It is also worthy of remark, that in the same chapter he corrects two writers, Papillon and Jansen, for erroneously applying a passage in Du Halde as proving that the art of printing was known in the reign of Wu-Wang,--he who flourished Ante Christum 1120; whereas the said passage was not alleged “by Du Halde to prove the antiquity of printing amongst the Chinese, but solely in reference to their ink.” The passage, as translated by Mr. Ottley, is as follows: “As the stone Me” (a word signifying ink in the Chinese language), “which is used to blacken the _engraved_ characters, can never become white; so a heart blackened by vices will always retain its blackness.” The engraved characters were not inked, it appears, for the purpose of taking impressions, as Messrs. Papillon and Jansen have erroneously inferred. “It is possible,” according to Mr. Ottley, “that the ink might be used by the Chinese at a very early period to blacken, and thereby render more easily legible, the characters of engraved inscriptions.”[I-31] The _possibility_ of this may be granted certainly; but at the same time we must admit that it is equally _possible_ that the engraved characters were blackened with ink for the purpose of being printed, if they were of wood; or that, if cut in copper or other metal, they were filled with a black composition which would harden or _set_ in the lines,--as an ingenious inquirer might infer from ink being represented by the _stone_ ME; and thus it is _possible_ that something very like “niello,” or the filling of letters on brass doorplates with black wax, was known to the Chinese in the reign of Wu-Wang, who flourished in the year before our Lord, 1120. The one conjecture is as good as the other, and both good for nothing, until we have better assurance than is afforded by Du Halde, that engraved characters blackened with ink--for whatever purpose--were known by the Chinese in the reign of Wu-Wang.[I-32] [Footnote I-31: At page 7, Mr. Ottley, borrowing from Du Halde, has erroneously stated that the delicate nature of their paper would not permit the use of a press. He must have forgot, for he cannot but have known, that impressions on the finest India paper had been frequently taken from wood-blocks by means of the common printing-press many years previous to 1816, the date of the publication of his book. I have never seen Chinese paper that would bear printing by hand, which would not also bear the action of the press, if printed without being wet in the same manner as common paper.]