Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 569

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Poo Nang Che tsăng sin.

Oct.

questioned, except by some sceptical barbarians, and if there are even galring contradictions in his compilations, Che hwangte gets all the credit of them, he having burnt all the books of the literati, so that not a single volume escaped. He indeed must have made bonfires of all the bamboo slips and like the caliph Omar heated a good many ovens, for otherwise how could he have obliterated every trace of lite- rature amongst a great nation? Moreover he must have been a very partial mam, since he left all other authors unscathed, and only pun- ished poor Confucius for his herisies, waging war not so much against the philosopher's own works, as against his compilations, the thoughts of ancient sages. Imagine Taoukwang giving orders to all the school- boys of the empire to deliver up their classics to be burnt, and con- template the scene in anticipation, and you would behold a more sublime spectacle than even Lin's destroying the opium, or Yih- shan's burning the vessels of the aliens.

This stubborn belief in their authenticity, however, has given a peculiar character to the whole literature of this country. It has taught all succeeding writers to quote the assertions of their prede- cessors as axioms, and to avoid the trouble either of thinking upon a subject or of reasoning about the justness of a remark. Moreover the propensities of the sons of Han for talking and writing being of a superior order, there is naturally no end to books. The ancient authors, in imitation of Confucius, boldly assumed the high ground of dictation, and wrote whatever come into their minds. If the rea- der will take the trouble of looking into the celebrated writings of the Shih Tsze, or ten philosophers, (Greece had only seven,) he will soon convince himself, that these men, in many instances, put sound- sense and logic at defiance, mix fable and truth, talk direct nonsense and practical wisdom in the same breath, and leave the reader to doubt, whether, when writing, they had been sober or not. Even Confucius, much admired as he is and justly too, is not free from this fault. Now it would have been pardonable, in these lawgivers, to talk thus for their own amusement, or to raise a laugh at their expense in future;

but it is rather too bad, that they should have taught the whole race of authors after them, to repeat, parrot-like, sense and nonsense, and to fill thousands of volumes with the same odd verbiage. The great mischief is, that this literature is so very void of realities, and so loves to sore in undefined and fairy regions, leaving men and things as they are to take care of themselves. In poesy we must make due allowance, for if rhymesters and verse-makers were not allowed to wander through the air, there would be an end to the whole profes-