written in Chinese by himself. The Latin translation had taught him its meaning, and, turned into English, was strained. to his purpose. In AMIOT's note it is thus expressed: CHOU POU TSIN YEN POU TSIN Y Libri non exhauriunt verba, verba non exhauriunt ideas. The words which introduce his quotation are these: Je sais que le suffrage des vrais savans et des gens de bien les en dédommage; mais un missionnaire doit tojours être incon solable de se voir cité dans des ouvrages de ténèbres et mensonges? LETTRE SUR LES CARACTERES CHINOIS, p. 46. —There are two circumstances of disguise attending this motto, which, taken together, deserve to be noticed. One is, that Dr. Montucci hath changed the terms that signify the sounds to Xù pú çin yên pú çin yi; and the other, that as a substitution for the characters of AMIOT, he has given forms of his own just as horse-stealers, to escape detection, disfigure the manes and tails of the steeds they make off with. But what on this occasion says Dr. Montucci? Wincing under the charge of plagiarism, the doctor makes one more effort to relieve his withers, by adding that he had taken it from AMIOT, without any servile copying by transparencies, as may be seen by collating them? Does the doctor then affect the execration in Toм THUMB? Cursed be the man that first a simile made, and liken'd things that are not like at all!-Does he set himself up for a better judge of Chinese than Amiet himself? We think this claim will not be readily granted, and therefore that the distinction between a mere copier and an author that copies, will only make him ridi

culous.

By way of a lure to conciliate subscribers, the doctor vouchsafes to hint, that the exemplification of these small characters was besides materially necessary to him, for an intended publication of a Chinese New Testament, which he had been requested to undertake.'-How long are the unsuspecting to be entrapped by such pious pretences? From an error of MUNGO PARK-who appears to have mistaken the Prophecies of Isaiah for

الاخيل لعيسي the Gospel of Jesus

for the conversion of Mahomedan negroes hath, we hear, been projected. But, besides his Chinese New Testament,' our doctor hath been requested to undertake a Chinese Dictionary,' and, in compliance with these solicitations, hath actually compiled a folio page of 126 Chinese characters, both large and small, wherein every phrase is furnished with proper small characters, though all manuscript dictionaries in London (Mr. Raper's not excepted) give only one large character at the head of each article. This specimen was seen, before the appearance of the Reviews here alluded to, by many characters eminent in literature, of whom he is not willing to introduce the names: but as to its existence, he refers the skep

tic to the following London booksellers-Mr. Davies, Mr. Sewell, and Mr. Hood.'

(

As to the many characters EMINENT IN LITERATURE who have seen this specimen,' it is rather singular that not one has ventured his name to approve it; and in respect to the attestation of the booksellers, we do not require it; for their rejection of the project it was meant to recommend is sufficient to evince it existed.

'Dr. Montucci, in conclusion, begs to be excused, if there is any thing in this answer that is rather poignant; and on reflecting how immoderate the Reviewers have been in that respect, and that they are besides on the wrong side of the question, the doctor thinks the following Apologue, communicated to him by Mr. Jossr, Spanish professor, very pertinent, and begs leave to finish his answer with it.

The LEECH and the VIPER.

The VIPER meeting the LEECH, after other conversation, the former introduced a complaint on the very unequal success of their species, in the familiarity with mankind. She observed to the LEECH, that while their instinct was the very same, viz. that of biting and sucking human blood, yet the human race took so much notice of LEECHES, and shunned the very sight of a VIPER.It is very true,' replied the LEECH, but it is not so much to be wondered at, when we reflect that, although we both suck human blood, I give life to man, and you instant death.'

That we are on the wrong side of the question, is a decision of Dr. Montucci's in his own case; and as such we shall say nothing of it: that we have been immoderate in our treatment of him, we deny; for we shall ever deem it a duty to detect the insufficiency and repress the arrogance of conceited sciolists and unqualified pretenders. Instead of remarking on the absurdity of a SUCKING Viper (for perhaps in Spain and Italy vipers may suck), we will refer the doctor to a biting one: he will find it in the fable of The Viper and File.

Dr. Montucci having made common cause with Dr. Hager and ourselves, both in his Answer and Postscript, notwithstanding the replies of the latter in The Monthly Magazine, we are compelled to notice the strictures of the former.

Dr. Hager is charged with having copied the 214 Elements from FOURMONT, and then maligned for their want of resemblance to those he copied from. Had not Dr. Montucci been a stranger to what had passed in Germany relative to Dr. Hager's Chinese Dictionary, he would have known that the Elements in question were not taken from Fourmont, but from Chinese originals in the royal library at Berlin: till therefore the

censurer shall have shown their dissimilitude by collation, we will presume the likeness to be perfect, and the rather from their having been made by the assistance of transparent paper-a method which Dr. Montucci, in his dashing style, so vauntingly reprobates. Sore at having been called a plagiarist in The Monthly Magazine, the doctor thus breaks out: And what name then must Dr. Hager deserve, who after having inaccu rately copied his 214 Elementary Characters, or Keys from Fourmont's Meditationes, far from mentioning this circumstance in his work, has contemptibly styled the learned and classical eloquence of that extraordinary genius verbosity, as to exhaust the patience of every inquirer ?-What a tasteless dunce is Dr. Hager, to have formed his judgement of style from a Sallust and Tacitus, rather than such writers as Fourmont and Montucci !— In reference to the crimination this apostrophe contains, how would the charge of plagiarism, if fixed on Dr. Hager, contribute in the least to exonerate himself? But these 214 Elements are of such a nature, that the compiler of a Primer might as well be expected to cite whence he took the alphabet it begins with, as Dr. Hager to quote an authority for the Keys.

Dr. Hager' is said, by an unaccountable anachronism of many ages, to have passed from the characters Chuen-tsu (his half Portuguese and half French pron.) to the Tsao-tsu (his French pron.) and totally omits speaking of this interesting epoch and style of writing. To this charge it is enough to reply, that Dr. Hager's work was never meant, as may be seen from its title, to be a history of Chinese characters, but an explanation only of the Elementary signs, with an analysis of their ancient symbols and hieroglyphics. But nothing can please this fastidious critic. One while Dr. Hager is censured for not deviating from his subject; at another he is reprehended for an incidental digression. At Dr. Hager's pronunciation his opponent again snarls; but, what appears rather odd, himself adopts and repeats it. It had better, however, become him to correct it; which, since he has not, we will, for them both. The former are styled by AMIOT Tchouen Tsée, and the latter Trae Tsée, as before was remarked.

We proceed to the Postscript of Dr. Montucci; and it thus begins. The note of the Prefatory Letter to Dr. Montucci's Proposals having been published at length by the Critical Reviewers, Dr. Montucci thinks proper to enumerate the erroneous observations there alluded to, inserted from Dr. Hager's work, in their Review for April 1801.'-On perusing this sentence, the surprise of the reader may perhaps equal our own, when, notwithstanding the reference to p. 364 of our Review for the following passage, he is told that- The proof of a conjecture founded on the apparent similarity of the Roman figures with the figures and sounds representing them in Chinese

cited as the first of our ERRONEOUS OBSERVATIONS, is an entire fabrication of Dr. Montucci's. With the nonsense so exulting ly offered in reply we therefore have not any concern.

The second erroneous observation' imputed to us, and professedly cited from p. 368 The old writing ku-ven to be only images or representations of forms,' is part of a sentence patched up from that page; but the remark upon it is as little to the purpose as the History of Jack Hickathrift with the discovery of the longitude.

Observation the third, p. 396. The characters in general application, or the running hand of hieroglyphics, to be the greater part synonymous, and the word an age to be written in the modern style in a hundred different manners.'

These fragments of sentences present another of the doctor's garblings; whilst what follows, in opposition to it, promises an example from Mr. Raper's papers, which confirms Dr. Hager's instance.

The fourth erroneous observation charged on our Review, p. 369, is, 'That ten thousand characters are to be known to read the best books of each dynasty.' The comment upon which asserts that This is to persuade the Europeans that they cannot understand Chinese till they are approved at the college of Pe kin, and rank very high among those professors. How happy at invention is this Dr. Montucci! Neither ourselves nor Dr. Hager ever made the assertion. On the contrary, what we cited from Dr. Hager implies in fact the reverse. • When a proper allowance is made, it will be found' [instead of its being necessary to learn the 80,000 characters which the Tching-tseetong, or Chinese Dictionary of the Vatican, in twenty-six volumes, contains] that about 10,000 are sufficient for reading the best books of each dynasty.' In opposition, however, Dr. Montucci affirms that he will clearly prove, with the authority of Cibot, that TWO THOUSAND are sufficient to understand the classical dictionaries of China, and consequently all books by consulting the dictionaries.' Let us refer to Cibot himself. (Mém. des Mission. de Peking, tome 9.) This very accurate writer, inquiring how many Chinese characters are necessary to be known before the King and other books of Chinese history can be read?' observes,The canon Schohier pronounced heraldry to be an abyss, which, after a study of thirty or forty years, still presents something new. I could almost venture' (adds Cibot) to say the same in regard to Chinese characters; but to avoid the scandal of the comparison, I can. didly acknowledge it is commonly said in China that the knowledge of 10,000 characters is requisite to be a good Sicoutsai or bachelor: but be it observed, that to know them in this sense, is not only to know their principal significations, which is no little matter, but, what is much more, to be able

to write them memoriter, without varying a stroke. As the characters of the King are scarcely 10,000, an European, who knew them would be able to read with pleasure and profit the best books of all the dynasties, without recurring to his dictionary, though he might have to encounter some characters unknown.' We leave Dr. Montucci to reconcile this with the assertion he has pledged to make good, adding only from Dr. Hager the following note: "Le nombre de charactères (selon le P. Mailla) suffisant pour l'usage, ne va pas au-delà de 9,353, ou tout au plus de 10,516. Ce nombre renferme tous ceux des anciens livres, et ceux dont on peut avoir besoin pour écrire sur toutes sortes de matières. Aussi les plus habiles lettrés ne connoissent-ils guères plus de 8 ou 10,000 caractères.'

The number of Chinese RADICAL MONOSYLLABLES' Dr. Montucci charges, as our FIFTH erroneous observation, to be either 318, or 350, or 400,' (referring again to p. 369). Our words are simply these: Numerous as the Chinese characters are, their wORDS are surprisingly few: Bayer makes them no more than 318, of which he has given a list; but Dr. Hager reckons 400. Not a syllable have we added by way of remark, more than the parenthesis [afterwards 350] to note Dr. Hager's disagreement with himself. But such is the fidelity of Dr. Montucci, when he chooses to make a citation!

He refers again to our Review, p. 370, for the exemplification of the five tones by the monosyllable FU,' as our next erroneous observation. This page, on our part, is a bare extract from Dr. Hager, and therefore, if it contain aught erroneous, it is falsely charged against us; as not less is the next imputa. tion, which concerns the application of musical notes to the Chinese grammatical tones,' and has the following comment subjoined, which is as much as to say, that no one can speak Chinese but those who know music.' What an admirable trick of forging absurdities in order to confute them!-This calumny, however, is miserable in the extreme. Dr. Hager nowhere said it is requisite to learn music, but merely related what Pantoja had done; in the same manner as other missionaries did before him. It behoved Dr. Montucci to have quarreled with the father, and assailed him as the author of this ingenious expedient.

Respecting the beauty of Dr. Hager's characters, we make no scruple to state it, as in proportion to their difference from those of his opponent. That Dr. Montucci therefore should have SHUDDERED at the perusal of Dr. Hager's book, we are very ready to credit.

Dr. Hager is reprehended for faults in some of his accents but were the fact proved instead of being asserted, he might appeal to the candor of his readers, if, among so many, some oversight had escaped. In faults of this kind, Fourmont