e of the heroes
before Agamemnon, but for the care of some enthusiastic biographer.

Among our eight or ten collections of this kind, there is one which
deserves a special notice. This work is entitled _Biographies of
Eminent Women_, and it fills four extra-large volumes, containing 310
lives in all. The idea of thus immortalising the most deserving of his
countrywomen first occurred to a writer named Liu Hsiang, who flourished
just before the Christian era. I am not aware that his original work is
still procurable; the present work was based upon one by another writer,
of the third century A.D., and is brought down to modern times, being
published in 1779. Each biography is accompanied by a full-page
illustration of some scene in which the lady distinguished herself,--all
from the pencil of a well-known artist.

Three good-sized encyclopaedias, uniformly bound up in ninety-eight large
volumes, may fairly claim a moment's notice, not only as evidencing the
persistent literary industry of the Chinese, but because they are all
three perfect mines of information on subjects of interest to the
foreign student.

The first dates from the very beginning of the ninth century, and deals
chiefly with the Administration of Government, Political Economy, and
National Defences, besides Rites, Music, and subordinate questions.

The second dates from the twelfth century, and deals with the same
subjects, having additional sections on History and Chronology, Writing,
Pronunciation, Astronomy, Bibliography, Prodigies, Fauna and Flora,
Foreign Nations, etc.

The third, and best known to foreign scholars, is the encyclopaedia of
Ma Tuan-lin of the fourteenth century. It is on much the same lines as
the other two, being actually based upon the first, but has of course
the advantage of being some centuries later.

The above three works are in a uniform edition, published in the middle
of the eighteenth century under orders from the Emperor Ch'ien Lung.

There are also several other encyclopaedias of information on general
topics, extending to a good many volumes in each case.

One of these contains interesting extracts on all manner of subjects
taken from the lighter literature of China, such as Dreams, Palmistry,
Reminiscences of a Previous State of Existence, and even Resurrection
after Death. It was cut on blocks for printing in A.D. 981, only fifty
years after the first edition of the Confucian Canon was printed. The
Cambridge