4. The Ch'un Ts'ew of Loo supplied, it seems to me, the materials for the sage's Work;-if, indeed, he did any thing more than The Ch'un Tsew of Loo supplied the copy out what was ready to his hand. materials for the existing Ch'un Tsew. Ho Hew, the famous Han editor of Kung-yang's commentary on it, in his introductory notes to the first year of duke Yin, quotes from a Min Yin to the effect that Confucius, having received the command of Heaven to make his Ch'un Ts'ëw, sent Tsze-hëa and others of his disciples, fourteen men in all, to seek for the historical records of Chow, and that they got the precious books of 120 States, from which he proceeded to make his chronicle. This, however, is one of the wild statements which we find in many writers of the Han and Tsin dynasties. There is nothing in the Work to make it necessary to suppose that any other records were consulted but those of Loo. This is the view almost universally entertained by the scholars and critics of China itself, as in the statement given from Chaou K'e on p. 5. The omission, moreover, of many events which are narrated in the Chuen of Tsoshe makes it certain to my mind that Confucius confined himself to the tablets of his native State. Whether any of his disciples were associated with him in the labour of compilation we cannot tell. Pan Koo, in the chapter on the Literary History of the early Han dynasty, says that Tso Kew-ming was so.2 How this was will be considered when I come to speak of Tso's commentary. Sze-ma Ts'een's account would rather incline us to think that the whole was done by Confucius alone, for he says that when the Work was completed and shown to the disciples of Tsze-hëa, they could not improve it in a single character.3 5. The Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo then was the source of the Ch'un Ts'ew of Confucius. The chronicles or annals which went by this :-see 1閔因敘云昔孔子受端門之命制春秋之義使子夏 等十四人,求周史記得百二十國寶書 2以魯周公 之國禮文物史官有法故與左丘明觀其史記:note to Lew Hin's catalogue of the tablets of the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Works on it, 漢書三 + x + #+. Yen Pang-tsoo, another scholar of the early Han dynasty, gives rather a different form to Tso's association with Confucius in the Work,-that they went together to Chow to examine the Books in the keeping of the historiographers at the royal court: 嚴彭祖曰孔子將修春秋與左丘明乘如周觀書於周 Quoted by K'ung Ying-tah on Too Yu's Preface to the Tso Chuen. 3至於為 春秋筆則筆則削子夏之徒不能贊一辭 see the 史記 世家卷十七孔子世家 The nature of the Ch'un Ts'ew of the States. name were the work of the historiographers or recorders, who, we know, were attached to the royal court and to the courts of the various feudal princes. I have spoken of those officers in the prolegomena to vol. III. p. 11, and in those to vol. IV., pp. 24-26. Pan Koo in the same chapter from which I have made a quotation from him in the preceding paragraph, says that the historiographers of the Left recorded words, that is, Speeches, Charges, &c., and those of the Right recorded affairs; that the words formed the Shoo, and the affairs the Ch'un Ts'ëw.1 But if we are to judge of what the Ch'un Ts'ëw of the States were from what the one Ch'un Ts'ëw preserved to us is, the statement that they contained the records of events cannot be admitted without considerable modification. There can have been no details in them, but only the briefest possible compends of the events, or references to them. That there were the records of events, kept in the offices of historiography, must be freely admitted, and it will appear, when I come to speak of the commentary of Tso Kew-ming, that to them we are mainly indebted for the narratives which impart so much interest to his Work. But the entries in the various Ch'un Ts'ëw were not made from them,-not made from them fairly and honestly as when one tries to give in a very few words the substance of a narrative which is before him. Those entries related to events in the State itself, at the royal court, and in other States with which it maintained friendly relations. Communications about remarkable and ominous occurrences in one State, and about important transactions, were sent from it to others, and the receiving State entered them in its Ch'un Ts'ëw in the terms in which they were made out, without regard to whether they conveyed a correct account of the facts or not. Then the great events in a State itself,-those connected with the ruling House and the principal families or clans in it, its relations with other States, and natural phænomena supposed to affect the general wellbeing, also found a place. Sometimes these things were recorded under the special direction of the ruler; at other times we must suppose that the historiographers committed them to their tablets as a part of their official duty. How far truth, an exact conformity of the record with the circumstances, was observed in these entries about the internal affairs of a State, is a point on which it is not competent for me at this point of the inquiry to pronounce an opinion. 1左史記言右史記事事為春秋言為尙書 6. In the prolegomena to vol. IV. p. 25, referring to the brief account which we have in the official Book of Chow of the duties. of the historiographers of the Exterior at the royal court, I have made it appear that they had charge of the Histories of all the States,1 rendering the character che by 'Histories.' M. Biot, in his translation of the Official Book, has done the same; but Maou K'eling contends that those che were the Ch'un Ts'ew of the different States, or the brief notices of which they were made up. I have failed, however, to find elsewhere any evidence to support his view;3 and when he goes on to argue that three copies of those notices were always made,-one to be kept in the State itself, one for the royal court, and one to be sent to the historiographers of the various feudal courts with which the State was in the habit of exchanging such notifications,—the single passage to which he refers by no means bears out the conclusion which he draws from it; and indeed, as many copies must have been made as there were States to which the notice was to be sent. In other respects the account which he gives of those notices is so instructive that I subjoin a summary of it. They were merely, he says, 'slips of subjects,' and not 'summaries' or synopses,-containing barely the mention of the subject to which each of them referred. It Maou K'e-ling's account of the contents) of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of the States. was necessary there should be nothing in them inconsistent with, or contradictory to, the fuller narratives, 外史掌四方之志 2志解作誌又解作梽謂標梽 其名而列作题目以告於四方 ·所為志春秋經 3 Compare the use of, in Mencius, III. Pt. i. II. 3, and Pt. ii. I. 1., and in the Tso Chuen on VI. ii. 1; vi. 3: VII. xii. 2: VIII. iv. 7; et al. , Art. 7,-at the end. 4. From the 國語魯語 5 Acc. to Maou, the contents of the ancient Ch'un Ts'ëw might all be arranged under twenty-two heads:-1st, the changing of the first year of a ruler (); 2d, the new ruler's solemn accession(); 3d, the birth of a son to the ruler (; as in II. vi. 5); 4th, the appointment of a ruler in another State; as in I. iv. 7); 5th, court and complimentary visits (朝聘, in the various forms of 朝;來朝聘;來聘;歸脤; 錫命);6th, covenants and meetings (盟會, in the various forms-會;盟;來 涖盟;不盟;逃盟;遇;胥命;平;成); 7th, incursions and invasions, (侵 伐 in the various forms-侵;伐克;入;圍;襲;取:戍;救;師師乞 師;取師;棄師;戰;次;追;降;敗;敗績;潰;獲;師還;歸俘; 獻捷); 8th, the removal and extinction of States (遷滅 in the various forms-遷;滅; 殲;墮; 5); 9th, marriages (昏覿 in the various forms幣;逆女逆婦; 求婦歸送;致女來婦至覿); 10th, entertainments and condolences but they themselves gave no indication of the beginning or end of the events to which they referred, or of the various circumstances which marked their course. For instance, suppose the subject was going from Loo to the court of Tsin.-In VIII. xviii. 4, we are told that 'the duke went to Tsin,' the occasion of his doing so being to congratulate the new marquis of Tsin on his accession; whereas, in IX. iii. 2, we have a notice in the same characters about the childmarquis Sëang, his going to Tsin being to present himself to that court on his own accession to Loo. Suppose, again, the subject to be a meeting between the rulers of Loo and Ts'e.-In III. xiii. 4, we are told that it is said that 'duke Chwang had a meeting with the marquis of Ts'e, when they made a covenant in Ko,' the object being to make peace between the two States after the battle of Shingk'ëw; whereas, in xxiii. 10, we have the notice of a meeting and covenant between the same princes in Hoo, having reference to an alliance by marriage which they had agreed upon. After further illustrating the nature of the notices, Maou observes correctly, that to look in them for slight turns of expression, such as the mention of an individual's rank, or of his clan-name, or the specification of the day when an event occurred without the month, and to find in the presence or absence of these particulars the (享唁); 11th, deaths and burials (喪葬, in the various forms of 崩;薨;卒; 葬; 會葬;歸喪;奔喪;;含禭;求金;錫命);12th, sacrifices (祭 心 in the various forms of 烝; 嘗¿禘郊;社;望;雱;作主;有事;大事; 朝廟;告朔;視朔;釋;從;獻;萬); 13th, huntings (蒐狩; in the various forms of蒐狩;觀:焚;觀社大閱); 14th, building (興作, in the various forms of立宮:臺作門觀;丹楹;刻桷屋壤;毁臺新厩; 城;城郛;浚渠築囿); 15th, military arrangements (甲兵 in the forms of 治 甲兵;作丘甲;作三軍;舍中軍); 16th, military taxation (田賦, in the forms of 稅畝;用田賦;求車;假田;取田;歸田); 17th, good years and bad (凶, in the forms of 有年;饑;告糴;無麥苗;無麥);18th, (災祥 in the forms of日食;螟;螽;雨雪;雷電; 震;雹;星隕;大水;無水;災;火蜚;多麋眚不雨;沙 鹿崩;山崩;旱;地震;星孛;六藟退飛;隕霜殺菽;隕霜 不殺草;鸜鵒來巢;獲麟);19th, leaving one's city or State (出國, in the forms of 如:孫;出奔;出;大去);20th, entering a city or State (入國, in the forms of至;入;納;歸;來歸;復歸;來;來奔;逃歸; 21st, ruffians and murders (盗弑 in the forms of盗殺盜;弒殺); 22d, punishments (刑戮, in the forms of 殺;刺戕放;執;;用;釋;畀;肆眚) This analysis of the Ch'un Tsëw ominous occurrences is ingenious; but it is all based on the Ch'un Ts'ew of Confucius. Some of the subjects may be called in question, as, e. g., the 3d. In the 12 books of the Spring and Autumn only one such birth is chronicled. expression of praise or blame, is no better than the gropings of a man in a dream. In this I fully agree with him, but as he has said that the 'slip-notices of the Ch'un Ts'ëw' should not be inconsistent with the facts in a detailed narrative of the events to which they refer, he seems to push the point as to the colourlessness of the notices to an extreme, when he adds the following illustration of it on the authority of a brother of his own:-"The deaths of princes and great officers recorded in the Ch'un Ts'ew took place in various ways; but they all appear under the same form-"died." Thus in V. xxiv. 5 it is said that "E-woo, marquis of Tsin, died," the fact being that he was slain; in X. viii. 2 it is said that "Neih, marquis of Ch'in, died," the fact being that he strangled himself; in II. v. 1 it is said that "Paou, marquis of Ch'in, died," the fact being that he went mad and died; in XI. xiv. 6 it is said that "Kwang, viscount of Woo, died," the fact being that he did so of wounds received in battle; in XI. iii. 2 it is said that "Ch'uen, viscount of Woo, died," the fact being that he burned himself to death; in III. xxxii. 3 it is said that "the Kung-tsze Ya died," the fact being that he was compelled to take poison; in X. iv. 8 it is said that "Shuh-sun P'aou died," the fact being that he was starved to death; in X. xxv. 7 it is said that "Shuh-sun Shay died," the fact being that he did so in answer to his own prayers; and in X. xxix. 3, it is said that "Shuh E died," the fact being that he did so without any illness. The one word "died," is used in such a variety of cases, and it is only one who knows profoundly the style of the text who can explain the comprehensive meaning of the term.' But there is no meaning in the term beyond that of dying, and the conclusion of the mind is that the death indicated by it was a natural one. It is not history in any proper sense of the term which is given in such an undiscriminating style. 7. The reader has now a sufficiently accurate idea of what all the annals that went under the name of Ch'un Ts'ew were, of what especially the Ch'un Ts'ëw still existing and with which we have to do is. It only remains for me in this section to inquire whether we have reason to believe that Confucius made any changes in the Did Confucius in compiling his Ch'un Ts'ëw add to or take from his authorities? style of the Ch'un Ts'ëw of Loo. On this point, as on so many others connected with the Work, we have not sufficient evidence to pronounce a very decided opinion. We are without a single word about it from Confucius himself, or from any of his immediate disciples; and from later scholars and |