New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-15

A 5 THE recent events nave Proved
n China continues to be for US West
Il ~ erners the Sphinx of Asia. Every
contribution toward the solution of its rid
die is welcomed, and one is therefore
grateful to Mr.. G.. Currie Martin for his
lucid article on the above subject in THE
Asatic Review" on May ID last, being, in
the main, the text of paper read by HIM
before the China Society at Caxton Hall,
Westminster.
Were one to ask the ordinary educated
Englishman or American for references
about China in English literature, they
would probably be exhausted by TIE we'll
known quotation from Tcnnyson's Lock
sley HALF: Better fifty years of Europe
than a cycle of Cathay." But neither the
poet nor one of a hundred readers quoting
him suspected and still suspect that real
"cycle of Cathay" amounts to sixty years
only, and that therefore the whole COM
garrison dangerously bangles in the air.
Eventually Bret Harte's Heather
Chinee" would be added.
Shakespeare's dramas have justly been
called poetical encyclopedia of the worlds
wisdom of his time. We are, then, justified
in asking why the Bard of Avon, with his
universal mind and gift to turn all things
to account, did not discover some of China's
secrets. One can only suppose that in spite
of all that had been written no traveller
mad told anything of China's history, and
there was no dramatic situation for him to
choose AS it is the inhabitants Of Cathay
were for the great poet only synonymous
with cheating and chcanery:
Page to Ford: Il will not believe such a
Catalan, though the priest O the town
commended him for a true man" C"Merry
Wives" II, l. 148).
Now open the works of the second great
national poet of England, John Milton.
The three passages in his Paradise Lost"
where China is mentioned OH, 43S; Y, 2S9
f.; XI, 387 f.) show a very vague acquai1t-
ance with the real situation in that mys-
ferrous country. The same ignorance pre-
walls in the chapter on China in Milton's
Brief History of Nuscovia."
Many are familiar with the description
of China at the end of Daniel Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe." The hero, visiting
Marking and Picking, naively exclaims
What are their buildings to the palaces
and royal buildings of Europe? What is
their trade TO the universal commerce of
England, Holland, France and Spain?
What are their ports, supplied with few
junks and banks, to our navigation? Our
city of London has more trade than al
their mighty empire - But The
greatness Of their wealth" Defoe adds,
'the power Of their government, the
strength of their armies is surprising to
us, because, considering them as a barbar-
Gus nation of pagans, little better than
savages, we did not expect such things
among them" AS if regretting to have
rendered some. justice at least to the hated
and despsed nation, the author of "Robin-
son Crusoe' sums up his characterization
Of it as follows: IL saw and knew that
they were contemplate herd of ignorant,
sordid slaves, subjected to a government
qualified only to rule such a people"
There can be no doubt that Defoc is. TO
a great extent, responsible for the miscon-
ceptlons that are current in England and
America about the Chinese to this very
cay. Even Oliver Goldsmith's efforts. in