crowd, as the news of the attempt had already widely spread. At several places down the channel, the people assembled and invited the foreigners ashore, and others went off to the tender; as they now understood that their object had been directed against the Regent, they openly expressed great disappointment at its ill result. When the China was reached in the afternoon, the water had fallen so low that there was only just her draft of water left in which to get out of the bay.

Instead of returning to Shanghai directly, as they ought to have done, the adventurers went on to Kang-wha, near which the steamer anchored. Next morning an official came off to inquire her errand. Mr. Oppert gave him a letter written in Corean, signed by him, and addressed to the Regent (Tai-ouengoon; in Chinese, Tai-wang kwan, i. e., an officer acting for the King), inclosing the draft of a treaty, and advising him in no doubtful terms to reconsider his course, and accept their proposals. On the fourth day a reply was brought on board; the seal of the Regent was affixed to it, and the special messenger admitted that it emanated directly from him. Instead of a full and careful translation, Mr. Oppert only gives the purport of the document. The Regent refused all intercourse. Corea had no need of foreign intruders, and he would find means, as he had done on the occasion of the visit of the French, to keep them off, and to show the world that it was a vain attempt to try to overcome Corean valor. He wished this decision to be "proclaimed to the rest of the universe, of which he declared himself to be no more afraid now than he had ever been before."

Those who brought this letter invited the foreigners on shore, who agreed to meet them next morning at the town on Tricault Island. About twenty Europeans and Manilamen landed for this purpose, and were surprised to find the walls protected by over four hundred armed troops.

While waiting for the officials to appear at the proposed conference, the foreigners dispersed to examine the precincts, and one of them seized a calf to carry it on board. This caused a hubbub, and the two leaders hastened back to settle it by paying for the calf at the gate of the town, and promising to punish the thief besides and restore the calf. While parleying

about this, the troops on the walls opened fire on them without any warning. One man was killed instantly, and two were wounded before the others succeeded in regaining the tender. One of these was the "disreputable fellow" who seized the calf; and Mr. Oppert expresses his satisfaction "that the perpe trator of the deed had not escaped his share of the punishment;" and leaves on his readers the impression that it was the cause of the firing on them all.

This is hardly fair, after his own example in search of the relics, which were to act as an open sesame to Corea; but he gravely adds, "that it was not likely that any of the officials would dare to appear again on board the China; nor would it have been wise to repeat our visit on the island, where the soldiery had been maddened by their own firing, and intoxicated by the effect of their. treasonable conduct." He and Mons. Féron therefore steamed away from the scene of their disaster the next morning; and Corea still remains a forbidden land up to the present day, "to the shame of all western nations."

This resumé of Mr. Oppert's proceedings shows the energy and daring of the man, more than his discretion. He does not conceal his ill-will and chagrin at the failure of his attempts, and hopes that Russia will take possession of Corea rather than see the present state of things continue. His own subsequent trial and imprisonment in Hamburg in consequence of this ridiculous attempt at grave-robbing, has soured him; aided probably by the feeling of mortification at his name being associated with its failure.

On the return of the China to Shanghai, proceedings in the U. S. Consular Court were instituted against Mr. Jenkins for "having, in concert with others, prepared an unlawful and scandalous expedition, having for its object the exhuming of the remains of a dead sovereign, or of some other person or persons, in the Corea." In the course of the trial, Mr. Oppert testified that Mr. Jenkins went in the expedition only as a passenger, and never landed in Corea; nor did he know anything of the arrangements as to how the treaty was to be made before leaving; nor even what was done in Corea until the China was on her way back. Further evidence proved that the reason why the armed force of Coreans, which opposed the

party on their way to the grave, deserted their leader, as Mr. Oppert says in his narrative, was a discharge of all their guns so as not to hurt any one. The trial ended in Jenkins' acquittal of a conspiracy, for the witnesses made him out to be simply a passenger. Mons. Féron disappeared as soon as he reached China, so that no information was obtained from him. When the facts became known, the community and writers in the Shanghai papers all condemned the expedition in strong terms. It is not by such means, now-a-days, that commerce, civilization, or national intercourse are promoted. From all that we can learn, the chief stimulus to the violent conduct of the Corean Regent and authorities, is to be found in their ignorant fears. Having no knowledge of foreign nations or their policy, these isolated rulers can imagine no other reason than conquest of their country as adequate to explain these repeated visits up to the last one under Admiral Rogers, in the U. S. S. Colorado, in 1871. The wretched and destitute crews of the Narwhal, the Surprise, the Cleopatra, and other vessels, had been reasonably well treated in former years and returned to China. Now that Japan has such commercial relations with it as enables both countries to trade under well-defined regulations, we may hope that Corean ignorance, prejudice, and treachery, will yield to the gradual effects of instruction and patience.

Mr. Oppert prefaces his own voyages with six chapters on the history, foreign wars, social condition, language, and productions of Corea, with notices of the French missions carried on for forty years. Their contents are very imperfect, and derived from old books. He gives countenance to the unusual phrase, The Corea, as a name for the kingdom, and which is merely a Gallicism translated into English; Burmah, Siam, China, might each be introduced by an article with the same propriety. A careful synopsis of what is now known respecting all these topics, derived from Japanese and Chinese sources, as well as later German, French, and English authors, would prove to be a useful work.

The area of the peninsula is roughly estimated at 90,000 square miles, or equal to the island of Great Britain; and its resources are very poorly developed in comparison with the neighboring empires. Hundreds of Coreans come to Peking

every winter bringing ginseng, paper, and raw cotton, which they exchange for silks, medicines, and some foreign articles. They are quite different in features from the Chinese, bony in contour and muscular, rude in manners, and given to drink. Those who compose this trading embassy are mostly able to talk Chinese, but the citizens of Peking do not care to have much to do with their quarrelsome visitors. The Chinese government exercises no real control in Corean affairs, but that people themselves keep up this ceremonial intercourse chiefly for the sake of the trade, and the opportunity it affords them for learning something of the outer world. The people must possess much personal courage and discipline to make the resistance their troops offered at Fort McKee, when they were attacked by the Americans, June 11, 1871. On that occasion they left two hundred and fifty dead on the ground, before they were entirely disabled. The tyranny of the Regent is now ended by his death; but the course of events cannot long enable any Government which follows it to refuse all intercourse with other nations.

ARTICLE VI.--THE OBJECTS AND METHODS OF
CLASSICAL STUDY.

MUCH has been written, in a general way, concerning the benefits of classical study, and of the excellence of the classics as compared with the other subjects of study which are so largely replacing them in American colleges.

We propose in this paper to speak, not directly of the benefits, but rather of the objects of classical study, and of the methods by which these objects may best be attained.

For, admitting that certain vaguely conceived advantages are sometimes, or even generally realized as the results of classical study, it by no means follows that such advantages will cer tainly accrue if the study is pursued carelessly, and, as it were, without object or method. What we need is greater definiteness of conception with regard both to the objects to be attained, and the methods to be pursued. If the study is to be made intelligent and profitable, the proposed benefits should be clearly conceived and kept steadily in mind, so that the study may be pursued with a view to these benefits as the objects to be realized in the efforts of the student.

Otherwise, whether the advantages desired and expected be worth little or much, we shall very likely fail to secure them because our efforts will be unintelligent and misdirected, and the discussion with regard to the merits of the classics will continue to be so far enveloped in the fogs of a misty generalization that there will be no well-established, clearly-defined data upon which to make out a case either on one side or the other. There are, in the view of the writer, three distinct objects of classical study, which we shall proceed to consider in the order in which they naturally suggest themselves to the mind.

The first of these objects is an appreciation of the literature of the languages studied.

No one will deny that this is a proper and important object in the study of the ancient classics, and we have only to inquire whether it is fairly realized in the usual methods of