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    45O THE i/E A DEB. [No. 320, Saturday,

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    THE PRAISE OF CHINA. The Chinese and the...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    A Primitive Republic. The Border Lands O...

    Prance atid Spaitt liavc existjed since the beginning of the century . The highways , hewn through the rocks , cense at »»» e Spfflnsh fironfaep , and are succeeded by mule-tracks as rough and tortuous as those of *^ e CarloviAgian age . But m these rude territories our tourist found ^^ g *^ ™ 0 ** fplendid , and beauty the most enticing . The lad ** of the Pyrenees , he says , reminded him of Georgian loveliness . , « . ««« .: v « ,, * ,. * nv » He next visited the secluded Cagots , survivors of the proscribed race ts ^^^ f ^ Ja ^^ ss ^^ ii ™^

    of Asturias , the Chuefcas ot Mayorga , anu . « B »««» w-. u , TV ™ live in isolation , but have lost the rigour of their ancient dogmas , and , if no WerCursed with leprosy , incur less than formerly the penalties of schism AtlSbntgaillard , indeed , traces remain of the fanaticism which once denied them the rites of Christian worship and sepulture , though they are now more especially the objects of antiquarian criticism than of religious malignity . TBeir oiiin has been assigned to the Gothic invaders of Aqmtaine , to the Arabs defeated by Martef , to the Albigenses of the twelfth century , to the leprous pilgrims of the Sepulchre , to the Jews , whose descendants continue to inhabit Mayorga . No one , in reality , knows what the word Cagot means though Fauriel , Michel , Ramon , Venuti , Marca , and Palassou have applied much skill and erudition to the inquiry . Our very sensible tourist , ^ without pushing his speculations beyond the horizon of the Chartulaire of the Abbaye de Luc , turns off towards the Mediterranean across the mountains of Catalonia and the plains of Foix , treats the vexed reader to a Barmecide taste of the dinners of Ischl , of pleasant memory , enlarges without

    much purpose on the political aspects of Spain , and describes the curious mystery-acting of the Trouveres among the peasantry of Cerdagne and Roussillon . Here the imagination of mediaeval Europe is still in play ; the old moralities keep the stage ; Adam and Eve , the Angels , the Deluge , the Ark , the Jewish wanderings , the initials of Christianity were represented before the English stranger by the Roussillon artists , and it was through this vestibule of middle-age symbolism that he entered Andorre . Andorre—a name familiar , probably , to few English readers—is one of the smallest commonwealths in Europe . Vet the state existed , almost in its present form , long before the Norman conquest . It was chartered by Charlemagne , and acknowledged by Louis le Debonnaire . It is a country of pastures , gardens , and fields , wild in aspect along its margin of hills , yet not without idyllic glimpses and vistas of the pastoral allegro . It is governed by a Syndic , a plain man , who inhabits a structure less like a cottage than a ffraiiarr . -who dries hia vegetables in one room , and keeps the state archives

    In another . He informed the English tourist that Andorre was happy ana prosperous , and scarcely susceptible of improvement . He showed him the capital of the republic , which had the appearance of an overgrown village , walled and dignified by a college and a palace , built of rough granite . Here the Andorrian assembly sits , under the presidence of the Syndic , guarding the records of the constitution ( Charlemagne ' s charters , kept in a chest with six keys ) and debating public affairs . From the capital the stranger proceeds to the ecclesiastical city of Urgel , sketching , as he goes , many graphic miscellanies of character , scenery , and manners . All this part of his book has the charm of freshness , stimulating and satisfying to the curiosity . lie visited the senate of Andorre , anticipating the reception of an intruder , iiut the members bowed courteously , and proceeded with a debate on the means of military defence possessed by their commonwealth . They moved resolutions , cheered , and voted with parliamentary facility . Some of their body—*! . « «« Jc « v 44 eninff con suls-exhibited to the English visitor the Latin

    donation of independence to Andorre under the sign-manual ot Uharlemame , as well a / a treaty concluded with Napoleon when the Republic was exactly one thousand years old . The history and institutions of this primitive commonwealth receive much interesting illustration in the volume before us , which touches ground scarcely better known than the oases ot the Libyan desert , or the interior paradises of Japan .

    45o The I/E A Deb. [No. 320, Saturday,

    45 O THE i / E A DEB . [ No . 320 , Saturday ,

    The Praise Of China. The Chinese And The...

    THE PRAISE OF CHINA . The Chinese and their Rebellions , Viewed in Connexion with their National Philosophy , Ethics , legislation , and Administration . By Thomas Taylor MeaAows . ^ ^^ Wk arc induced , from an examination of this book to suspect the Orieijtalism of Mr . Meadows . He begins by avowing his contempt of the French sinologists , of Remusat e * pecia \ ly , and by disparaging the Chinese Memoirs of MT Sue . It will surirfce some scholars , indeed , to hear that Mr Meadows values himself as the first correct exponent of the philosophy of China . ± ne Confucian system , he says , has been described frequently , but never from the right poit of view . Ostentation of this sort justifies us in scrutinizing the c-Uimiof the inorganic mass of statements and criticisms presented by Mr Meadows to be considered a full or faithful view of the civilization and polity of China . It should be premised that he labours under a theory , which is- —thwt the Chinese possess the best institutions and almost the best morality ' of any nation in the world . In aid of this proposition , which was a favourite fallacy in . the last century , propagated by Voltaire , he quotes examinations

    their "patriarchal institutions , their system of public competitive , their homogeneity , aud the endurance of their race amid revolutions by * riiich others have been dispersed or destroyed . To many minds the pedantic formalism of . the Chinese has appeared a failure . Not so to Mr Momtorfi China , after successive conquests and disruptions , alter ages ot « M * stine conflict , has been brought into contact with two foreign powers , to bota ofrrineh ske has succumbed . The English , on one side , have established tbomselvei by force in five of her maritime towns , extorted an immense sum of money , almost as the ransom of the empire , and imposed on the Government a system of trade which it has declared illegal . I he Russians , on the other side , have torn large provinces from the Mantchu domx

    nion , have driven in the outposts of the imperial power , ana are lnceBsanwy encroaching on the ! X ! actar borders . Thus the organization and concentcatuva of authority have not enabled the emp ire to maintain its own

    a integrity . They have still'more signally and completely failed to produce political unity . China is divided' against itself ; none can tell whether the emperor or the pretender enjoys the allegiance of the dominant party . Civilly and socially , every province and every city exhibits barbarism , anarchy * and corruption . The people decay under a mass of lifeless academical laws The Government of " moral force" is represented by the brutalities of the executioner . The natural relations , supposed to be so perfect , under a patriarchal code , are distorted by animal necessities pleaded in excuse of infanticide , and by the prescriptive right of parents over the lives of their children and of husbands over their wives .

    The truth is , that Mr . Meadows is an enthusiast , who dreams of remodelling the administrative system of England after the type of China . In common with most social idealists , he occupies himself with mechanical details , and develops his theory of Civil Service Examination so minutely , ' as to plan the architecture of the Examination Halls , with their five separate suites of apartments , in which the Examiners are to be " comfortably accomodated . " He suggests an ingenious machinery of boxes , bells , and slides , and , having advanced his parallels to this result , lays open a . general view of China . Here his love of analogy overcomes his Orientalism , and he continually illustrates the description by references to English counties and cities , eulogising the

    processes of government , as they transmit the Imperial authority by a graduated series , from the throne to the local bureau . Upon this basis he raises a theory of the history of China , assuming that it has been traced , through authentic records , to an antiquity of fo ur thousand two hundred years . Modern scholarship has thrown much doubt on the origin of the Chinese chronicles , but Mr . Meadows has little respect for scholarship , unless it concur with the tale of Hung-seu-Tsuen . Endeavouring to separate the Government of the Mantchus from the kindred despotisms of Asia , and the despotisms , in some degree kindred , of Europe , he argues that it is a government upheld by moral force , maintaining an army and a police sufficient to subdue the restlessness of faction , but inadequate to quell an insurrection o ithe entire people . What then , is the distinction suggested by Mr .

    Meadows ? Could the Emperor of Russia quell the sixty million subjects ot the empire , if they simultaneously revolted ? Could Timour have crushed a universal insurrection of the Hindus ? The Chinese nation is , in fact , under arbitrary control , and , when driven to the point at which humanity refuses to submit , has no other resource than rebellion . Among the results of the patriarchal system , accordingly , is the perpetual presence of insurreo tion in one province or another of China Proper . Thus , the " cheerful acquiescence" of the people to the Mantchu autocracy has been illustrated by an extraordinary series of provincial conflicts , which have been developed , at length , into a civil war , shaking and desolating the empire , by the formairaciesand b

    tion of innumerable secret societies , or permanent consp , y unsuccessful but terrific efforts on the part of the emperors to rule by terror . Mr . Meadows himself , while poeticising the despotism of China , and contradicting Remusat and Hue with inconceivable assumption , is forced to admit that , up to the period of the English war , administrative corruption had spread to a fatal extent ; that the Examination system had not secured competent or honest officials ; that the public revenue was poor , and the public expenditure enormous ; and that , in 1850 , the Chinese Empire was in a state of anarchy . " Here are the Chinese , " he exclaims , " who have prolonged their existence for four thousand years , and nobody asks , how ? I believe 1 am the only man living that has given himself serious trouble to investigate and elucidate the causes . " Living or dead , in spite of this burst of exult-, 'nrr Prrotism . there have been sinologists at least equal to Mr . Meadows , who ,

    in no fear of Remusat or Julien , talks as though China were his discovery . There are certainly errors in the maps and narratives of M . Hue . Anere are , no doubt , mechanical inaccuracies in the disquisitions of the able * rencn writers we have named ; but we must warn the reader not to trust Mr . Meadows' account , either of the savant or the missionary . He is quicK at confutation , but , when a Western writer alludes to the sensuous tendencies of the Chinese , he covers his acquiescence under a retort upon the West , and is careful not to discuss the » civilization" of China as it is illustrated by the debased condition of the Chinese women . In sketching the history of Hung-seu-Tsuen , "the originator and ac-Vniwlndircd chief of the present relfgious political insurrection m China V than He

    XTSS ; r ^ s " : au ^ riUtivePy rather argumentatively . " repeats , with surprising simplicity , the legendary incidents of the young man ' s scholastic career , without pausing to settle the points m dispute whether the individual exists at all , whether the same person is recognised in the different parts of China under the same name , whether the iwur rection . was really originated by him , whether indeed , he , or any one else , w [ t ?« lXiow lcdo-ed chief . " Ilung-seu-Tsuen ' s narrative , including miracuous "S nces and revelations ^ set forth in detail to the great ^ onfication of the missionaries . M . Hamberg had already published the de tails , which met with instant repudiation from Oriental writers m England . It is not evident to Mr . Meadows that the causes of the civil w u < X iar beyond the range of this disappointed student ' s mission . It Uui tf-seu Sen be an actual personage , possessed of the influence "ttnUiteU tojum , it still remains to be proved that the revolt had not been organize 1 > uor he preached and declared visions against the Government of the , Mantchu 8 That Government had , for generat . ons , acted m © PP *^ " ft ?* J ^ um _ iw ,, . !»„/! T ^ fnr-rnA strangers to the native Chinese ; had soM the »™ » a isten

    Lnd ^ mo luments of ¦ office ; nad appointed weak and vicious mm . ««« still more corrupt and feeble viceroys ; had so consumed the roso n £ ° " land , that hundreds of men , in scattered distnete , were fore 1 to « J robbery as the means of life ; had exasperated the poop o and . laIf » ° J ° J ' from one limit to another of the empire , discontent and dwaflecti m . n t seu-Tsuen , assuming him not to be a myth , probably took ^ v . ntago "j ferment in his own province ; but we suspect it will be proved , shouW * Mantchus retreat to Mantchur . a that there are severftlproto < U £ < £ Heaven , " aspiring to the imperial throne . The pol . t . cal "j ^** " 1 ^ 1 lixeS Meadows arc diversified by fragments of philosophical history , ii ^ without hesitation the ago of Tacconwm , separates its influence , by po «»

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 10, 1856, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10051856/page/18/