Page:The China Review, Or, Notes and Queries on the Far East, Volume 22 1RZBAQAAMAAJ.pdf/64

 Giles should have consulted original authorities, and not relied solely on a commentary, before pronouncing judgment. Had he adopted this course, he would have saved himself from some ludicrous blunders, which do not look well when committed by one so 'cocksure' as Mr. Giles invariably is.

Mr. Parker, who has reviewed my book and who has been pleased to pronounce it good, states its chief defect to be the large number of cases in which the Pekingese pronunciation is given wrongly. I regret that, as regards this defect, I must cry peccavi. The instances in which the sounds of Chinese characters according to Wade's spelling have been given incorrectly are too numerous. It is unfortunate, as Mr. Parker says, that the work in this respect was not revised before publication by a competent Pekingese student. This would have saved it from the to quote Mr. Giles, which appear so frequently. But Mr. Giles considers correct romanisation in such a work entirely secondary and subordinate to correct rendering of the text and commentary, and in this I think most people will agree with him, though for 'commentary' I should prefer to substitute 'meaning as explained in the original sources.' The test to apply to such a work is whether each phrase in the text has been correctly translated and its meaning, where explanation is necessary, has been correctly explained. And this is the test to which I am about to submit Mr. Giles' criticisms of my work.

In considering those criticisms, I desire it to be remembered that the text of the Ch'êng Yü K'ao is made up of more than 3,500 phrases or combinations of characters. Even Mr. Giles acknowledges that He says that This opinion is apparently based on the belief that he has found 80 entries which seem to require more or less radical alteration and on the fact that, where references are given, chapter and verse are not invariably quoted. The latter objection comes somewhat strangely from Mr. Giles, the compiler of the latest Chinese-English Dictionary, in which innumerable phrases are given without the slightest indication as to whether they are colloquial or classical and without any reference to the sources from which they are derived. Mr. Giles complains that in my work But the History of the Han dynasty or Han Shu is a classical work written by a historian as well known in China as Macaulay is in Europe. Though reference to chapter and page would no doubt facilitate research, the few students who are able to consult the original would have no difficulty in finding the passage quoted, and the students who are not able to consult it would not be benefited even if chapter and page were given. Both classes of students, however, are made aware by a bare reference to the work that the phrases taken from it have been used by a writer who is regarded as a classic. If Mr. Giles had been cool enough to give even a bare reference to the Han Shu and other works, when he inserted in his Dictionary phrases borrowed from them, he would have been forgiven his coolness for not quoting chapter and verse.

I now proceed to deal with the 80 entries which seem to form the head and front of my offending in the eyes of Mr. Giles. I cannot help thinking, however, that those who know something of the difficulties of Chinese, when they remember that over 3,500 phrases or combinations of characters have been translated or explained, would not regard eighty mistakes, if they could really be considered as such, a sufficient reason for condemning a work which has been favourably noticed by the most distinguished sinologues of the day. But what will be thought if it