fossil remains of some pre-Adamite animals, very bulky and very ugly, whose solid parts have long since been converted into stone, and the intervals filled up with earth; or we may fancy ourselves looking at a stuffed bird of most fantastical shape and plumage, who presents a stately framework of skeleton and feathers, but whose interior is nothing but straw and rubbish. Some exquisitely ludicrous traits of this feature of the Chinese character will be found in the sequel of these remarks.

But, before we proceed to our extracts, we must show the reader the disguise he must submit to if he would study Chinese character- -at his ease, we were going to say - but at least (if he would really penetrate the recesses of Chinese jealousy), to advantage. When MM. Huc and Gabet first visited China, and wished to gain the entrée as Chinese, the following was the transformation which they consented should pass on their outer man; and truly not even Jesuits were ever more effectually disguised:

The letter was written in 1840, and dated from a mission situated at a short distance from the Mei-ling Mountain.

'Towards six o'clock they made my toilette à la Chinoise. They shaved my head, with the exception of the spot at the top, on which I have now been letting the hair grow these two years past; they then put me on a false head of hair, which they arranged in plaits; and I found myself in possession of a magnificent tail, that descended nearly to my knees. My complexion, not too fair before, as you know, was artificially improved by the addition of a yellowish tinge all over it; my eyebrows were cut off, in the fashion of the country; the long and thick moustaches, that I had been cultivating for some time, disguised the European cut of my nose; and, finally, Chinese robes completed my metamorphosis.' (Vol. ii. p. 406.),

We have said that, according to M. Huc (and many other modern travellers), the condition of this great empire is hollow; -that ceremony, etiquette, conventionality, insincerity,-'make believe,' in short,-constitute it, from foundation-stone to pinnacle. A specimen of this want of reality and truth may be found in the religious liberalism, otherwise indifferentism,' which M. Huc represents as universally infecting all classes, and especially the more respectable and influential. When men meet, he tells us, whether disciples of Confucius, Lao-tze, or Buddha, they are far from suppressing their views, or politely waiving the subject, as sceptics generally do among us. Rather, there is an ostentatious avowal of opinion, with an equal ostentatious declaration that everybody else's opinion is equally good. After asking, in a complimentary way, to what sublime form ' of religion' you belong, your querist, on receiving his an

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swer, proceeds, after thus paying your religion a compliment in the dark, to pay it a compliment with his eyes open : —' All religions,' says he, are good; religions are many; but Reason is immutable;' of which last assertion the extraordinary condition of the Chinese intellect might well lead one to doubt. Conceive such a system consistently carried out; think of a Christian missionary, a Hindoo Fakir, a New Zealand idolater, and a zealous Buddhist, all exchanging compliments on the sublimity' of their several systems of religion, and avowing the belief that they are all of them intrinsically of the same value, and entitled to equal veneration! The result must be at last a Pantheon like that in which declining Rome (with a similar indifferentism' to that which now marks the Chinese) was willing to domicile all the gods and goddesses of all the nations. This spurious liberalism, which is but a ridiculous ape of charity, is a sure indication, wherever found, of the prevalence of scepticism and of the decay of all earnestness in the nation which is characterised by it. To profess to believe that things contradictory are equally true, and doctrines directly opposite to each other in tendency, equally salutary, can be the achievement only of the philosophic mountebank. But let us hear M. Huc:

'The religious sentiment,' says he, has vanished from the national mind; the rival doctrines have lost all authority, and their partisans, grown sceptical and impious, have fallen into the abyss of indifferentism, in which they have given each other the kiss of peace. Religious discussions have entirely ceased, and the whole Chinese nation has proclaimed this famous formula, with which everybody is satisfied, San-kiao-y-kiao, that is, "the three religions are but one." Thus, all the Chinese are at the same time partisans of Confucius, Lao-tze, and Buddha, or rather, they are nothing at all; they reject all faith, all dogma, to live merely by their more or less depraved and corrupted instincts. The literary classes only have retained a certain taste for the classical books and moral precepts of Confucius, which every one explains according to his own fancy, invoking always the "ly," or principle of rationalism, which has become the only one generally recognised.

'But although they have thus made a tabula rasa of their religious creeds, the ancient denominations have remained, and the Chinese still like to make use of them; but they are now only the memorials of a feeling long since dead. Nothing more clearly indicates this desolating scepticism than a formula of politeness exchanged between unknown persons on their first meeting. It is customary to ask, to "what sublime religion" you belong. One, perhaps, will call himself a Confucian, another a Buddhist, a third a disciple of Lao-tze, a fourth a follower of Mahomet, of whom there are many in China; and then every one begins to pronounce a panegyric on the religion to

which he does not belong, as politeness requires; after which, they all repeat in chorus, "Pou-toun-kiao, toun-ly," "Religions are many; "reason is one; we are all brothers." This phrase is on the lips of every Chinese; and they bandy it from one to the other with the most exquisite urbanity. It is, indeed, a clear and concise expression of their feeling on religious questions. In their eyes, a worship is merely an affair of taste and fashion, to which no more importance is to be attached than to the colour of your garments.' (Vol. ii. pp. 198, 199.)

A stronger proof of the tenacity with which the Chinese mind retains forms, while the spirit which prompted them has evaporated, can hardly be found than the decorous persistence in the only worship which, in any intelligible sense, the Chinese seem to have, that of the spirits of their ancestors.' It originated, no doubt, in ages of remote barbarism, and was then, probably, a symbol of a genuine though absurd superstition; and, whatever its origin, was certainly (as has been often remarked) in harmony with the fundamental principle of the Chinese polity, which, like most Eastern and all Tartar polities, is mainly based on the analogy of the filial relation. The Emperor, like the Czar of Russia, is the father of his dear children,'the people. The enormous authority confided to each pater'familias' is the counterpart of similar, but more extensive, arbitrary power conferred on each magistrate, according to his rank and elevation in the social pyramid, at the apex of which sits perched the great pater-familias' of all, the imperial Saturn.-But whatever be the origin or symbolical meaning of the rites performed in honour of dead ancestors, it appears, from M. Huc and other travellers, that, though absurd, troublesome, and expensive, they are just as zealously and universally performed as though they still had a recognised meaning. The sacrifices are as costly and as formally paid as ever, though it would seem that all belief in any religious significance of such rites has died out. Let us here, again, quote from the amusing pages of M. Huc:

The sceptical Chinese are in general quite willing to dispense with the attendance of Bonzes or Tao-sse at their funerals. Not having felt any need of religion during their lives, they argue, very logically, that they certainly do not want it after they are dead. The disciples of Confucius especially could hardly admit the necessity of offering prayers and sacrifices for the departed, when they profess to believe that man dies altogether, that the soul vanishes as well as the body, and falls into nothingness. . . . . . . The Chinese are in the habit of offering viands, and sometimes splendid banquets, to their dead; and these are served before the coffin, as long as the body is kept in the family, and on the tomb after the burial.

What idea is really in the minds of the Chinese on the subject of this practice? Many people have thought and written that the souls of the departed are supposed to take pleasure in regaling themselves with the subtle and delicate parts,-the essences, as they might be called, of the dishes offered to them; but it seems to us that the Chinese are too intelligent to carry absurdity to such a point as this. The masses, no doubt, observe these practices quite mechanically, without ever thinking of the meaning of them: but for those who are in the habit of reflecting upon what they do, it is impossible to believe they can delude themselves so grossly.

'How, for instance, could the Confucians, who believe the complete annihilation of both soul and body, suppose that the dead come back to eat? One day we asked a mandarin, a friend of ours, who had just offered a sumptuous repast at the tomb of a deceased colleague, whether, in his opinion, the dead stood in need of food?

"How could you possibly suppose I had such an idea?" he replied, with the utmost astonishment. "Could you really suppose me so stupid as that?"

But what, then, is the purpose of these mortuary repasts?" "We intend to do honour to the memory of our relations and friends; to show that they still live in our remembrance, and that we like to serve them as if they were yet with us. Who could be absurd enough to believe that the dead need to eat? Amongst the lower classes, indeed, many fables are current; but who does not know that rude, ignorant people are always credulous ?"' (Vol. ii. pp. 220, 221.)

As an illustration of a similar tenacity in the maintenance of absurd customs, we may cite the account of the following pantomime, which, it seems, is often enacted in the houses of those who are in articulo mortis. It is just what we should expect of savages in some island in the South Pacific, for savages, as has been well said, are always children; but that the farce should be gravely performed by the civilised, educated, and sceptical Chinese can be taken only as a proof, not of their grave belief in the efficacy of any such absurdities, but of their ceremonious affection for any rites which can but plead antiquity. It would appear, according to the doctrines of Chinese psychology, that the flight of the soul from the body is quite a voluntary affair, and due entirely to the obstinacy of the said soul,-the fruit of pure malice prepense. While it is meditating this clandestine exit, the friends of the dying man can, it seems, by proper importunity, by flattering suasives, or, if these will not do, more potent menaces, induce it to remain and sign a new lease; they may by due caution even block up its passage, and secure it from going forth; nay, if it has eluded their vigilance and fairly cut off, they can raise the hue and cry,' surround it, all viewless as it is, hedge up its

way, head it, and turn it back, like an obstinate pig, to its forsaken sty again! The following is M. Huc's description of this farce, which we should imagine it would be hard to parallel among any who, like the Chinese, have outgrown all faith in the very acts they are at the moment performing:—

Even in the last agony,' says M. Huc, all hope is not yet lost; and there is a method of making the soul take up its abode again in the unfortunate body that is struggling with death. They try first the effect of persuasion, and endeavour by prayers and supplications to induce the soul to change its resolution. They run after it; they conjure it to come back; they describe in the most moving terms the lamentable state to which they will be reduced if this obstinate soul will not hear reason. They tell it that the happiness of the entire family depends upon it; they urge it, flatter it, overwhelm it with entreaties. "Come back, come back!" they cry. "What have we done, what have we done to you? What motive can you have for going away? Come back, we conjure you." And as no one knows very well which way the soul is gone, they run in all directions, and make a thousand evolutions in the hope of meeting it, and softening it by their prayers and tears.

If these mild and insinuating methods do not succeed, if the soul remains deaf, and persists coolly in going its own way, they adopt another course, and try and frighten it. They utter loud cries; they let off fireworks suddenly in every direction in which they imagine it might be making off; they stretch out their arms to bar its passage, and push with their hands to force it to return home and reenter the body. Amongst those who set out on the chase after a refractory soul, there are always some more skilful than others, who manage to get upon its track. Then they summon the others to help them, calling out, "Here it is! here it is!" and immediately everybody runs that way. They then unite their forces; they concentrate their plan of operations; they weep, they groan, they lament; they let off squibs and crackers of all kinds; they make a frightful charivari round the poor soul, and hustle it about in all sorts of ways, so that if it does not give up at last, it must really be a most stubborn and ill-disposed spirit.

'When they are setting out on this strange errand, they never fail to take lanterns with them, in order to light the soul on its way back, and take away any pretence it might make of not being able to find it.' (Vol. ii. pp. 212, 213.)

One of the most striking traits of the educated Chinese mind is found in connexion with the grotesque forms which even Filial Affection,' — that corner-stone on which their whole polity is supposed to be based, can sometimes assume. In China, it appears, everything is capable of being reduced to rule and measure, etiquette and ceremony; even the manifestation of the affections is not beyond them; and an affectionate son may despatch to an affectionate mother whom