summation. But no consideration of political expediency or
self-preservation can certainly warrant her in interfering as yet; and
it is to be hoped that the time may never come when she shall be called
upon to thwart the ambitious designs of her great rival in Asian
dominion in the extreme East, as she has so long and so successfully
endeavoured to do in countries more directly affecting her political
power and prestige in Europe and India.

WALTER H. MEDHURST.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Captain C. A. G. Bridge, R.N.: "The Revival of the Warlike Power of
China," _Fraser's Magazine_, June, 1879.

[2] See _Blackwood's Magazine_, July, 1879, pp. 120, 121.

[3] Apropos of these remarks it is worth while quoting here a memorial
by the ex-Ambassador Kwo Sung-t'ao, published in the _London and China
Telegraph_ of 7th July, 1879, as the first presented to the Throne on
his return to China, and in which the best that he can say of England,
notwithstanding his cordial reception and marvellous experiences, seems
to be that he was "excessively cast down in a strange country," where,
"had he been put into a ditch, there would have been nobody to cover him
with earth." The very name of the place to which he was accredited
appears to have been beneath mention to his august master. The _Peking
Gazette_ of the 3rd moon, 3rd day, contains the following memorial from
Kwo Sung-t'ao, late Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, to the
Emperor:--"Your servant," he writes, "has suffered from many bodily
infirmities. Relying upon the heavenly (_i.e._, your Majesty's) grace, I
was appointed to go abroad on service of heavy responsibility. I am now
feeble with age, having served at so great a distance; I also deplore my
stupidity, and am extremely apprehensive of my inability in performing
the functions devolving upon me. Since the sixth or seventh moon of the
year before last I have suffered from insomnia. A year ago my spirits
became daily more _abattu_. In the second month of last year I suddenly
experienced phlegm rising in my mouth, and vomited fresh red blood,
without being able to stop it, so that in a trice a basin would get
quite full. I consider that my life has been marked by increasing
afflictions; my respiration is impeded; I am agitated and nervous;
already I have contracted an asthma, and this I certainly had not
formerly. Excessively cast down, in a strange country several tens of
thousands of li away, I thought that if I were put i