he _Book of Odes_, consisting of some three hundred
ballads, also rescued by Confucius from oblivion, on which as a basis
the great superstructure of modern Chinese poetry has been raised.

Next comes an historical work by Confucius, known as the _Spring and
Autumn_: it should be Springs and Autumns, for the title refers to the
yearly records, to the annals, in fact, of the native State of Confucius
himself.

The fifth in the series is the _Book of Rites_. This deals, as its title
indicates, with ceremonial, and contains an infinite number of rules for
the guidance of personal conduct under a variety of conditions and
circumstances. It was compiled at a comparatively late date, the close
of the second century B.C., and scarcely ranks in authority with the
other four.

The above are called the Five Classics; they were for many centuries six
in number, a _Book of Music_ being included, and they were engraved on
forty-six huge stone tablets about the year 170 A.D. Only mutilated
portions of these tablets still remain.

The other four works which make up the Confucian Canon are known as the
Four Books. They consist of a short moral treatise entitled the _Great
Learning_, or Learning for Adults; the _Doctrine of the Mean_, another
short philosophical treatise; the _Analects_, or conversations of
Confucius with his disciples, and other details of the sage's daily
life; and lastly, similar conversations of Mencius with his disciples
and with various feudal nobles who sought his advice.

These nine works are practically learned by heart by the Chinese
undergraduate. But there are in addition many commentaries and
exegetical works--the best of which stand in the Cambridge
Library--designed to elucidate the true purport of the Canon; and these
must also be studied. They range from the commentary of K'ung An-kuo of
the second century B.C., a descendant of Confucius in the twelfth
degree, down to that of Yuean Yuean, a well-known scholar who only died so
recently as 1849. These commentaries include both of the two great
schools of interpretation, the earlier of which was accepted until the
twelfth century A.D., when it was set aside by China's most brilliant
scholar, Chu Hsi, who substituted the interpretation still in vogue, and
obligatory at the public competitive examinations which admit to an
official career.

Archaeological works referring to the Canon have been published in great
numbers. The very first book in our Cat