be the chief token. In this connexion are the following just and pungent remarks:

"Mind is the only thing which society cannot afford to lose. Let the fashion of the country look to it, that it does not become degraded before the eyes of all the world, by this illiberal exclusion. Show me a society where wealth, dress, and equipage, are the chief titles to advancement; from which the great body of the educated, reading and thinking men of the country are excluded, or choose to exclude themselves; and I shall not hesitate to say, that you show me a frivolous and vulgar society. Depend upon it, the conversation will become mean and insipid; and the manners will want the last graces of manner, ease and simplicity. Intellect, cultivated and spiritualized intellect, is the only true refiner." pp. 159, 160.

This last exposure of the national character is to "pusillanimity," or moral cowardice; and this he justly thinks is one of the greatest dangers and evils to which we are exposed. "Public opinion" is here a greater tyrant than any where else in the world; and the majority of the people are abject slaves to it. "If a man edits a newspaper, his choice is between bondage and beggary." In politics, he must go with his party, right or wrong. In religion, "he knows that there are errors in his adopted creed, faults in his sect, fanaticism and extravagance in some of its measures. See if you can get him to speak of them! See if you can get him to breathe a whisper of doubt!"

"I am not now advocating any particular opinions. I am only advocating a manly freedom in the expression of those opinions which a man does entertain. And if those opinions are unpopular, I hold that, in this country, there is so much the more need of an open and independent expression of them. Look at the case most seriously, I beseech you. What is ever to correct the faults of society, if nobody lifts his voice against them; if every body goes on openly doing what every body privately complains of; if all shrink behind the faint-hearted apology, that it would be over-bold in them to attempt any reform? What is to rebuke political timeserving, religious fanaticism, or social folly, if no one has the independence to protest against them? Look at it in a larger view. What barrier is there against the universal despotism of public opinion in this country, but individual freedom? ...

"Why is it, in fact, that the tone of morality in the high places of society, is so lax and complaisant, but for want of the independent and indignant rebuke of society? There is reproach enough poured upon the drunkenness, debauchery, and dishonesty of the poor man. The good people who go to him can speak plainlyay, very plainly, of his evil ways. Why is it, then, that fashionable vice is able to hold up its head, and sometimes to occupy the front

ranks of society? It is because respectable persons, of hesitating and compromising virtue, keep it in countenance. It is because timid woman stretches out her hand to the man whom she knows to be the deadliest enemy of morality and of her sex, while she turns a cold eye upon the victims he has ruined. It is because there is nobody to speak plainly in cases like these. And do you think that society is ever to be regenerated or purified under the influence of these unjust and pusillanimous compromises? I tell you never. So long as vice is suffered to be fashionable and respectable-so long as men are bold to condemn it only when it is clothed in rags, there will never be any radical improvement. You may multiply temperance societies, and moral reform societies; you may pile up statute books of laws against gambling and dishonesty; but so long as the timid homages of the fair and honored are paid to splendid iniquity, it will be all in vain. So long will it be felt, that the voice of the world is not against the sinner but against the sinner's garb. And so long, every weapon of association, and every batoon of office, will be but a missile feather against the leviathan, that is wallowing in the low marshes and stagnant pools of society." pp. 166-168.

The subject of "associations" for moral and social reform, is discussed calmly, candidly, and for the most part judiciously; the good, the evil, the liabilities to abuse, and the proper checks and restraints, are set forth with manly freedom and frankness; and will be likely to meet the approbation of most reflecting and enlightened persons, who have watched the history of society among us for the last dozen years. This is followed by a valuable discourse on "social ambition," the struggle for success and consideration in the world, its moral trials, and how they are to be met.

We are here obliged, by our limits, to dismiss Mr. Dewey's book. The remaining discourses in the volume come under the head of politics; we honor the spirit that breathes through them, though differing from the author in several particulars of opinion; and we hope to have occasion to advert to them hereafter in another connexion. We regret extremely that we have been compelled, contrary to our purpose, by want of space, to pass so much more cursorily than we intended over the portion of the work which we have noticed, and to omit many noble and eloquent passages we had marked for insertion. We conclude by commending the volume to the thoughtful perusal of our readers.

ART IX.-CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, in a letter to John Vaughan, Esq. BY PETER S. Du PONCEAU, LL. D., President of the American Philosophical Society, of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and of the Athenæum of Philadelphia; Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, etc., etc. To which are subjoined, a Vocabulary of the Cochin-Chinese Language, by Father JOSEPH MORRONE, Roman Catholic Missionary at Saigon; with references to plates, containing the characters belonging to each word, and with notes showing the degree of affinity existing between the Chinese and Cochin-Chinese Languages, and the use they respectively make of their common system of writing. By M. DE LA PALUN, late Consul of France at Richmond, in Virginia; and a Cochin-Chinese and Latin Dictionary in use among the Roman Catholic Missions in Cochin-China. Published by order of the American Philosophical Society, by their Historical and Literary Committee. Philadelphia: M'Carty & Davis. 1838.

ANY one who opens for the first time a Chinese book, is struck with the remarkable difference in the writing from that of any other nation. Instead of a multitude of short lines or groups, composed of a small number of letters frequently repeated, he observes a multitude of characters about a quarter of an inch in height, of strange and uncouth forms, arrayed in perpendicular columns, and apparently unconnected with one another. On demanding of even competent persons an explanation of this phenomenon, he will be told, that the Chinese language differs from ours in being not alphabetic, but idiographic; in other words, that these mysterious characters represent not sounds, but ideas. The character

7m

人

for instance, signifies man, and is pronounced jin; another, means son, and is called tseu. On further inquiry, he would be told, that the number of such characters in common use was upwards of ten thousand, besides some forty thousand which were either synonymous with these, or else obsolete or technical terms. He would be informed, moreover, that the entire stock of spoken words which serve for the pronunciation of these hieroglyphics, including the varieties of intonation, amounted to no more than fourteen hundred and fifty-five.

The very probable result of these investigations would be an opinion, that unlike other written languages, in Chinese the graphic system was the most important element of the language, and the spoken idiom was to be viewed merely as a useful appendage to it; in short, that as the characters represented ideas alone, and were wholly independent of sounds, they might with equal propriety receive any pronunciation we might choose to affix to them-just as the Arabic numerals are worded differently, though understood alike, among the nations of Europe. Thus, the character

for sun, is pronounced ji, in Chinese, but there seems to be no reason why it should not be worded bo, and if so, why not sol or soleil. From this point it would be easy to jump to the important conclusion, that we had at last discovered the great desideratum of an universal philosophic language, by which men of all nations could communicate with one another in writing-a system by which, as an enthusiastic missionary suggested, but a single version of the Bible would be required for the entire population of the globe. To strengthen the delusion, it was asserted by numerous writers, that the inhabitants of several countries on the borders of China, Japan, Corea, Cochin-China, etc., whose spoken languages differed greatly from one another, were yet able to communicate with one another, and with the Chinese, in the characters of the latter. This fact, attested by eye-witnesses, seemed to settle the question of the superiority of the Chinese system of writing over all others; and, accordingly, most authors who have spoken of this language, appear to have felt a kind of necessity for indulging in ecstacies over its peculiar and unsurpassed excellencies.

Mr. Du Ponceau, the range of whose inquiries has comprehended almost every subject connected with philology, could not allow a fact so important to pass without investigation. The exaggerated claims of the Chinese system inspired him with distrust as being contrary to the deductions of reason, and a careful review of the authorities on the subject convinced him that they were totally unfounded. In a conversatiou with Captain Basil Hall, in 1827, Mr. Du Ponceau took occasion, in reference to some remarks of the former in his Voyage to the Loo Choo Islands-to the effect that the natives of China, Corea, Japan, and Loo Choo, though speaking different languages, understood each other through the medium of common written characters-to express to him the contrary opinion which he had formed, and to support it by such arguments as had occurred to him. (Diss. p. 92.) Captain Hall was convinced of his error, and requested from Mr. Du Ponceau a statement of his views in writing, with which the latter readily complied. This statement, in the form of a letter, is published in the appendix to the present dissertation, and contains, in a condensed form, the reasons which led the author to believe that no two different idioms

can possess a written character in common; and, that if the Chinese does really serve as a means of communication for nations of different countries, (which he does not pretend to deny,) it is precisely as the Latin or French in Europe, and the Arabic in the East, subserve the same end-that is, it is acquired as a foreign language, in addition to the proper idiom of each country.

Captain Basil Hall, in his Travels in America, published these conclusions, but without the reasoning that led to them, and, as might have been expected, they were soon warmly assailed; first, in a harsh and illiberal article in the Canton Register for March, 1830, and soon after, more civilly, in the Voyage of Captain Beechy to Bheering's Straits; both writers asserting, from their personal knowledge, the incorrectness of Mr. Du Ponceau's views; and the former (who seems to have been inspired with some of the notions of the zealous missionary mentioned above) winding up his article with an earnest hope, that the fact might not lose its hold on the mind of any christian philanthropist by the arguments of Mr. Du Ponceau; thus, ingeniously managing to give a polemic turn to the discussion.

Matters were in this state when the American Philosophical Society, at the instance of its president, determined upon the publication of two Cochin-Chinese vocabularies, obtained in 1817, by Lieutenant White, from a catholic missionary, Father Joseph Morrone, at Saigon, and by him deposited with the Salem East India Society. The smallest of them appears to be the work of Morrone himself; it contains only three hundred and thirty-three words, to each of which the Cochin-Chinese character is annexed. The other, more voluminous, in Cochin-Chinese and Latin, is by an unknown hand, and wants the native characters. Both will be of great utility, not less to the traveller and missionary than to the philologist. Their publication appeared to Mr. Du Ponceau to offer a favorable opportunity for explaining and defending his opinions on the subject of the Chinese system of writing, and for sustaining them by proofs drawn from a cognate dialect like that of Cochin-China; for if two idioms, both monosyllabic, and very similar in their grammatical construction, could not employ a common written character, it would be evident, a fortiori, that languages polysyllabic and complicated in structure, like the Japanese and Loo Choo, would be altogether out of the question. Mr. Du Ponceau, therefore, procured the assistance of M. De la Palun, French consul at Richmond, a gentleman well versed in the Chinese language, and who undertook to compare each Cochin-Chinese word in the smaller vocabulary with the Chinese word represented by the same character. The result was, that notwithstanding the general similarity of the two idioms, the application of the particular signs was so different as to preclude the idea that words written in the one would be intelligible to a person acquainted only with the