manners and customs, are thrown into so regular and digested a form, as that a stranger but superficially acquainted with the language, and real spirit of the Chinese people, seems to see much to praise and comparatively little to blame; while, at the same time, their nation groans under oppression and violence, their courts are filled with bribery and injustice, their markets with cozening and deceit, their houses with concubines; yea, even sodomites-catamites!-their monasteries, with ignorant, indolent, and filthy ascetics, "who," to use the words of a Chinese writer, are not worth the down of a feather to society"—her schools and colleges with high-minded, self-sufficient Literati, to whose proud and sophisticated minds the humbling doctrines of the Gospel will be no less obnoxious, than they were to the sarcastic pride of a Celsus!

66

Sketch of the Chinese Method of Printing.

[By Mr. MILNE.]

TO trace the history and progress of this art in China, would be interesting; but as it is foreign to my present purpose, I shall briefly observe, that in the year of our Lord 935, the subject of printing was introduced to the notice of the emperor Teen Foh. But this was probably an official statement on the subject of printing only; as it does not mark the origin of that invaluable art in China; for, twelve years before, in the seventh year of T'heenching (i. e. A. D. 923,) this emperor is reproached in the Kang-keen, (Kuen 6th, p. 20,) in the following terms: "In the second month [of the 7th year of T'heen-ching,] the Kew-king, (i. e. the classical books) were first cut in wooden plates, printed and sold." The Commentators add: why is the selling of them particularly marked? [Ans.] It is the language of irony, reproaching him as having done what was below the dignity of an emperor, who should rather have given them gratis, or individuals to print and sell them for their own benefit. vantage to the learned was considerable, as they were enabled from that time to obtain books with more ease. Hence the historian purposely notes this as the commencement [of this sort of literary advantages.]" From this we may reasonably infer, that printing existed in China, at least, in the close of the ninth century; for it must have taken some years to prove its effici ́ency, before it either attracted the notice of government, or would have been worth any thing as an Imperial monopoly.

given a licence to

However, the ad

The Chinese have three methods of printing. The first invented, and that which almost universally prevails, is called “Moh-pan, or woodenVOYAGES and TRAVELS, Vol. VI. P

plates." It is a species of stereotype, and answers all the ends thereof, as the letters do not require to be distributed and re-composed; but, being once clearly cut, they remain, till either the block be destroyed, or till the characters be so worn down by the ink-brush, as to be illegible.

The second is called Lah-pan, i. e. "wax-plates,” and consists in spreading a coat of wax on a wooden frame, after which, with a graving tool, they cut the characters thereon. This method is rarely adopted, except in cases of haste and urgency; and it differs from the former only in the kind of plate on which the words are engraved. This sort of printing I have not seen practised by the Chinese, nor observed it noticed in any book. The printers employed at Malacca, say, that when an urgent affair occurs, a number of workmen are called in, and a small slip of wood, with space for one, two, or more lines, is given to each, which they cut with great expedition, and when all is finished, join together by small wooden pins; by this means a page, or a sheet, is got up very speedily, like an extra gazette in an English printing-office. This method, they say, is, from its expeditiousness, called Lah-pan, and they know nothing of the other.

The third is denominated Hwo-pan, “living plates," so called from the circumstance of the characters being single, and moveable, as the types used in European printing. Kang-he, in 1722, had a great number of these moveable types made of copper, whether cut or cast, it is not said. The Chinese are not, however, entirely ignorant of casting, though they do not use it to any extent. The Imperial scals on the Calendar, are cast with the Chinese character on one half of the face, and the Manchow-Tartar on the other. Copper vessels used in the temples, and bells, have frequently ancient characters, and inscriptions, cast with them. Whether they have ever attempted to cast single characters, or to frame matrices, similar to those which are used in casting types for alphabetic languages, does not appear. These Hwo-pan, or moveable types, are commonly made of wood. The Canton daily paper, called Yuen-mun-pao (i. e. A report from the outer gate of the palace,) containing about 500 words, or monosyllables, is printed with these wooden types, but in so clumsy a manner as to be scarcely legible. At Macao, in the Missionary department of the College of St. Joseph, I have seen several large cases full of this description of type, with which they print such Roman Catholic books as are wanted for the Missions. In the Anglo-Chinese College Library at Malacca, there is a Life of the Blessed Virgin in two, and the Lives of the Saints in 26 volumes, 18mo, printed .with the wooden type, at the College of St. Joseph; but all that can be said of the printing is, that it is barely legible-a vast difference between it and the other Catholic books, which were executed in the common way, those of them that were cut at Pekin, in blocks, are elegantly printed. On asking

the priests at St. Joseph's, the reason why they used the moveable type, seeing it was so much inferior in beauty to the other method, they answered, that the persecutions in China had obliged them to adopt this method, as blocks were more cumbersome, and not so easily carried off, or hidden, in cases where the Missionaries were obliged to flee, or where they expected a search to be made by the Mandarines. The copper types look better on the paper than the wooden ones; but the impression is inferior in beauty to that from moderately well executed blocks. A history of the Loo-choo Islands, in 4 vols. octavo, compiled by the authority of Keen-lung, was printed with copper types; and may be given as an instance of this inferiority, though its execution is by no means bad. The Chinese have no press; but whether the forms are of wooden blocks, waxen plates, or moveable types, they have the same method of printing, or casting off, that is, by means of a dry brush rubbed over the sheet.

The Chinese have six different kinds, or rather six different forms, of the character, each of which has its appropriate name, and all of which are occasionally used in printing. That which, like our Roman, preTo write this form of the vails most generally, is called Sung-te. There are men who character, is of itself an employment in China. learn it on purpose, and devote themselves entirely to the 'labour of tran scribing for the press. Few of the learned can write it; indeed, they rather think it below them to do the work of a mere transcriber. With respect to moveable types, the body of the type being prepared, the character is written inverted, on the top: this is a more difficult work than to write for blocks. After this, the type is fixed in a mortise, by means of two small pieces of wood, joined together by a wedge, and then engraved; after which it is taken out, and the face lightly drawn acros a whetstone, to take off any rough edge that the carving instrument may have left.

The process of preparing for and printing with the blocks, or in the stereotype way, is as follows: The block, or wooden plate, ought to be of the Lee, or Tsaou tree, which they describe thus:-"The Lee and Tsaou are of a fine grain, hard, oily, and shining; of a sourish taste; and what vermin do not soon touch, hence used in printing." The plate is first squared to the size of pages, with the margin at top and bottom; and is in thickness generally about half an inch. They then smooth it on both sides with a joiner's plane; each side contains two pages, or rather, indeed, but one page, according to the Chinese method of reckoning; for they number the leaves, not the pages of a book. The surface is then rubbed over with rice, boiled to a paste, or some glutinous substance, which fills up any little indentments, not taken out by the plane; and softens and moistens the face of the board, so that it more easily receives the impression of the character.

The transcriber's work is, first to ascertain the exact size of the page, the number of lines, and of characters in each line; and then to make what they call a Kib, or form of lines, horizontal and perpendicular, crossing each other at right angles, and thus leaving a small square for each character— the squares for the same sort of character, are all of equal size, whether the letter be complicated as to strokes, or simple: a letter or character with fifty strokes of the pencil, has no larger space assigned to it than one with barely a single stroke. This makes the page regular and uniform in its appearance, though rather crowded, where many complicated characters follow each other in the same part of the line. The margin is commonly at the top of the page, though not always so.-Marginal notes are written, as with us, in a smaller letter. This form of lines, being regularly drawn out, is sent to the printer, who cuts out all the squares, leaving the lines prominent ; and then prints off as many sheets, commonly in red ink, as are wanted. The transcriber then, with black ink, writes in the squares from his copy; fills up the sheet; points it; and sends it to the block-cutter, who, before the glutinous matter is dried up from the board, puts the sheet on inverted, rubs it with a brush and with his hand, till it sticks very close to the board. He next sets the board in the sun, or before the fire, for a little, after which he rubs off the sheet entirely with his fingers.: but not before a clear impression of each character has been communicated. The graving tools are then employed, and all the white part of the board is cut out, while the black, which shews the character, is carefully left. The block being cut, with edged tools of various kinds, the process of printing follows. The block is laid on a table; and a brush made of hair, being dipped in ink, is lightly drawn over the face. The sheets being already prepared, each one is laid on the block, and gently pressed down by the rubbing of a kind of brush, made of the hair of the Tsung tree. The sheet is then thrown off; one man will throw off 2000 copies in a day. Chinese paper is very thin, and not generally printed on both sides, though in some particular cases that is also done. In binding, the Chinese fold up the sheet, turning inward that side on which there is no impression. On the middle of the sheet, just where it is folded, the title of the book, the number of the leaves, and of the sections, and also Sometimes the subject treated of, are printed, the same as in European books, except that in the latter, they are at the top of the page, whereas here, they are on the front edge of the leaf; and generally cut so exactly on the place where it is folded, that one, in turning the leaves, sees one half of each character on one side, and the other half on the other. The number of sheets destined to constitute the volume, being laid down and pressed between two boards, on the upper one of which a heavy stone is laid, they are then covered with a sort of coarse paper-not with boards as in Europe;

the back is then cut, after which the volume is stitched, not in our way, but through the whole volume at once, from side to side, a hole having been previously made through it with a small pointed iron instrument. The top and bottom are then cut, and thus the whole process of Chinese type-cutting, printing, and binding, is finished. Though the transcribing, cutting, printing, and binding, form each a distinct occupation, yet they can be all easily united in one person. The first person employed as a Chinese printer by the Mission at Malacca, performed all these himself.

The Chinese type-cutting, which is called Kih-tzse, is of two different kinds; the one is denominated Yang-wan, i. e., "masculine letter." In this the strokes which form the character are carefully left untouched and prominent,on the face of the plate and all the other parts cut out, and after printing, the black or inked part exhibits the character. This is the common and prevailing kind of letter. The other is called Yin-wan i. e. "feminine letter;" and is the very reverse of the former: here the strokes which form the character alone are cut out, and all the rest left untouched; hence, after printing, the white or un-inked part exhibits the character. This kind of letter is very little used. In the Commentaries of books, at the head of the first line of a paragraph, one, two, or three Yin-wan characters are sometimes employed, to introduce the subject; or as a head-line; or to mark the nature of the paragraph, whether paraphrastic, explanatory, or critical or to refer to some highly valued author. This division of the printed character into masculine and feminine, is a further proof of what has already been noticed, respecting the powerful hold which the hermaphrodite principle has of the notions of the Chinese.

The method of printing now described, has existed in China for upwards of 900 years; and has been applied to all the various kinds of composition; to books on politics, on history, on ethics, on philosophy, and on science, whether in poetry or in prose. It has likewise been applied to all dimensions of books, from the elephant folio down to the one hundred and twentyeights; to all sizes of letter, from the twenty-lines pica to the diamond; to all kinds of character, whether plain or hieroglyphic, whether the manuscript or printed form; to all sorts of ornaments and borders; and in some cases to foreign languages as well as the native. Of this last there is an example in the Lung-wie-pe shop, a miscellaneous work, consisting of eighty duodecimo volumes: the eight last volumes of this book are devoted to the purposes of general geography, giving very brief, sketches of the countries bordering on China, and westward through India, Persia, Arabia, Turkey, Europe, Africa, and the Malay Archipelago, round by Formosa and Corea, to Tartary. In these, besides specimens of the coins, and costumes of various nations, there are exhibited also specimens of seven different languages,