LITERATES, in ecclesiastical affairs, a name given to those who arc admitted to ordination by the bishop without hav ing taken a university degree.
LITTRATuRE, in the general sense of the word, comprises the entire results rkno•ledge and mental activity ex pressed in writing ; but in a narrower sense, it is used to denote the depart ment of elegant letters, excluding, works of abstract science and lucre erudition. In this limited view it comprehends languages, particularly tlreek and Lat in, grammar, etymology, logic, rhetoric, poetry, history, criticism, bibliography, and a description of the attainments of the human mind in every sphere of research and invention. The history of literature represents the develop ment and successive changes of civil ization, so far as these arc exhibited in written works, and embraces the his tory of the literature of special ages or countries, and of the separate branches of literature, as poetry, rhetoric, philol ogy, and so forth. A brief sketch of the literature of different nations, in ancient and modern times, will be given in the present article.
A vr.Irvm T.r•rrp ek,r•Dr 1. Chinese Literature.—The antiquity of Chinese literature is proportionate to that of the language, and its develop ment has been greatly promoted by the early invention of the art of printing, which has been known in China for at least nine hundred years. The Chinese hinguage presents a remarkable speci men of philological structure, which for ingenuity of arrangement ;tut copious ness of expression, is not surpassed in any written literature. It belongs to that class of idioms which are called monosyllabic. Every word consists of only one syllable. The roots or original characters of the Chinese are only 214 in number, and it is supposed that a minute analysis would reduce them to a still smaller amount. Each of these characters represents one word, and each word an idea. Their various combina tions form the whole language. Taken singly, they express the principal objects or ideas that are suggested in the com mon intercourse of life ; and combined, according to obvious analogies, they are made to comprehend the entire field of thought. Thus the character, which
originally represents the word hand, is so modified and combined with others, as to denote every variety of manual labor and occupation. The Chinese characters are written from top to bot tom, and from right to left. The lines are not horizontal, but perpendicular and parallel to each other. Mach impor tance is attached by the Chinese to the graphic beauty of their written charac ters, which in picturesque effect, it must lie owned, tire superior io most forms of alphabetic symbols. The grammar of the language is very limited. The nouns and verbs cannot be inflected, and henee the relation of words to each other in a sentence can be understand only from the context, or marked by their position.
The Chinese literature is rich in works in every department of composition, both verse and prose. Their scholars are fond of discussions in moral philosophy, but they have also numerous books of history, geography, voyages, dramas, romances, tales, and fictions of all kinds. The labors of various European travellers and students have given us specimens of almost every description of Chinese liter ature. In legislation, we have a trans lation of the Penal Code of the Empire ; in polities and morals, the sacred books of Confucius, and his successor Meng Tsew ; in philology and belles-lettres, a well-executed dictionary of the lan guage ; several translations and ab stracts of history ; and selections from the drama, criticism, and romance. Among the most successful explorers of the field of Chinese literature, we may mention Staunton, Davis, Morrison, Klaprotb, and Hemnsat, who have fol lowed up the earlier researches of the Jesuits at Pekin, and greatly elucidated a subject which had been supposed to be inaccessible.