closely associated in China, and for nearly thirty centuries successive rulers of the Middle Kingdom have been exposed to the tacit censorship exercised by the remorseless faithfulness of the "pencil of the recorders." One of the stock examples of public virtue in China is that displayed by the historiographers of Tse in the year 547 B.C. A general in that State had married the widow of a prince of the ruling house, and was jealous of the attentions paid her by the reigning marquis, whom he accordingly assassinated. The State historian duly recorded the fact in his chronicles, and was put to death by the general. Upon this the pen passed into the hands of a brother of the deceased, who forthwith recorded the second murder, and was in like manner put to death. His successor, undismayed, continued the damning record, and the general abandoned the contest. Meanwhile the rumour of the occurrence had spread to other States, and the "Historiographer of the South," hearing that the "Grand Historiographer" and his brother had died in this way, took his tablets and set out for Tse, and only returned home after ascertaining that the record had been duly made.1 While thus resolute to record all the truth, it was equally a point of honour to set down nothing but the truth, and "the historiographer would leave a blank in his text "2 rather than risk misinforming posterity by guess work.

The Chun Tsew, or "Spring and Autumn," is a brief historical work, composed by Confucius, in the form of a very meagre chronicle. But the importance attached to it may be explained if it were the first example of a general history of China, published independently by a private person, as distinct from the official records kept in each State for the benefit of posterity, and probably quite inaccessible to private citizens. Chinese commentators feel bound to seek for hidden meanings in its bare records, because Confucius himself spoke of being known and remembered through the "righteous decisions" of this work. But this is needless if merely to record the misdeeds of a ruler was virtually equivalent to censuring them.

3

The chronicling of affairs of State by unofficial persons may have been regarded at first as an audacity, like the first publication of a newspaper in countries where the general public is not expected to desire any knowledge of State affairs. If so, however, the power and pretensions of the literary class must have grown apace, since the commentators soon begin to puzzle themselves over the phrase of Confucius, and seek for indications of praise and blame in trifling variations of expression, such as speaking of a bad prince by his personal name instead of by the complimentary periphrasis required by custom in the case of the dead. On the whole it

1 Chinese Classics, vol. v. pt. ii. The Ch'un Ts'ew, with the Tso Chuen, p. 514. Analects, xv. 25.

3 Mencius (iv. pt. ii. xxi. § 3) represents the sage as saying himself of this work: "Its righteous decisions I ventured to make.'

C. C., v. pt. i, p. 5, n. 4. The Li-ki contains many rules about the names to be used or "avoided; cf. S.B., xxvii. pp. 93 (where historical and literary compositions are exempted from the duty of avoiding names), 101, 107, 110, 111, 190; and xxviii. 18, 27, etc. Tso's Commentary (C. C., v. pt. ii. p. 50) gives curious details respecting name superstitions. In naming a child, "the name must not be taken from the name of the State, or

seems probable that for a private person to write history in the 5th century B.C. was an innovation of the same kind and degree as that effected in the 10th century, when private persons presumed to give currency to their political sentiments in classic verse. And Mencius himself directs attention to the change in a way significant of its import: "The traces of imperial rule were extinguished, and the odes ceased to be made; when the odes ceased to be made, the Ch'un Ts'ew was produced."

"1

The historian's claim was not exactly for freedom of the pencil; it was taken for granted that kings would object to uncomplimentary records if they knew of them; what was demanded was that the chronicles of the Record Office should be regarded as "privileged" and their privacy respected. Dynasties in China are not expected to live for ever, and the official history of each royal house is usually compiled and published by its successor. For a reigning prince to inquire curiously into the records made respecting his own life and character has been recognised for at least the last thousand years as a grave indiscretion.

An emperor of the Tang Dynasty (643 A.D.) claimed to know what the historiographer said of him, on the plea that he must know his faults before he could correct them. He was answered: "It is true your majesty has committed a number of errors, and it has been the painful duty of our employment to take notice of them—a duty which further obliges me to inform posterity of the conversation which your majesty has this day very improperly held with us."2 Similarly, when, towards the end of the 1st century B.C., a learned descendant of Confucius was accused of disrespect towards a deceased king of the reigning dynasty, he appealed to the impartiality of the historic records. It was written, he pointed out, that the great king, notwithstanding his other merits, had shown too much favour towards the Taoist superstition. If he himself were punished for repeating the judgments of history, that too must be recorded, and his sovereign. would have to bear the blame in future ages.

There is so little innovation in China that it is fair to assume this standard of historical virtue also to be derived from antiquity, and there is thus a sort of retrospective witness in favour of the authenticity of documents which can now be neither controlled nor confirmed by direct positive evidence. Chinese self-esteem and Chinese want of imagination together guarantee us against the danger of being seriously misled by accepting as approximately true native traditions, which in any other country would need to be submitted to minute and suspicious criticism.

of an office, or of a mountain or river, or of any malady, or of an animal, or of a utensil, or of a ceremonial offering." The effect of such a course would be "to do away with the state or the office, with the sacrifice to the hill or river, with the use of the animal as a victim, and the use of the utensil or of the offering in ceremonies."

1 Mencius, Life and Works, iv. 2, xxi. § 1 (p. 261 of popular edition).

2 De Mailla (vi. p. 98) represents the historiographer as promising to record the virtuous sentiment expressed by the emperor, after he has been rebuked by the statement that no emperor had ever yet read what was written about him, though every emperor was deterred from transgression by the fear of having his misdeeds recorded.

1

The stone drums of the Chow Dynasty 1 should probably be counted as authentic monuments of the 9th century B.C., and the Annals of the Bamboo Books may rank with the Babylonian chronicles in authority for the whole of the Chow Dynasty, while for earlier days they are based on materials which the scientific historian will find far from useless.

The so-called drums are ten in number; they are large waterworn boulders, roughly chiselled into shape, and have been preserved since 1307 A.D., by the principal gate of the Temple of Confucius, at Peking. Three of them have inscriptions still substantially legible, in the manner of the shorter odes, describing royal hunting and fishing expeditions. They were found half buried in a waste piece of ground in Shensi, early in the Tang Dynasty, and are described in works published in the reign of Tai-Tsong (627-649 A.D.). Early in the 9th century A.D., a "Geographical Description of Provinces and Cities" mentions a number of scholars as "unanimous in regarding the inscriptions as ancient and of great value. Long years have elapsed since the time when they were engraved, and there are now some lost and undecipherable characters, yet the remains are well worthy of attention." 2

The majority of Chinese authorities attribute the inscriptions to the reign of Seuen (826-780 B.C.). The locality where they were found was a portion of the ancestral territory of the founder of the Chow Dynasty, and an earlier emperor than the one to whom they are ascribed was said to have engaged in a great hunt there. Han-yu wrote a poem describing how, in 806 A.D., he recommended their removal to the national university, and lamenting their neglect and decay. A few years later, however, they were removed to the Confucian temple of Feng-hsiang-fu, where they remained throughout the Tang Dynasty. They were dispersed and lost sight of under the Five dynasties, but under the Sung a prefect of the city recovered nine of them, and the tenth was found, 1052 A.D., in the possession of a private person.

3

The Sung carried the drums with them on their retreat, in 1108 A.D., to Pien-ching, and a decree was passed that the characters of the inscriptions should be filled in with gold, to illustrate their value, and to prevent their injury by repeated rubbings to obtain facsimiles. The Nuche Tatars carried off the drums when (1126 A.D.) they conquered the Sung capital, and the gold was dug out of the inscriptions, which remained in neglect till the Mongols placed them in their present position. Last century the Emperor wrote some verses on them in the fifty-fifth year of the Kien-lung period, which are engraved, together with those of Han-yu, on a tablet in the temple.

1 Dr. Bushell (Journal of the N. China Branch of the Royal As. Soc., N.S., viii., 1874) complains, with some reason, of the neglect of these antiquities in Europe, where so much interest was shown in the-about contemporary-Moabite stone. His article contains facsimiles of the inscriptions, with translations and a full history of the stones since their discovery, and the Chinese literature on the subject.

2 lb., p. 135.

3 Dr. Bushell describes the method of taking such impressions used by Chinese scholars, the result of which “is a singularly perfect and durable reproduction.'

The characters are more archaic than in the Shuo wen, the ancient dictionary of the Han Dynasty, some of them retaining a semi-hieroglyphic character, e.g. that for park, an enclosure of four squares, each containing the suggestion of a tree. One scholar of the Sung Dynasty questions their authenticity, doubting whether the monuments could have been preserved 1,914 years, the interval between King Seuen and himself; but the general opinion of the Chinese, supported by Dr. Bushell and M. Chavannes, is in favour of their authenticity.

The Bamboo Books were discovered nearly four centuries earlier than the drums. In the 5th year of the first emperor of the Tsin Dynasty (279 A.D.), it is recorded that "some lawless parties in the department of Keih dug open the grave of King Seang, of Wei (who died 295 B.C.), and found a number of bamboo tablets, written over in the small seal character, with more than 100,000 words, which were deposited in the Imperial library."

" 2

The earlier records, from the mythical emperors onwards, have mainly to do with prodigies; but the entries respecting the Shang Dynasty— beginning in the 18th century B.C.-have an historical sound, and contain just such information as one would suppose ancient historiographers to preserve. The founder of the dynasty, Thang the Successful, is said, in the 21st year of his reign, to have cast metal money. In other reigns it is said where the king dwelt, what cities he walled, what sacrifices he ordered, what expeditions he conducted, whom he appointed minister, and so forth. A "great hunting" is mentioned in the 22nd year of Tesin, otherwise the wicked Chou, with whom the dynasty ends, 1049 B.C.

There is an entry for every year of King Wu, after he obtained the empire, and in the following reigns at intervals of three or four years, less or more, as events demand. 997 B.C. we are told a prince "made a palace in a beautiful style. The king sent and reproved him." In the reign of King Seuen, to whom the drums are attributed, entries are frequent-yearly from the accession to the 9th year, then in the 12th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, 25th, 27th, 28th, and 29th year: this year "for the first time he neglected the setting an example of husbandry in the 1,000-acre field." Then we have entries for the 30th, 32nd, 33rd, 37th, 38th, and 40th years, in the last of which "he numbered the people in Tai-yuen," and again in the 41st, 43rd, and 44th; in the 46th he died.

King Yew (780 B.C.) began to increase the taxes in his second year, and in his third "became enamoured of Paou-sze." 3 King Pin (769 B.C.) in his third year conferred honours on his Minister of Instruction; but after this the entries get shorter and scantier, with the decline of the royal power, and the transfer of political preponderance to other States. "Our present king," in whose 20th year the chronicle closes, is Yin (313 B.C.). But it is in the reign of Heen (367 B.C.), who boasted to Mencius of having thrown open his preserves in the Marsh of Fung-ki for the benefit of the

1 L.c., p. 153.

2 C. C., iii., Shoo-King, Prolegomena, p. 106.
* Mencius, i. iii. I.

Cf. post, p. 79.

people, that the chronicler begins to speak of what "we" and "our king" did in the different years.

"1

The modern Chinese speak of "the three dynasties" as if the records of all alike belonged in the same sense to their ancient history. But for portions of the Chow Dynasty, as has been seen, contemporary documents and coins are forthcoming in sufficient numbers to exclude all suspicion of legendary inventions. With regard to the preceding dynasties scepticism is possible, and it is not a matter of vital importance for our present purpose whether Chinese records may be trusted for the fact that parties of traders reached China from the west in the reign of Shun and in that of Tang, and more than once subsequently during the Shang Dynasty, the name of which M. Terrien de la Couperie translates " "Traders." The famous sexagenary cycle, in use from remote times for reckoning days, a sort of double month, like the double hour of Babylonia-was not applied to years till Ssema-tsien, who found materials for a uniform. system of chronology going back to 841 B.C. The generally accepted Chinese scheme which places Hwang-ti in 2699 was only invented in the 11th century A.D., and cannot be reconciled with the chronology of the bamboo books. M. Terrien de la Couperie proposes an alternative to both, making Hwang-ti, approximately, 2362 B.C.; Yao, 2076; Shun, 2004; and Yu, 1954. A solar eclipse falling in 1904 will then occur in the third reign after Yu. He supposes the Chinese to have brought with them from the west the knowledge of gold, silver (afterwards called "the obstinate metal," from the difficulty of obtaining it in North China), copper, and antimony or tin; and to have learnt the use of bronze from the west, in the 18th century B.C. The change of capital by Pan-kang is dated in this scheme 1389 B.C.

1 Catalogue of Chinese Coins, p. vii. ff.