Italian sonnets, those of Shakespeare, Mil- lives. Happily, in this instance, the coun ton, and some of Wordsworth's, are well try was spared that cominon sequel to the adapted for this mode of study. Another death of an Eastern monarch, à disputed very advantageous method is to take up a succession, for only one son, a boy of eight prose paraphrase when the words of the years old, survived his polygamous father. original are no longer in mind, and to re- On this lad, therefore, devolved the crown. translate it into the original form, or to and the prospective duty when he should take up a suitable piece of prose and put come of age of ruling the three hundred it into the sonnet form. All these exer- millions of China. Meanwhile, a regency, cises will tend to make clear the function under the presidency of the Dowager Emof the sonnet, revealing its capacities and press and the boy's mother, on whom was advantages, bestowing a critical knowledge bestowed the same rank by brevet, underof the exact value and constructive skill took the management of him and his afof those which are best worth studying by fairs. The virile toga is donned early in shewing the secret of their greatness and the East, and in accordance with Chinese their power. Imperial etiquette the young Emperor should have assumed that habit three years ago; but, for political reasons, the regency has up to this time kept him in the schoolroom. Now, however, at the ripe age of seventeen, his Imperial Majesty Tung-chi, proclaims himself a man. and steps forward to take the reins of power. But the "Book of Ceremonies" lays it down as a rule that, before a sovereign attempts to rule his kingdom, he should try his hand on the management of a household. "Marriage is the source of all rites," says, that venerable book; and it was obviously necessary, therefore, that, before beginning his political career, he should enter into the complicated relations of imperial wedded life.

A word may be said as to the uses and advantages of the sonnet. It is capital for embalming the moods of a moment those sentiments and feelings which contain a sort of completeness in themselves. It forms an admirable setting for a beautiful prospect, a noble act, a splendid character, whereby they may be contemplated again in miniature, as it were, when their outward form is no longer with us. It is a valuable exercise for the mind, particularly for the faculties of selection and limitation. It cultivates good taste and intensifies concentration. If it is difficult to write, it is easy to read; and its proportions will often allow it to rest in the mind when longer poems are forgotten. Little and good, is its motto; and if it be the latter, its permanence and power will go far to make the former a term only applicable to the space it occupies on paper.

"THE Great Emperor has become a guest in Heaven." Such were the words in which was officially announced the death of that dissipated monarch, the late Emperor of China, who eleven years ago tottered into his grave a decrepit, worn-out man of barely thirty years of age. His reign (1851-1861) had not been a fortunate one-its commencement had witnessed the capture of the southern capital by the Taeping rebels, and its close was preceded by the occupation of Peking by the allied armies and probably few mourned for him, except, perhaps, the three hundred young ladies whom he left widows, and who by his death incurred the penalty of enforced celibacy in the "Cold Palace" during the remainder of their natural

Kings and rulers are seldom allowed to follow their unrestrained inclinations in the selection of their wives, and to the Emperor of China is denied even the small latitude of choice which is accorded to European monarchs. But, on the other hand, he has this inestimable advantage over his Western brethren, that, whereas their domestic comfort is in a great measure dependent on the dispositions of their solitary consorts, he can seek safety from the caprices of one wife in the society of a multitude. This consideration doubtless helped to render his Imperial Majesty Tung-chi quite indifferent as to the result of the efforts of the two Dowager Empresses to settle him in life. Of the steps taken by the two ladies the Peking Gazette, that meagre and solitary journal of Chinese officialism, gives us very faint indications. But here the immutability of Chinese manners and customs stand us in good stead, since, in the pages of the "Ritual," which was compiled for the guidance of the founders of the "Great Pure" dynasty, we find an accurate picture of the modes of procedure which have of late been agitating the masters of ceremonies and the female world within the yellow-glazed

tiles of the Imperial Palace. To begin at General at Canton was to share the Inthe beginning, we must go back for more perial throne, but inquiry proved that she than a year, for alliances of so august a was past the prescribed age, so the Comnature are not to be arranged in a hurry; missioners carried their investigations elseand if we had chanced to be in the "Hall where, with the result made known by the of Great Harmony one day in the begin- following decree promulgated by the Downing of the autumn of 1871, we should ager Empresses in February last:-"His have been witnesses of the first act in the Majesty the Emperor, having been called great matrimonial drama. Early in the upon to occupy the throne while yet young, morning we should have seen arrangements has now entered on the eleventh year of in course of being made for some great his reign, and it becomes our duty to select ceremony; we should have seen the throne a virtuous lady to be his consort and duly prepared for its royal occupant; we Empress, that she may aid him in the culshould have seen one table so placed as to tivation of imperial virtue, and assist him lead us instantly to recognize it as the in regulating the affairs of his palace. future depository of an imperial decree, We have chosen Ah-lu-te, the accomplished and another as that of the great seal; we and virtuous daughter of Chung-chi, secshould have seen secretaries busy, and retary in the Han-lin College, as Empress. chamberlains ordering servants and drill- And we have further selected Fu-cha, the ing court gentlemen. Everything ready, daughter of Fenghsiu, clerk in the Board music would announce the approach of of Punishments, to be the first; Ho-she-li, the imperial sedan chair, borne by innu- daughter of Prefect Chung-ling, to be secmerable coolies, and preceded, surrounded, ond; and Ah-lu-te, daughter of the exand followed by heralds, marshals, eunuchs, lieutenant-general Sai Shang-ah, to be and all the great officers of state. Amid third junior wife." These preliminaries a constant succession of bows, genuflections, and prostrations the boy-Emperor would ascend the steps to the throne, and seat himself thereon. The heralds would advance and proclaim to the assembled representatives of the Empire that, in obedience to the orders of the Dowager Empresses, his Imperial Majesty had determined to make choice of an Empress, and that a commissioner and two deputy-commissioners had been appointed to recommend a lady of the Empire for that great honour. As soon as the herald's voice had ceased the Emperor would move slowly through a crowd of prostrate officials to his sedan chair, and when, surrounded by his followers, he had started for the apartments of the Dowager Empresses to announce the conclusion of the ceremony, we might mingle with the mob of servitors in the courtyard to inspect the betrothal presents. On one side we should find standing in a row ten trained horses; ten suits of armour, intended to clothe the limbs of as many male relations of the future Empress, would be spread out on numerous tables; and a hundred pieces of silk and twice as many pieces of cloth would be laid ready to form the nucleus of the bridal trousseau.

With haste have the Imperial Commissioners set about the execution of their quadruple errand — for in addition to an Empress, they were officially charged with the selection of three young ladies to occupy the rank of junior wives. It was said at first that the daughter of the Tartar

being settled, the professors of the Fungshwuy art were called in to choose an auspicious day for the ceremony. Fortu nately for the manufacturer of imperial silk, these learned men declared that the 16th of October was the first day on which the influences of heaven and earth worked together for the good of imperial brides and bridegrooms, and sufficient time was thus given him for the preparation of the thirty thousand rolls of silk which custom lays down as the quantity required to clothe the limbs of the young Empress. Of how many patterns these are composed we are not told; but this we know, that six colours, symbolical of as many virtues, must be found amongst them. The rolls of white silk, which but the other day left the looms of Soochow, have, doubtless, already been transformed into robes einblematic of sincerity, clothed in which the Empress will receive visitors, and pay her respects to her liege lord. At the grand sacrifice to the ancient Emperors next spring her Imperial Majesty will call upon her dressers for the dust-coloured robe, in token that the mulberry training season has begun, and on the other great festivals of the year she will wear, in turn, dark blue, light blue, and red, embroidered with strangely-fashioned and brightly-coloured pheasants. At the time of full moon, when she and she alone of all the inmates of the harem has the right of access to the Emperor's private apartments, she will be carried thither dressed in black, personifying of the female principle of nature

gifts on her parents and brothers. To the former he gives 200 taels of gold, 10,000 taels of silver, 1,000 pieces of silk, 20 trained horses, 20 stud horses, and 20 suits of armour; to the latter, 100 taels of gold, 1,000 pieces of cloth, 6 horses, a suit of armour, a box of bows, a quiver of arrows, 2 suits of court clothes each, 2 ordinary suits of clothes, 2 fur robes, and a girdle. Afterwards he entertains her father, broth

As the time draws near the preparations within the palace for the reception of the imperial bride are hurried forward, and on the day before the ceremony the preliminary form of respectfully announcing to heaven and to earth the approaching event, 5,000 taels of silver, 500 pieces of silk, is solemnly gone through. And now, on the great day of the feast, the "Hall of Great Harmony" is again the scene of bows and prostrations. Thither, early in the morning, the Emperor goes in state, to the music of drums and bells, and sur-ers, and male relatives, and the officers of rounded by all the chief officers of his the household at a grand feast; while to household, to hear the decree read, in which Madane Chung-chi, her daughter, and to is officially announced the immediate arri- the great ladies of the palace the Dowager val of the Empress Elect. That done, the Empresses show like hospitality. With Commissioners, eunuchs, and ladies-in- these fêtes the festivities are brought to a waiting march in procession to the house close, and the palace gates shut on her Imof the fortunate secretary of the Han-lin perial Majesty Ah-lu-te, to be opened only College to claim his daughter. Surrounded when duty and the "Book of Rites" agree by his sons and male relatives, Chung-chi in declaring it to be necessary. meets them at the front gate and conducts As each junior wife and concubine arthem through courtyard after courtyard rives she will be conducted with modified into the great hall. Here the imperial de- splendour to the "Hall of Great Harmocree announcing the marriage is again read, ny," to which place the Emperor will come and Chung-chi kneels thrice and bows in state to "inspect" the new acquisition down his head to the ground nine times in to his harem. Ön these occasions the lovtoken of his sense of the honour done him. 'ing cup, the sole ceremony which constiThe eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting then tutes marriage, will be wanting, and after lead out Ah-lu-te, who first makes obei- the "inspection" the lady will retire to sance to the throne, and then, after listen- her apartments, there to remain a prisoner, ing to the deed of registration read by the the victim of monotonous palace routine, lady heralds, takes leave of her mother and for the remainder of her life. The present steps into the bridal sedan. At the front must be a busy time for the Lord High gate her father kneels and bids her adieu, Chamberlain, and the "Hall of Great Harand the procession forms up. First comes mony " must be the scene of many an asthe imperial band, followed by carts carry- semblage of "fair women and brave men," ing the Commissioners, next comes the for the Empress and three junior wives bride, then the maids of honour; after form but the nucleus of the harem over them the eunuchs on foot, and last of all which the Emperor is called upon to exerthe gentlemen-in-waiting. At the "Bridge cise his administrative abilities. Nine of the Golden Waters," within the pal- wives of the second class, twenty-seven of ace, the Commissioners dismount, and the third class, and eighty-one concubines when the procession reaches the "Firm are yet to be added to this number before and Pure Palace" the eunuchs invite Ah- the requirements laid down in the “Ritulu-te to descend from her much-bedizened als" are fully complied with. Fortunately chair. In the centre hall the Emperor for the peace of the guardians of these meets his bride for the first time, and with the ordinary ceremony of drinking the loving cup the marriage is complete. But there is yet no rest for poor little Ah-lu-te. The instant that she becomes Empress she goes in state to visit the Dowager Empresses, and in return for three genuflections and as many obeisances has the honour of lunching with those august ladies. The "Rituals" leave her undisturbed for the rest of the day, but on the morrow she pays visits to the Dowager Empresses and to the Emperor, and receives the congratulations of the Court officials. In the afternoon the Emperor bestows wedding

young ladies, abundance of official occupation is provided for their fair charges, by the constant recurrence of state ceremonies. Seventeen and eighteen are mischievous ages; and if this were not so it is probable that his Imperial Majesty would find the exercise set him of ruling a hundred and twenty idle and pampered young women far more difficult than the more important task of governing an empire.

At all the great religious festivals in the year the Empress, attended by bevies of her inferior rivals, plays a prominent part. She holds levées, at which the Court ladies attend, and pays visits to the wives of the

chief officers of state. On the death of modern times in the Pope of Rome. The a minister she either goes herself to con- sacredness of his person throws a religious dole with the widow, or sends one of the halo around every action of his life. His three junior wives of the first rank to rep-meals are so arranged as to symbolize sacresent her. She exercises jurisdiction over rificial feasts. When he partakes of vege the imperial concubines, and examines with tables he is invited to reflect on the work care the work done by them in the year. of the Chinese Adam; and when he tastes On all state occasions, when the Empress the six kinds of grains his thoughts are is unable to be present, the three senior carried back to the first turner of the sod. wives act as her deputies, and on her de- Soft music is played to encourage his ap cease they play the part of chief mourners. petite, and the dishes are removed from To the lot of the wives of the second rank table to the tune of fifes and drums. The falls the duty of instructing the nine maxim that "the king can do no wrong," troops, into which the twenty-seven wives takes rather the form in China of "whatof the third rank, and the eighty-one con- ever the king does is holy, righteous, and cubines are divided, in the virtues, lan-pure," and hence many of the imperial doguage, deportment, and work which are ings, which would be frowned at in Europe, fitting for them. They attend on the Em-receive in China the sacred sanction of press at all state funerals, and add loud religion. To this circumstance we owe it wailings to her lamentations. They su- that in the "Rituals" we find so many deperintend the female servants of the pal-tails of the private life of the Emperor ace, and they prepare the objects to be of- and of the ladies of the palace. We learn fered at the great sacrifices. In each and that in every fifteen days the Emperor all of these various services the concubines receives visits from representatives of each play inferior parts. Their special duty is rank of wife and concubine. On each of to assist the wives of the third rank in the first nine days of the month one of managing the servants and in preparing nine concubines selected from the eightyfor the religious services. Some of them one pay their respects to him; on the next also help the thirty-two eunuch tailors to three succeeding days three of the wives make the clothes of the court, and others of the third rank have that honour; then find employment in similar company as follows one of the second rank; then one dressers to the Empress and junior wives. of each of the two superior grades; and These and the numerous other duties ex-at every fuil moon the Empress, and she pected of them are quite enough, if faith- alone, is his companion. During the last fully performed, to keep the hundred and half of the month the order of visits is twenty-one pairs of little hands busily en-reversed, and in this way, in the course of gaged. The "Rituals" declare that there about four months, the Emperor enjoys the shall be no drones within the palace, and society of every lady of his harem. let us hope that her Majesty Ali-lu-te and If we wander from the ladies' apart her hundred and twenty rivals, who are ments into the other quarters of the palace now assembling round the boy-Emperor, we find them swarming with those officials will prove themselves as diligent as are whose various callings and immense numsaid to have been the model ladies of days bers go far to make up the barbaric splengone by. dour of eastern courts, marshals, chamIf to the performance of his public func-berlains, and lords-in-waiting are there in tions we add the duty of his becoming ac- shoals, but we do not concern ourselves quainted with all these fair daughters of with those great gentlemen. Our object Han, it is plainly impossible that the Em-is to gain some insight into the every-day peror can pass his days in idleness; and life in store for his Imperial Majesty Tungdown to the minutest detail the "Rituals' chi, and the more domestic functionaries prescribe the part he is to play in all and with whom he will be surrounded. We every capacity, whether as king upon his therefore give a wide berth to all wearers throne, as priest before the altar, or as pa- of high official buttons, and enter into conterfamilias in the midst of his domestic versation with the first good-natured lookjoys. And this illustrates the peculiar po- ing maître d'hôtel that we meet. He takes sition which the Emperor of China occu- us into the buttery, and we are just in pies among the monarchs of the East. As time to see his brethren on duty-our a temporal sovereign he is obeyed, and as guide tells us that there are altogether 152 a spiritual ruler he is worshipped. In his of them-prepare the materials for the double claim to supremacy he somewhat Emperor's dinner. Some are giving out resembles the kings of Hebrew history, the six kinds of grain which are to form and finds his approximate counterpart in the vegetable part of the repast; others

are making hashes of the various sacri- | favour of heaven for their Imperial Majesficial meats; the cellarmen are pouring ties and the Empire at large.

out the allotted quantity of half-a-dozen different kinds of wine; skilful hands are slicing the meats for the savoury dishes, and are weighing out the hundred and twenty kinds of spices which are to season them; while others are preparing delicate morsels, such as the choice parts of a Bucking-pig or the fat of kidneys, to serve as a bonne bouche at the last. When all the covers have been duly laid out and prepared, they are carried into the kitchen, where 128 cooks stand ready to receive

them.

66

ROBERT K. DOUGLAS.

From The Saturday Review. FORCE IN LITERATURE.

A CURIOUS paper might be written on the singular errors made by men of high reputation in their critical judgments. Something of the kind was lately done in one of the magazines. Instances of such blunders abound since people first began. On fast-days-that is to say, when any to cultivate the art. When, for example, great misfortune overtakes the country we read the critical sentences of the last the Emperor goes without this grand re-century we are amazed at the inconceivpast; and if he and his Court were to take able blindness which they seem to imply. a little more exercise and to fast a little Goldsmith, to take a case at random, was oftener than they do, it is possible that a undoubtedly a man of fine taste; he tells reduction might be made in the staff of us, à propos of Waller's ode on the death fifty-two doctors who at present reside of Cromwell, that our poetry was not then within the palace walls. But, unfortu- quite harmonized; so that this, which nately, the idea of bodily exertion is ab- would now be looked upon as a slovenly horrent to the mind of every true China- sort of versification, was in the times in man; the three score and two imperial which it was written almost a prodigy of huntsmen must often have cause to com- harmony." In the same place, after prais plain that ing the harmony of the Rape of the Lock, he observes that the irregular measure at the opening of the Allegro and Penseroso "hurts our English ear." We can only wonder at the singular taste which induced our grandfathers to fancy that "harmony," of all things, was their strong point, and that Pope's mechanical monotony was to the exquisite versification of Spenser and Milton as Greek sculpture to the work of some self-taught mediæval carver. The same incapacity for perceiving what to us appear almost self-evident truths is as obvious in a wider kind of criticism. When Voltaire called Shakespeare "a drunken savage," it was a mere

Their hawks are tired of perch and hood Their weary greyhounds loath their food, -unless, indeed, they cater for the market on their own account, a supposition to which the occasional activity observable in the neighbourhood of the royal preserves lends some colour-for hunting, which, before the Tartar habits of the founders of the dynasty had been subdued by contact with Chinese luxury, was the constant amusement of the Emperors and their Courts, has now, under the degenerate rule of their descendants, dwindled down to a very occasional battue, conducted in the most contemptibly luxurious and un-outbreak of spleen; but Voltaire in his sportsmanlike manner. But though the sober moods, and he is followed in this by huntsmen of modern times have little to Horace Walpole, speaks still more condo, we can well imagine that all those temptuously of one of the two or three whose duty it is to pamper the appetite are men who can be put beside Shakespeare. fully employed. There can be little doubt He marvels at the dulness of people who that the hands of the hundred wine-mak- can admire anything so "stupidly extrav ers, the ninety turtle-catchers, the ninety-agant and barbarous" as the Divina Comthree icemen, the eighty-nine fishermen, media. These monstrous misunderstandthe eleven jewellers, and others, are seldom ings are to be explained by the natural idle. It is also worthy of remark that, incapacity of the subjects of one literary amid all the vast population assembled dynasty for judging of those of another. within the palace walls, we find no refer- But the judgments of contemporaries on ence to a single priest of any sect or de- each other are not much more trustworthy. nomination, the Emperor himself excepted, The long-continued contempt for Bunyan and four praying women seem to be deem- and Defoe was merely an expression of ed amply sufficient to gain forgiveness for the ordinary feeling of the cultivated classthe sins of the Court, and to secure the les towards anything which was identified