tions, conversed with each other long before they began to write. But the superior importance of the written medium seemed to entitle it to the priority: in recurring to Chinese, our minds are naturally carried to the Characters, which, commensurate in number with the ideas they are intended to express, and equally perspicuous in every age, as well as in every part of the empire, form the vehicle through which their best writers have conveyed instruction for nearly four thousand years, rather than to the Colloquial medium, so contracted in its powers, and varying in a certain degree in every province.

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We are not however to infer that the Colloquial medium is unworthy of notice. tracted as it may be, it has been from time immemorial the vehicle of oral communication throughout one of the largest empires in the world; and how a language containing little more than five hundred monosyllables, can have answered the same purposes as the most copious polysyllabic languages, may well form a subject of enquiry. Respecting them the mind secms naturally to ask, What are these monosyllables, which have, for thousands of years, performed so important a function? Have they been formed at random? or have they an in

timate connexion with each other?

Are they of a kind peculiar to themselves? or did they spring from any other language? These are questions which are treated pretty much at length in the Second part of the Preliminary Essay; the reader will there find the Sounds, traced to their respective classes, the Initial and Final powers of the Colloquial medium fully detailed, and all the Monosyllables in the language given in Four Tables. After this, an enquiry is instituted respecting their probable origin, in which the fundamental sounds of the Chinese colloquial system are compared with those in the Hebrew alphabet, and the likeness shewn to be so faint, as to render it almost impossible that they could be derived from that source: this idea seems confirmed by an examination of the changes induced in forming various alphabetic systems from each other, as the Greek alphabet from the Phenician, and the Roman from the Greek. The fundamental sounds in the Chinese system are then compared with those in the Sungskrit alphabet, and a similarity evinced to exist, which may well furnish matter for enquiry. The author however, as he has no system to support, has contented himself with merely stating facts as they appeared to him, leaving his readers to form their own judgment.

For much of the latter part of this Preliminary Essay the author has to apologize, as not com

ing strictly within the limits of his work. It is, the inquiry into the prevalence of the Chinese colloquial system in the alphabetic systems of certain surrounding nations, as the Tibet or Bootan alphabetic system, the Rukhung, the Burman, the Siamese, &c. which ends in shewing, that in the two latter and the former, the Sungskrit alphabetic system meets, and is greatly modified by the Chinese colloquial system, the Sungskrit alphabet appearing to have gone eastward to the precise point where the Chinese characters are disused; where, probably by the previous prevalence of the Chinese colloquial medium, it is compelled to assume sounds, and subject itself to tones, quite unknown in Hindoosthan. This examination led the author farther to enquire respecting the means by which the Sungskrit alphabet was thus carried towards China; and as it appeared highly probable that Boudhism was the medium, he could not resist the wish to avail himself of the advantages afforded by his situation and connections, for resuming the enquiry relative to the period in which this celebrated Hindoo Heresiarch lived, the result of which, the reader will perceive, affords presumptive proof, that this adversary of the Brahmans, the celebrated Chinese sage, the philosopher Pythagoras, and possibly Vyasa, the collector of the Vedas, lived within a few years of each other. To this digression suceeds an account of the Chinese Tones, which, with a few remarks on the Canton pronunciation, concludes the Preliminary Essay.

This brings the reader to the GRAMMAR, which forms the great body of the work. In treating of the language grammatically, some difficulty occurred: the Chinese have in reality no ideas of grammar corresponding with ours; and while the Sungskrit language abounds with grammatical works, the author has not been able to obtain the least idea of any treatise of this nature in the Chinese language. The plan therefore, and the mode of execution, remained to be formed and to him the most likely method of illustrating the language, seemed to be, that of confirming each position by examples from their best works, and of noticing carefully under each of the parts of speech any thing peculiar to the language. These are arranged under the five general divisions of Substantives, Adjectives, Pronouns, Verbs, and Particles, under which last are included the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunction, and the Interjection. To these is subjoined a sixth upon Chinese Syntax.

In selecting Examples for the elucidation of the parts of speech, the nature of the language

seemed to the author far more likely to be unfolded by including various authors in the selection, than by confining it to one, however excellent. Hence although Confucius is esteemed and perhaps with justice, the standard of Chinese style, recourse is had not only to all his works, but to Tsung-tse, his disciple, the author of the Ta hyoh; to the sage's grandson Tse-se, who compiled the Choong young; and above all to Mung, who lived nearly two hundred years after the sage. Nor did it seem advisable to confine it to the works produced in one age, or one period of literature; recourse has been had, herefore, to the whole of the Five King; to the Ee-king begun by Fooh hee, (Fo-hi ;) and elucidated by the remarks of the great Tchyeu, and of the sage himself;-the Shoo-king which treats of Yao, Shun, Yu, and Thang, the ancient Chinese emperors,--the Shee-king, the Collection of Odes so much extolled by Confucius,-the Lee-khee, the great pattern and directory for Chinese manners and government; as well as to the Tchin-ts'hyeu, written by Confucius. Nor is it restricted indeed to the writings of those two periods: the commentaries of Chyu-hee and others, which owe their origin to the revival of literature under the Soong dynasty, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian æra, and which in bulk far exceed the original text of Confucius and Mung, appeared too valuable to be overlooked in a grammar of the language: if the style of them be less concise and energetic than that of Mung, Confucius, and the more ancient authors, it is still pure and perspicuous in a high degree, and well calculated to illustrate the genius of the language. Recourse is also had to the Annals of China,' a work in forty two small vols. which extends upward to the period when the invention of fire was not as yet applied to the purposes of life, when the Chinese covered themselves with raw hides, and dwelt in the woods ignorant of marriage and the ties of blood; and downward to the accession of the present dynasty in A. D. 1641. The Koo-wun, also, a work in ten volumes, written by various hands, and often quoted in the Imperial Dictionary, has furnished its quota of examples; and the Koo-se-tshin-yuen, a valuable work in two volumes, written in the fifteenth century, has been occasionally quoted. Nor have the works of the present day been overlooked; a modern and very copious Comment on the Four Books, has furnished several useful examples; and even the lighter pieces, &c. which contain forms of construction not esteemed admissible into graver compositions, have been occasionally used to illustrate a more familiar mode of expres sion; and where it appeared necessary, recourse has been had to correct modes of Colloquial expression. As the various parts of speech, and the syntax of the language, are thus illustrated

by nearly Five Hundred examples, selected from the writings of above three thousand years, the author feels a hope, that if the real nature of the language be not fully laid upon, there is yet such a foundation laid, as will eventually secure its being done. It was with this view that he preferred the labour of selecting examples from written works, to that of forming verbal ones; which method, though far more easy, would have carried in it less of sterling evidence; as verbal examples, formed on the spur of the occasion, must depend on the fancy and taste of the speaker, while examples from works which have stood the test of ages, remove all doubt, and, when accurately cited, place it within the power of others to detect any error in their application to the rule in question.

It may perhaps be urged, that a language so simple as the Chinese, surely needed not a grammar of above three hundred pages to lay it open; to which it may be replied, that had the object been merely that of affirming things, instead of substantiating them, a far less number of pages would have sufficed; and an Abridgement of this work, which will merely state grammatical positions explained at large elsewhere, may perhaps be brought into a fourth of the letterpress included in this work. But when it was necessary to substantiate every position, it seemed desirable that this should be done by examples from the best writings in the language. Further, as in so great a body of examples, many historical facts, and allusions to the manners, customs, and peculiar ideas of the Chinese, are necessarily brought before the reader, it ap peared desirable to introduce them by some brief account of the context, in order to render them intelligible. Besides, in a language so singular in its construction, the mind seems to require something like an examination into the nature of the positions adduced, and some kind of enquiry respecting the analogy they bear to those in other languages, or to general grammar: the fact is therefore, that brevity has been studied to keep the volume from swelling to a much larger size.

On examining the various parts of speech, the reader will perceive, that the whole of Chinese Grammar turns on Position. Inflection, which constitutes so important a part of the grammar of other languages is wholly excluded by the nature of the Chinese language. Were

inflections to the number of only seven, the utmost number an English verb admits, to be added to, (say) ten thousand characters, it would increase them to seventy thousand; and were they added to thirty thousand, the number would be swelled to above two hundred thousand, which would render the language too unwieldy for use. A Chinese character, therefore, simply expresses an idea; but whether that idea shall represent a Thing, a Quality inherent in some other thing, or an Action, must be ascertained wholly by its position, as in the English word sound, which, if preceded by an article, is a substantive, (a sound;) by a personal pronoun, a verb, (I sound, they sound;) if it receive an object, it becomes an active, or even a causal verb, (they sound the bell;) and lastly, if we add a substantive to the word with the article prefixed, by the caprice of the English language it becomes an adjective, (a sound vessel.) Thus does position alone, or, its being surrounded with certain other words, vary a word even in English, though custom renders us almost insensible to the fact. But while position thus imparts to numerous Chinese characters the force of divers parts of speech, there are many which either constant use, or the nature of the idea they represent, restrict almost wholly to one part thus some characters, as yin, a man, &c. are seldom used but as substantives, and a few others are on the same principle seldom found but as verbs. racters as substantives and adjectives admits of fewer exceptions; goodness; the other hand

The alternate use of chahaó, 'good,' is also

kao, 'high,' is also 'heighth;' and foò, rich,' is occasionally riches ;'and on yin, 'goodness,' is also 'good;' and chee, wisdom,' is often wise:' so little difference do the Chinese observe indeed between the quality in the abstract and as existing in some subject, that it is often doubtful which of the two ideas a character was primarily intended to express. With this exception, which by no means affects the general principle, the whole of Chinese Grammar depends on position.

A brief view of the various parts of the Grammar may not be useless. In examining the Substantives, the reader will find, that with Prepositive characters, so essential to the perspicuity of language, the Chinese are sufficiently furnished. Even here, however, the grand feature of the Chinese language is apparent: there are scarcely three of these prepositives which are not rendered so by position, and which have not another meaning when they do not precede a Love-est-s-eth; lov-ed-st-ing.

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