4th. The Le-ke or Record of Rites, it national ceremonial ; and the Chinese consider the obser vance of its ceremonies and usages to be essential to the maintenance of social order and the pro motion of virtue.
5th. Ch'un-Ts'ew, or Spring and Autumn, a history of his time, and of several reigns imme diately preceding it. The first four King were compiled and edited by Confucius ; the last is an original work by the sage ; but the fourth contains much from later hands.
The Situ are three books, in which the disciples of Confucius have recorded his conversations about poetry, history, and the rules of propriety ; above all, about what concerned the growth of social virtue in the individual or the state.
In the year B.C. 213, the emperor Chi-wang-ti burned all the books in his dominions, excepting those on architecture aid medicine. The sixth emperor after him, King-ti, commenced the re storation of all books, which Wou-ti, who suc ceeded him B.O. 140, urged on. The materials he collected were put together by Sse-ma-thsian, whose work was named the Sse-ki, or Historical Memoirs. This is composed of 120 books, and embraces the history of China from the reign of Hoang-ti, B.e. 2097, to that of Hiao-wou, A.D. 122, which has been the model of all succeeding writers. It is divided into five parts, entitled the Imperial Chronicle, Chronological Tables, the Eight Branches of Science, Genealogical Histories, and Biography.
Sse-ma Ching is the next historian, also called Siao Sse-ma. He lived towards the end of the 6th century. His book is called San-hoang-pen ki, and is half mythological.
Sse-ma Kouang flourished in the 11th century. His great chronicle is the Tseu-tchi-thoung-kian, or Mirror for the use of Governors, and consists of 294 books of text, 30 of tables, and 30 disserta tions and discussions, and embraces a period of 1362 years. He had several turns of prosperity and adversity whilst alive, and after his death his tomb, was thrown down ; but in A.D. 1267 his honours were restored, and his name inscribed in the temple of Confucius.
Jin Kin, or Classes of Men, is a Chinese book of great authority. In it the sages occupy the first chapter, and in this Confucius is placed high above all others.
Li is a Chinese word of very extensive meaning, Sometimes rendered reason, courtesy, propriety, good breeding. The saying is, Li and Wen (learning) make up the whole sum of human excellences.
'tour other classics, known as the Four Books, are mostly Confucian. They are the Ta-heo, or Great Study, the Chung - yung, or Invariable( Mean, the Lun-yu, or Miscellaneous Conversai tions, ethical and philosophical works, which ari allied with those of Mang-tsze. i Kang-lie-tszo-tien is a great dictionary, and Pci-wnn-yun.fu, or Girdle of Literature, is another. It was published A.D. 1711, in 110 thick volumes.
The Hae-kwo-tu-che, A.D. 1840, by Lin, is a historical work.
Their most celebrated poets aro Su-lung-po of the 8th, and Le-Me-pill of the 14th centuries.
Choo-foo-tsze lived about the 12th century, till lately he was looked upon almost as a second Confucius. He has left a very enduring impres sion upon the literature of the country.
In no other country has the Government ever made so ample a collection of popular songs as that which the Chinese authorities compiled in ancient times, in order that the character of the rule exercised in different principalities might be judged by the tone of the poetical and musical productions of their subject,—a collection from which it is believed that Confucius compiled his celebrated She-King, or Book of Poetry. Nowhere
else has so vast a work ever been produced as the Encydoptedia, in 5020 volumes, which was compiled at the command of the enlightened emperor K'ang-lie, and which contains articles on every known subject, and extracts from all works of authority dating from the 12th century D.C. The copy in the British Museum is almost the only complete copy existing.
The Chinese written language consists of picture words. The alphabet is a hieroglyphic system, each word having its own graphic representative. Chinese is monosyllabic ; no word is allowed more than one consonant and one vowel. Hence the possible number of words is extremely small ; but each word can be pronounced with various accents and intonations, of which there are said to be 450, and the number of words or ideas in Chinese is said to be 49,496. The vastness of this amount will be appreciable, by mentioning that only about 5000 words occur in the Christian Old and New Testaments. A student of average memory should be'able in five years' study to store up enough to carry him through any ordinary business or official documents. M. Remusat, in his Grarmnaire Chinoise, notices three styles of the Chinese written language, which he calls style antique, style litterairc, and langue des magistrats, or langue mandrinique. Mr. Meadows considers (Des. Notes, p. 13) Remusat not quite correct in these definitions. Nevertheless M. Hue also says that the Chinese in their written language have three distinctions of style,—the antique or sublime style, the type of which is to be found in the ancient literary monuments, and which exhibits very rare grammatical forms ; the vulgar style ; and the academic style, which partakes of tho two pre ceding, being less concise than the antique, and less prolix than the vulgar. The vulgar style is employed for light productions, theatrical pieces, private letters, and proclamations intended to be read aloud. The spoken language is composed of 450 monosyllabic intonations, which, by the very subtle variations of the accents, are multiplied to about sixteen hundred. It results from this, that all Chinese words are necessarily grouped in homophonous series, whence a great number of •double Meanings may arise either in reading or speaking ; but their difficulty is avoided by coup ling synonymous or antithetic words. In this manner 'the ambiguities disappear, and the con versation is no longer embarrassed. The language called Honan-hoa, that is to say, common Universal language, Europeans wrongfully designate man darin language, as If it were exclusively reserved for the mandarins or functionaries of government. The Houan-hon is the language spoken by all instructed persons throughout the eighteen pro vinces of the empire, but in this a distinction is made between the language of the north and that of the south. Tho former is that of Pekin ; it id marked by a more frequent and sensible use of the guttural or aspirate accent. It is spoken in all the provincial government offices.