private enterprise, and upon purely commercial principles, and that the application of those principles is, in certain cases, detrimental to the national spirit, to real intellectual progress, and to the honour and even safety of the country.

Where is the enterprise among booksellers, where the commercial principle by which so elaborate and costly a work as the immense Japanese dictionary of Professor Pfitzmayer, now in course of printing at Vienna, could have been produced ?* We may safely venture to say that by such means, the book could not have been brought out in any country in Europe. Yet no one will deny the value and importance of the work, or question the now increasing necessity of our possessing such a lexicon. Private speculation has its limits, and it is when it reaches them, and halts upon them, that the State ought to step in. Societies or learned associations may do a good deal, and some of them have done much; but it should seem that their resources are far too narrow, and the number of their subscribers too uncertain, to permit of their prosecuting any very extensive enterprises and labours. Where is now the Oriental Translation Fund attached to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain? To retain its valuable vitality, it ought to have been nourished by an annual government grant.

* It is calculated that, if this dictionary be continued and concluded on its present ample scale, it will run to twenty volumes.

But we must return to our own immediate subject.

"The Japanese alphabet," says another writer, " contains forty-eight letters, and is written in two different ways, somewhat analogous to the printed and written forms used in our own language.

"The first, which is called the Katagana, is the clearest and most definite, and is chiefly used in dictionaries and works of science; the other, called Hiragana, is more like a running hand, and is the character generally in use in all kinds of light reading, and in the transaction of the common business of life; it is also called the female character, from its being usually employed by the fair sex." *

"Chinese Repository," vol. iii. The authority here followed is that of Mr. Medhurst, of Batavia, author of a Japanese vocabulary. The clearest and briefest Japanese grammar that we have examined is the following:- "Elémens de la Grammaire Japonaise; par le P. Rodriguez. Traduits du Portugais sur le Manuscrit de la Bibliothèque du Roi, et soigneusement collationnés avec la Grammaire publiée par le même auteur à Nagasaki, en 1604; par M. C. Landresse, Membre de la Société Asiatique; précédés d'une explication des syllabaires Japonais, et de deux planches contenant les signes de ces syllabaires; par M. Abel Remusat. Ouvrage publié par la Société Asiatique." Paris, 1825.

There is a supplement to this work also published by the Asiatic Society of France :-"Supplément à la Grammaire Japonaise du P. Rodriguez; ou, Remarques additionnelles sur quelques points du système grammatical des Japonais, tirées de la Grammaire composée en Espagnol, par le P. Oyanguren, et

It appears to us, that what are here called letters are syllables, and that the Japanese have rather a syllabarium than an alphabet. They do not write, like us, across the page from the left hand to the right, nor, like the Persians, Arabs, Turks, and so many other eastern nations, from the right hand to the left; but, like the Chinese, they write, in lateral straight lines from the top of the page to the bottom. Some specimens of their writing and printing which have come under our observation are uncommonly neat and clear, but are quite crowded with Chinese characters.

Paper came into use in Japan as early as the beginning of the seventh century; and printing, from engraved wooden blocks, in the Chinese manner, was introduced A.D. 1206, about two hundred and fifty years before that invaluable art was invented in Europe.

From the moment the Japanese acquired a written language, their literature advanced rapidly, and it appears to have improved from age to age. Unfortunately, in Europe, it is scarcely known; but from the few Japanese books that have fallen into the hands of learned foreigners, and from the accounts left us by the missionaries

traduites par M. C. Landresse, Membre de la Société Asiatique; précédées d'une notice comparative des Grammaires Japonaises des PP. Rodriguez et Oyanguren; par M. le Baron G. de Humboldt." Paris, 1826.

and other travellers, it is evident that these people possess works of all kinds,-historical compositions, geographical and other scientific treatises, books on natural history, voyages, and travels, moral philosophy, cyclopædias, dramas, romances, poems, and every component part of a very polite literature.

The wide diffusion of education, which has been more than once mentioned, is of no recent date. The first of all the missionaries who visited the country found schools established wherever they went. The sainted Xavier mentions the existence of four "Academies " in the vicinity of Miako, at each of which education was afforded to between three and four thousand pupils ; adding, that considerable as these numbers were, they were quite insignificant in comparison with the numbers instructed at an institution near the city of Bandone; and that such institutions were universal throughout the empire.

Nor does it appear that these institutions have decreased in modern days. Speaking of the early part of the present century, M. Meylan states that children of both sexes and of all ranks are invariably sent to rudimentary schools, where they learn to read and write, and are initiated into some knowledge of the history of their own country. To this extent, at least, it is considered necessary that the meanest peasant should be

*Charlevoix.

educated. Our officers, who visited the country as late as the year 1845, ascertained that there existed at Nagasaki a college, in which, additionally to the routine of native acquirements, foreign languages were taught. Among the visitors on board our ship, many spoke Dutch. Some understood a little French. One young student understood English slightly, could pronounce a few English words, caught readily at every English expression that struck him, and wrote it down in his note-book. They all seemed to be tolerably well acquainted with geography, and some of them appeared to have some acquaintance with guns, and the science of gunnery. The eagerness of all of them to acquire information greatly delighted our officers.*

The Japanese printers keep the market well supplied with cheap, easy books, intended for the instruction of children, or people of the poorer classes. The editions or impressions of books of a higher order appear to be uncommonly numerous. Most of these books are illustrated and explained with frequent woodcuts, which are engraved on the same wood-blocks with the type. Like the Chinese, they only print on one side of their thin paper. An imperial cyclopædia, printed at Miako, in the spiritual emperor's palace, is most copiously embellished with cuts.

All are agreed that reading is a favourite

"Narrative of the Voyage of H. M. S. Samarang," vol. ii.