ORIGINAL ARTICLES. SELECTED FROM THE MAGAZINES. WAN TANG JIN WUH. BY A BARBARIAN EYE. Aha! there has been some foul play, then, among these interpreters? We had never thought of that! But mark the cool and deliberate consequences: With regard to about eighteen of the said linguists, the laws have already been put in force; whereby their heads are now in full bloom upon the points of tall spears, and they will deceive no more. Forty-seven have, at the same time, been instructively visited (ho chaou, literally benignly illuminated') by a three-inch bamboo upon the soles of their feet during a few hours at a time, and it is thought they will remember their instructions. You also must strictly attend to our chops and edicts, whereat all nations tremble excessively." That it was anticipated by Loo, and all the other mandarins, that Lord Napier, and every British sailor and marine, would tremble excessively at this dreadful broad hint, we cannot but feel convinced. Indeed, we think this selfsatisfied impression on the part of the Chinese is evident from the sarcastic tone in which the Governor of Canton, wishing to debar the barbarians from "the luxuries of the table," immediately adds the following: "After so many reasonable advices and mandates which have been communicated by and from the proper authorities of the Celestial Empire, it is marvellous that you, Barbarian Eye, should still root yourself in devilish perversity, turning aside the ears of your Eye's mind. What official instructions you may have received from the person called your King are not known to us; neither is it of the slightest importance that we should know. Our laws, brilliant as the imperial radiations from the august brother of the Sun and Moon can make | them, and terrible to the inmost souls of ten thousand kingdoms, cannot be expected by any equal-ordered (i. e. not insane) mind, to suffer the slightest breath of influence from the incomprehensible desires and small trading speculations of a barbarian people, dwelling upon a cold, hungry island of wild ducks and fisher-ried mice, conserve of locusts, and stewed men, at a distance of many billions of miles." Truly our "persuasive powers' appear to have been estimated at a very low rate a few years ago by our official friends the mandarins. But not only did they regard our influence in matters of war as of no sort of account, they had just the same supercilious sublimity of contempt for our commerce, our laws, and the national understanding. In testimony whereof we quote the following extracts from the speech of Loo, as it appeared, by careful translation, in our newspapers of Feb. 14th, 1835: "I shall now speak to you, Barbarian Eye, as though you were an equally reasonable man with myself. I, the Governor, have pity for all outside barbarians, and wish not their ruin and destruction, so long as they behave themselves properly, or can be brought to do so by reason. The linguists, translators, and interpreters, shall not deceive us into a greater or less degree of pity than is just; neither shall their false counsels cause you, and all your nation to be driven to the last stage of poverty and despair." "No doubt your Barbarian Eyeship finds yourself very comfortable here in Canton! You take your fill at a cheap rate of our finest tea, and feast luxuriously every day upon our cur moles with worm sauce; preserving an excellent state of health throughout by frequent potations of our incomparable rhubarb. But you must go. It may be a sad thing for you, but I say again there are no longer any lanterns for you here, dark as you may find yourself. Macao is your fate. Here you must eat, and drink, and palanquine about no more!" What a change in the state of affairs is presented by the recent accounts! What a fall of blue buttons and peacocks' feathers has taken place! It may be spoken of lightly, but the "horrors of war" are to be seen amidst all the folly of the poor Celestials. If, however, any thing can possibly tend to rationalise the most outrageous self-conceits and vain fancies, surely the reasoning" of British bayonets and bomb-shells must have done much to bring it about. But if it were a sadly easy matter to kill two or three hundred Chinese for every scratch received by an Englishman (for that seems to be about the proportion, and which, indeed, the Chinese say they can well afford, as their standing army alone amounts to 700,000 men), still the task of overawing the national vanities has been prodigious-if, indeed, it be accomplished, which we rather doubt. Even on the arrival of our fleet, and with the guns of line-of-battle-ships, and frigates, and brigs, and steamers staring them in the face, the Chinese local authorities, nevertheless, sent an officer of low rank in a little boat to meet them with this message:- What do you want? The mandarins require you to reply. What do you come here for with this large force, if not for trade? If for trade, keep in the outer waters till regularly admitted. If not for trade, loose your sails immediately, rebellious barbarians, and retire! Retire before the Celestial wrath be kindled against you!" This from a little brown thing in a bamboo boat to a hostile English fleet! It is, moreover, declared that "the terror-spreading general," in his despatches, assured the Celestial Emperor that he 'would "catch all the barbarians in a net, give their flesh to the wild beasts, and prepare their skins for the royal family to sit upon!" Saying which, the general took the field, his army was cock-shyed in a trice, and, as he could not flay us, he cut his own throat. We think that something of their ridiculous conceit and outrageous notions of their own importance, and particularly in the power of inspiring terror, is traceable in the grotesque monsters they are so fond of representing. And this reminds us of the "Chinese Collection" now exhibiting, where many of these, and countless other curiosities are to be seen, about which we may as well proceed to offer a few remarks. The first objects that definitely attract the eye on entering the saloon of the vermilion pagoda are the colossal idols, about which we cannot afford sufficient space to speak, considering them as very extraordinary and suggestive "arrivals:" but in front of these, by way of body-guard, are two small effigies of the Chinese idea of a lion! Nothing was ever more ludicrously grotesque than the outrageous efforts to look ferocious and terrible, displayed by these creatures. They are like gingerbread poodle-dogs in the highest state of hydrophobious fury, with tails perfectly quiescent and of the form of richly crusted oyster-shells inverted, but with golden eye-balls that one cannot so properly describe as "starting out of the head," as that they really have started out, being attached to the socket only by the stretching of the last nerve. But preposterous as these are, they are exceeded by those "at the china-shop over the way;' for these latter, besides being more monstrously absurd, are displayed in colours, so that the huge dark eye-balls which have started out and appear as if falling, display a horrid raw-pink flesh at the back of the said eye-balls, which, when combined with "the drawing "of the mouth, excites emotions so strange and opposite, that one scarcely knows which predominates, the sense of the hideous being perfectly balanced and neutralised by the sense of the absurd. Down the sides of the saloon at certain intervals are large glass cases containing figures the size of life, painted and attired in their several habiliments and pursuing their various VOL. I. amusements and occupations. The figures, as an intelligent friend observed, are made of the same material as ourselves-viz. of clay. They have, however, undergone a different process, having been baked. We should hence take it for granted that all these life-sized Chinese men and women are literally made of porcelain; and when we consider the "packing up" of all these brittle human beings, and their long voyages by sea and journeys by land from Canton to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Hyde Park Corner, the varieties of possible accidents and broken limbs which crowd upon the imagination are frightful to contemplate. In one of the cases we found a mandarin of the first class seated, a mandarin of the second class, and another of the sixth class standing. The mandarin of the first class has his head uncovered, so that being bald, he presents a fair mark all over to the physiognomist and phrenologist. The latter student will be struck by the smallness and meagreness of the cranium, the former by a look and general expression like that of a rapacious bird whose food has done him no good. The man seems to want nutriment. He has fed too much of late upon worms, and grubs, and sharks' fins, and soy-soup, and boiled leather, and birds'-nests,-all accounted as delicacies which no gentleman's table should be without. The other mandarins stand with their heads covered, which is a mark of respect to a superior. The custom being directly the reverse of ours, is probably attributable to the difference of climate: with us, respect is shewn by risking at times a bad cold in the head; with the Chinese, respect is shewn by remaining uncomfortably hot while the respected individual airs his pate. One proof of the genuine character of this unique exhibition is the fact that many of the most splendid portions of the costumes are wholly, or in a great measure, concealed by loose outward garments, "to divest the figures of which would give the visitor an incorrect representation of these personages as they invariably appear upon state occasions." We need not remark how very unusual is such a forbearance. A second case contains a priest of Buddha in full canonicals, and a priest of the Taou sect. The one on the right has a fat easy look; but the one on the left is heavy, dog-like, and sinister. Just in the rear of them, and towards the centre of the case, stands a Chinese gentleman in a complete suit of mourning, with his servant behind him in mourning also. The gentleman's dress is a long sack-shaped coat, like a dressing-gown, made of a curious kind of thin sackcloth and fastened with ivory pins. It is of the colour of a new deal table. His shoes are white, and he wears a round cap, from the rim of which dangles a white powder-puff at the end of a string. It also appears that he wears a little black wig, as a sort of mortification in the idea of the hair when every body else is bald. He has a most shrivelled, wasted look, as of long fasting and deep heart-rooted grief. There is no formality of mourning in him; nothing of the picturesque and sentimental. The figure is altogether affecting, even to painfulness. His servant has a similar dress, except the cap, 20 * and carries a mourning lantern. This case alsocontains a soldier of the "Army of Heaven," as the imperial army is called, who carries a matchlock; and on the other side there stands a Tartar archer, of the same divine host, who is in the act of discharging an arrow. The arrow is very long, and apparently very heavy, the shaft being of a coarse wood, and the pile, or rather iron blade, being large, causes great doubts in the toxophilite mind of its merits with regard to distance, velocity, and precision. But these things appear to be quite secondary considerations with the Chinese. In another case we discover three Chinese literary gentlemen in summer costume, with their servants, pipes, snuff-bottles, and bookcases. One of thein is reading aloud a translation of Esop's Fables, to which the rest are listening with perhaps more gravity than intelligence. Their expressions are mild, passive, and characteristic of good sense and refinement. But there is no hard work in their faces. They have neither been troubled with the cares of the world nor with many thoughts. Their thoughts, like their knowledge, seem to be hereditary. Psychological science is not at all cultivated in China, and very little of the physical sciences. Nothing is taught but politics and morals, and these are chiefly axiomatic; and the most favourite and comprehensive maxims are stuck upon the walls of the apartments in every well-regulated house. Hence a man only learns what his greatgrandfather knew, who learned every thing from his ancestors. and no more. More than this would be regarded as eccentric and presumptuous. The state would regard him as a dangerous character, and the mandarins would keep an eye upon him. To a certain extent, however, all classes are obliged to be educated; and we must honestly confess that the Chinese possess what we do not, viz. a regular system of national education. All the people are taught a certain number of moral and political maxims from their childhood upwards, and this circumstance, which includes the strongest inculcation of filial duties --every superior being regarded in the light of a father, up to the emperor--is the chief cause of the political placidity which continues unbroken from century to century. Next to this cause is to be placed that of the regular outlet which is provided for individual ambition, when accompanied by superior talents. Such persons are almost certain of employment in the state. But above all others, literary men of superior attainments are encouraged and advanced : "They are feasted at the expense of the nation; their names and victories are published throughout the empire; they are courted and caressed; and they become, ipso facto, eligible to all the offices within the gift of the sovereign. The most learned are appointed to the highest degree of literary rank, the Han-lin, or membership of the National College. All this is done in order that the emperor may pluck out the true talent of the land, and employ it in the administration of his government. The fourteen thousand civil mandarins are, almost without exception, the beaux esprits, the best scholars of the realm." Surely this state of things is enough to cause many a disappointed and erudite European author to prick up his ears. What a pity China is so far off, and the language so difficult!-to colour the flesh, flatten the nose, and become a mandarin of the first class, would not else appear a very arduous undertaking. We are also favoured with the sight of three Chinese ladies of rank, one with a fan, one preparing to smoke, and the other playing a sort of guitar. They are considered beauties, but it could only be in China. One of them has a something "suggestive of prettiness, but it is truly a je ne sais quoi. To our thinking the little club feet, pinched up in those diminutive boxes of shoes, are far more like goat-hoofs than any thing human. The Chinese call these little deformed feet "the golden water-lilies." The "Ten Thousand Things relating to China," by W. B. Langdon, indirectly defends the prac tice of pinching the feet in China, by retorting upon the manner in which the European ladies pinch their waists into hour-glasses by tight lacing, whereby vital organs are continually injured, which is not the case in the hoof-transformation. To this we can, of course, offer no reply. It is too true. The lady's guitar is also of an equally strange shape. The face of it resembles a wooden frying-pan, and, judging morcover from the weak, thin sort of strings, would produce a poor quailing tone like that of a wounded gnat in a window. There are other figures, and various articles in this case, and those previously mentioned. We only speak of the principal objects. Case V. contains a tragedian declaiming in the splendid historical tragedy of Tseang-Keun "from the text of Shakspeare." With him, and engaged in the scene, are two boys, personating female characters, in richly-embroidered dresses of ridiculous shape, like short herald's coats, stiff with embroidery. Looked at from behind they are exactly like most gorgeous damask moths, with white downy legs. The tragedian's attitude and expression of face seem to say, Behold this most beautiful and expensive dress! such is human life!" We do not very clearly see the connexion of the moral deduced, and can only consider it as a variation of the text of the Chinese Shakspeare made by the actors as an excuse for smothering the poetry in “appropriate illustration." These dresses are no poetical illusion, but the real expensive material, originating in that love of minute literal effects and individual realities to which our own stage has long been tending, and which appear likely to reach their height in our own time, if not their "decline and fall.” The same case contains a juggler who is on one knee, with a porcelain vase on his head. Most of the figures in this collection are portraits modelled from "well-known individuals, many of whom are still living." We can well believe this from the marked look of individual character in many of them, but chiefly among those of the humbler classes. This juggler is admirably characteristic, and must undoubtedly be a striking likeness of the man. What a practised eye he has! It is full of bright, steady, watchful light, betokening skill and mastery. The Catalogue informs us that he "ranks high in his profession." The | Chinese are well known as famous jugglers, and to excel all other nations in the wonderful skill and temerity of their feats. Some of these performances, of which Mr. Langdon speaks in his work, will be new to the great majority of our readers: terity of the performer, by a shower of cash., It is almost superfluous to add, that the deception consisted in the construction of the blade and handle of the knife; so contrived, that by making a sawing motion on the throat of the boy, it produced a stream of coloured liquid resembling blood, pumped out of the knife and handle. These, and many other rare sights of the kind, are daily practised for the amusement of the idle crowd in the streets of Canton." "The following scene occurred in the drawingroom of a foreign resident in Canton. Two jugglers were introduced before the company assembled. After going through a number of sur- To say that the deception merely consisted in prising feats of skill and agility, one of these the construction of the knife, is surely a surmen handed to the other a large china basin. prising oversight of the narrator. To our thinking, This basin, after a few flourishes above his head, the main point of this frightful deception was in and being turned upside down to convince the the wonderful acting of the boy. But among spectators that it was empty, the exhibitor sud-all the numerous classes of Chinese jugglers, it denly allowed to fall, but caught it before it appears that the jugglers from Nankin hold the reached the floor. This movement brought him highest reputation among their countrymen;into a position resting upon his heels, the basin being how hidden from view by the folds of his garments. In that attitude he remained for a few seconds, with hands extended, but in no way touching the basin. With a sudden spring he stood upright, and displayed to the astonished spectators the basin filled to the brim with pure clear water, and two gold fishes swimming in their native element. At a Several of their feats of skill and daring are, to the uninitiated, truly astonishing; for instance: Two men from Nankin appear in the streets of Canton. the one places his back against a stone wall, or wooden fence: the upper part of his person is divested of clothing. His associate, armed with a large knife, retires to a distance. say from 100 to 200 feet. given signal, the knife is thrown with an unerring aim in the direction of the person opposite, to within a hair's breadth of his neck, immediately below his ear. With such certainty of success is the blow aimed, and so great is the confidence reposed by the one in the skill of the other, that not the slightest uneasiness is discernible in the features of him whose life is a forfeit to the least deviation on the part of the practitioner. This feat is again and again purformed, and with similar success. only varying the direction of the knife to the opposite side of the neck of the exposed person, or to any other point of proximity to the living target, as the spectators may desire. "Another feat worthy of record is one of a more exciting and thrilling nature. To be impressed on the mind with full effect, it should be seen under circumstances similar to those which attended the exhibition of it to the relater. Passing a motley crowd of persons in a public square near the foreign factories, the writer had his attention directed to a man apparently haranguing the bye-standers. Prompted by curiosity, he soon found the performer to be a meanlooking person, who divested himself of his outer clothing as far as the waist. He spread a small mat upon the pavement, and taking a boy from the crowd, who was afterwards discovered to be his confederate, he placed him "Another, and the last feat to be mentioned, in the centre of the rush mat. He then took is equally exciting. A man is armed with an from his basket a large butcher's knife, which instrument. resembling a trident, or what is he flourished over the head of the frightened termed by sailors, ‘grains;' to which formidable boy, and with dreadful threats sprang upon his weapon is attached a long handle of hard wood. victim. The boy was thrown down, and the The juggler, with surprising strength of arm, man knelt on him in such a manner as to se- throws his weapon perpendicularly into the air cure his hands. While in this position, he forced to a great height; as it gains the greatest eleback the head of the poor child, and with the vation he measures with a practised eye and knife inflicted a severe gash upon his throat, wonderful precision the exact spot on which it from which the blood instantly gushed in a tor-will fall. To this point he advances step by rent, flowing down the breast of the murderer, and sprinkling the nearest spectators. The deaththroes of the poor sufferer were painful to behold: frightful and convulsive in their commencement, but diminishing with the loss of blood. The eye-balls start-the muscles are seen to work-there are twitches of the fingers — desperate efforts to free the confined arms--a change of colour in the face to an ashy paleness --a fixed and glassy stare of the eyes-then, a long, last spasmodic heaving and contortion, and all is over-the body falls a corpse! step: in an instant the weapon descends with fearful velocity, scraping the edges of some protruding part of his person: thus giving proof of a singular daring and successful effort, which surpasses in skill even the most celebrated rifle-shots of the hunters of Kentucky." The amusements of the Chinese are by no means confined to the feats of their jugglers. There are some games and festivities in which, occasionally, the whole nation indulge, and at the same time. At the Feast of Lanterns, "it is computed that two hundred millions of lan"On witnessing such a strange and revolting terns are all blazing at the same time in differscene, the first impulse of the stranger, despite ent parts of the empire." The people are also the surrounding crowd, was to seize the mur- addicted to gaming, though it is forbidden by derous culprit; but from this he was prevented the laws. They therefore play for cakes, but by the deafening shouts of the applauding mul- the cakes are privately understood to mean titude, testifying their approbation of the dex-money. They are very fond of cricket-fights, lanterns, the enormous vases, and more especially to the construction of the entrance-door, which we mistook for a window. It is of an oval form, of carved and gilt fret-work, and looks out upon a most lovely, fairy-land piece of Chinese scenery in the soft ethereal distance. That part of the ceremony of paying and re on the first entrance of the visitor. There are two square wooden frames, of four or five inches high, placed upon the floor towards the middle of the room, and about a yard apart. On the entrance of the visitor he advances towards one of these wooden frames, and the host to the other. They stand upon them opposite to each other, and a dialogue like the following ensues :— "Ting. (Haou-tsing, tsing?) ‘Are you well?hail, hail!' "Piquu. (Soo yang fang ming.) 'I have heretofore thought with veneration of your fragrant name.' "Ting. I also of yours; and now I bask in the illumination of your presence.' "Piqua. 'You suffuse my heart with the odour of flowers." "Ting. The birds of most delicious voice would stop to hear you speak.' and a number of these insects are actually trained for a prize-fight, which takes place in a large China basin, or bowl, round which the excited betters stand, or rather dance. The creatures are "set on" by being exasperated by a straw which is poked at them. But the favourite out-door amusement seems to be kiteflying; and on the ninth day of the ninth moonceiving visits which most amuses us, takes place the inhabitants and the whole "army of heaven" repair to the hills with their kites, which they cause to mount to a great height-the strange, staring, flat, fishy things, uttering all the while a humming noise, like a top, in consequence of catgut being extended across the round holes of the eyes. When the millions have sufficiently enjoyed the sport they cut the strings, and away go the kites all over the air. One of the cases, among other figures, contains those of a cobbler, a barber, and a blacksmith, all of them itinerant, and with their several tools and implements, in actual work. We have heard it said that the race of cobblers is the same all over the world, and they all have the same look. We have ourselves observed this in various countries, and that they are for the most part bald-headed. In the present instance it will be said that the bald head is a national custom, but certainly the shape of this cobbler's cranium is not national. It is of the shape that almost invariably becomes bald at the age of thirty or forty. It is undoubtedly the head of a thinking man, and when compared with the crania of the literary gentlemen in Case III., shews the difference of developement and expression which results from spontaneous efforts of the mind, and the placid review of hereditary opinions. The blacksmith has also a very good head, though not so large as that of the cobbler. With his simple apparatus he is able to mend cracks in cast-iron utensils, an art which it seems no other nation possesses. These two last-mentioned individuals have the most intellectual heads and faces of any Chinese in the room, with the very striking exception of the portraits of two of the Hong merchants. The barbers in China are prodigiously numerous. In Canton alone there were, in 1834, no less than 7300 barbers; They are all ambulatory, and are obliged to have a regular diploma that the public may be sure of their skill. The barber's razor in the model before us resembles an old chisel broken off within two inches of the handle. They shave without soap. The barber has the usual selfcomplacent air of refined ease which characterises the class in all countries. He is decidedly the handsomest man in the collection. The last case, the contents of which we can find space to particularise, is the one called The Pavilion. It extends along nearly the whole width of the Saloon at the farthermost end. It displays the interior of a large apartment in the summer residence of a wealthy Chinese, in which various figures are standing or sitting, the scene being a fac-simile of the domesticities and courtesies of the higher classes, as illustrated in the mode of paying and receiving visits. All that we can spare time to remark on the furniture and building arrangements of the room, must be confined to the embroidered silk "Piqua. "And those of most delicate plumage would select your trees for their soft repose.' "Ting. 'I have prepared purse tea, and wait for your company to converse. "Piqua. 'Have you seen Jugel's Universal Magazine for the last month?' "Ting, 'No, we have not.' "Piqua. 'Oh, Buddha! you should.”’ Among the various cases containing articles of curiosity or verti which line the walls on the left-hand side of the Saloon, we observed a rough, brown, scraggy branch of tree (Case XI. No. 146), on the largest stump of which was a head bearing a close resemblance to some of the Greek wood-gods. We were not a little startled at this, surrounded as it is on all sides with the usual smooth pulpy, little simpering idols of the country, and began to account for the anomaly by supposing that the same natural causes in the freaks of the boughs which had originated the one class of wooddeities had operated in the present instance, and been suffered to remain as it was "bred" in the woods; but on arriving at the shop of porcelain ware ("china-shop," as we should call it in England), we observed a little golden god seated in a square hole at the bottom of the shop, which we were informed by the Catalogue was no less a personage than a miniature Plutus, whom the master of the shop had placed there that he might frequently give it a broad hint to be propitious to his dealings. What could make Plutus take it into his head to go to China? We were quite unprepared for the excellence of some of the paintings. Minutely and exqui sitely finished figures, flowers, and butterflies, on rice paper, we have all seen before; but there are two or three landscapes of great merit, and several portraits worthy of very high praise as works of art, and sea-pieces. These, toge ther with the colossal idols, are almost the only really poetical or beautiful things out of |