CHINESE SCHOOL.
The annexed engraving is a curiosity both in itself and in what it represents. It is taken from a sketch by a native Chinese artist, and depicts the internal arrangements of a native Chinese school. The extraordinary nature of the Chinese language renders it impossible for a schoolmaster to instruct more than a very few scholars at a time, since the meaning of the words actually depends on their correct intonation. Every vocable in the language is capable of being pronounced in six different tones of voice, and of conveying six meanings, totally different from each other, according to the tone given to it. Pronounced in one tone, it conveys one meaning, and is represented by one written character; pronounced in another tone, it conveys an entirely distinct meaning, and is represented in writing by another character altogether different. The correct and distinct enunciation of these tones is the chief difficulty in learning to speak the language. These tones are stereotyped and fixed, and must be learned, as part of the word, at the same time that its form and signification are mastered. Moreover, they are all arranged upon system, like the notes in a gamut, and when thoroughly mastered, the theory of the tones is really beautiful. If a wrong tone, then, is given to a word in reading or in conversation, it grates upon a Chinese ear like a false note in playing the fiddle. Further, if the voice be not correctly modulated, and the words correctly intoned, not only is a jarring note pronounced, but actually a wrong word is uttered, and a different meaning conveyed from what was intended. A missionary to the Chinese, therefore, should be possessed of a musical ear. Without this, the acquisition of the spoken language will be attended by very arduous labour; and, perhaps, after years of toil, he will find that he still frequently fails in correctly conveying his meaning.
LONDON LOCALITIES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
At Ludgate was a gaol, where the prisoners clamoured for alms at the barred grate; and it was here that Sir Thomas Wyatt had been repulsed. The city wall that joined this gate to its other fellow gates ran from the Tower through the Minories to Aldgate, Houndsditch, and Bishopsgate, through Cripplegate to Aldersgate, and so past Christ's Hospital by Newgate and Ludgate to the Thames.
Pimlico was a country place where citizens used to repair to eat "pudding pies" on a Sunday, as they did to Islington or Hogsden to take tobacco and drink new milk; as Islington was famous for its dairy, where Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have lived in an old house still standing, so Holloway was famous for its cheese cakes; and it is these peculiarities that, after all, confer immortality upon a place. Chelsea was the mere village of Chelsea, known from Sir Thomas More's house, where Henry VIII. had walked with his arm round that great statesman's doomed neck; as Holborn was then a country road leading to the pleasant village of St. Giles, and trending on to the way that led to Oxford and to fatal Tyburn, so called from its burn or brook, then well known to patient city anglers. The triple tree or gallows stood at the corner of the present Edgware Road. The same Oxford Street led also, if you turned up one side of the Hampstead Road, to the Tottenham Court, which stood there alone far in the country, and Primrose Hill was an untrodden hillock, surrounded by wide paths and ditches between this court and Hampstead.
A cheerful little stream, known by the pleasant name of the Fleet, rose near Hampstead Hill, and joined by the Old Bourne and recruited by sparkling Clerken Well, emptied itself in the Thames. Though even then merely a sewer, it was open, and had four bridges of its own, while the Thames had but one; and these were known as Holborn Bridge, Fleet-lane Bridge, Fleet Bridge, and Bridewell Bridge.
Spitalfields was a grassy open space, with artillery grounds and a pulpit and cross, where fairs were held and sermons preached. There were also Tothill Fields, and Finsbury Fields, and Moor Fields, just outside the city walls, laid out in walks, and planted, as far as Hoxton. Round these squares there were windmills and everything equally rural. As for Piccadilly, it was everywhere known as a road to Reading, and by many herbalists, as harbouring the small wild foxglove in its dry ditches.
Outside Temple Bar, before the wooden gatehouse was built, lay the Strand, the road leading from the city to the houses of Court. This river bank was the chosen residence of the nobility, whose gardens stretched to the edge of the then undefiled river. The sky then was pure and bright, for our ancestors burnt wood fires, and the water was gay with thousands of boats. Each house had its terrace, its water stairs, and garden. The street houses were so scattered that the river could be seen between them, and there were three water courses there traversed by bridges, besides two churches and a maypole. Here stood York House, where Bacon was born, and Durham Place, where Raleigh lived, with his study in a turret overlooking the river; there also were Arundel House and Essex House, where great men pined and plotted.