when united, "to refine in the furnace;" with many others: fifth, derivative, or those which are formed from other characters, with a slight variation; as the character for "old," if turned a little to the right instead of the left, means "to examine;" and that for "great," with an additional dot, means "very great:" sixth, phonetic; or those in which form and sound harmonize together; as the characters for "river," and "stream," in which three drops represent the water, combined with other characters, whose sound is well known, to give some clue to the pronunciation.
According to these six modes, all the Chinese characters have been formed; and thus they have arrived at the construction of their written language. The principle on which it is based, is that of assigning a separate character for each word; and, with the exception of the sixth division, above enumerated, of establishing no connection between form and sound. By this means the symbols of the Chinese language have become very numerous, and can hardly be learned without great difficulty. The characters, in the imperial dictionary, exceed thirty thousand; but many of these are obsolete, and of rare occurrence. By a careful collation of a historical novel in twenty volumes, and of the Chinese version of the sacred scriptures, it appears, that the whole amount of characters used in both does not much exceed three thousand different sorts; which would all be known and readily remembered, by reading the whole twice through.
Chinese characters appear exceedingly complicated, to an unpractised observer; but a minute inspection and comparison, will remove much of the difficulty. It will soon be perceived, that however involved the
