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CHINESE MUSIC. 38 11 . t d e I have obtained, some for the sake of the music, which I have fancied pretty ;. I sha m ro uc . • · · f the ( what I have thouO'ht) beauty of the language; others, again, for their absurdity. Here I others, or ':' . . . ma remark that foreigners in this case are very like Chmese. How many songs are pub11shed nowadays- y d 1 . 1·a-ht trash-utterly worthless but for the fact that some of them have pretty tunes. How that are own o . . . S Pl ay the airs of or smg popular songs when they know the languaO'e of them 1s simply many person o idiotic. Who cares to know that 'Captain J inks of the Horse Marines Fed his horse on corn and beans,' th t some individual, name unknown, 'feels like a morning star,' which he takes care to repeat or 1 a_ 1·no· number of times, the only drawback to his otherwise blissfttl state of existence being the an a aim o . . . s attacks of a fly, which he endeavours to dispose of summarily by nsino- t erms at once pertmamou o < entreating, reproachful, and sterni I_ quote his own elo~uent words, 'Shoo! fly, don't bother me !' Yet this kind of song is patronised exte~s1vely; but I tru_st m the majority of cases only for the music, which is really cheerful and pleasan~, for it would be showmg ~ poor t aste for poetry to say one admir ed the 1 <Ye So that however simple or absurd any song I mtroduce may appear I claim that it possesses angua 0 • ' 1 if not superior, advantages to some of Olli' own popular songs ; for there is something not generally equa, C . known to foreigners to be learn~ from every hmese song, and the music of some is positively pretty, d . ld compare favourably w1th some of our own ballad rr.asic S b ll~ds au wou · · • . . . . ongs or a "' in Chinese are very similarly arranged to our own, and the mere rhymist would find it an easy mat ter to string a number of rh~es _to~ether, on account of the construction of the language and the immense number of characters bavmg s1m1lai· sounds ; :vhether they could write poetry or not is another matter. I shall at once proceed . . . with the translation of a sono· called , ur t • , 8 o l'r ang ci-numg, or, a tld , Dame WANG.' I have perhaps been free in the t . ·l t· . we sh01 say, . . . rans a ion, and have utterly repudiated the possibility of my being able to put 1t mto English verse. WANG T A-NIANG OR MADA111E WANG. • ' , .I i I Sha eh 'ua1ng sha ch'v,ang wai Ohieh - €hr tang ,. , 1 J. W am,g ta 1viang ,a t '1 shang. ka t€ng shwng. I 7 • I I \ Ke - pi - ehr hsiang ting wen sli.€ng shui ya? Ke - pi - ehr • I Wwng ta niang chin m€n tso tsai .J J ,-..,__ Jj tso tsai lo lcao J IJ JIJ I J ho . h ~ '!, 0 hai ! E