ass, the horse-mule, the horse-camel, rice-millet, rice-sugar, gemjasper, gem-agate, metal-silver, metal-copper, metal-iron, &c. A distinct denomination for every object belonging to the three kingdoms could be formed after this manner. Thousands of terms have been thus compounded, and thousands more may be constructed in the same way; for the process whereby they are created, and which is strictly analogous to the principle of the Linnæan nomenclature, is one which cannot be exhausted by repetition; and from this simple sketch it may be conceived how much aid the understanding and memory may gain by the employment of signs of this rational nature in a subject of such immense compass, in which order and method constitute the first pledge of the progress of studies and the advancement of knowledge.

I have observed that, in order to exhibit fully the advantages of compounding characters conformably to the principles which I have just explained, it would suffice to collect and classify them with reference merely to their common radicals. From this simple arrangement, in fact, the very ideas appear which regulated the formation of the compound signs, which ideas frequently coincide with such as intelligent naturalists might acknowledge and adopt as a basis for their arrangements. This may be observed by a glance at even the modern dictionaries, although the written language of China has undergone alterations of all kinds, and admitted many irregularities, which have affected the nomenclature of natural objects, as well as other parts of the language. In turning over the leaves of the commonest of these works, adapted to the use, not of scholars or naturalists, but of persons who have a tincture of letters, we easily recognize genuine natural families, imperfect undoubtedly, and founded upon inaccurate views, imperfect observation, and an unphilosophical analysis, but which, nevertheless, discover, almost always, a judicious design, sound, and sometimes ingenious conclusions. In tracing a rapid sketch of the system, we shall exhibit, with equal fidelity, the traces of ignorance which denote the infancy of the art, and the rational approximations which betoken the efforts of an enlightened intellect and a certain degree of sagacity.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

First Family.—Animals resembling the dog, carnivorous. At the head of this family is placed the dog itself, which serves as its type. Many varieties of the dog, distinguished by size, quality of hair, habitude, follow in the arrangement. Joined thereto are the leopard, fox, lion, wolf, cat, a species of bear, the glutton, bat, weazel, seal, otter, and also, with less propriety, the chief species of the ape, and some of the swine genus.

Second Family.-Animals of a lank form, analogous to the panther. Some carnivorous animals named in the preceding family re-appear in this, by a kind of duplicate denomination, which arises partly from the external analogy observable between the images, as well as from the real resemblance which these animals mutually bear to each other: such as the wild dog, and several varieties of the wolf and fox, the lion, the wild cat, the leopard, the

panther, the oriental tapir, the wild boar, the badger, the flying-squirrel, the glutton, the jackal, certain amphibious and other mammiferous animals, whose ferocity seems to form the common feature which distinguishes this family.

Third Family.-Tigers. The tiger itself, distinguished by its striped skin, is the type of this family, which is made to comprehend several varieties or species little known, some of which appear to be imaginary.

Fourth Family-Rats. Almost all gnawing animals, and such others as approximate to that class in form or habits, constitute this family, at the head of which is the rat itself, and the numerous species resembling that animal. It consequently includes the mouse, the squirrel, the water-rat, the musk-rat, the shrew-mouse, and likewise the flying-squirrel, the dormouse, the sable, the souslik, the mole, and, moreover, the mammoth, which, through a fabulous tradition borrowed from the Tartars, the Chinese take to be an enormous kind of rat, which lives under-ground, and dies as soon as it sees the light of day.

Fifth Family.-Sheep. The ram is the type of this family, and with it are arranged the goat, the antelope, and the numerous species and varieties of small ruminants with simple horns, which exist in the east of Asia, several of which are not found in our part of the world.

Sixth Family-Oxen. Along with the ox, the type of this family, are classed the large ruminants, with simple horns, which most resemble it; the buffalo, the hairy bull, the yak, and likewise the rhinoceros, which, in the modern writing, has lost the simple sign which represented it in the ancient vocabulary of images.

Seventh Family-Stags, or ruminants with ramous horns, namely, after the stag, the hind and the fawn, the unicorn (a fabulous animal), the deer, the musk-animal, the elk, the wild-goat, and many other like animals, whose synonymes we shall not now stop to examine.

Eighth Family-Horses. The mare, mule, ass, wild horse, and wild ass, with which the camel has been associated, on account of its habits, constitute this family, which is extremely numerous by reason of the varieties of horses which graze on the plains of Tartary, and which have, from time immemorial, attracted the attention of the Chinese.

Ninth Family-Swine. The varieties of this genus, the wild-boar, to which, by a remarkable approximation, two thick-hided animals have been added, namely the elephant and the rhinoceros, would have made a completely natural family, if it had not included the porcupine, a species of bear, and the glutton.

Tenth Family-Birds were primitively distinguished, by the orthography of the names assigned them, into short-tailed birds and long-tailed birds. This puerile distinction, however, has been banished from the modern writing, and the dictionaries now contain only one family of characters for this class of animals, one of the most numerous in China, because it is one of those which the natives have better opportunities of studying.

Eleventh Family.-Chelonians. These animals have a primitive sign,

which occurs in the names of different species of the tortoise. But the resemblance of the images has caused some to be transferred to the family of the Batracians: this is merely a matter of orthography.

Twelfth Family-Batracians. The frog and the toad, for the reason I have just stated, are found blended in the dictionaries with certain tortoises, oysters, and spiders. But the character frog nevertheless exists as a type, and is placed at the head of the Batracian family.

Thirteenth Family.-Fishes, primitively distinguished into oblong fish, and fish of rounded form, now constitute a single class, characterized by one radical element. Besides fishes properly so called, the Chinese, through an error common to other languages besides their own, have included in this class the names of many marine or aquatic animals foreign to it, as cetacei, crocodiles, lobsters, crabs, some of the molluscæ, and even the pangolin, which has nothing in common with fish but the scales with which it is covered.

Fourteenth Family.-Insects. The inventors of the ancient writing had conceived two typical characters for the inferior animals; one designated those with feet, and the other those without, that is, reptiles. The latter alone subsists, and is employed to denote every species of animal belonging to the lowest classes of animal life, as well as certain vertebrated animals, whose vermicular shape approximates to that of worms, or which, by their disgusting aspect, are assimilated to insects. Hence we find in the section of characters deduced from the image of insect, besides insects properly so called, worms and zoophytes, most of the lizard and serpent tribes, crabs, testaci, small species of frogs and toads, the hedge-hog, the bat, some molluscæ, such as the cuttle-fish, and almost all the conchyliferi. This is, in short, the most numerous and most irregular family of any which a mere inspection of the characters allows us to form of the animals known by the Chinese.

VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

First Family.-Herbs. All herbaceous plants have a common image, and the names formed from this image are very numerous. The only herbs which can be separated are those which, by virtue of a special character, have been allowed the distinction of forming separate families, as we shall see presently.

Second Family. -Trees. Plants with a woody stem are likewise characterized by a common radical. Their number is about half that of the herbaceous plants.

Third Family.-Reeds. The bamboo, which is applied to so many different purposes in China, and is very much cultivated there, has produced a vast number of varieties, which have obtained as many different names. Besides these varieties, there have been included in this family certain vegetables which, owing to their height and texture, seemed to hold a middle rank between herbs and trees, such as rushes and certain palms.

Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Families.-Corn-plants, and those analogous to rice, barley, and millet. Four primitive radical images originated as many series of signs, amongst which are the names of all the Asiat. Jour.N.S.VOL. 9.No.34.

grasses. Many repetitions and superfluous distinctions occur in these four families with this qualification, the four families together form one, which is a natural family, and ought to be retained in all classifications.

Eighth Family. Leguminous Plants.-These have the dolichos for their type, which sign occurs in the characters assigned to all the species of the same family, beans, haricots, pease, &c.

Ninth Family-Cucurbitaceous plants. They have, for their primitive character, the image of a gourd suspended from the branches of trees. All the derivatives of this picturesque sign are names of pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, and other similar plants.

Tenth Family.-Alliaceous plants. This is a small family, the type of which is the allium oderum, which, from the remotest antiquity, has been represented by a simple image. A dozen species and varieties of the garlic, the onion, and the leek, are designated by characters derived from this image.

Eleventh Family.-Plants analogous to the hemp. This is a very limited family, which owes its existence solely to the utility of the plant which constitutes its type, which, from the earliest times, has had the advantage of being figured by a simple character.

THE MINERAL KINGDOM.

First Family-Gems. The type of this family is the celebrated yu stone, or jade of the Himalaya mountains. This sign has served as radical to the names of all hard, transparent, or translucent stones, or such whose properties and uses made them articles of value. There have been added, madreporites, factitious stones, glass, amber, coral, pearls, tortoiseshell, &c.

Second Family-Stones. With the radical image, which signifies 'stone,' or rock,' are written the names of rocks, sand, gravel, pebbles, flints, whet-stones, mill-stones, calcareous spars, and in general of all substances which, not possessing lustre or translucence, or not being susceptible of a polish, are reputed inferior to gems. It is employed in like manner in respect to the names of some substances of a metallic nature, which, in ancient times, the Chinese were ignorant of the art of recompounding, as realgar and orpiment, the loadstone, cinnabar, and minerals of all kinds; of certain saline substances, as nitre, borax, alum, vitriol, sal ammoniac; of sulphur and some others; whence we find that the radical stone becomes in reality the equivalent of our term mineral, when it enters into the formation of compound characters.

Third Family.-Earths. With the image of earth, are written the names of the different kinds of vegetable soils, of substances which have the appearance of mud or dust, clay, chalk, porcelain-earth. This family of signs is not so abundant as it might be, because most substances of this nature have received characters formed with the image of stone or mineral. Fourth Family-Salts. The radical image appropriated to common salt has given birth to some characters which denote the different properties of this substance. The very name of salt has been attributed to some other compounds, as ammoniac, sulphate of copper, &c. This family is by no

means numerous, for the same reason which has been assigned for the paucity of the preceding family.

Fifth Family.-Metals. Gold is the type of this family; after which follow, in order, the names of the other metals known by the Chinese, of their minerals, oxides, and alloys, natural and artificial.

In closing this sketch, it must be recollected, that we are not now considering any methodical or systematic arrangement contrived by naturalists, in order to classify the objects they wished to describe; but a mere distribution of signs of writing, corresponding to the words of the ordinary language, brought together according to their orthograpby, and classed by lexicographers solely with a view of facilitating and expediting the search for them. It cannot have escaped observation, that, in this composition of signs, there are certain scientific ideas, whence this remarkable classification arises, as it were, spontaneously; and it may be asserted that there exists no other language in the world, the words of which, taken intrinsically and quite independent of definition or accessary explanation, could afford even to the vulgar such just notions of the natural affinities of things. This results from the figurative nature of the characters, which has not been adequately appreciated; and we ought, perhaps, to give some weight to this circumstance, in the speculative comparisons we are often so fond of instituting betwixt writing which is adapted to represent speech, and that which is immediately directed to the painting of ideas. From what has been just stated, it may be concluded, as a matter of course, that persons who could avail themselves of signs so judiciously contrived and including within themselves a principle of order and the elements of analysis, would have been led to perfect in their scientific labours what the mere etymology of the characters suggested to them. Without denying the decided superiority of the Chinese, in this respect, over the other nations of Asia, we are compelled, at the same time, to acknowledge, that they have not derived all the advantage they could have done from the materials furnished by their written language; and that the naturalists of China have not made the progress they might have made in the course traced out for them by the lexicographers.

[To be concluded next month.]

priests of fŎh-he.

A WRITER in the Canton Register, referring to our review* of Padre Serra's "Notices of China," printed in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. III. Part I., remarks on the new and unfounded expression" used in the review, of Priests of Fuh-he, doubting whether it is a misprint, or it arises from ́some erroneous idea of the subject." This" new and unfounded expression," whether correct or not, is as commonly used as that of Budha priests. It occurs, for example, repeatedly, in Sir George Staunton's translation of the Code of China, in the text as well as the notes.

Vol. v. p. 263.