imitation, and well adapted for details, they are yet deficient in that highest quality of genius, which grasps a subject at once in all its bearings—which reasons outwards and upwards from the centre-object of contemplation, and which discerns in it its latent powers and the uses to which they may be applied,—which sees in the vapour of a kettle the embryo of the mighty steam-engine, and in the fall of an apple the gravitating force that sustains the universe. There cannot be a doubt, however, that the Chinese character has never yet had fair play. It has never had such advantages as those enjoyed by the nations of Europe, or indeed by every civilised community of modern times. We will not speak of the over-population, and consequent ceaseless and absorbing struggle for the necessaries of life, which ever tends to act injuriously upon the moral and intellectual qualities of the majority of the people,—by extinguishing all high aspirations, and bending down the soul in slavery to the wants of the moment; for that over-population is not peculiar to China, and has, moreover, the attendant, though hardly compensating benefit of sharpening the national wits, and placing a large supply of cheap labour at the disposal of capital. We would rather point out the following peculiarity which affects this people alone of the nations of the earth, and which must ever be kept in mind by those who would correctly appreciate China’s place in universal history. The Chinese empire belongs to the ancient—indeed, we ought to say to the primitive, world. It has long survived the empires of Egypt and Assyria, and the kingdoms of ancient India,—yet it is with these States alone that the isolated civilisation of China can fairly be compared. Like them, China has reared a civilisation for herself, without any help from without. Throughout her unparalleled existence of more than forty centuries, she has been a world to herself. No influx of new ideas, no inspection of other civilisation than her own, has been granted to her. She has grown up like a Crusoe and his children and grandchildren, upon a solitary island,—forced ever to compare themselves by themselves, and never enjoying the rare privilege, and help to improvement, to “see ourselves as others see us.” We Europeans of the present day—in this age of “running to and fro upon the earth”—are privileged to behold the endless variety of life, manners, and institutions with which the world is stored—to judge of them by their several effects, as revealed in the pages of history, and to draw from them their moral; thus benefiting by the experience of a whole world, and perfecting ourselves upon the model of the best of our race. Moreover, the blood of a dozen different tribes of mankind runs in our veins (as was the case on a smaller scale in ancient Greece), producing a richly-blended nature, excelling in all departments, whether of thought or action—producing now a Shakespeare