PLATES XLIII.-XLIV.

A CHINESE CASINO.

"The architecture of the Chinese is of a peculiar character, totally unlike any other, irreducible to our rules, but perfectly consistent with its own. It has certain principles from which it never deviates, and although when examined according to ours, it sins against the ideas we have imbibed of distribution, composition, and proportion; yet upon the whole it produces a most pleasing effect."-EARL MACARTNEY.

In vain should we look in China for those massy and stupendous fabrics that appear in the pyramids and the pillars of the Egyptians; the beautiful and symmetrical works of art displayed in the temples of the Greeks, the grand and magnificent remains of Roman architecture, and that convenience and elegance of design which characterizes the modern buildings of Europe. Indeed, the government of China forbid magnificent houses to be erected, to show their submission to the emperor's palace. The houses of the mandarins in China, in their original form, have been compared to a Tartar tent; they are constructed with wood, and the projecting roof supported on bamboo pillars; they are inclosed within a low wall, which has one large middle and two side entrances. The house consists of detached dwellings, occupying a great extent of ground, in consequence of being but one story high. The more wealthy classes have brick houses generally built with hollow walls; there is little regard had to convenience, and they are generally not very large on the groundplan, and seldom rise above two stories in height.* They have courts between each dwelling, and are so fond of privacy that they have no windows towards the road or street, neither will they suffer their neighbours to have any which can overlook them; and there is always a screen within the outer gateway to prevent strangers from looking in. Mr. Barrow informs us in his travels, that when at Pekin with the suite, they were lodged in a house of the above description, and that the ground-plan was four hundred feet by two hundred, and laid out in ten or twelve courts. Some, says he, have two, some three, and others four tent-houses, standing on stone terraces, raised about three feet above the court, which was paved with tiles. Galleries of communication forming colonnades of wooden pillars, painted red, were carried from each building, and from one court to another, so that every part of the house might be visited without exposure to the sun or the rain. The number of wooden pillars of which the colonnades were composed was about nine hundred, most of the rooms showed the rafters of the roof, but one had a slight ceiling of bamboo-laths covered with plaster, and the ladies' apartments consisted of two stories; the upper however had no light, and was not so good as our common garrets. The floors were laid with bricks, and some with clay. The windows had no glass; oiled-paper or vellum, gauze or pearl, shell or horn, were used as substitutes. In the corners of some of the rooms were holes in the ground, covered over with stones or wood, intended for fireplaces, from whence the heat is conveyed as in the houses of ancient Rome, through flues in the floor or in the wall, the latter of which are generally built hollow, and whitened on the face with lime made from shells, and imported from the sea-coast.†

* Gutzlaff.

+ Those who would rely on the florid relations in which some have indulged in their description of the palace of Pekin, and those of Yuen-Min-Yuen, would experience on visiting them a woeful disappointment. Those buildings, like the common habitations of the country, are all modelled after the form of a Tartar tent. In fact, the tents stand confessed in all their dwellings, of which the curved roof and the wooden pillars, in imitation of the tent-poles, forming a colonnade round their ill-built brick walls, clearly denoting their origin; and from this original form they have never ventured to deviate. The apartments are as deficient in proportion, as their construction is void of every rule and principle which we are apt to consider as essential to our architecture. The principal hall of audience at Yuen-Min-Yuen, stands upon a

WASH-HAND-STAND.

CHINESE FURNITURE.

The furniture of the Chinese pavilions and casinos, consists of yellow japanned bamboo tables, chairs, and commodes, and painted screens. Their bedsteads of bamboo are very elegant, and their curtains for the summer are of silk, and their counterpanes of the same. They have feather-beds, but most generally they sleep upon quilts or mattresses. Of such antiquity appear the Chinese feather-beds, that at a time when the English barons were sleeping on the floor upon straw, the Chinese were reposing on feather-beds raised upon a frame as we now see our tent beds. They have also handsome painted jars, China plates, tea-pots, &c. and lamps with grotesque heads, as well as pictures in their apartments; but these are all drawn geometrically, as the Chinese have no idea of perspective. Ghirrardine, an European, when in China, painted a large colonnade in parallel perspective, which struck the natives so forcibly that they concluded he must certainly have dealings with his satanic majesty, but on approaching the canvas, and feeling with their hands, in order to be fully convinced that all they saw was a flat surface, they persisted that nothing could be more unnatural than to represent distances where there actually was not nor could be any distance. (Barrow's Journal.) The bamboo which is generally used for furniture is one of the most useful woods in China. In building, it forms almost entire houses, bridges, boats, masts, rigging, agricultural and other implements, and for machinery. It is said to be indestructible by fire, and of the most rapid growth; rising from fifty to eighty feet the first year, and the second perfecting its timber in hardness and elasticity.

CHINESE GARDENS

A Chinese gardener, says Lord Macartney, is the painter of nature, and though totally ignorant of perspective as a science, produces the happiest effects by the management or rather pencilling of distances, if I may use the expression, by reliev ing or keeping down the features of the scene, by contrasting trees of a bright with those of a dusky foliage, by bringing them forward or throwing them back, according to their bulk and their figures, and by introducing buildings of different dimensions, either heightened by strong colouring or softened by simplicity and omission of ornament. The Chinese are particularly fond of sheets of water in their gardens, that in the park of Gehal is well worthy of notice, I shall therefore give an account of it from Lord Macartney's own statement, who visited it by permission of the emperor. "As we moved onwards, an extensive lake opened before us, the extremities of which seemed lost in distance and obscurity; here was a large and magnificent yacht ready to receive us, and a number of smaller ones for the attendants elegantly fitted up, and adorned with numberless vanes, pendants, and streamers. The shores of the lake have all the varieties of shape which the fancy of a painter can delineate, and are so indented with bays or broken with projections, that almost every stroke of the oar brought a new and unexpected object to our view. Nor are islands wanting: but they are situated only where they should be, each in its proper place and having its proper character. One marked by a pagoda or other buildings are quite destitute of ornament; some smooth and level, some steep and uneven, and others frowning with wood or smiling with culture. Where anything particularly interesting was to be seen we disembarked from time to time to visit them, and, I dare say, that in the course of our voyage we stopped at forty or fifty different palaces or pavilions. These are all furnished in the richest manner with pictures of the emperor hunting, and with stupendous vases of jasper and agate, with the finest porcelain and jasper, and with every kind of European toys, with spheres, orreries, clocks, and musical automatons of exquisite workmanship, and in great profusion. It would be an endless task to attempt a detail of the varied lawn, grove, and mountain scenery, and all the wonders of the above-named place. There is no beauty of distribution nor feature of amoenity, no reach of fancy which embellish our pleasure-grounds in England, that is not to be found here."

platform of granite, raised about four feet above the level of the court. A row of large wooden columns surrounding the building supports the projecting roof, and a second row within the first, corresponding with it. The interstices between the columns are filled up with brickwork to the height of about four feet, which serves for the walls of the room. The upper part of the walls have a kind of lattice-work, covered over with large sheets of oiled paper, and capable of being thrown entirely open on public occasions. The wooden columns have no capitals, and the only entablature is the horizontal beam that supports the rafters of the roof. Thus, is the upper member in direct contradiction to the established rule of European architecture which is composed of an architrave frieze and cornice. There was nothing but a broad screen of wood fastened between the upper part of the columns, painted with the most vivid colours of blue, red, and green, and interspersed with gilding. The length of this room within is one hundred and ten feet by forty-two, and the height twenty feet; the ceiling is painted with circles, squares, and polygons, whimsically disposed, and loaded with a great variety of colours. The floor is paved with grey marble, flag-stones laid chequer-wise. The throne placed in a recess, is supported by rows of pillars painted red like those without. It consists entirely of wood, the carving of which is exquisitely fine. In the different courts are several miserable attempts at sculpture and some bronze figures, but all the objects are fanciful, distorted, and entirely out of nature. (Barrow's Travels in China.) The emperor's country pavilions always front the south, and are usually situated on irregular ground near the bases of gentle hills, which, together with their adjoining valleys, are inclosed by high walls, and laid out in parks and pleasure-grounds, with every possible attention to picturesque beauty. Wherever water can be brought into the view, it is not neglected. The distant hills are planted, cultivated, or left naked, according to their accompaniments in the prospect. The boundary-wall is often concealed in a sunk fence, in order to give an idea of greater extent.-(Macartney's Embassy to China.) + Hallam's History.

* Gutzlaff's History of China.