Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/460

448 , and yet they might adorn and enrich the greatest national library. About ten years ago, the Florentines raised a splendid monument to their famous countryman, at Santa Croce, the Pantheon of Italy; and Cherubini's name now shines near those of Dante, Michel Angelo, and Galileo. Whether during his lifetime a single note of his was ever performed in that splendid city, is extremely doubtful. But the national pride which causes men to do honour to their fellow-countrymen after their death, or rather to themselves in their fellow-countrymen, has occasionally the good result of promoting the knowledge and understanding of their works. Let us hope that this may be the case here.

After thus endeavouring to give a picture of a composer whom every cultivated musician must look up to with reverence, I feel overcome with the sense of the imperfect manner in which I have accomplished my task. The individuality of the great master is clear to my inner vision — I believe that I can follow the traces of his active, clear, sharp, and ingenious mind, and I can understand the varying pulsations of his inmost feelings, up to the secret recesses of creative fancy. But it is always difficult to express what is best and deepest — in music, especially, it is a sheer impossibility. .

 

  — The general character of the Hindu-Chinese is marked by servility, indolence, disingenuousness, and feebleness, which belong to political slavery everywhere. They are at the same time temperate, generally abstemious, placable, docile, peaceable, and obedient. There is, however, a tameness or dulness of character, which, though not amounting to stupidity, is very remarkable. They display no strength or variety of character — exhibit no romantic feelings, and are, in short, utterly unimaginative. In enterprise and personal courage they are greatly inferior to the warlike tribes of Western and Northern Asia. There is one feature of their character which deserves more particular notice, — their national vanity. This exists almost universally in the most exaggerated and ludicrous degree. The Abbé Gervaise, one of the few judicious writers who has treated of the nations of India beyond the Ganges, describes the Siamese as "despising all other nations, and being thoroughly persuaded that the greatest injustice in the world was done to them when their pre-eminence was disputed." This particular people perhaps carry the folly to the greatest height; but the Burmans and Cochin-Chinese are little behind them. A Burman warrior, not many years ago, proposed in council to take Fort William and the city of Calcutta with three thousand soldiers, and to complete the conquest of Hindustan with as many more! He was loudly applauded by the senators of his Burman Majesty. On another occasion, a fleet of open boats was prepared by the Burman government for the purpose of crossing the Bay of Bengal in the south-west monsoon, capturing Fort Saint George, and subduing the Carnatic. A late king of Cochin-China, who was commonly a man of sense, was not himself superior to this extravagance; and, although in many respects well acquainted of what was passing in Europe, was wont to talk familiarly (for he was born and bred an ultra-Royalist) of proffering his assistance to Louis XVIII., and measuring swords with the conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz! The character we have thus attempted to sketch applies generally to all the nations of whom we have been speaking, although there are considerable distinctions. The Burmans are more enterprising, more sprightly, and braver than the Siamese. The Siamese surpass all the rest in vanity; and in point of humanity and moderation have some advantage over the Burmans. The Cochin-Chinese are more gay and social than any of their neighbours; and, indeed, in these points excel all Asiatic people. From the confines of Bengal to the borders of China there exist, besides rude dialects, seven languages which have received a considerable share of cultivation. These are the Aracanese, the Burman, the Peguan, the Siamese, the Lao, the Karnbojan, and the Anam. Of alphabets also there are no less than seven; that of Aracan, of Ava, of Pegue, two alphabets of Lao, that of Siam and the Kambojan, which is the same as the Pali, besides the symbolic character of China which is used by the Cochin-Chinese and Tonquinese, in a form somewhat modified. The Hindu-Chinese dialects are either chiefly or entirely monosyllabic, being so in the greatest degree as we advance eastward. Oriental.. 