LEGGE, JAMES (1815-97). A Scottish mis sionary and Sinologist: horn at Huntley, Aber deenshire. Ile was educated at the Aberdeen Grammar School and Aberdeen University. where he graduated in 1835. and proceeded to London, entering Itighbury Theological School. Having been ordained, he was sent. in 1839 by the Lon don Mssionary Society to the East as a mission ary to the Chinese. Until 1842 he was stationed at \lalacea. but when Hong Kong became a Brit ish colony in that year he moved thither. From the first he was an earnest and industrious stu dent of Chinese, giving his attention chiefly to the Chinese classics. His missionary labors, however. were. not neglected, and his years of service in that colony he baptized no fewer than GOO converts, besides acting as the pastor of the Union Church. In 1876 he became pro fessor of Chinese language nail literature at Ox ford University, a chair which had been founded especially for him.
His greatest and most lasting work was his translation of the Chinese classics. Between 1861 and 1873 he issued at Hong Kong eight volumes, containing the Chinese text, translation, and most elaborate and learned Prolegomena, The Four Books, containing "Tlw Analeets of Con fucius," "The Great Learning," "The Doctrine of the Mean." and Heneins: the King or
"Book of History:" the 'bib King or "Book of Poetry:" and the Cli'an Ch'an. or "Spring and Autumn" (the only work ever written by Con fucius), with Tso-elinan's Cummtutury. The re maining books of the series—the King, or !look of Changes:" the Li i, or "Book of Bites;" the Mao King. or "Book of Filial Piety"—were afterwards published at Oxford, without the Chinese text, and are found in the "Sacred Books I if the East" series, edited by Max Ile also prepared and issued for the use of gen eral readers the Pour Books without the Chinese text, and the critical notes. In 1886 he also prepared and issued the text and translation of A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms by the Chi nese pilgrim Fa-Lien ( A.D. 399-414), with an in troduction and critical notes; and in 1891 in the "Sacred Books of the East" series. The Texts of Taoism (the Tao-telt-king, Ch•ang-tse. and the Kan-ying Pica) in two volumes. He also pub lished a volume on The Religions of China (1881). lle wrote Notions of the Chinese Con cerning Hod and Spirits, and Confucianism in Relation to Christianity (1877).