Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 616

1841.

Sacred Instructions of the Ta Tsing Emperors.

599

and that the emperor's show of compassion frequently consisted in cutting people to pieces and decapitating them, there is no doubt; yet at the bottom of his heart he was a well-meaning prince. In every piece, the great ruler quotes something of himself, whereby he exemplified the doctrines he recommended; and in many instances, peculiar situations in life gave rise to an oration, something like Massilon's orations funebre.

Kanghe was a thinking man, who had also a great propensity for writing, and hence we find no less than 60 parts filled with his ser- mons. This great man deserved to rank high amongst his country- Though not as practical as Peter the great, nor as warlike as Lewis XIV., with both of them he had all the qualities necessary to sway a great nation, and to act as a reformer. In this career, however, he stopped short. When versed in European sciences, when intimately acquainted with their immense advantages for promoting civilization, when considering the extraordinary capabilities in the Chinese character to produce first rate men, Kanghe after maturely weighing the cost, turned back from the gigantic enterprise of mak- ing the Chinese a great nation. He was the only learned individual in the Central Kingdom, and he carefully guarded the treasures he had acquired with so much labor, like a miser; he kept them to him- self, and with him died all scientific pursuit.

* 1

But we must go on with our review, and can only bestow a glance upon Kanghe's voluminous writings. His funeral sermon on the death of his mother is touching, the style is chaste and elegant, with- out the fulsomeness common with the Chinese on similar occasions. He does not aim at expressions, which are understood only by the Hanlin and court, and perfectly unintelligible to all others. This is indeed a very rare excellence, for scarcely any state papers that are manufactured at the national college, are, in our acceptation of the word, perspicuous; the more they are filled with obsolete phrases and high sounding words, the greater is the admiration paid to them; it is not the sense the reader prizes, but the sounds and the combina- tion of sentences.

The treatise addressed to the authorities at the capital is excel- lent, full of good sense, denouncing direful punishment to the evil doer, and encouraging unseen merit. Kanghe shows himself an enemy to dull routine, encourages men of mind to come forward and exert themselves for the benefit of the state, exhorts the ministers to diligence, and most unmercifully treats the prevarications that then existed. Indeed, if one wishes to obtain a view of the court as it ac- tually was, he has only to read this paper. The monarch says: