circumference; the suburbs are four distinct towns about ten miles in length, and nearly the same in breadth; the population living on the waters is also very great. Lord Macartney passed through this beautiful city and fully confirms this statement: his boats were nearly three hours passing the suburbs before they reached the city walls. In one building-yard not less than sixteen vessels of two hundred tons each were observed on the stocks. The intelligent and adventurous Mr. Fortune, agent for the Horticultural Society, whom I had the pleasure to meet in the north of China, and to accompany to Ningpo, attempted to enter the city, but without success. The French Government were anxious to learn some information on the mulberry and silk manufacture; and a M. Isidore Hedde traversed the city in a silk dress, and was not discovered. He visited the Mint and all the public buildings, examined the great and extensive manufacturing locality in the western portion of the city, where there are manufac tures of iron, ivory, bone, gold, silver, glass, paper, cotton, and silk; and saw them making that beautiful silk called Keh Sz,' the knowledge of which is confined to Suchaw. M. Hedde says it surpasses anything known in Europe in its representation of figures and flowers: he ascended the Tiger-nose Hill pagoda, from whence he had a good view of the town, the fortifications, the great imperial canal, rivers, streams, and pools which intersect the city; at the foot of the hill he saw beautiful shops of every description."

This enterprising traveller then passed along the imperial canal "among elegant boats conducted by young girls richly dressed, and having their heads decked with gold and flowers, and among several junks laden with the imperial revenues:" he visited every place he could reach, and managed to acquaint himself with the various ingenious methods in use for the adaptation of the silk to its ultimate purposes. From this account, though somewhat desultory, an idea may be gathered of the condition and appearance of a Chinese city of the first magnitude.

We cannot close these volumes without reminding our readers that they will find in them that melancholy cause of strife and misery, "the opium question," fully treated. The government of Hong Kong, we are sorry to find, has given a sanction to a traffic in this accursed drug by licensing shops for its sale. Mr. Martin will inform his readers what these

shops are. He did himself honour by entering his protest against this measure; and, in his indignant remonstrance against the inconsistency of a government professing Christianity permitting or conniving at such a trade as this, he breaks through the conventional style of the official secretary, and expresses himself with a warmth which the subject well merits.

Our own opinion has ever been that the smuggling of

opium into China was an iniquitous traffic; that the emperor was perfectly justified by every law human and divine in resisting it; and that we cannot hope for any blessing on our efforts to improve the moral and religious condition of this vast empire so long as we authoritatively either sanction or suffer it. At the same time, the difficulties of just legislation are considerably enhanced by the fact that the principal opium smokers are the mandarins themselves, and that some of the highest Tartar authorities share in the cupidity, which sets principle at defiance for the sake of the profits of this smuggling traffic.

China is truly a wondrous country, and its inhabitants a wondrous people. Possessed of a traditional history as old as any in the world, they occupy a high place amongst the ancient nations of the earth: preserving their civilization from the earliest periods down to the present time unbroken, they are as remarkable for their superior enlightenment in the general darkness of the middle ages as for the tenacious spirit of isolation which has left them behind in the progress of modern times. They date their political existence from Fo-hi, whom Shuckford, in "in his "Connection of Sacred and Profane History," supposes to be identical with Noah, and trace their kings successively through the several dynasties to which they have been subject to the present period. Marco Polo bears ample testimony to the greater enlightenment and advanced condition of the Chinese in the useful arts of life in the time of Kublai Khan; and the productions of the little known but far-famed "Kathay," as they reached our fathers, though they increased the fabulous mystery with which it was surrounded, afforded positive proof of its civilization. The polity of China has been in principle the same from the time that the great Indian family received its instructions from the immediate descendants of Noah until now, and has only been modified or perverted to suit the despotic temper of her governors. The ancient form of government was the patriarchal-one in every way admirably fitted for man in the earlier stages of his social condition-one at all times involving a beautiful principle of divine truth. Divested of the interpretation which despotism has put upon it, this principle is still to be seen in the Confucian system: and if the Chinese rulers were as ready to fulfil the duty of the parent as to exact the obedience of the child, it is not improbable that the world might see a wondrous illustration of a heavenly principle in its application to the wants and welfare of four hundred million of living beings. It is the accidents, and not

the principle, that render the social idea of a family impracticable in a State polity. It seems almost impossible, in the present evil condition of our nature, to place the destinies of many men in the hands of one, to make their welfare dependent on his will, and at the same time give a guarantee that he shall neither control the one nor mar the other for his own interests or at his own pleasure. Of this truth China is a striking proof.

The

She has now, however, felt the power of the spirit who will lay his hand upon every ancient institution and cause his voice to be heard in the remotest regions of the earth. Innovation has passed over the hitherto impenetrable threshold of Chinese isolation, to break up, and, perhaps, destroy. days will now full surely come when this vast empire must take her place with other nations, and either exist for a while by marching with the progress of the hour, or fall to pieces in the struggle of a senile system with the fresher life of modern theories. This is of God's permission and for the furtherance of his own wondrous purposes; and we think it becomes a consideration of paramount importance-what we are to do?-who have been plainly made the instrument in his hand, in opening the little door of entrance through which in due course so many mighty moral agents must ultimately pass. Good and Christian men will be ready enough with suggestions and schemes of benevolence and missionary labours; but these will hardly provide for the case. The exigency is one that cannot be met by desultory and individual efforts it is a matter worthy a nation's consideration and requires a labour worthy a nation's effort: it is the proper part of the Church to find missionaries, and the proper office of the State to respect and honour them in their work. Nothing can meet the cold ethics of Confucian deism—nothing can destroy the unclean superstitions of Buddhism-but the vital truth of Christianity in all its heavenly warmth and purity, and this is a blessing worthy a nation's hand to carry. From the far east came the magi with their presents to the infant Jesus in his lowly dwelling-fitting it were that now the kings of the west should take back the gifts of him who is Lord and Christ to the benighted regions which have forgotten his name. It would be well, therefore, if, as God may give the opportunity, our own Government would vindicate its Christian standing; and, by every means in its power, both countenance the ministers of Christ's Church in preaching his truth wherever it has rule, and sternly resist and condemn every practice over which it has controul which puts that truth to shame.

The moral destinies of so large a portion of mankind is a subject of deep importance. It seems clear that our future intercourse with them will exercise a considerable influence over these destinies, and it must be equally clear to every religious man that England is not permitted to hold the position which she occupies for her own exclusive advantage. She has learned God's way to little purpose if she does not understand that power and responsibility go together-that no talent is rightly employed which does not minister the blessing it was intended to convey, and no position is acquired which does not bring with it fresh duties to fulfil. It may be an object of intense interest with the merchant to know, when new possessions come into our power, what cotton may be required and what market is open; but the higher object is to learn to what greater interests commerce may be subservient, and of what greater good she may be the precursor. We trust and hope this higher object is slowly finding a place for consideration in the national mind. Our foreign policy has lately been characterised by forbearance under much provocation; and, though there are many things in our intercourse with heathen nations of which we may be justly ashamed, there are others for which we may give God thanks. A spirit of consideration for their weakness, and a desire for their moral and social improvement, have accompanied and, in some measure, atoned for the love of gain and speculative enterprize which has carried us amongst them. European civilization is generally fatal to the health, and even the social welfare, of the savage who comes into contact with it, because of the vices that follow in its train. In the case of China, however, it is otherwise: it is not civilization that she needs so much as knowledge and wisdom for its right regulation; she will probably listen to the truth, but she will also ask for example as well as precept: she is happily, from her previous knowledge, in some measure fortified against the vice of the unfaithful Christian: we can only pray that she may not be equally hardened, through his wickedness, against the blessing and the truth which the faithful ones of God would carry to her.

78

ART. III.-Diary in France, mainly on Topics concerning Education and the Church. By CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D., Canon of St. Peter's, Westminster. Second Edition. London.

IF we may form an opinion concerning the most permanent of the most popular tastes for books, by an examination of the particular kinds of the supply (which always at least pre-supposes, though erroneously enough, as so many authors could. tell us, a corresponding demand), we should conclude they were for novels and books of travels, and both these, with few exceptions-apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto-are equally longlived. When however, to omit the novels, it is considered what an amount of talent has so often been applied to the composition of books of voyages and travels, it does seem a little remarkable that so few of them have become classics. A book of travels, which was published a few years ago, is looked upon with little more favour than an almanac, or newspaper, or magazine, of the same date. We suppose that the last new claimant, having borrowed everything that was really valuable from the older, pushes it aside, as the last geographical dictionary ought to be more perfect than the last but one, having freely plundered it of everything that was permanently valuable, and added to these spoils some few novelties, to justify the author in claiming for it the name of an original work. It must be admitted, however, that such books as consist chiefly of written descriptions, however accurately and beautifully executed, of external objects, whether of nature or art, cannot demand, with any show of fairness, to supersede other similar attempts; for such subjects are matters of varying taste. A written description of works of art or scenery is not like a picture, which, if done by an accomplished artist, is generally sufficiently accurate to exclude the necessary novelty for another such expensive undertaking. But anybody who can examine and write can describe, so as to please anybody, except the few. And thus it is that a new traveller on his return home (if he has travelled so as to see half what he describes), having surrounded himself with the works of his predecessors, compiles a book with sufficient novelty to arrest the popular attention, and to set aside an older one which would, however, have probably paid the reader a far better remuneration for his time and attention. No reader of this kind of literature will deny the general accuracy of this statement-that the only valuable portion of some of these books is what has evidently been purloined