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inhabit, however, three distinct towns; the Perchask fortress with its adjoining streets, standing upon the summit of a hill on the east; Old Kiev, with its Polish fortifications, lying to the west; and below, the Podolsk quarter; which last is in a dilapidated state, having suffered a dreadful conflagration about four years ago. Many houses had been renewed, but it contains nothing very striking, except the remains of some old Greek convents, and buildings of that nature. On ascending the hill from hence, the road passes near the spring where St. Vlado mir baptised the first Russian converts the place is held sacred, and a column bearing a cross is erected over it to commemorate the pious act, as well as to record the former importance of Kiev as the seat of sovereignty.

A brief View of the Chinese Drama, and of their Theatrical Exhibitions. Prefixed to a Translation of a Chinese Drama, entitled "An Heir in his Old Age."

Among the many interesting and valuable communications, for which Europe is indebted to the Jesuits and the other less enlightened and more prejudiced orders of the Catholic missionaries, who established themselves in China more than two centuries ago, very little is to be found respecting the taste of that extraordinary nation for lyric poetry, or theatrical exhibitions ; and from the infrequency of European visitors, we are left almost wholly in the dark with regard to the nature of this kind of composition, as well as of

the actual state of the drama, and indeed of that department of literature in general which is usually known by the name of belles lettres. Led astray by Chinese prejudices, and falling in with Chinese feelings, respecting their ancient books, these writers have so stuffed their communications with excessive panegyric on the beauties of the four King, and the wisdom and virtues of Yao and Chun, as to leave themselves no time to inquire into the moderate state of general literature. are told, indeed, by Pere Cibot,* and the remark is copied from him by the Abbé Grozier, "that they would speak, in China, of a man of letters making good verses, just as they would speak, in France, of a captain of infantry playing well on the violin; " yet' both the one and the other immediately contradict such a notion, by quoting several pieces of poetry, both ancient and modern, extolling their beauties, and endeavouring

We

to shew their influence over the passions, and the estimation in which they have been held from the earliest periods to the present times. The truth is, the most ancient records that remain of China, consist of poetry. The very symbol by which compositions of this kind are designated, points out their early origin;-shee, a character compounded of a word, and a hall or temple, a place from which the magistrates anciently delivered instruction to the people-the words of the temple-being short-measured sentences, composed generally of four characters, so chosen as to be each of them very expres

Mem. Chin. Tom. viii. p. 237.

sive and significant, and easily committed to the memory. The Book of Odes, one of the four most eminent and ancient of their classics, is chiefly composed of this kind of verse.

It is not necessary, however, to dive into the depths of antiquity, or to have recourse to ancient compositions, in order to prove a very general predilection of the Chinese for epic and lyric poetry. The late Kien-lung amused himself withwriting an epic poem, called Moukden, and two or three others of considerable length, besides several lyrical odes, songs, and epigrams, as half the tea cups in the empire can testify; his unfortunate favourite, whose wealth and influence drew upon him the vengeance of the reigning emperor, wrote verses in his prison the day before his execution; and the editor has in his possession the translation of a copy of verses, entitled "London; written by a Chinese, who had accompanied a gentleman to England, in the capacity of his servant, describing very concisely, but characteristically, what he saw, and more particularly, those things which contrasted with the manners and appearances of his own country.

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It is not correct, therefore, to say that the Chinese have no relish for poetry. They cannot avoid liking it, for every symbol of their written language is poetical; each character presenting to the eye, and through it to the mind, the picture of the idea which it is meant to represent. It is true, some of the missionaries make a reserve in favour of ancient poetry: "the good old times" are praised in more countries than in

China, and with as little knowledge of what their "goodness" consisted in; but Mr. Morrison, in his Chinese grammar, quotes a Chinese author who seems to have sounder notions on the subject than either Pere Cibot or the Abbé Grozier: he compares the progress of poetry among his countrymen to the gradual growth of a tree: "the ancient She-king (the Book of Odes) may be likened to the roots; when Soo-loo flourished, the buds appeared; in the time of Keen-ngan there was abundance of leaves; but during the dynasty Tang, many reposed under the shade of the tree, and it yielded rich supplies of flowers and fruit."*

In like manner the two writers above mentioned, Cibot first, and Grozier servilely copying him, pretend to say, that from the earliest periods in which theatrical exhibitions entered into domestic amusements, and the public entertainments of the court, the learned have not ceased to publish philosophical observations on the dangers of the theatre, and its baneful effects on public manners. "Plays (says one of these philosophers) are a kind of artificial fire-works of wit, which appear in the night of disorder; they debase and expose those who let them off, fatigue the delicate eyes of the sage, occupy dangerously idle minds, expose women and children who listen to them, give out more of smoke and stench than of light, leaving only a dangerous dazzling, and often cause dreadful confiagrations."+ Yet in the same page * Grammar of the Chinese Language, Mem. Chin. Tom, viii. p. 227.

p. 273.

the

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we are told that the greater part of Chinese comedies and tragedies appear to be written to shew the deformity of vice and the charms of virtue. The writer might have added, that they are universally performed and encouraged from the court to the cottage; that the Chinese are so passionately fond of scenic representations, that in most houses of the great, a hall is set apart for the performance of plays; that no entertainment is ever given without a company of comedians to amuse the guests; that they constitute a part of all public festivals; and that foreign ambassadors are invariably entertained with theatrical representations : he might further have added, that it is not true, as he asserts, that public theatres are put on a level with houses of prostitution and confined to the suburbs of cities.* There is no such thing, in fact, as a public theatre in all China. A Chinese company of players will at any time construct a theatre in the course of a couple of hours; a few bamboos as posts to support a roof of mats, and a floor of boards, raised some six or seven feet from the ground; and a few pieces of painted cotton to cover the three sides, the front being left entirely open, are all that is required for the construction of a Chinese theatre; which very much resembles, when finished, one of those booths erected for similar purposes in Bartholomew Fair, but is far less substantial. Indeed a common apartment is all that is necessary for the performance of a Chinese play. They have no

Ut supra. Grozier, vol. ii p. 417.

scenical deception to assist the story, as in the modern theatres of Europe; and the odd expedients to which they are sometimes driven by the want of scenery are not many degrees above Nick Bottom's "bush of thorns and a lanthorn, to disfigure or to present the person of moonshine;" or the man with "some plaister, or some lome, or some rough cast about him to signify wall;" thus a general is ordered upon an expedition to a distant province, he mounts a stick, or brandishes a whip, or takes in his hand the reins of a bridle, and striding three or four times round the stage in the midst of a tremendous crash of gongs, drums, and trumpets, he stops short, and tells the audience where he is got to; if the wall of a city is to be stormed, three or four soldiers lie down on each other to "present wall." A tolerable judgment may be formed of what little assistance the imaginations of an English audience derived from scenical deception, by the state of the drama and the stage as described by Sir Philip Sidney, about the year 1583. "Now you shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we have news of shipwreck in the same place; then we are to blame, if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that, comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke; and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while in the mean time two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched

field ?"

field?" "* Inigo Jones appears to be the fist, who invented painted cloths for moveable scenes, which were used at Oxford in 1605.

It is very true that stage players are not held in great respect by the Chinese; and Cibot had probably read the statute † against civil or military officers of government, or the sons of those who possess hereditary rank, frequenting the company of prostitutes and actresses, which led him into the mistake of the juxta-position of their trading concerns, a mistake, the more likely to be committed, as he frankly owns he knows very little of the matter, and takes no interest in the subject. We must be cautious, however, in estimating the conduct of the Chinese from their moral maxims or legal precepts there is no people on earth whose practice is so much at variance with their professed principles; as a striking instance of this remark, it may be observed, that the late emperor Kien-lung, in the teeth of the above mentioned statute, took an actress for one of his inferior wives or concubines since which, it is said, females have been prohibited from appearing on the stage, and their places supplied by boys, and those creatures who are of neither sex. No women ever appeared on the Greek and the Roman theatres; but the characters in the dramas of the latter, as in those of China, were sometimes played by eunuchs. The soft and delicate female characters of Shakespeare had not the advantage of being played by a female during his life; Mrs. Bet

* Malone's Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 57. Ta-tsing-leu-lee, p. 410.

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terton, about 1660, being the first, or about the first, female who played Juliet and Ophelia. It is observed in the prologue to the Moor of Venice, in introducing the first female who played Desdemona,

""Tis possible a virtuous woman may Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play."

No prohibition, however, of females acting on the Chinese stage, appears in the code of laws; but it is enacted, that "all strolling players, who shall be guilty of purchasing the sons or daughters of free persons, in order to educate them as actors or actresses; or who shall be guilty of marrying or adopting as children such free persons, shall, in each case, be punished with a hundred blows of the bamboo;"+-and the same punishment is extended to the seller of free persons, and to females born of free parents voluntarily intermarrying with strolling players.

It has been said, that in Pekin alone there are several hundred companies of comedians, when the court is there, and that at other times they travel about from one city to another. A company generally consists of eight or ten persons, who are literally the servants or slaves of the master or manager. They travel about from place to place in a covered barge, on canals or rivers near to which most great cities are situated; these barges are their habitations, and in these they are instructed in their parts by the master. When called on to perform before a party, a list of the plays they are prepared

* Malone's Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 93. + Ta-tsing-leu-lee, p. 410.

to

to represent is put into the hands of the master of the feast, who consults his guests as to the choice to be made; this done, the dramatis personæ are read over; and if it should happen that a name occurs therein, corresponding with the name of any of the guests, another piece is immediately chosen, in order that no offensive act or aliusion in the play may be coupled with the name of the auditor. Perhaps, however, this restrained delicacy is only on paper, and not followed up in practice; just as the statute which prohibits musicians and stageplayers from representing, in any of their performances, "emperors, empresses, famous princes, ministers, and generals of former ages," is perpetually infringed, such representations being, in fact, the favourite and most usual subjects of theatric exhibition. Indeed there is a saving clause, which says, that this law is not intended to prohibit the exhibition upon the stage of fictitious characters of just and upright men, of chaste wives, and pious and obedient children, all which may tend to dispose the minds of the spectators to the practice of virtue.”*

When the common people wish for a theatrical entertainment, they subscribe among themselves a sum sufficient to cover the expense of erecting the temporary theatre and paying the actors, which is said to be very moderate. De Guignes says, that the temples or pagodas are sometimes used for theatres, which is not impossible, as they are the common places of

Ta-tsing-leu-lee, p. 418.

+ Voyage à Pekin, Tom. ii. p. 322.

resort for gamblers, and the lodging-houses of foreign ambassadors, and officers travelling in the public service. But neither in this

respect would the Chinese be singular; our old mysteries and moralities were frequently played in churches. Taverns in China have also a large room set apart for the entertainment of guests with theatrical exhibitions; just as in England, companies of players had occasional stages erected in the yards of the principal inns, in Queen Elizabeth's time.

If the missionaries have communicated little information respecting the actual state of theatrical representations in China, the descriptions, which occasional visitors to that country have given of the actual state of scenic exhibitions, convey a tolerably correct notion of what they are: and they certainly are not of a nature to give us any very exalted notion of the state of the drama, or of the refinement of the people. The most singular and inexplicable part of the subject is, that those representations would appear to descend into lowness and vulgarity, in the inverse ratio of the rank and situation in life of the parties for whose amusement they are exhibited. Thus, at the court of Pekin, and in presence of His Imperial Majesty, Ysbrandt Ives, the Russian ambassador in 1692, was entertained with jugglers, posture-makers, and harlequins, while on his way thither; and not far from the great wall, the governor of a city entertained him with a regular play. "First," says he, "entered a very beautiful lady, magnificently dressed in cloth of gold, adorned with jewels, and a crown on her

head,

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