they did not put high imagery enough into their documents. Had not Confucius taught that the best study for a public man was the Book of Odes, and that a noble style was impossible to one not versed therein? Alas ! wise men no longer used a metaphoric style vivid as the picture-signs ; the poet's song was empty and diffuse, and told neither the feeling nor the life of the people. Notwithstanding this plaintive strain, in which Pan-kou did but follow Confucius, there is development in Chinese literature. It is shown especially in the tendency to evolve and distribute the elements of social good.
A brief sketch of the literary qualities of successive epochs will perhaps make this evident. The Literary History of China. Ethical Epoch Tcheou dynasty (i 112-256 B.C.) was the long and stormy genesis of natural ethics, transmitting the Ethical eternal lessons and appeals of Confucius, Mencius, and Lao-tse. The Han (200 B.C.- 220 a.c.) gathered up the past into an epoch of historians. Here belong the classic catalogues ; that vast cyclopædia, the Sse-ki, covering fifteen hundred years ; the reconstruction of the recovered books ; the invention of paper, and the compilation of the old "root characters" for the better transmission of thought. A period of Tartar torpor followed in the north : but several southern dynasties collected large libraries, and the " Millenary Classic " was composed, spreading ancient examples before the children of the people to promote their love of knowledge ; and then, after the Sui had prepared the way by reuniting the nation, and put the old treasures into more attractive forms of writing, came a fresh age of lyric poetry, the immortal days of the T'ang Lyrical epoch. (618-907),—the days when the State carried peaceful sway out into the west of Asia, and learning bloomed within. History now began to be epitomized;[1] the literary examinations were fully organized, the Han-lin installed at
- ↑ Schott, p. 72.
