in the piece, which is in fact so like the Judgment of Solomon, that it might lead one to believe the Chinese play had been borrowed from some obscure tradition or report of it. Two women claim to be the mothers of the same child before a judge, who, in order to get at the truth, orders a chalk ring to be drawn on the floor of the court, and the contested child placed in the middle of it. He then declares that the child shall belong to whichever of the women may succeed against the other in pulling it out of the circle. The feigned mother, having no compunction for the infant, gets the

better of the real one, who from her maternal tenderness for the child is afraid of exerting her whole strength; and the sagacious judge, "a second Daniel come to judgment," gives the cause in favour of the right claimant. With this last specimen we conclude our sketch of the Chinese theatre.

A very full and detailed notice of Chinese poetry has been printed in the Royal Asiatic Transactions,* with numerous examples, but we have not room in this place for more than an abstract of the subject. Some account of their earliest poetry has been already given in the thirteenth chapter, where the 'Book of Songs' was mentioned with the other ancient classics. In later times the structure of their verse has undergone considerable improvements, and there have been particular periods or eras of their history when the art of poetry has been especially cultivated. They compare its progress, themselves, to the growth of a tree-" The ancient Book of Odes' may be likened to the roots; when Soolo flourished, the buds appeared; in the time of Kien-gan there was abundance of foliage; but during the Tang dynasty many reposed under the shade of the tree, and it yielded rich supplies of flowers and fruit." This Augustan age of Chinese poetry was in the eighth century of our era, or about 1100 years ago, when the whole of Europe was involved in barbarism and ignorance.

It has generally been supposed that the Chinese words are entirely monosyllabic (though this is not always strictly the case), and hence it might be imagined that their versification could not be susceptible of much melody. This, however, would not necessarily follow, for Pope himself, one of the smoothest of our versifiers,

* Vol. ii. p. 393, 4to.

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