or goes out of his way to gather knots of flowers; but contents himself with unfolding to the reader's eye the quiet landscape of his own thoughts, fields in highest culture, gentle undulations, and fertile intervals covered with crops, and interspersing trees, with here and there a majestic mountain, uplifting itself in the distance. You see nothing that is tame, barren, or trite, but art and nature smiling and contented in each other's arms. He does not seize you by main strength (as Carlyle sometimes seizes some of his readers), and force you away to the summit of some Alpine peak, where your ears are stunned with the din of waterfalls, and your head made dizzy by looking into unfathomable depths; nor does he, like the same gigantic author, have you away before resistance is possible, to the gloom of interminable German forests, where every stream that you meet is liable to start up at any moment, a mischievous disturber of your journey, and where the very caves of the earth are luminous with the eyes of goblins of various characters, some beckoning you towards them, some vociferating their curses in unearthly accents, and some curling their lips in bitter, though uncouth irony, at you and your benighted condition. CarÏyle, though an excellent moral teacher, has so little patience with the faults of others, there is so much of the scorner in him, that his best friends are apt to wish that he would try to learn forbearance. Talfourd, on the other hand, is gentle as summer. The one is colossal, the other has also his colossal proportions, but they are relieved by the mild and softening effect of distance.

We have already alluded to the gradual growth of Talfourd's mind. This is another of the characterizing traits of genius. Whoever takes up his volume of prose compositions, cannot fail to be struck with the steady progression that marks the several offspring of his mind. In his article entitled Recollections of Lisbon," there is a diffuseness of style, a tendency, I had almost said an effort, to spread himself over a large surface, that gives anything but a favorable impression of the writer's powers. It is impossible to discover from the volume when

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this piece was written, but it must have been either at an early period, or if lately written, the author had certainly fallen back into the style of his youth on recurring to scenes which he visited so long ago. It is so different in style and conception from the article " On the profes sion of the bar," that the most careful examination can scarcely detect that they sprung from the same fountain, His speeches in Parliament on the "Law of Copyright"-his powerfully adroit defence of Moxon, prosecuted by the Queen, for a libel against God and Religion, in the publishing of Shelley's works, in which he weaves over the subject a web of sophistry, artful enough to have done honor to Cicero-are among the most splendid exhibitions of his oratorical genius, in its ripest maturity and highest stretch of invention.

He is essentially a delightful moralizer as well as a respectable politician, a successful lawyer, and a poet, in one department at least, the most accomplished of his time. Witness that sweet fugitive

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Chapter upon Time," where the author's imagination soars upwards as if by its own natural flight, until the reader, in following him, is lost behind the curtains of other worlds. The other essayist, who is bound up with Talfourd, in the present volume, has been long before the public, and the name of James Stephen is not among the last that are of note among British essayists. Even Talfourd need not be ashamed of such company. One word more upon our favorite and we will bid him adieu. He possesses that happy combination of domestic qualities, so rarely to be met with among men of genius, which endears him to a large circle of friends, and gives to the roof-tree and the hearth-stone the sacredness of a father's superintending love. Sweet poet, kind, yet formidable critic, a prop of the constitution, and a pillar of the throne, his head crowned with a chaplet, woven from the best virtues, public and private, that ever graced our common nature-may that calm lip and contemplative brow long linger with us, like a summer twilight, and that gentle, though heroic spirit, breathe itself out at last like that of its own Ion, upon the altar of his beloved country!

CHINA, although it has been long known in its general features, has recently, from the concurrence of circumstances, attracted to itself the special attention of foreign nations. Occupying, with Tartary, a territorial domain more extensive than the whole of Europe, and embracing within its jurisdiction a population, which, notwithstanding the conflicting statistical calculations that we derive from various sources, may be estimated at about four hundred millions; its actual condition involves the fortunes of one-third of the human race. So great an interest has, in fact, been manifested regarding this extraordinary nation, that collections have been brought into our own country which were made at a great expense in various parts of the empire, exhibiting the costumes of various ranks, the mansions, vessels, temples, tombs, bridges, shops, paintings, utensils, and manufactures of the country, and indeed of everything which shows the real character of the people. A museum of this kind was opened in Philadelphia, in the year 1839, and after being exhibited there for a short time, was removed to the city of London. But the magnificent cabinet of this sort which is now in Boston, is probably the most extensive in the world, and contains everything of importance relating to that singular nation. There is another consideration which makes the condition of China an interesting topic to us at the present time, and this is the negotiation of a commercial treaty between our own government and that empire, placing the commerce of the Union, that has been heretofore subjected to capricious and oppressive exactions in the Chinese ports, upon an equal footing with that of the most favored nations. It is our design, in the present article, aided by numerous works which have been published upon the subject, to enter into a somewhat extended consideration of this nation, the condition of the people, and the character of the institutions.

The territory of China is divided into eighteen provinces, extending from north to south a distance of about twelve hundred geographical miles, and but a little short of that distance from east to west.

Peculiarly favored in point of climate, it is to this circumstance that we may attribute the fact, that the people are admitted to be the most industrious, wellordered and intelligent, of any of the Asiatic nations. It is watered by two principal rivers-the Yang-tse Keang, and the Yellow River--which flow through the central part of the territory and its most salubrious climates, and being inferior in size only to the Amazon and the Mississippi, they are peculiarly favorable to navigation by steamboats. Besides the position of the eastern part of the empire upon the sea-coast, which affords to that portion a foreign commerce to an almost unlimited extent, it possesses a vast inland trade, which is prosecuted upon the Imperial Canal, extending from a point near Pekin through the interior for a distance of six hundred geographical miles, and the various waters by which the country is intersected. Its soil although unequal in fertility is sufficiently productive, with industry, to maintain its teeming population, and it is understood that about twothirds are under cultivation. The principal agricultural staple is rice, which is the chief support of the populationthe soil, by artificial forcing, being made to produce two or three crops during the year. The common garden vegetables in use with us, may also be produced, but little attention is expended upon their cultivation; it yields also, to some extent, the species of cotton for which the country has been long celebrated. Silk, another principal staple of the empire-although of course not an agricultural product, yet deriving its existence in a great measure from the soil-has long been produced, as is well known, to a considerable amount, the. provinces of Che-keang, Keang-nan, Hoope and Sze-chuen, being peculiarly favorable for the production of fine silk.

The actual condition of China appears to have been but partially known to the people of ancient times. The Arabs first gave us a distinct account of the country, but it is to Marco Polo, a Venetian, who visited the court of Cublai-Khan, the Sovereign of the Tartars and Emperor of China, about the year 1271, that we derive the most satisfactory information of the empire-this traveler being re

garded as the most authentic writer of his age respecting that region. The Catholic missionaries, who-whatever may have been their motives, and we do not design to discuss them here appear to have been the advance-guard of civilization in our north-western wilderness, early penetrated to the interior of the empire, even to Pekin; and from their urbanity and practical acquisitions, were received into imperial favor, and some of them resided within the circle of the court. It is from the journals of these missionaries that we obtain our most satisfactory knowledge concerning the early condition of the government; and we are designing to draw some important light from that source, during the progress of the present paper.

During the year 1546, the Portuguese made their first appearance in Canton, for the purpose of trade; and about the middle of the sixteenth century they established themselves at Macao, with the privilege of self-government, for the consideration of five hundred taels per annum, by the way of ground-rent-a residence which is continued to the present time. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth in 1546, the English also first made an attempt to establish a permanent trade with China, but the vessels which they dispatched were wrecked on their way out, and in consequence of the intrigues of the Portuguese, their commercial projects, as well as those of the East India Company, were unsuccessful, until somewhere about the beginning of the last century. The gradual increase of the trade of China with Great Britain, until it finally exceeded that of any other nation, at length induced the Embassy of Lord Macartney, which was dispatched from England during the year 1792, in the Lion, a sixty-four gun ship. It was the design of this expedition, to extend if possible the commerce of Great Britain with China to other ports besides Cauton, to rescue it from the exactions which it had endured from the caprice of the local officers of the sea-ports, and to place the interests of British trade upon a more liberal, certain, and solid footing, in reference to the local government of Canton, which maintained the same oppres sive and capricious policy that has mark ed their course down to the last invasion of their territory by a British fleet. This Embassy, which succeeded in advancing to Pekin, and in conciliating the local government, was upon the whole attend

ed with favorable results. It was followed up soon after by a letter from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor, with presents; and with letters and presents also from the Ministers and from the Chairman of the East India Company to the Viceroy. Notwithstanding that Embassy, however, interruptions to British commerce were resumed, in consequence of the caprice or corruption of the local government. The continuance of the obstacles which were presented in the port of Canton to fair trade, induced the Embassy of Lord Amherst, which was dispatched in 1816, but having proceeded to the interior, it appears to have been suddenly checked in consequence of the refusal on the part of the British Ambassador to perform the prostrations which were required-a point either of etiquette or of homage, which has been generally strenuously exacted by the Court from the Envoys of foreign nations.

Meanwhile our own commerce with China was commenced in 1784, and it has been gradually increasing, so that at the present time the number of American vessels employed in the trade is second to that of Great Britain only.

The mode in which China was first colonized is unknown. According to the opinion of Sir William Jones, the Empire was originally peopled in part from India; but that opinion appears to be entirely conjectural. The Tartars, who now comprise a considerable part of the population, have recently become more especially mingled with the original Chinese inhabitants since the accession of the Mantchou Tartar dynasty to the imperial throne. In forming a judgment respecting the character of the people, it must be remembered that they are not to be estimated by those tests which we apply to the civilized nations of the West. They are distinct in their principles, character and institutions. They are in their essential traits, Orientials—the loyal and self-satisfied subjects of an Asiatic despotismidolators in religion, recognizing in no form the system of Christianity as a nation-docile, quiet, pacific, and effeminate, with habits of industry and even ingenuity in material enterprise, not common among more civilized states-vain of their empire as the most ancient and populous upon the globe, and from long habit regarding all other nations as subordinate to them in dignity and power.

In the first place, the social divisions of the population are peculiar, and indicate