Page:Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 1.djvu/349

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Read June 18, 1825.

ON THE CHINESE WRITING.

graphic beauty of a written language, which approaches so near to the hieroglyphic as the Chinese, where many of the characters are intended as pictures of the idea to be conveyed, where the variety of the lines, or strokes, is so great, and their combinations are so numerous, must be allowed at once to exceed, and to be more difficult of attainment than, that of the alphabetic writing of Europe. The number of the simple characters, or elements, of which all the compounds of the language are formed, greatly exceeds that of any one alphabet; but, when compounded, their relative juxta-position and arrangement, the shortening of some strokes and the lengthening of others, is of course subject to some general rules; which, from the very nature of the subject, must be more numerous and complicated, than the mere joining together of our European letters. The advantage of simplicity (and a very great advantage it is) constitutes the chief merit of alphabetic writing; that of variety and graphic beauty may fairly be claimed by the Chinese.

It must be observed, however, that there are two forms, under which the character generally appears: of these, the Sung pan, in which books are commonly printed, being stiff and inelegant, lays claim only to correctness; the other, viz. the Keae shoo, in which all papers of consequence are written, and which occasionally is also used in print, combines both correctness and beauty; it is at once the most elegant, the most useful, and