the same empire. It is easy to conceive, to adopt the language of Sir George Staunton. as applied to the most perfect system of the kind that has ever been actually carried into execution, that it would consist of “a plan of which it may justly be said, that the practice is no less inconvenient and perplexing than the theory is beautiful and ingenious."* If a distinct character were to be employed to represent every distinct idea, the number of distinct characters would be almost incalculable: if a few distinct or simple characters only were to be made use of to represent such ideas as are most common, and the rest were to be expressed by combinations of these, though the number of distinct characters would be in some degree diminished, the memory would still have a difficult task to retain them: and the combinations would, in a thousand instances, be embarrassing and intricate.

Under this pressure of evils there can be no doubt that a contemplative mind, in whatever part of the world placed, would soon begin to reflect on the possibility of avoiding them, by making the contracted characters now in use, or any other set in their stead, significative of sounds or words rather than of things or images. By minute attention it would soon be discovered, that such an art, which would require, indeed, a general convention or agreement in order to its being generally embraced or understood, might be effected with less difficulty than would at first be imagined. It would be perceived that the distinct articulate sounds in any or in every language, as I had occasion to observe in our last lecture, are not many, and in every language are the same or nearly so that in few languages they exceed twenty, and in none, perhaps thirty; and that consequently from twenty to thirty arbitrary marks or alphabetical characters might be ample to express every simple sound, and, by their combinations, to denote every separate word or intermixture of sounds:‡ whence a written language might be formed, addressed to the ear instead of to the eye, symbolical of oral language, and, of course, possessing the whole of its accuracy and precision; and as much more easy of attainment as it would be more definite and comprehensive.§

I have thus drawn a sketch of what there can be but little doubt would be the case provided mankind were at this moment to be deprived by a miracle of all legible language, and reduced to the state in which we may conceive the world to have existed in its earliest ages. The art of writing would commence with imitative, and terminate in symbolical characters; it would first describe by pictures or marks of things addressed to the eye, and after having passed through various stages of improvement would finish in letters, or marks of words addressed to the ear.

This is not a speculative representation; for I shall now proceed to show, as far as the period of time to which we are limited will allow me, that what we have thus supposed would take place has actually taken place: that wherever alphabetic characters exist, or have existed, we have direct proofs, or strong reasons for believing, that they have been preceded by picture or imitative characters; and that wherever picture or imitative characters, the language of things, still continue to exist, instead of having been preceded by alphabetic characters, they have a strong tendency to run into them, and probably will run into them in the upshot. And in this view of the subject I am supported by many of the most celebrated philologists of the age, as Bishop Warburton, the President de Brosses, Mr. Astle, M. Fourmont, M. Gibelin.

The remains of Egyptian sculpture are but few; but they are sufficient to afford us specimens of each of the kinds of writing I have adverted to;

*Ta Tsing Leu Lee. Pref. p. xiv.

"Mr. Sheridan says the number of simple sounds in our tongue are twenty-eight. Dr. Kenrick says, we have only eleven distinct species of articulate sounds; which, even by contraction, prolongation, and composition, are increased only to the number of sixteen; every syllable or articulate sound in our language being one of this number. Bishop Wilkins and Dr. William Holden speak of about thirty-two or thirty-three distinct sounds."-Astle, p. 18.

Tacquet asserts, that the various combinations of the twenty-four letters (without any repetition) will amount to 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000.-Arithm. Theor. p. 517, ed. Amst. 1704. Clavius makes them only 5,852,616,738,497,664,000. In either case, however, it is evident, "that twenty-four letters will adinit of an infinity of combinations and arrangements sufficient to represent not only all the conceptions of the mind, but all words in all languages whatever."-Astle, p. 20. In like manner, ten simple marks are found sufficient for all the purposes of universal calculations which extend to infinity; and seven notes, differ ently arranged, fill up the whole scale of music De Brosses, sur l'Origin de l'Alphabe

the pure hieroglyph, or simple picture-style; the mixed, allegorical, or emblematic; the abbreviated or contracted; and the alphabetic; and the valuable relics which are to be seen in the British Museum, more especially the sarcophagi and the famous Rosetta stone (as it is called), erected in honour of Ptolemy V., contain examples of most of them. They prove to us, also, the order of succession in which the changes were effected, and clearly indicate the pure picture-style to be the most ancient.

The magnificent ruins of Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, offer monuments to the same effect. The windows, the pillars, the pilasters, and the tombs are loaded with characters of some kind or other, imitative, emblematical, or alphabetical. In many, instances, the pure picture-style is as correctly adhered to as in any Egyptian specimen; in others we meet with tablets filled with what may indeed be abbreviated emblems, but which appear to be letters; and which, at any rate, afford proof that the ancient Persians had, at this period, made some advance from characters for things towards characters for words.

The prophecy of the utter destruction of Babylon has been so completely fulfilled, that, although the banks of the Euphrates, on which this city stood, give evident proofs of magnificent ruins along their track, we cannot exactly ascertain its situation. On many of the bricks, however, which have been dug up from the midst of the general wreck, we find a peculiar sort of character, evincing an approach towards letters, and which are supposed to be abbreviated emblems, as emblems are often abbreviated pictures, employed by the Chaldean sages of Babylonia; who, according to Pliny, always engraved their astronomical observations on bricks.* And even in Southern Siberia, as high as the river Irbit, or Pishma, Strahlenberg asserts, that he found a variety of rude figures or emblems engraven on the rocks,† which seem to have preceded the use of the Tartar or Mantcheu alphabet.

In America we meet with traces of picture-writing amid the most savage tribes; every leader on returning from the field endeavouring to give some account of the order of his march, the number of his adherents, the enemy whom he attacked, and the scalps and captives he brought home, by scratching with coarse red paint a certain display of uncouth figures upon the bark of a tree, stripped off for this purpose. "To these simple annals, he trusts for renown, and sooths himself with a hope, that by their means he shall receive praise from the warriors of future times." The Mexicans are well known to have acquired such a degree of perfection in this style of writing, that on the first arrival of the Spaniards on their coasts expresses were sent off to Montezuma, the reigning monarch, containing an exact statement of the fact, together with the number and size of the different ships, by a series of pictures alone, painted on the cloth of the country. It was thus this people kept their public records, histories, and calendars. We are still in possession of several very curious specimens of Mexican picture-writing, some of which exhibit several of the very emblems I have just adverted to, as those which would probably be had recourse to in our own day, were we miraculously to be deprived of all knowledge of alphabetic writing; as, a bale of goods to represent the idea of commerce, and a rose-tree that of odour. The most valuable specimens, however, of Mexican picture-writing are those obtained by Mr. Purchas, and published in sixty-six plates, divided into three parts; the first containing a history of the Mexican empire under its ten monarchs: the second, a tribute roll, representing what each conquered town paid into the royal treasury; and the third, a code of Mexican institutions, domestic, political, and military. Various other specimens are to be met with in different parts of Spain, and especially in the Royal Library at the Escurial; and a folio volume in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Along with the full pictures, we occasionally meet, in some of these national archives, with emblems, or a prominent feature put for the whole figure; and in others with various symbols or arbitrary characters, making an approach towards

letters; and thus confirming the progress from pictures to arbitrary signs which I have endeavoured to establish.

The written language of the Chinese, however, is carried to a still higher pitch of perfection; and is, perhaps, rendered as perfect as the system upon which it is founded will allow. It is still altogether a language of things, and was formerly very largely, if not altogether, a language of pictures. The pure picture-style is admitted by themselves to have been the oldest, or that first invented, and they expressly denominate this order of characters sang or hing, “form or image.' "The picture," however, observes Dr. Morrison, "does not appear to have ever been intended as an exact representation, such as the picture-writing of Mexico, or the hieroglyphics of Egypt, but only a slight outline."* This kind of style is now become obsolete, and is rarely to be met with; but of the next series, or that into which the original or siang style was first transformed, which they call Yu-tsu, probably from the name of the great emperor Yu, or Chow, in whose era the transformation is said to have occurred, it is no uncommon thing to meet with specimens on rings, seals, and other public instruments. These are strictly abbreviated pictures, such as symbols or emblems of some kind or other. But the characters now in use are abbreviations of these abbreviations; and hence have, for the most part, the appearance of being arbitrary marks, though we can still so frequently trace the parent image, as to decipher their origin and reference.

The Chinese is an extraordinary language in every respect. Its radical words do not exceed four hundred and eleven; every one of which is a monosyllable. But as it must be obvious that these can by no means answer the purpose of distinguishing every external object and mental idea, unless varied in some way or other, every one of these four hundred and eleven words is possessed of a number of different tones and combinations with other words; and every tone or combination signifies a different thing; so that the whole vocabulary, limited as it is, may be readily made to express several thousands of ideas. Thus the word fu, which enters into the well-known compound Kong-fu-tsee, or Confucius, pronounced in different manners, imports a husband or father, a town, and various other ideas. So khoû imports a month; but pronounced nasally, as khoong, it denotes empty; and thus the word shu, differently uttered, means both a lord and swine.

The whole of the elementary marks, or keys, as they are called, by which the ideas of this language, for it is not the language itself, are written down and communicated, are still fewer than the elementary words; for they are only two hundred and fourteen, and express such ideas alone as are most common and familiar; as those of plant, hand, mouth, word, sun, nothing, water; every other idea being denoted by compounds, or supposed compounds, of these elementary marks. Thus, the mark for a thicket, if doubled, implies a wood; a union of the two characters of a man and a field signifies a farmer; the characters of a hand and staff united, import parental authority, or a father; and it is from like characters I have selected the specimen of symbols which I have mostly submitted to you as some of those which would probably be invented in the present day, if, by a miracle, we were suddenly to be deprived of all knowledge of alphabetic writing.t

By combinations of this kind, the two hundred and fourteen elementary characters, like the four hundred elementary words, are wonderfully increased, and are daily increasing; while the greater mass have so little resemblance to any one of the genuine elements, that the philologists of the present day regard many of them as primitive or independent signs, formed long subsc quently to the invention of the proper elements, and combined, like themselves, in various ways.

I have said that the sum total of Chinese characters derived from these

*Chinese Miscellany

The following table, compared with the remarks offered in page 281, will more clearly illustrate the pictorial origin of the Chinese characters.

The whole are usually divided by the native philologists into six classes, the first four of which will best serve as exemplifications.

sources is perpetually increasing; and have also hinted, that from this natural tendency, the language must at length become an intolerable burden even to the most assiduous Chinese scholar. Thus, while all the characters that occur in Confucius, in Mung, and the five Kings, or sacred books, forming together more than twenty volumes, fall considerably short of six thousand, including the numerous unusual words, found in the four volumes of the Shu (and I may add, that the scope is much the same in the celebrated ethical comment of Tung-tsee, the favourite disciple of Confucius, denominated Ta-hyoh, "The Great Sublime or Momentous Doctrine," as also in the Choong-yoong, Zun-zu, and Mun, constituting, conjointly, the four books most revered next to the Kings);-such has been the accession of new terms invented by subsequent writers, and often with a forgetfulness of the old, which have hereby,

I. IMAGES: a name given to characters which, in their antiquated form, show very clearly a rough representation of the material objects they denote: as,

Ming
Siân

Of this sort there are about 200 characters.

II. ASSOCIATES: meaning words formed by a combination of two or more Images: as,

Koo-kin

Their number is very great.

"Eloquence," "Fluency of Speech," literally "Golden-mouth ;" the mark for mouth, which (two lips), being united with the mark for gold, which is the remainder of the character. In Greek Xpvoboт oμus, aurea verba ore fundens.

been suffered to become obsolete, that M. de Guignes was able, in his day, to collect and put into his dictionary eight thousand characters: the six national dictionaries that were chiefly in use about a century since, give from fifteen to about thirty thousand; and, lastly, the Imperial Chinese Dictionary, composed by order of the emperor Kang-khee, in 1710 of our own era, comprises not less than forty-three thousand four hundred and ninety-six characters!

Dr. Marshman, in his valuable " Elements of Chinese Grammar," observes, that in the Imperial Dictionary these stand arranged as follows:

Characters in the body of the work

Added, principally obsolete and incorrect forms of others
Characters not before classed in any dictionary
Characters without name or meaning

31,214

6,423

1,659

4,200

43,496

66

We have here, therefore, a confession by the Chinese lexicographers themselves, that upwards of ten thousand of the characters admitted into the Imperial Dictionary, being nearly a fourth of the whole, are useless, and for the most part unintelligible, in the present day; independently of which, a considerable number," observes Dr. Marshman, "of the 31,214 characters adopted from the former dictionaries have no meaning affixed to them; but are merely given as obsolete, or current but incorrect forms of other characters, to which the compilers of the dictionary have referred the reader for their meaning.' Whence we may fairly conclude, that of the characters which are still allowed to figure away in the written language of China, nearly half of the whole convey no ideas whatever, and are altogether representatives without constituents. Were we able to follow even the latest of these up to their origin, and to prove that they have not issued, in the remotest manner, from the two hundred and fourteen elementary marks, which Dr. Marshman has endeavoured to do,

III. INDICANTS, or POINTERS: from their indicating or pointing out the relative form or position of what is predicated: as,

IV. ANTITHETICS, or CONTRARIES: formed by inverting or reversing the character; and hence requir ing an antithetic or correspondent signification: as,

Modern Forms.

and, hence, and
Defect."

་

Chi Dead Body, A and p

Most of the Chinese characters may be classed under one of these four heads. The two remaining classes do not appear to be so intimately connected with a pictorial origin.

The two hundred and fourteen elementary keys, or radicals of the language, are divided into seventeen classes, according to the number of strokes of which each element or radical consists. It is probable, however, that all the more complicated, and, indeed, great numbers of all those that possess more than five or six strokes, are as strictly compounds as any in the language, though the lexicographers are incapable of reducing them to their constituent principles; and hence allow them to stand as primitives among such as are of simpler construction; and hence the total number of primitives are reckoned at about sixteen hundred, each of them producing from three to seventy-four derivatives; and hereby constituting the great mass of the Chinese written language.

* Elements of Chinese Grammar, with a preliminary Dissertation on the Characters and Colloquial Mojum of the Chinese, &c. By J. Marshman, D.D., Serampore, 1814, 4to.