Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 18

THE

CHINESE REPOSITORY.

VOL. X.-JANUARY, 1841.- No. 1.

ART. I. Chinese history: its value and character, as viewed and exhibited by native historians; with a notice of the work entitled History Made Easy.

'The

Who does not wish to know the full history of the Chinese? time, the manner, and the route, by which the progenitors of the blackhaired race reached the hills of Tang-their leader and his line of ancestors, with all the knowledge, traditional or self-taught, possessed by him-the rise and progress of learning in every depart- ment, concerning things and relations, civil, social, and moral,- such as the invention of writing and the materials for executing it, the wheel and the loom, and the successive steps in bringing to per- fection the various products of the soil in both their natural and arti- ficial states-architecture and the vast varieties of handicrafts, with every branch of knowledge whereof these all are applications-schools, of every grade and class, with their numerous regulations-domestic and state policy, in their all-but-endless changes-oh, who would not like to draw back the veil that now shrouds the past and look through the vista of bygone ages, and see in their germ and progress all those things which now fill, or ought to fill, the history of the Chi- nese empire? But is this practicable? Can any one venture upon such an undertaking? For drawing a map of the empire in its ori- ginal state-for ascertaining the situation of the first little colony- and for marking the earliest advances in the arts and manufactures- where can the historian collect his trustworthy materials? In fact, do any exist? If so, what and where? Are there monuments, or

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VOL. X. NO. 1.

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