extended the range of their operations further to the south in Hoo nan and Keang se. We learn nothing more of the reported movement of the Eastern Prince with a large army on Hwuy chow.

The chief source of information respecting the origin of the Tae ping sect and their first resort to arms against the Imperial authorities is a little book compiled by the late Mr. Hamberg, a Protestant missionary at Hongkong; who got the details from Hung jin, a relative (pp. 191, 192) of the founder of the sect, the now Heavenly Prince at Nanking. The extracts in Chapters VI. VII. and VIII. are from this book, of which there exists a cheap London republication under the title of "The Chinese Rebel Chief." A number of extrinsic corroborative circumstances, as well as certain of its intrinsic features, convince me of the perfect truthfulness of this narrative. The manifest errors of Hung jin and certain delusions he labours under are precisely those which a Chinese, such as himself, was likely to be subject to, while desiring to give the most faithful account.

With reference to one number in this volume, that of eighty thousand on page 64, it has been taken from a work by Dr. Ryan on the subject. The dates and numbers with respect to dealings between Chinese and Occidentals, I have myself taken from the accounts of these latter. All the purely Chinese dates and numbers, whether referring to the present rebellion or to the previous history of the Chinese, I have taken directly from the best Chinese authorities. This has formed one of the greatest labours connected with the preparation of the volume. For instance, the general nature of the occurrences narrated on the three pages, 108, 109, and 110, had long

been familiar to me in China; but in order to ensure accuracy in the few dates and numbers there given, I read, here in London, some three volumes of a work entitled "Shing woo ke, Record of the Holy Wars," and which is a history of the various wars by which the Manchoos fought their way to power in Eastern Asia. There is, in the present volume, not a single statement as to facts connected with Chinese political history or Chinese philosophy that I have not verified on various original works of acknowledged authority; of which I brought upwards of 300 volumes home with me for that purpose.

I take this opportunity of publishing the fact, that after having been at the trouble of selecting and packing all these books, and at the expense of bringing them home overland, I had to pay a considerable sum in the shape of duties and the cost of clearing them at our London Customhouse. In a book that treats of civilization, I feel bound to denounce this infliction of a fine on endeavours to advance knowledge, as a piece of sheer barbarism or savagery. In China, not only is the press free, but books are, at every Customhouse throughout the country, maritime or internal, exempt from all duty. I believe the most extortionate mandarin would be shocked at the notion of levying a tax on the great means of diffusing instruction.

Returning to what I have stated about the trouble taken by me to secure accuracy, I think more attention should be directed to the fact, that writers who publish on foreign nations, without taking such trouble, are deserving not merely of close criticism, which all must expect, but of severe reprehension. Great social and international mischiefs are the ultimate consequences of

the loose statements thereby put into circulation. Most reprehensible of all is that style of sweeping assertion of moral worthlessness, or even of utter vileness, as the ascertained character of whole nations. The same assertions, indulged in with respect to individuals or to families, would subject the offenders to heavy damages for libel. False praise cannot in the end be useful to human progress, but it is at least an amiable error. False vilification, on the other hand, directly engenders mutual contempt and loathing: both without real grounds, yet both certainly leading to overt insults, to fights and to wars. The reader will perceive that I have given myself some trouble to refute those who have written on the Chinese in this spirit of wanton depreciation. With other writers whose positions I have disputed, as Drs. Medhurst and Williams, my differences are only questions of correctness as to philosophical literature; a subject of great importance certainly, but where errors may, after much care, be made on either side; and where they do not, moreover, at once lead to those mischiefs of which flippant abuse is the direct cause. I trust these words will show the true bearing of my criticisms;—and, in every case, no future writer on China must conceive himself personally attacked if his labours are criticized by me.

In the Essay on Civilization, I have explained how it was that the examination of that subject forced itself upon me. In other respects also, the Essay speaks for itself; and as the subject is one which thousands of home residents are as well enabled by opportunities to judge of as myself, I leave it, without further comment, to public consideration.

At pages 606, 607 and 608, I have shown that nine years ago, I published a volume entitled "Desultory Notes on China," one of the main objects of which was to urge the institution of Public Service Competitive Examinations for all British subjects, with a view to the IMPROVEMENT OF THE BRITISH EXECUTIVE AND THE UNION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

About the time when I published that volume, I actually employed Competitive Examinations for the British Service. Having discovered three of our permanent Chinese clerks-men whose salaries appear in the Downing Street accounts-engaged in taking illicit fees from a Chinese suitor, I turned them off; and, with the sanction of the then Consul, Mr. Macgregor, had a printed official notice posted throughout Canton, (a city containing from seven hundred thousand to a million of inhabitants ;) whereby educated men, acquainted with native public business, were invited to appear as competitors for the vacant posts. The salaries were two hundred and forty dollars a year, a sum which, taking into consideration the difference in the style of living, may be about equivalent to £200 a year in England. That was not much; but the number of educated men whom the National Examinations call into existence is so great that, in spite of the stigma which rested then, still more than it now does, on Chinese serving in the barbarian factories, some did make their appearance among the forty or fifty competitors who came forward within the few days to which I limited my Examinations. I saw each candidate separately, and commenced his examination by placing before him an Imperial preface to one of the Sacred Books; which I desired him to explain to me sentence by sentence and, in portions, word for word. As these prefaces touch historically and descriptively on the contents of the works to which they are prefixed, a man, ignorant of literature and literary history, could not go through two pages of them without grossly exposing himself; and I was, by this test alone, enabled to divide the competitors rapidly into three classes, viz. :-first, well educated and well read men, whose acquaintance with the literature in all respects vastly exceeded my own; secondly, men not equal to myself in some points, though superior in others; and lastly, a number of more or less illiterate fellows, who came in the hope of imposing by high pretensions on the

presumed utter ignorance of the barbarian.

It was an amusement

watch the crest-fallen

to the Chinese about the establishment, to air with which these men came out of my office,—some of them in high perspiration from their wild plunging about in an Imperial preface. I took the address of every competitor; summoned those of the first class, of whom there were only five or six, to two or three additional and more extensive examinations; and ultimately selected three men, who were perfect strangers, not only to myself, but to every Chinese in the factories. Of course, this totally unprecedented procedure on my part raised both ridicule and reprobation among a certain class of my countrymen; but I gained my object. I got better men about me than had ever been employed in the factories before; and it is worthy of note that that man, whom, esteeming him intellectually the ablest, I selected for the most important work, proved on longer acquaintance to be morally higher than perhaps any other Chinese whose character and conduct I have had opportunities of closely and frequently observing he never smoked opium, was a thorough believer in, and unflinching defender of the Confucian philosophy and morality, and endeavoured to square his conduct with his principles. At other periods I held two similar examinations; but these were to procure men for private, not officially paid clerkships.

From the particulars detailed, the reader will perceive that, in the matter of Competitive Examinations, whether my opinions are sound or not, they are the result of much thought based on some personal practice, and on the great spectacle of the Chinese National Examinations going on before my eyes. I had a plan for British Competitive Examinations written out in 1846; and it was only a special circumstance that prevented its being sent home for publication with the MSS. of the "Desultory Notes." Since that, the subject has often occupied my thoughts; and, during the last two years, I have naturally observed the progress of our Civil Service and Military Examinations with very great interest. Our young system, if such the several unconnected examinations can be called, is far from having reached that stage which was sketched in my plan of 1846; but on every side I see cheering signs of a gradual approach to it. Some permanent heads of departments, impelled either by a wish to promote the general national interests, or by