Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/804

770 J U L J U L JULICH (Fr., Juliers), the chief town of a circle in the government district of Aachen, Prussia, and capital of the former duchy of Jtilich, situated on the right bank of the Roer, about 16 miles north-east of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). It contains three churches, a progymnasium, and a military school, and has manufactures of leather, paper, and wood. The population in 1875 was 5111. Jiilich (formerly also Gulch, Guliche) is the Juliacum of the Antonini Itincrarium ; some have attributed its origin to Julius Caesar. From the 9th century it appears several times in his tory, generally as the scene of siege. From 1794 till 1815 it was in the hands of the French. Till 1860, when its works were demolished, Jiilich ranked as a fortress of the second class. JULIEN, NOEL (1797-1873), afterwards called STAN- ISLAS-AIGNAN JULIEN, was born at Orleans April 13, 1797. His father, who was a mechanic, being desirous of improv ing the position of his son, destined the young Stanislas- Aignan for the priesthood, and in preparation for that calling sent him to the seminary in his native town. Here his extraordinary talent for the acquisition of languages first displayed itself, and with his knowledge increased his repugnance to the profession marked out for him. His favourite study at this time was Greek literature, and so recognized did his scholarship become that, when he went to Paris in 1821, he received the appointment of assistant professor of Greek at the College de France. In the same year he published a translation of the EXeV^s apiray-^ of Coluthus, of which work- he subsequently brought out a new edition, with a Latin version and notes. In later years he was in the habit of saying that it was as the author of this work that he would be best known by posterity, another instance of the common inability of authors to judge correctly of the relative merits of their workn. At this period his attention was drawn to the lecturer being delivered by Abel Rdmusat on the Chinese language, and being attracted to the study he placed him self under the tuition of that professor. In this new pursuit his progress was -as marked and as rapid as formerly in Greek. From the first he, as if by intuition, thoroughly mastered the genius of the language ; and the complexity of the characters and the peculiarities of con struction, which to others have always presented -serious difficulties, at once yielded to his ability and diligence. In 1823 he published a translation in Latin of a part of the works of Mencius, one of the nine classical books of the Chinese, and, though this volume appeared within two years of his having taken up the study of the language, it justified its publication by its success. A year later he produced a translation of the modern Greek odes of Kalvos under the title of La Lyre patriotique de la Grece. But such works were not profitable in a commercial sense, and, being without any patrimony, Julien was glad to accept the assistance of Sir William Drummond and others, until in 1827 he was appointed sub-librarian to the French Institute. In 1 831 he was elected a member of L Acade"mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de 1 Institut de France in the place of Saint-Martin, and in the following year he succeeded Rdmnsat as professor of Chinese at the College de France. For some years his studies had been directed towards the dramatic and lighter literature of the Chinese, and in rapid succession he now brought out translations of the Hoei-lan-Jci, or " L histoirc du cercle de craie," a drama in which occurs a curiously analogous scene to the judo-- ment of Solomon ; the Pih shay tsing l-i Blanche et Bleue, ou les deux couleuvres fees ; and the Tchao-chi kou eul, upon which Voltaire subsequently founded his OrpheUn de la Chine. With the versatility which belonged to his genius, he next turned, apparently without difficulty, to the very different style common to Taouist writings, and translated in 1835, for the Oriental Translation Fund, Le Livre des Recompenses et des Peines of Laou-tsze. About this time the cultivation of silk-worms was beginning to attract atten tion in France, and by order of the minister of agriculture Julien compiled, in 1837, a Resume des principaux traites Chinois sur la culture des muriers, et V education des vers-a- soie, which was speedily translated into English, German. Italian, and Russian. Nothing was more characteristic of his method of study ing Chinese than his habit of collecting every peculiarity of idiom and expression which he met with in his reading ; and, in order that others might reap the benefit of his experiences, he published in 1841 a work entitled Dis cussions grammaticales sur certaines regies de position qui, en Chinois, jouent la meme role que les inflexions dans les autres langues, which he followed in 1842 by Exercises pratiques d 1 analyse, de syntaxe, et de lexigraphie Chinoise. Meanwhile in 1839 he had been appointed joint keeper of the Bibliotheque Royal, with the especial superintendence of the Chinese books, and shortly afterwards he was made Admin istrateur du College de France. The facility with which he had learned Chinese, and the success which his proficiency commanded, naturally inclined other less gifted scholars to resent the impatience with which he regarded the mistakes into which they fell in their translations from this most difficult language, and at different times bitter controversies arose between Julien and his fellow Sinologues on the one subject which they had in common. How envenomed were the disputes which thus arose may be gathered from the following title of a work published in 1842 by Julien, Simple expose d un fait honorable odieusement denature dans im libelle recent de M. Pauthier, suivi de la refutation de sa dcrniere reponse, du resume analytique de plus de 600 fautes qu il ria pas su justifier, et de I examen de certains ^ passages a Vaide desquels il a prctendu prouver que des Egyptians ont porte en, Chine ^invention de Vecriture 2353 ans avant J. C. In the same year appeared from his busy pen a translation of the Tao te King, the celebrated work in which Laou-tsze attempted to explain his idea of the relation existing between the universe and something which he called Taou, and on which the religion of Taouism is based. From Taouism to Buddhism was a natural transition, and about this time Julien turned his attention to the Buddhist literature of China, and more especially to the travels of Buddhist pilgrims to India. In order that he might better under stand the references to Indian institutions, and the tran scriptions in Chinese of Sanskrit words and proper names, he began the study of Sanskrit, and in 1853 brought out his Voyages des Pelerins Bouddhistcs, the value of which work is much enhanced by the fruits of this new instance of his extraordinary mental enterprise. The same remark applies to the work which he published six year later entitled Les Avaddnas, conies et apologues Indiens inconnus jusqu a ce jour, suivis de poesies et de nouvelles Chinoises. For the benefit of future students he disclosed his system of deciphering Sanskrit words occur ring in Chinese books in his Mcthode pour dechiffrer et transcrire les noms Sanserifs qui se rencontrent dans les livres Chinois (1861). This work, which contains much of interest and importance, falls short of the value which its author was accustomed to attach to it. It had escaped his obser vation that, since the translations of Sanskrit works into Chinese were undertaken in different parts of the empire, the same Sanskrit words were of necessity differently represented in Chinese characters in accordance with the