We regret that we cannot wholly acquit our intelligent Mandarin of the taint of ingratitude. It is evident that his views of English history—at least of that portion in which Falstaff conspicuously appears, for the writer suffers no subject to escape in any way involved in the character of the immortal knight—have been gathered from one of our fellow countrymen; he has, if we may be allowed to say it, sucked the brain, as a “weasel sucks eggs,” of some enlightened but obscure supercargo whom he has left unhonoured and unthanked. How different, in a similar case, was the conduct of an Englishman: our deep veneration of the national character will not, at this happy moment, suffer us to be silent on the grateful magnanimity of Mr Nahum Tate, who, in his preface to his improved version of _King Lear_, returns his “thanks to an _ingenious friend_ who first pointed out the tragedy” to his condescending notice! The silence of the Mandarin towards his instructor is the more strange, as ingratitude is not the vice of the barbarian. An ingenious friend points out a skulking, unarmed straggler to a Cossack; the soldier makes him prisoner, cuts off his ears, slits his nose, bores his tongue, and having mounted the captive behind him, in the cordial spirit of Nahum Tate, “thanks his ingenious friend” for his information! But it is so; in this particular our mandarin fails in comparison with the Cossack and with Nahum Tate. We now lay before the reader the Essay of Ching the Mandarin, who, it will be seen, in his orders to the painter employed to copy the original picture—by whom taken to China remains unknown—has, with national exactness, given the birth and education not only of the author of Falstaff, but of Falstaff himself, together with glancing notices of—Windsor wives and Windsor soap. It is, perhaps, only due to the translator, to state that by our express solicitation he has a little lowered the orientalism of the original, whilst he has at the same time endeavoured to preserve the easy, conversational tone of the educated Chinese. “CHING TO TING. “I send, O Ting, from the barbarian ship, a picture of barbarians. Make one for your friend, like unto it; in size, in shape, and colour, even the same. But why should I waste words with Ting, whose pencil is true as the tongue of Confutzee? No; I will straightway deliver to him all my studies have made known to me of the barbarians written on the canvas before him: for how can even Ting paint the faces of barbarians in their very truth, if he knows not the history not only of themselves but of their fathers?