Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/177

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as the point de dêpart of all that has been accopplished in Chinese scholarship. The work will certainly remain a standing monument of the earnestness, zeal and conscientiousness of the early Protestant Missionaries. After Morrison came a class of scholars of whom Sir John Davis and Dr. Gutzlaff might be taken as representatives. Sir John Davis really knew no Chinese, and he was honest enough to confess it himself. He certainly spoke Mandarin and could perhaps without much difficulty read a novel written in that dialect. But such knowledge as he then possessed, would now-a-days scarcely qualify a man for an interpretership in any of the Consulates. It is nevertheless very remarkable that the notions about the Chinese of most Englishmen, even to this day, will be found to have been acquired from Sir John Davis's book on China. Dr. Gutzlaff perhaps knew a little more Chinese than Sir John Davis; but he attempted to pass himself off as knowing a great deal more than he did. The late Mr. Thomas Meadows afterwards did good service in exposing the pretension of Dr. Gutzlaff, and such other men as the missionaries Huc and Du Halde. After this, it is curious to find Mr. Boulger, in his recent History of China, quoting these men as authorities.

In France, Rémusat was the first to occupy a Chair of Chinese Professorship in any European University. Of his labours we are not in a position to express an opinion. But one book of his attracted notice: it was a translation of a novel, "The Two Cousins." The book was read by Leigh Hunt, and by