Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/487

CHINA (LANGUAGE AND LITEBATTJBE) 475 in the style of execution ; Pan Koo's Ts'een han shoo, or " Book of the Former Han," for in- stance, being looked up to as a model, while scholars are lavish of their censures on the his- torian of the Sung. As a rule, each history is divided into three sections : 1, " Imperial Kec- ords," containing a succinct chronicle of the several reigns of the dynasty; 2, "Memoirs," consisting of a succession of articles on astron- omy, rites, music, jurisprudence, political econ- omy, state sacrifices, uranography, meteorology, geography, and literature, giving the state of these various subjects during the dynasty; 3, "Narratives," in which are included biogra- phies of all persons of eminence, and short his- torical statements regarding foreign countries. The She ke, by Sze-ma Ts'een, in 130 books, the first of the series, is much praised for its style, and is exceptional in its arrangement. Commencing with the mythical period of Hwang-te, it reaches down to the emperor Woo-te of the Western Han. A great part of the materials had been collected by Sze-ma T'an, the father of the author. It is divided into five sections: 1, imperial records; 2, chronological tables ; 3, eight treatises on rites, music, harmony, chronology, uranography, sacrificial service, watercourses, and weights and measures; 4, genealogical history of the princes ; 5, narratives of persons and countries. Much of the original work is lost. There are double histories, the old and the new, of the Tang dynasty, and also of the five dynasties succeeding, both of which are admitted into the standard collections. The new histories of both these are by Gow-yang Sew, a scholar of established reputation early in the Sung. In the Sin woo tae she, or " New History of the Five Dynasties," he has departed somewhat from the beaten track, both as to style and arrangement. He omits the memoirs alto- gether, and divides his work into five sections: 1, imperial records ; 2, narratives; 3, researches; 4, genealogical registers ; 5, appendix. It was printed by orders from the emperor, after the author's death. Another class of histories may be termed annals, giving the consecutive run of events as a whole chronologically arranged. The Ctiun ts'ew of Confucius is undoubtedly the earliest example of this kind ; and the next in pretension is the Chuh shoo Tee rieen, or "Bamboo Annals," which we are told was found in the tomb of one of the Wei princes, A. D. 284, supposed to have been there for several centuries. The record, which was on slips of bamboo, began with the fabulous reign of Hwang-te, and extended to 299 B. 0. It is the general conviction that the original text has been long lost, and that the book now bearing that name is a fabrication. There are some things however that favor a belief in its genuineness. (French by Biot, Paris, 1842; English by Legge, Hong Kong, 1865.) The records of several of the dynasties have been written separately in this fashion, but the most celebrated production is the great work of Sze-ma Kwang, entitled Tsze che tfung keen, on which he was engaged for 19 years, in the latter part of the llth century. This, with the various appendices, comprising 326 books, embraces a period from the com- mencement of the 4th century B. 0. down to the end of the five dynasties preceding the Sung. A prefix to this history, entitled T'ung keen wae ke, in 10 books, was composed by Lew Shoo, the associate of Sze-ma Kwang ; be- ginning with the myths of the fabulous period of Fuh-he, it ends at the place where the T'ung keen begins. About a century after the time of Sze-ma Kwang, the T'ung keen kang muh, which is a reconstruction and condensa- tion of the T^ung keen, was drawn up under the direction of the celebrated Choo He. The first book only, on the principles of the work, is from the hand of Choo himself, the remain- der being compiled by his pupils under his guidance. The whole is compressed into 59 books. An elucidation of this was afterward published by Yin K'e-sin in 59 books. Lew Yew also wrote a treatise on the principles adopted in the composition, in 50 books, on which he was occupied for 30 years. Wang K'ih-k'wan, in the early part of the 14th cen- tury, wrote an examination of the discrepan- cies connected with Choo's work. During the Yuen dynasty, Wang Yew-he6 published his researches on the T^ung keen kang muh. In 1359 Seu Chaou-wSn completed a critical ex- amination of the same. Early in the Ming, Ch'in Tsie published his correction of errors, being the result of a minute investigation of the Kang-muh. In 1465 Fung Che-shoo pub- lished his illustrations of the Kang-muh drawn from other sources. About the close of the 15th century, Hwang Chung-chaou dissected these last mentioned seven works, placing each paragraph under the corresponding part of the Kang-muh, when the work assumed the form it has retained to the present day, a very valu- able compendium of history, the result of a vast amount of erudition. There is a French translation by De Mailla (Histoire generate de la Chine, 13 vols., Paris, 1777-'85). During the Sung, Kin Le-tseang wrote an additional section, carrying the history back to the time of the monarch sage Yaou, and from that down to 431 B. C., where Choo's work commences. A further portion was afterward composed by Ch'in King, extending back to the fabulous era of Fuh-he. These two last portions were combined into one by Nan Heen in the Ming dynasty. In accordance with an imperial re- script issued in 1476, a supplement to Choo's history was composed by a committee of 15 scholars. Near the close of the Ming, these several sections were revised and published as a single work, by Ch'in Jin-seih, the national historiographer. It was divided into three parts, known respectively as the introductory, principal, and supplementary sections. Having been again revised and submitted for imperial inspection, it received the imprimatur in 1708,