The missionaries of the Romish church are so accustomed to the mysteries with which their religion abounds, that every thing they meet with, and do not understand, among a strange people, is also resolved into a mystery. Thus, the following figure, which the Chinese, in allusion to the regular lines described on the back-shell of some of the tortoises, metaphorically call the mystic tortoise, has been supposed by some of these gentlemen to contain the most sublime doctrines of Chinese philosophy; that they embrace a summary of all that is perfect and imperfect, represent the numbers of heaven and earth, and such like jargon, which, it obviously appears, is no less unintelligible to themselves than to their readers. These famous lines, supposed to be found on the back of a tortoise, are the following: [Illustration] Who does not perceive, at a single glance, in this figure the common schoolboy's trick of the magic square, or placing the nine digits so that they shall make the sum of fifteen every way, thus, +---+---+---+ | 2 | 9 | 4 | +---+---+---+ | 7 | 5 | 3 | +---+---+---+ | 6 | 1 | 8 | +---+---+---+ and what are the perfect and imperfect numbers, but the odd and even digits distinguished by open and close points? In like manner, I am inclined to believe, the several ways of placing these open and close points that occur in Chinese books are literally nothing more than the different combinations of the nine numerical figures, for which they are substituted. Most of the other _king_ have been translated, wholly or in part, and published in France. It may be observed, however, that all the Chinese writings, translated by the missionaries, have undergone so great a change in their European dress, that they ought rather to be looked upon as originals than translations. It is true, a literal translation would be nonsense, but there is a great difference between giving the meaning of an author, and writing a commentary upon him. Sir William Jones observes that the only method of doing justice to the poetical compositions of the Asiatics, is to give first a verbal and then a metrical version. The most barren subject, under his elegant pen, becomes replete with beauties. The following stanza, from one of the odes of the _Shee-king_, is an instance of this remark. It is calculated to have been written about the age of Homer; and it consists of fifteen characters. 1 2 3 4 5 6 The peach-tree, how fair, how graceful, its leaves, how blooming 7 8 9 10 11 how pleasant; such is a bride, when she enters her bridegroom's 12 13 14 15 house, and attends to her whole family. This is a fair translation, as no more expletives are inserted than such as were necessary to make up the sense, and it is thus paraphrased by Sir William Jones.