"The

ner than we have done. In the preface the author says. real interests of both nations (China and England) are so coincident, and the Chinese are so eminently a reasonable people, that there is no necessity for having recourse to any acts of violence. What England has already obtained from the Celestials might easily have been got without war, had correct ideas of their character been entertained, and more consideration been shown for their peculiar civilization and position." This is a very kind and humane beginning but we fear it contains one or two fallacies. If the Chinese are so eminently a reasonable people there would have been no war, because the object of the war was to bring them to reason; but whatever may be the case regarding the Chinese people, it is clear that reason is not one of the characteristics of their Government. Again, "what England has already obtained from the celestials." We are not aware that England has obtained any particular favours from the celestials, except such as are fully as beneficial to China as to herself. The author says further on-" the time appears to have now arrived when a reconsideration of our whole position in regard to China may be hoped for; and the following pamphlet is issued as one contribution-however imperfect-to that end." The pamphlet accordingly reconsiders our position but does not appear to arrive at any practical conclusion. Towards the end of the book, the author offers England the choice of two things, "territorial occupation in China, or a policy founded on mutual interests and cemented by a practical acknowledgment of past errors." We are afraid the time for acknowledging past errors has gone by. Mr. Wilson denies the "cunning report" that the Chinese people are eager to cast off their Tartar rulers. We are astonished that a gentleman in China with every means of acquiring information should make such a statement. The rebels have for their immediate object the overthrow of the Mantchu dynasty and the people generally are in their favour. China appears to undergo periodical revolutions, not every few years as in France, but every few centuries, and the period appears now to have arrived for another convulsion. Dynasties are apt to deteriorate, and the present one is quite rotten, besides the Tartars are foreigners and the Chinese people are tired of their oppression. Mr. Wilson has a loose way of illustrating his arguments; he brings forward two very stupid anecdotes and upon them founds arguments regarding our Chinese policy. He says:

"A missionary, whose character is too high for the supposition that he invented the story even for the sake of the exquisite joke, informs me that once when riding on the outside of a London cao, he told the driver that he had been in China. Cabby was much interested in the subject, and promptly asked,—“ Are they a civilized-like people about there, Sir? do they take their gin of a morning 'As a brief handy test of civilization, or of the usual ideas attached to it, I know nothing comparable with this question as to taking gin of a morning. Mr. Meadows' laboured definitions must give way before it, and even Mr. Carlyle's test of respectability appears commonplace in comparison. Again, at the taking of Ningpo, in the first war with China, the Tartar troops had just received pay to the amount of six dollars each, and our troops were not long in discovering that fact. It is said that one Irishman, on discovering only five dollars in the purse of a Tartar he had killed, gave the body an indignant kick, as he exclaimed,-" Ye profligate! ye've been and spint one of them!"

The Cabman and the Irish soldier afford excellent illustrations of the usual manner in which we judge the civilization and condemn the moral character of the Chinese."

The stories themselves are not very amusing, and between them and his succeeding remarks we see not the slightest analogy. The following paragraph contains useful and reliable statements :

"The missionaries who have traversed the empire in native costume, the scientific men who have resided at Pekin, the interpreters who have accompanied diplomatic missions to the imperial court, with the laborious students whose lives have been devoted to China,-all these, though their personal interests lead them to depreciate, speak of that country with respect and even admiration, while the ignorant Irishman at the goldfields of Australia, the selfish storekeeper of Singapore, the dollarhunter of Honkong, who has not learned two words of the language, and the merchant's clerk of Shanghae, too often see nothing to admire, little to tolerate, and almost everything to condemn in China and the Chinese. Sir George Staunton, the learned translator of the Penal Code of China, says that those best acquainted with the subject have come to the conclusion that "a considerable proportion of the opinions entertained by Chinese and Europeans of each other was to be imputed either to prejudice, or to misinformation; and that upon the whole it was not allowable to arrogate, on either side, any violent degree of moral or physical superiority." Of that Penal Code even the Edinburgh Review was compelled to say," We scarcely know an European Code that is at once so copious and so consistent, or is nearly so freed from intricacy, bigotry, and fiction." Dr. Morrison, the pious and able author of the great Chinese and English dictionary, said,-" In China there is much to blame, but something to learn. Education is there made as general as possible, and moral instruction is ranked above physical." Sir John Davis, a great part of whose life has been passed in the country, passed on them one of the highest eulogiums ever given to any people, when he truly wrote,"Poverty is no reproach among them ;" and he is of opinion that they have been underestimated on the score of their moral attributes." Dr. Williams, one of the highest living authorities on the Chinese, and who lately visited Pekin as Secretary to the American Embassy, admits, though writing as a missionary, that" they have obtained, by the observance of peace and good order, to a high degree of security for life and property; the various classes of society are linked together in a

remarkably homogeneous manner by the diffusion of education and property, and equality of competition for office; and industry receives its just reward of food, raiment, and shelter, with a uniformity which encourages its constant exertion." It would be easy to make many more such extracts; all showing that whatever may be the opinion of the prejudiced and ignorant, those who have most claim to be heard in this matter speak of the Chinese with high respect, and are slow to condemn as bad what appears extraordinary and unintelligible."

The chief causes of our unsatisfactory relations with China, the author ascribes to our under estimate of Chinese character, the "Australian and Californian" character of many of our countrymen engaged in business in China, the suspicion which has been engendered by the cruelties of former adventurers, the opium traffic, and the operations against so-called pirates on the coast. There is much truth in the following :

"China is closed more than ever to the traveller and the missionary, is it more open to the diplomatist or more likely to enter the comity of nations? Scarcely so when it has for the first time been eminently successful in fight against us, is improving in its long neglected art of war, and has had its faith shaken in our desire to observe treaty stipulations. It must be admitted that at the present moment we are farther off than ever from satisfactory diplomatic relations. Many persons are always looking forward to some satisfactory and invisible end, but as affairs progress, it appears further off than ever. Our representatives assume a higher position than formerly with reference to the Chinese, and it is admitted so long as they have a strong force at their back; but real respect has not increased, while good feeling has been lost, and the Chinese have learned that we are so far from unanimous in our judgment of the policy to be pursued, that any violent enterprises made against them are likely to be crippled and imperfect. Suspicion of our designs is stronger than ever."

The author says the Tartar Government has now become so thoroughly part of the nation that it is not easy to make any distinction between them for practical political purposes, and he goes on to enumerate several Chinese who were as bad as Tartars and Tartars who were worse than Chinese; and to say that "the statesmen of China are more enlightened than the public opinion of the country; but as in other countries their action is limited by the public." It is very probable that this is the case as far as politics are concerned, regarding which the Chinese people are kept in comparative ignorance, but as regards, good feeling, common sense, religion, trade, and social advancement we do not think the opinion will hold. There are very few Europeans who have seen much of the people, but the few that have invariably bear testimony to their kindliness of disposition, simplicity of habits, SEPTEMBER, 1860.

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industry, ingenuity, and general capability. The mass of the people do not take much interest in political affairs; they are satisfied if they have the means of spending a quiet, happy existence, without being too much troubled with their own Government or the in terference of foreigners. Mr. Wilson says "It cannot be denied that the treaty of Tien-tsin reflects high credit on the insight and diplomatic skill of the Earl of Elgin, and of his assistants Messrs. Wade and Lay, though its accomplishment was mainly owing to the somewhat overlooked fact that the Chinese Government is willing and anxious to do everything in its power to promote friendly relations with Europe." If the correspondence that passed between Lord Elgin and the plenipotentiaries is reliable, the Chinese Government appeared very unwilling at first to enter into friendly negotiations, and after they pretended to be willing, they laughed in their sleeve and no doubt planned the pretty little piece of work on the Peiho. Mr. Wilson now inserts a communication from a foreign merchant on the question of the Treaty of Tien-tsin. "It is a maxim in the West that treaties once made must be executed whole and in all their parts; and no greater disgrace falls on a Government than the deliberate non-fulfilment of treaty provisions. But this is not the maxim of the East; treaties are not thus understood or executed. The rule with the Chinese, exemplifi ed by the history of their treaties, is that those provisions which are be neficial to commerce, which have received their free assent are binding; and that those other provisions which have not received their free assent are not binding." This is certainly a pretty way of concluding treaties, and if that is the usual practice of the Chinese we must teach them some other way. We cannot afford space to discuss the several provisions of the famous treaty of Tien-tsin, but whatever they were the Chinese agreed to them, and failed to fulfil them. They secured many advantages to China which her statesmen were too obtuse to per ceive. They may have been somewhat premature in their demands, but the history of European connection with China rendered it necessary that such conditions should be insisted on. At present we are at war with the Chinese Government, and though we need not give any direct encouragement to the rebels let us not act against them and thus create a triple war in China. If we do probable that some one else will.

not occupy some spot in China it is There should be a joint occupation

or none at all; we prefer the latter. Then when our objects have been attained and the troops withdrawn, let us leave the rebels to fight their own way and institute a better Government in China for which we shall be exceedingly obliged to them. We conclude with an extract from Mr. Wilson's pamphlet.

"China is the England of the East; the United States, the England of the West. The three great Industrial Nations of the World have a claim upon each other's forbearance, intelligence, and aid; for it has been by the the same constant fruitful labour, and by regard for the welfare of their people, that peace and prosperity have abounded within their borders. The two more youthful and more vigorous nations may yet find that these calm Celestials-whose grotesque aspects have caused so much merriment -have already solved many great social problems which become every day more threatening both in England and America; that their stored wisdom contains much, besides competitive examinations, which we may turn to account; and that, though weaker than the denizens of the West, they have reached a higher social and political development than any other which Time sees or History records."

Weeds of Poesy, by G. L. F. Bombay, Smith Elder and Co.

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WE have had another addition to the Gallery of Indian Poets. G. L. F. is decidedly of the lackadaisical and sentimental school. He is in love with melancholy, and adopts as his motto, "The flower of my life is past. Led by a late-earned experience, I will renounce earthly things. I will weep and no longer sing." He has wept to some effect he has wept a whole volume of Weeds. These obnoxious vegetable productions were culled in the woodland rambles of G. L. F.'s early boyhood. "A few of them," he tells us, have sprung up the thorns of youth and manhood." Poor G. L. F.! thorns were bad enough, but to be afflicted with weeds at the same time must have been unbearable, unless the weeds were of that kind which have the property of smoothing the thorny path of life, and calming the ruffled brain. This bouquet of thorns and weeds G. L. F. casts on the waters, not of the great sea of the world" in case they should be lost altogether, but "of the narrower humbler rivulets of Friendship and of Love," where he hopes some kind stranger passing by or whose house may be on the bank of the rivulet may pick them up and rescue them from oblivion. Some of them have floated our way, though we cannot be certain how they have reached us. They cannot have been borne