funeral of the Princess.

Miss Chennells' work is in fact a collection of chatty little essays on Harem events, which are well written and delicate in tone and matter. The book is well got-up, and contains photographs of the chief personages concerned. The authoress avoids all scandal and thus sets a good example, not only to other writers, but also, and above all, to those who being admitted to positions of trust in Oriental families are bound, both by good taste and duty, to abstain from retailing "tales out of school." Ismael Pasha is still alive, but is detained at the palace of Emirghian on the Bosphorus during the Sultan's pleasure, watching the events in Egypt which he can no longer control.

32. Arabic-English Dictionary, by the late W. T. WORTABET, with the collaboration of J. WORTABET, M.D., and H. PORTER, Ph.A. (London : Luzac and Co., 18s.) This Dictionary, printed in Beyrout, may be recommended to scholars, students and travellers as a carefully compiled work, containing a large number of references within a comparatively small compass (8vo., 814 pp.). Derivatives are invariably enumerated under their respective root-forms and there only; if the latter were distinguished from the former not merely by an asterisk, which does not always catch the eye, but also by being printed in larger and more prominent type, much trouble and confusion would be saved to the user of the dictionary; at present the "guiding" words at the top of each column are positively distracting. One looks, for instance, through K, and is suddenly startled by words beginning with A being printed in the corners of the pages, simply because some derivatives of each root beginning with K necessarily commence with AK. It is impossible to express how annoying these supposed guiding words" are, and how advantageous even their mere omission would be. The grammatical peculiarities, meanings and usages are well and carefully set forth; occasionally illustrative sentences or current idiomatic phrases are added. The only instances of omission which we have discovered are and which ought not to be absent, especially not the former. It may not be out of place here to remark that since the publication of the Arabic Dictionary by Dr. F. Steingass (London: W. Allen and Co.) no Arabic-English Dictionary has come into our hands, which for thoroughness and scholarship joined to convenience and "allround" usefulness even distantly approaches the excellence of that work.

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33. The Sanskrit Monthly Magazine Vidyodaya entered in January last upon the 22nd year of its existence, a long lease for an Indian literary. journal. Originally established at Lahore, it has appeared since April, 1882, at Calcutta, and continues to be largely subvented by the Oriental University Institute, Woking. Its object appears to be to place, at a very moderate price, in the hands of Sanskrit students selections from Sanskrit literature ranging from the Upanishads down to a translation of "Hamlet," and from abstruse philosophical treatises to the pleasant tales of the Purushaparikshâ. In the 5 fasciculi that have appeared in the current year we note especially instalments of Udayana's Kusumânjali and Âtmatattvaviveka (of both of which works good printed editions already exist), and of an Advaitaprakaranam, the author of which is not specified. There are also

instalments of some Alankârasûtram, of a Purushalakshanam (from the Bhavishyapurâna ?), and of the well-known grammar Paribhâshendus'ekhara, the text of which has the advantage of "a new explanatory gloss." The editor has adopted the good plan of giving to each work a separate consecutive pagination. We would suggest the further improvement of a brief literary introduction to each work, and the addition where desirable of a critical apparatus as is done in the "Kâvyamâlâ," which is in every respect a pattern of good editing.

REINHOLD ROST.

34. The Chinese Classics, with a translation, critical and exegetical, notes, prolegomena and copious indexes, by JAMES LEGGE, Professor of Chinese in the University of Oxford. Second edition. Revised. Vol. i. containing Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1893.)

In the revision of this work it is pleasant to notice that Professor Legge has reconsidered his verdict on the greatness of Confucius. In the first edition it was said, "I hope I have not done him injustice; after long study of his character and opinions I am unable to regard him as a great man." In the Oxford edition now published, we read in place of this the words, "I hope I have not done him injustice; the more I have studied his character and opinions, the more highly I have come to regard him. He was a very great man." In the first edition he said, "He was not before his age, though he was above the mass of the officers and scholars of his time. He threw no new light on any of the questions which have a world-wide interest. He gave no impulse to religion. He had no sympathy with progress. His influence has been wonderful, but it will henceforth wane. My opinion is that the faith of the nation in him will speedily and extensively pass away." In the new edition Professor Legge says of Confucius, "His influence has been on the whole a great benefit to the Chinese, while his teaching suggests important lessons to ourselves who belong to the school of Christ."

That Confucius was a great man is clear by the fact that he has been so greatly honoured by his nation, that his books are studied till the present time, and form the groundwork of education throughout China, and that he placed morality above royalty and aristocracy as that controlling power which ought to rule in the individual, the family, and the State. As a champion of morality he occupies a unique position. He loved teaching, and his disciples made him happy by their progress. His meditations on the decline of virtue and manners in his day made him sad. He thought of duty, right, purity, disinterestedness, sympathy with the people as all of the highest importance. He aimed consistently to show that covetousness and injustice, insincerity and oppression, are to be heartily condemned. He has become by this teaching the brightest example of a morally great man that China has produced, and by combining the work of the political and social teacher in one, he is without a rival the "uncrowned king.”

The books of Confucius, in fact, hold the country together, and constitute the realized ideal of Chinese thinking. They show for example, that politics must be essentially based on moral principle, and that the sage must be uniformly a warning voice to incline great men and common men

to virtue's side. The government of China, whether Manchu, Mongol, or Chinese, has never failed to recognise the necessity of maintaining the stability of the state on moral principles, nor has it ever ceased to honour Confucius as the national sage because he taught these things. Intellectual greatness is inferior to moral greatness.

This renders it very important to have an accurate translation of the Four Books in the English language. This we have in Professor Legge's work. The English reader can acquaint himself here with the inner thought of the Chinese nation. This is how they think, the standard on which to this day they still model elaborate books, literary essays, and state papers. An ordinary Chinese scholar or diplomat knows every sentence of these books by heart; and he judges the words and actions of his foreign visitor by their principles, which touch every point in the daily life of the people, and in the administration of affairs by every local magistrate. China, therefore, is best understood by combining a knowledge of these books with a practical acquaintance with things as they are in China at the present time.

In the translation now beautifully reprinted at the Clarendon Press there are not many changes. The orthography for Chinese names is altered so as to suit that of the Sacred Books of the East, and also the system of Sir Thomas Wade. There is one numbering of pages carried through the introductions and the text. Also the chapter headings are printed along the upper margin of the pages. In the old edition the lack of this was always inconvenient. Reference to passages is now much easier than before.

I regret that Professor Legge does not see Persian influence in the worship of the South-west corner mentioned in page 159. I had written to him contending that we ought to find in this place a reference to fireworship as having been by the time of Confucius introduced from Persia into China. He prefers not the Chinese view as represented by Chu hi, who recognises that there was a sacrifice, but an older explanation which does away with the idea of sacrifice. I appeal to the Ti li as proving that burnt sacrifices were offered to the spirit of the South-west corner, and to Tu yü's comment on the Chûn Chîn corresponding to pp. 174, 176, 177 of Professor Legge's Translation. Tu yü says expressly that the human sacrifice there described was in accordance with the rites of the Persian religion. The spot was not many miles distant from the home of Confucius. A modern writer, Kiang yung, says in Sï shu tien tin, ch. 19, p. 20, under the word "burnt sacrifice," that the worship of the South-west corner was offered to an aged woman. It was a burnt sacrifice. The men of that time regarded this as sacrificing to the god of fire. By the aged woman was meant the personage who taught the art of cooking to mankind. Confucius condemned this. It was the first cook, and not the god of fire, and therefore in the opinion of the sage, a contemporary officer, Wen chung in using a burnt sacrifice on the occasion, was in the wrong. He then adds from one of the authorized imperial comments that the sacrifice to the kitchen god is properly offered every summer, and that an aged woman is also sacrificed to at the same time as his wife.

The whole subject of the ancient worship of China may be illuminated

NEW SERIES. VOL. VI.

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by careful research into the contemporary religions of Asia, and this is an instance of it; for Tu yü lived about sixteen centuries ago, and the Ti li is a classic. So also with the old Chinese writing. It needs to be made plain by adducing parallel facts respecting contemporary foreign scripts. Old Chinese characters are identical with Accadian characters, and the tadpole writing existing in China in the time of Confucius, was so called because it was similar to the cuneiform writing of Western Asia. When mentioning the tadpole writing, Professor Legge does not allude to this. To my mind the shape and colour of the tadpole were to the Chinese scholar suitably suggestive of the appearance of cuneiform writing. The Chinese in their written character, as in their seals, their war-chariots, their astrolabes, their clepsydras, and their sundials, were borrowers, and they were always borrowing. Every intelligent nation should and will borrow.

Yet while lacking such improvements as these, the translation of Professor Legge is of very great value for its fulness and accuracy, and may be strongly recommended.

J. EDKINS.

35. Where Three Empires Meet, by E. F. KNIGHT. (London: Longmans and Co., 1893; 18s.). This book ought rather to be called "Where Three Empires do not Meet," where they cannot meet, in any real sense of the term, and where, if they meet, there are mainly sheep and dogs and their Khirghiz keepers to be described. "Where Three Empires Meet" is supposed to be that debatable portion of the barren Pamirs to which neither China, nor Russia, nor England has yet reached. The Pamirs and their nomadic inhabitants are, however, not described by Mr. Knight. His travels were chiefly in Kashmir, Ladak and Skardo, countries which have been fully described since Vigne wrote in 1842 and Cunningham in 1853. To Mr. Knight, however, his predecessors did not exist, for he apparently had the ambition of writing a new revelation. For this purpose Mr. Knight was not fitted by merely being the author of two naval cruises and the correspondent of some English newspapers. He left England on the 26th of February 1891 and was already in Ladák by the middle of May, so he saw little of India. He also took part in our attack on Hunza-Nagyr and, naturally enough for an amateur, glorifies it. Were our perennial frontier campaigns similarly accompanied by a newspaper correspondent, there would be many deeds to chronicle even more heroic than that of Aylmer in putting gun-cotton under the gate of the Nilt Fort. We there played Russia's game in going to expense and alienating the tribes because of the mare's nest of Grombcheffsky's visit, and there we have also destroyed an ancient landmark of Aryan civilization when we broke up the Fairy-Land of Hunza and Dard forms of polity generally, not to speak of the Vandalism of selling the Manuscripts of the Hunza Library by auction to the Sepoys at Gilgit, where also went the ancestral family axes of prehistoric lore. It is a great presumption in this journalist to ride rough-shod over facts and peoples, that he had not the preliminary training for rightly appreciating. Indeed, unless his going to India was a coup monté, as were, undoubtedly, the respective Russian and British advances, we fail to understand how a person, unacquainted with Oriental languages and totally ignorant of Dard history, can dare so to mislead British opinion as not only to justify the

encroachments already made, but also to encourage further collisions to the injury of our Indian Empire. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," but to be an authority on Kashmir, Tibet, Dardistan, and the great Indian Frontier problem, one should be more than "a fine fellow," fond of port, and whose main hardship appears to have been the absence of beef. Indian Officials, compromised in the present policy of approaching Russia through the destruction of inoffensive intervening autonomies, eagerly seized on him and gave him much one-sided information, which he has used in their interests. Thus it was easy to convert him into an advocate of the official view. Kashmir he saw through the spectacles of the Settlement officer, visited the (to him) "mystic" land of Ladák with Capt. Bower, “took part in Col. Durand's expedition against the raiding Hunza-Nagyrs" (the Nagyris have never raided at all) and has come to the conclusion that "the Indian Government can be trusted to do everything as heretofore," and that "it is foolish for people at home to airily criticize" its policy. We cordially agree with him that it was "foolish for one to do so who has spent but a year in the East and who, therefore, has just had time to realize what a vast amount he has yet to learn;" still, so thoroughly does the book hit off the superficial taste of the ordinary reader, so well has it been got up by the publishers, so cleverly and so profusely is it illustrated, that it is almost a pleasure to discover old facts with new faces or events in their disguise. So true it is that there could be no Achilles without his Homer and that the imagination of the latter might easily dispense with the existence of the former. Here is a man, who reprints the articles that he has sent to English newspapers, serenely unconscious of their refutation in many important particulars in the Press and at public meetings, and who yet is a welcome guide, philosopher and friend to a public that has forgotten this fact.* Anticipating, as it were the labours of the proposed Pamir Delimitation Commission, he gives us the following explanation (!) "where Three Empires meet." It is, at the same time, a good specimen of his tone and style: "Kashmir has been called the northern bastion of India. Gilgit can be described as her farther outpost. And hard by Gilgit it is that, in an undefined way, on the high Roof of the World—what more fitting a place?-the three greatest Empires of the Earth meet-Great Britain, Russia and China. Hence the title I have given to this book;" (the italics are ours). Having thus found, and made the most of, a catching title, he now leaves the subject severely alone throughout the whole of his book. We cannot more thoroughly expose its failure than by repeating the praise which it receives from a leading Indian journal, which represents official opinion: "It was certainly a stroke of good fortune for the Indian" (official) "world that sent Mr. E. F. Knight to these shores in the spring of 1891. Of how few 'globe-trotters' can this be said. . . . Mr. Knight does not seem even to have gone through a 'Griffinhood'. . . . That

* It is lucky that an injunction is not taken out on behalf of the good old Raja of Nagyr who is confounded with "ignorant and blood-thirsty scoundrels, faithless to treaty obligations,... who murdered and sold their subjects," etc., and that too after these misstatements had unconsciously, indirectly and incidentally, been disproved by a letter of the Raja written years ago, which we published in the "Asiatic Quarterly Review" of January, 1892.—ED.