c performances)--which, however, revived.

Classical age.

The second period is that of the Tsung Dynasty, from 960 to 1119. The
plays of this period are called _Hi-Khio_, and presented what became a
standing peculiarity of the Chinese drama, viz. that in them figures a
principal personage _who sings_.

The third and best-known age of the Chinese drama was under the Kin and
Yuen dynasties, from 1125 to 1367. The plays of this period are called
_Yuen-Pen_ and _Tsa-Ki_; the latter seem to have resembled the
_Hi-Khio_, and to have treated very various subjects. The _Yuen-Pen_ are
the plays from which our literary knowledge of the Chinese drama is
mainly derived; the short pieces called _Yen-Kia_ were in the same
style, but briefer. The list of dramatic authors under the Yuen dynasty,
the most important period in Chinese literary annals, which covered the
years 1260 to 1368, is tolerably extensive, comprising 85, among whom
four are designated as courtesans; the number of plays composed by these
and by anonymous authors is reckoned at not less than 564. In 1735 the
Jesuit missionary Joseph Henry Premare first revealed to Europe the
existence of the tragedy _Tchao-Chi-Cu-Eul_ (_The Little Orphan of the
House of Tchao_), which was founded upon an earlier piece treating of
the fortunes of an heir to the imperial throne, who was preserved in a
mysterious box like another Cypselus or Moses. Voltaire seized the theme
of the earlier play for a rhetorical tragedy, _L'Orphelin de la Chine_,
in which he coolly professes it was his intention "to paint the manners
of the Chinese and the Tartars." The later play, which is something less
elevated in the rank of its characters, and very decidedly less refined
in treatment, was afterwards retranslated by Stanislas Julien; and to
the labours of this scholar, of Sir J. F. Davis (1795-1890) and of
Antoine Bazin (1799-1863), we owe a series of translated Chinese dramas,
among which there can be no hesitation whatever in designating the
master-piece.

Pi-Pa-Ki.

Decline and decay.

The justly famous _Pi-Pa-Ki_ (_The Story of the Lute_) belongs to a
period rather later than that of the Yuen plays, having been composed
towards the close of the 14th century by Kao-Tong-Kia, and reproduced in
1404, under the Ming dynasty, with the alterations of Mao-Tseu, a
commentator of learning and taste. _Pi-Pa-Ki_, which as a domestic drama
of sentiment possesses very high merit, long enjoyed