Another extraordinary judgment which used to be passed upon ese literature was, that it was excessively over-moral. Thus the ese people were actually accused of over morality, while at the same time most fners are pretty well agreed that the ese are a nation of liars! But we ow explain this by the fact that, besides the trashy novels we have already noticed, the work of translation a-mong students of ese was formerly fined exclusively to the fu Classievertheless, there are of course a great many other things in these writings besides morality, and, with all defereo Mr.Balfour, we think that "the admirable does" these books tain are decidedly not "utilitarian and worldly" as they have been judged to be. We will just submit two sentences and ask Mr. Balfour if he really thinks them "utilitarian and mundane." "He who sins against Heaven, " said fucius in ao a Minister, " he who sins against Heaven has no place where he turn to and pray." Again, Mencius says:"! love life, but I also lhteousness: but if I ot keep them both, I would give up life and chohteousness. "
We have thought it worthwhile to digress so far in order to protest against Mr. Balfours judgment, because we think that such smart phrases as "a bondslave to antiquity, " "a past-master in casuistry" should scarcely be employed in a work purposely philosophical, much less applied to the most veed name in a. Mr. Balfour robably led astray by his admiration of the Prophet of Nan-hua, and, in his eagero emphasize the superiority of the Taoist over
the orthodox school, he has beerayed into the use of expressions which, we are sure, his calmer judgment must n.
But to return from ression. We have said that the ese literature must be studied as a ected whole. Moreover we have hat the people of Europe are aced to ceive and form their judgment of the literature of a solely from those writings with which the name of fucius is associated; but, in fact, the literary activity of the ese had only just begun with the labours of fucius, and has since tihrough eighteen dynasties, including more than two thousand years. At the time of fucius, the literary form of writing was still very imperfectly uood.
Here let us remark that, iudy of a literature, there is one important point to be atteo, but which has hitherto been pletely lost sight of by fn students of ese; namely, the form of the literary writings. "To be sure, " said the poet Wordsworth, "it was the matter, but then you know the matter always es out of the manner." Now it is true that the early writings with which the name of fucius is associated do not pretend to any degree of perfe, as far as the literary form is ed: they are sidered as classical or standard works not so much for their classical elegance of style or perfe of literary form, as for the value of the matter they tain. The father of Su Tung-po, of the Sung dynasty, remarks that something approag to the formation of a prose style may be traced in the dialogues of Mencius. heless ese literary writings, both in prose and poetry, have since been developed into many forms and styles. The writings of the Western Hans, for instance, differ from the essays of the Sung period, mu the same way as the prose of Lord Ba is different from the prose of Addisoldsmith. The wild exaggeration and harsh di of the poetry of the six dynasties are as uhe purity, vigour, and brilliancy of the T ang poets as the early wreak and immature manner of Keats is uhe strong, clear