w of
style. With the novel, however, we are no longer on perfectly safe
ground in regard to that decency which characterizes, as has been above
stated, the vast mass of Chinese literature. Chinese novels range, in
this sense, from the simplest and most unaffected tale of daily life,
down to low--not the lowest--depths of objectionable pornography. The
_San Kuo Chih_, an historical romance based upon a period of disruption
at the close of the 2nd century A.D., is a delightful book, packed with
episodes of battle, heroism, self-sacrifice, skilful strategy, and all
that goes to make up a stirring picture of strenuous times. Its author,
who might almost have been Walter Scott, cannot be named for certain;
but the work itself probably belongs to the 13th century, a date at
which the novel begins to make its appearance in China. Previous to that
time, there had been current an immense quantity of stories of various
kinds, but nothing like a novel, as we understand the term. From the
13th century onwards, the growth of the novel was continuous; and
finally, in the 17th century, a point was reached which is not likely to
be surpassed. The _Hung Lou Meng_, the author of which took pains, for
political reasons, to conceal his identity, is a creation of a very high
order. Its plot is intricate and original, and the _denouement_
startlingly tragic. In the course of the story, the chief clue of which
is love, woven in with intrigue, ambition, wealth, poverty, and other
threads of human life, there occur no fewer than over four hundred
characters, each one possessed of a distinctive personality drawn with
marvellous skill. It contains incidents which recall the licence
tolerated in Fielding; but the coarseness, like that of Fielding, is
always on the surface, and devoid of the ulterior suggestiveness of the
modern psychological novel. But perhaps no work of fiction has ever
enjoyed such vogue among literary men as a collection of stories, some
graceful, some weird, written in 1679 by P'u Sungling, a disappointed
candidate at the public examinations. This collection, known as the
_Liao Chai_, is exceedingly interesting to the foreign student for its
sidelights on folklore and family life; to the native scholar, who
professes to smile at the subject-matter as beyond the pale of genuine
literature, it is simply invaluable as an expression of the most
masterly style of which his language is capable.

Hsi Hsiang Chi.

_Drama._--Simu