The Japanese appear to have carried many arts to much greater perfection than the Chinese; and even in painting, the very old Japan figures approach nearer in style to beauty and a certain sort of greatness. But the reading of one Chinese novel or drama, such, for instance, as the “Fortunate Alliance,” or “The Adventures of the Fair Shuey Ping Sing, and the Chalk Ring,” or “Le Cercle de Craie,” must satisfy us that, whatever progress that nation may have made in science, or whatever sagacity it may have displayed in internal government or in commerce, a true taste for the liberal arts has never ennobled its other pursuits, or charmed the leisure of its philosophers and statesmen. I do not mean to say that they neither look at pictures nor listen to music: but those pictures and that music differ so widely in taste and quality from what the greater number of civilized nations are agreed in admiring, that I feel justified in considering them as insensible to that standard of taste which all the rest of the world acknowledges. Was India then the mother of the arts? and, among her many claims to distinction can she, with justice, advance that of having instructed Egypt and anticipated the splendours of Babylon? It might be expected that the remaining works of art, in that most ancient nation, might decide the question. But far from it. Nor does history or tradition throw any trust-worthy light on the subject. The most ancient monuments of Egypt bear a certain resemblance to some of those of India, and what we know of the religion of both countries indicates, that, in some most remote period, their mysteries and rites had a close resemblance. Yet, on some material points, such as their funeral ceremonies, the difference seems to have been so decided that we are forced to conclude that they were of different sects, emanating, possibly, from a common source.