Page images
PDF
EPUB

unnatural parent could have surrounded his throne with such a progeny, it is surely not more credible that an age of profligacy and pedantry, a reign of oppression and of national debasement, should have been succeeded, before the lapse of a single generation, by that period in which the English character, considered in all ranks of society, evinced itself most vigorous and masculine, and most apt for counsel, enterprise, and endurance.

But, in those days, progresses were changed to marches, and mansions received the sovereign, not with pageants and recitations, but with the pomp and circumstance of war. Compared with scenes of such high and tragic interest, the secure excursions of the peaceful James, however calculated in themselves to excite and detain attention, must appear a slight and spiritless theme. To some minds, indeed, all subjects of this nature may seem barren and trivial; and we grant that, in affairs of mere show and ceremonial, an over-curious diligence of investigation may be easily, and often justly, ridiculed. But the intercourse of a British monarch with his assembled people, must always afford some matter fitted to engage the grave and enlightened observer; and we need not go far back in the annals of this country to shew instances in which, if the history of public feeling be important in a nation's records, a royal journey or procession has been more truly memorable than a treaty or a conquest. There was no incident of the late reign which entered into the minds and hearts of the people, with a more profound and salutary influence, than the late King's passage through London to St. Paul's, on the happy restoration of his health; the same good prince did not repair to Weymouth in vain ;-nor will the Progresses of George the Fourth, in the years following his coronation, cease, for many a day to come, to be freshly remembered, as domestic triumphs, bloodless and unembittered, and a worthy sequel to the warlike glories of the Regency.

ART. IV.-Hăn Koong Tsew, or The Sorrows of Han, a Chinese Tragedy, translated from the Original, with Notes. By John Francis Davis, F.R.S., Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and of the Oriental Translation Committee, &c. 4to. London. 1829.

THE

HE Chinese stand eminently distinguished from other Asiatic nations by their early possession, and extensive use, of the art of printing-of printing, too, in that particular shape, the stereotype, which is best calculated, by multiplying the copies and cheapening the price, to promote the circulation of every species

of

of their literature. Hence they are, as might be expected, a reading people; a certain quantity of education is universal among even the lower classes and among the higher, it is superfluous to insist on the great estimation in which letters must be held, under a system where learning forms the very threshold of the gate that conducts to fame, honours, and civil employment. Amidst the vast mass of printed books, which is the natural offspring of such a state of things, we make no scruple to avow that the circle of their Belles Lettres, comprised under the three heads of drama, poetry, and romances or novels, has always possessed the highest place in our esteem; and we must say that there appears to us no readier or more agreeable mode of becoming intimately acquainted with a people, from whom Europe can have so little to learn on the score of either moral or physical science, than by drawing largely from the inexhaustible stores of their ornamental literature. The publication, by that very active and flourishing association, the Oriental Translation Fund, of the Chinese tragedy which stands at the head of this article, furnishes us with an occasion of introducing some observations on the subject-of throwing, we trust, some new lights upon it, and investing it with additional interest-and we are not aware of any better arrangement than the triple classification above stated: 1. The Drama, 2. Poetry. 3. Romances and Novels.

The Chinese themselves make no technical distinctions between tragedy and comedy in their stage pieces;-the dialogue of which is composed in ordinary prose, while the principal performer now and then chants forth, in unison with music, a species of song or vaudeville, and the name of the tune or air is always inserted at the top of the passage to be sung.

A translator from their language seems, however, at liberty to apply those terms, according to the serious and dignified, or comic and familiar character of the composition which he selects, In chusing his own specimen from among so many, the translator of the Sorrows of Han, we quote his preface, was influenced by the consideration of its remarkable accordance with our own canons of criticism. The unity of action is complete, and the unities of time and place much less violated than they frequently are on the English stage. The grandeur and gravity of the subject, the rank and dignity of the personages, the tragical catastrophe, and the strict award of poetical justice, might satisfy the most rigid admirer of Grecian rules. The translator hast thought it necessary to adhere to the original, in distinguishing by name the first act, or proëm, from the four which follow it; but the distinction is purely nominal, and the piece consists, to all intents and purposes, of five acts. It is remarkable that this pecu

liar division holds true with regard to a large number of the Hundred Plays of Yuen'-from which the present drama is taken.

Love and war, too, very legitimate subjects of tragedy, constitute its whole action, and the language of the imperial lover is frequently passionate to a degree one is not prepared to expect in such a country as China. The nature of its civil institutions, and the degraded state of the female sex, might generally be pronounced unfavourable to the more elevated strains of the erotic muse. The bulk of the people, it might be thought, are too much straitened for the bare means of subsistence, through the pressing demands of an excessive population, to admit of their lounging about and singing, after the most approved manner of idle shepherds and shepherdesses; and the well-educated class, which comprehends almost all the higher ranks, or those in the employ of the government, too proud and unfeeling to make love the theme of their compositions which are doubtless chiefly confined to moral and speculative, or descriptive subjects. The drama in question, however, may teach us not to pronounce too dogmatically on such points by reasonings à priori, but to wait patiently for the fruits of actual research and experience.

The moral of this play is evidently to expose the evil consequences of luxury, effeminacy, and supineness in the sovereign,

'When love was all an easy monarch's care,

Seldom at council, never in a war.'

The subject is strictly historical, and relates to that interesting period of the Chinese annals when the declining strength of the government emboldened the Tartars in their aggressions, and gave rise to the temporising and impolitic system of propitiating those barbarians by alliances and tribute, which at last produced the downfall of the empire, and the establishment of the Mongol dominion. The drama opens with the entrance of the Tartar Khan, reciting these verses:

The autumnal gale blows wildly through the grass, amidst our woollen tents,

And the moon of night, shining on the rude huts, hears the lament of the mournful pipe:

The countless hosts, with their bended bows, obey me as their leader;

Our tribes are the distinguished friends of the family of Han.'

This formidable Scythian displays his friendship after a singular fashion, as we shall see presently. He ends a speech, which may be considered either as a soliloquy, or as an address to the audience, thus,

'We have moved to the south, and approached the border, claiming an alliance with the Imperial race. Yesterday, I despatched an envoy,

with tributary presents, to demand a princess in marriage, but know not if the Emperor will ratify the engagement with the customary oaths. The fineness of the season has drawn away our chiefs on a hunting excursion, amidst the sandy steppes: may they meet with success! for we Tartars have no fields; our bows and arrows are our sole means of subsistence.' [Exit.]

The Chinese leave more to the imagination than we do; for they neither contrive that the action should all proceed on one spot, as in the Greek tragedy, nor do they make use of shifting scenes. You can never bring in a wall,' says Snug, the joiner-so say the Chinese; and their contrivances, though not quite so absurd as those of the "Mechanicals" in Midsummer Night's Dream, are scarcely more artificial.

The next personage that appears is the minister of the emperor, and he at once displays his character by these four verses, with the recital of which he enters :

'Let a man have the heart of a kite, and the talons of an eagle; Let him deceive his superiors, and oppress those below him; Let him enlist flattery, insinuation, profligacy, and avarice on his

side,

And he will find them a lasting assistance through life.'

The falsehood of this bad morality, however, is ultimately proved in the fate of its author, who thus continues:

'By a hundred arts of specious flattery and address, I have deceived the Emperor, until he places his chief delight in me alone. My words he listens to, and he follows my counsel. Within the precincts of the palace, as without them, who is there but bows before me, who is there but trembles at my approach? But observe the chief art which I have learned-it is this-to persuade the emperor to keep aloof from his wise counsellors, and seek all his pleasures amidst the women of his palace. Thus it is that I strengthen my power and greatness; but, in the midst of my lucubrations, here comes the emperor.

(Enter the Emperor Yuente, attended by eunuchs and women.) Emp. (Recites verses)-During the ten generations that have succeeded our acquisition of empire,

My race has alone possessed the four hundred districts of the world:* Long have the frontiers been bound in tranquillity by the ties of mutual oaths;

And our pillow has been undisturbed by grief or anxiety.'

The worthy minister and his sovereign agree that there is no better mode of improving these piping times of peace, than by adding to the numbers of the imperial haram: the favourite is appointed on the spot commissioner of selection, desired to search diligently through the realm for all that is most beautiful of woman

* That is, of China.

kind, between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and then furnish his master with portraits of each, as a means of fixing his choice. And so ends the introductory act.

The minister proceeds on his commission, and does just what Falstaff did on his recruiting service- misuses the king's press most damnably.' The knight, however, takes money for letting off the proper objects of his selection, and discharges those likely fellows, Bullcalf and Mouldy, while he marshals in his ranks the half-faced Shadow, the forceless Feeble, and the ragged Wart. Our emissary, on the contrary, was bribed to take, and not to reject. He met at length with a maiden of uncommon attrac

tions:

She

'The brightness of her charms was piercing as an arrow! was perfectly beautiful; and doubtless unparalleled in the whole empire. But unfortunately her father is a cultivator of the land, not possessed of much wealth. When I insisted on a hundred ounces of gold, to secure her being the chief object of the imperial choice, they first pleaded their poverty; and then, relying on her extraordinary beauty, rejected my offers altogether. I therefore left them. (Considers awhile.)—But no! I have a better plan. (He knits his brows, and matures his scheme.) I will disfigure her portrait in such manner, that, when it reaches the emperor, it shall secure her being doomed to neglected seclusion. Thus I shall contrive to make her unhappy for life—base is the man who delights not in revenge!'

We next see the lady herself, who appears soliloquizing amidst the shades of night:

My mother dreamed, on the day I was born, that the light of the moon shone on her bosom, but was soon cast low to the earth.† I was just eighteen years of age when chosen as an inhabitant of the imperial palace: but the minister, Maouyenshow, disappointed in the treasure which he demanded on my account, disfigured my portrait in such manner as to keep me out of the emperor's presence, and now I live in neglected solitude. While at home, I learned a little music, and could play a few airs on the lute. Thus sorrowing in the stillness of midnight, let me practise one of my songs to dispel my griefs. (Begins to play on the lute.)

(Enter Emperor, attended by a eunuch, carrying a light).

Emp. Since the beauties were selected to grace our palace, we have not yet discovered a worthy object on whom to fix our preference. Vexed and disappointed, we have passed this day of leisure, roaming in search of her who may be destined for our imperial choice. (Hears the lute.) Is not that some lady's lute?

Attend. It is; I hasten to advise her of your majesty's approach.

home.

Because, once admitted within the precincts of the palace, she could never return

+ Boding a short, but fatal distinction to her offspring.

Emp

« PreviousContinue »