The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

amusing—and few, indeed, anything like as
much. If they should judge by the extent of
renown, they will hold him in the highest
respect; for certain it is that of all writers now
living he is the only one who counts his readers
by millions, and can boast of having been
translated into every living language in which
books are printed. If they look for singularity
of character, they will find none of these days
more singular than his—they will find that

None but himself can be his parallel!
He is the vainest and the silliest of mankind.
His impudence is unbounded. He thinks
himself one of the greatest dramatists that
ever lived, and never hesitates to write " I,
Euripides, and Shakspeare." As a romancer
he pats Waiter Scott condescendingly on the
head. His vanity makes him so credulous
that a few months ago he devoutly believed
an Englishman who, by way of hoax, told him
that the manager of one of the London
theatres would give him 4,0001. down for a
pantomime, and that on its first representa-
tion the Queen would make him a Knight of
the Garter, with the title of " Sir Dumas."
He affects to be a republican of the Spartan
school, and yet fawns like a spaniel at the feet
of princes or great nobles when any of them
allow him to approach them, as not a few do,
or have done, out of regard for his literary
celebrity. He has earned more by his pen
than ever man did before—infinitely more
even than Scott—and yet be has not saved
a sixpence. Ask what has become of it,
and he will answer that he is not what is
called a debauched man—at least for Paris
—nor fond of riotous living, nor a gambler,
nor a keeper of costly horses—he really
cannot tell, parolit dlsonneur ! But others
know that it has been wasted in gifts to false
friends and loans to acquaintance, who never
think of paying, and in a thousand ways of ex-
treme foolishness. At present, though his
popularity has declined, and though the dimi
nutiou of newspapers has lessened the market
for his feuilletons, he has sufficient occupation
to require him to work fourteen hours a day,
and through every one of the fourteen he toils
most conscientiously ; yet though his labours
must produce what for a professional author
is a splendid income, he is often obliged to
make the appeal "My dear fellow ! Lend me
sf. to pay for my dinner."
On the whole, Dumas is an extraordinary
compound. In making money by his pen, he
displays all the worldly shrewdness of the
modern author ; nay, he is even vehemently
suspected of being so imbued with the mer-
cantilism of the age as to have palmed on the
public, under the popularity of his name,
works which he never wrote. But, though
thus keen in the pursuit of gold, he no sooner
gets it than he squanders it with all the reek
lessness of the professional author of a hun-
dred years ago. His genius, for genius 4e
has, is unquestionably of a high and varied
order ; and yet it would not be easy to find
any man who is so much of a fool. Had he
employed his high qualities with prudence,
and lived a regular and decorons life, he
would now, no doubt, be loaded with wealth, ho
nours, arid dignities; but he has wasted his op-
portunities gs he has his fortune, and hasin
Bulged in such gross vanity and charlatanism,
that be is commonly called, and is content to
call himself, "the greatest humbug in all
" France !"

The Chinese Empire. Forming a Sequel to the
Work entitled "Recollections of a Journey
"through. Tartary and Thibet." By M. Huc.
London : Longmans.
M. Hue is favourably remembered by his
" Travels in Tartary," and from his fourteen
years' residence in China ho is peculiarly
fitted to give us a correct description of the
country and its inhabitants. The main value
of his book, irrespective of the interest at-
tached to his personal narrative and adven-
tures, consists in his dispelling our prejudices
upon certain points connected with the Chi-
nese character. We have always supposed
them to be a most homogeneous nation, so that
if you knew one Chinese you knew them all ;
but M. Hue undeceives us upon this point,
as upon many others. There are certain
characteristics, he tells us, which constitute

SATURDAY,

the Chinese type, but they are distinguished by
such well-defined varieties that you can not
only tell whether a man comes from the
north, south, east, or west of the empire, but
can distinguish a Pekin from a Nanking man
at a glance. Again, we have supposed the
Chinese people to be the most unpolitical, do-
cile, and industrious of human beings, content
to be governed, pay taxes, and work hard ; but
here we find that the Chinese present in their
history much the same phases as the Euro-
pean nations. Equally inconstant and scep-
tical in the matters of religion and government,
they have changed the one quite as often as
they have altered the other, and finally lapsed
into a state of utter indifference to both. Islam-
ism, Brahmism, Buddhism, Grand Lamaism
have all been welcomed, tried, and condemned,
with hosts of other creeds, including Christi-
anity, and they now live without a religion at
all ; and in the history of their Government
every maxim, combination, and political ex-
periment has been tried, including revolutions,
changes of dynasty, cutting off kings' heads,
and civil war ; for China in twelve hundred
years, from 420 to the conquest of the country
by the Mantchoo Tartars in 1644, underwent
fifteen frightful revolutions, all accompanied
terrible civil wars and a bloody extermination
of the dethroned families. This love of
novelty is a weakness not peculiar to the
Chinese.

Again, we have always supposed the Chi-
nese to be the most exclusive people in the
world, but history and M. Huc tell us the very
reverse. In old times Arabs and Indians
traded by sea to all the Chinese ports ; while
the Persians, Bucharians, and the whole of
the tribes upon the north-west frontier
carried and carry on the most important
land trade. It is not the character of the
Chinese to be so exclusive. M. Huc tells
us their whole soul is wrapped up in trade,
and if ever there was a nation of shop-
keepers, China is the one. But their Tartar
conquerors, from motives of policy, closed the
ports and restricted foreign trade, and the Go-
vernment which once took in Marco Polo and
made him a viceroy of a province would now,
if possible, prevent a single foreigner from
lauding in the country.
The picture which China of to-day presents
to us as a civilised nation, is, according to
M. Huc, that of a people imbued with mar-
vellous industry, living in a country thickly
populated to its area, with numerous cities and
towns, numbering in each some millions of
inhabitants, more or less, governed by a highly-
centralised system of paternal administration,
yet enjoying perfect freedom of association,
perfect independence of motion, liberty to
travel when and where they please without
gendarmes or passports, the utmost freedom of
the press and speech, and, in conclusion, the
greatest facility of communication by land
and water throughout the vast empire—a fact
expressive of the immense internal trade
which flourishes, and the high commercial
spirit of the people. And this freedom is not
a modern advancement in the art of Chinese
statesmanship, for the people have enjoyed it
for the last two thousand years ! Yet in this
nation are the seeds of mortal decay now
rapidly bearing fruit in rank unwholesome•
ness. The Mantchoo Tartars who seized the
government and the throne in 1644, discovered
their numerical weakness compared with the
conquered nation, and felt themselves lost
unless precaution was taken to prevent con-
spiracy and consolidate their own power.
Reserving the command of the army and the
fortified places for Tartar generals, they did
not attempt to supersede the native Man-
darins and other public officers, but decreed
that henceforth no Mandarin should exercise
the functions of his office in his own district,
and, moreover, that he should never perform
the administration of justice for more than
three years in one place. The consequenees
of this step were obvious to the Chinese
statesmen of the day as fatal to the well-being
of the empire. The administration of justice
was no longer cared for, and the interests of
the people became wholly neglected. The Man-
darins and public functionaries, having no tie
attaching them to the population of the place,
being even unable to speak the dialect of the
province, sought only to enrich themselves by

JANUARY 20, 1E15,5.

selling their judgments, and hence the moral
and physical interests of the people sank gra-
dually into absolute decay. The people, how-
over, apparently indifferent to the political
situation of the country, have yet, during this
time, formed secret societies, which have kept
a spark of nationality burning, waiting only
for the signal to burst into a flame of revolution.
That signal has now been given : a single
isolated act of highway robbery led to the
association of several villains to resist the
power of the Mandarin of the district, whose
efforts in the cause of justice were, of course,
very weak and futile. The band increased,
till at length a little force was raised, which
occjisioned some secret uneasiness to the vice-
roy of the province. A victory or two over
the police and then over the Government
troops sealed the fate of the highway robber :
he broke out in absolute rebellion against his
Emperor, proclaimed himself generalissimo of
the army, summoned the secret societies to
his aid, declared that he came to restore a
national government, assumed the title of
Emperor and Son of Heaven, and, defeating
the Government troops upon every occasion,
took town after town in the southern province
of Kouang-si, and by the latest accounts had
captured a squadron of the imperial fleet and
besieged Canton with every prospect of
success. Upon what trifles do the fate of em-
pires hang ! Had this man been caught and
thoroughly well bambooed, or been executed,
the Chinese empire, with its 361 millions of
subjects, might perhaps have slumbered on
for another century or two.
The personal adventures of M. Hue and
his companion will be eagerly read. Having
been detained on the frontiers of Thibet, they
were seized and sent to the capital of the
nearest province, by order of the Emperor,
there to undergo trial for traversing the im-
perial country without leave, as well as to
satisfy the authorities that they were not
Chinese subjects, a suspicion which had
arisen from the facility with which they
spoke the Chinese and Tartar languages.
Being conducted from the frontiers of Thibet
to the capital of the western province of Sse-
tchouen, the great city of Tching-tou-fun, they
were tried, and, being acquitted, were from
thence conducted by the Emperor's order
through the empire to Canton, and there de-
livered over to the European authorities,
from whence they returned to France. In
this manner, traversing the empire entirely
from west to east, M. Hue enjoyed every oppor-
tunity of studying the customs, manners, and
institutions of the people. His narrative is
totally free from that exaggeration which is so
generally found in missionaries' works. He
frankly tells us that missionaries hare little or
no cause to boast over their converts in China.
The mind of the nation is so eminently scep-
tical, that the people, like the Ciugalese,
would as soon put on one faith as the other,
provided they can make money or gain an
object by their conversion. Upon leaving
their hospitable Thibet friends and arriving
at the first frontier town of China, Ta-tsieu-
lou, their difficulties commenced, hut, being
somewhat acquainted with the cunning and
pliability of the Chinese character, M. Huc
assures us that both he and his companion
were determined never to submit to any impo
sitions or ill-treatment, travelling as they were
under an imperial safe conduct. " The Chi-
" nese Mandarins," says M. Hue, " are pretty
" much like their own bamboos if one can
",but manage to get hald of them in the right
" way, they are easily bent double and kept
" so ; but if for a second you let go, they aro
" up again in a moment as straight as ever."
Three hundred miles from the frontier they
reached the town of Tching-tou-fou, where
they were lodged in the court of justice pre-
paratory to their trial ; but an immediate invi-
tation to dine with the Mandarins of the town
dispelled much of their anxiety about the
result. The dinner passed off in an amusing
manner, and the next morning they were con-
ducted to the judgment-hall, and subjected to
an amusing cross-examination by the public
prosecutor. The examination, however, ter-
minating in a favourable manner, M. Hue
and his companion returned to their lodgings,
and after some days the viceroy of the
province admitted them to an interview,