ples, translated by the Rev. James Legge, D.D., one of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, and who here presents us some of the ripe fruit of a thirty years' study of the Chinese language and literature.

We flatter ourselves that the task we have undertaken will be regarded by the translator as a friendly office, by which his herculean labors and patient study in this direction will be brought into more general notice than otherwise they could have been, and thereby, as we believe, a demand will be created for the entire work.

Except for the great distance and the ocean intervening, we might have availed ourselves of his better judgment both in the selections and in the arrangement.

So far as regards the selections from the Four Books, our design has been to go carefully through them, and gather a few sentences on the various subjects which were treated by the Chinese authors, and arrange them under their appropriate heads.

Those familiar with the originals may miss some passages which they have met in their reading and greatly admired, and which, in their opinion, would have enhanced the value of this volume; our object, however, has not been to exhaust the mine, but merely to produce a few specimens ; and we can assure the reader that as valuable ore remains to reward his search as any that we have here produced.

The reader will find in this volume not merely what has

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been gathered from the Four Books, but also selections from several other departments of Chinese literature.

The "Middle Kingdom," by Dr. S. Wells Williams, has afforded us valuable assistance. The Life of Confucius, which we have inserted, has been compiled from the British Encyclopedia, from Williams, and from other sources. The sketch of history is from Williams and from Legge, and others. We have obtained help from the Chinese Repository, and from the "Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society."

The variety of miscellaneous pieces will be found credited, where they occur, to their respective authors and translators, so far as they were known.

One design in the issuing of this work has been to answer some of the numerous questions which people are constantly asking respecting the Chinese, their political, domestic, and social habits, their religious beliefs, and the source from which they have been derived. By this volume the reader is introduced to Chinese society as it existed two thousand years ago; and as Chinese customs, ceremonies, religious and political creeds have changed but little during this suc cession of generations through twenty centuries, to learn what China was in the days of Confucius is to learn, in a great measure, what China is to-day.

China is the oldest kingdom on the globe; the wise statesman will, therefore, avail himself of the means

here afforded for learning what causes may have operated towards the preservation of this one nation, while in all other parts of the earth thrones have been set up and demolished, and kingdoms have arisen and decayed in constant succession.

This book is desirable, not as a curiosity merely; it contains a large amount of sound instruction. The chapter on Political Economy is worthy of careful study by all college professors. The considerations which should govern in the choice of public officers, the motives which should actuate the candidate in the acceptance of office, and the line of conduct which public men ought ever to pursue, are treated in an admirable style, and will be admired not only for their wisdom, but as particularly appropriate for the country and the times in which we live.

Those fond of metaphysics and of ethics will, at least, be entertained with the readings under these heads, which are supplied from Mencius.

The character which was impressed upon the old Puritan stock, and which through many generations has not yet been entirely worn away, was in part enstamped upon the susceptible minds of the children, while studying the pictures, the texts, and the sentiments which were cut in the bricks of those spacious fire-places in which they lived in Holland: so in China, the walls of their dwellings, shops, and public halls are adorned with

scrolls on which are inscribed sentiments from their ancient authors; even the bowls with which three times a day their tables are set, and the cups from which at all hours they sip their tea, are written over with verses from the Book of Odes, with proverbs, and maxims. Let us, therefore, learn what is the character of the mottoes and maxims which they are constantly reading and repeating, and which must exert a powerful influence in forming and preserving, as it is, the character of this nation of three hundred and sixty or four hundred millions of people.

The Chinese are proverbially a reading people : let us know what it is they read.

The classics, especially the Four Books, are the Scriptures-the holy books of the Chinese. From them, and particularly from the Lun Yu of the Four Books, the themes are taken which are given to the students at the examinations. These books furnish the texts on which Chinese moralists of modern times found their discourses and tracts designed to exhort the people to virtue.

These classical works, as well as all books put into the hands of children in the schools, are committed to memory by Chinese scholars, old and young; and they are so thoroughly learned that were every scrap of writing in China to be destroyed, they could be restore 1 again from the memories of many thousands of the literary men.

Considering the high antiquity of these writings, their great intrinsic worth, the perfection in which they have been preserved, the vast number of people whose characters have been moulded by them, it is surprising that in all the world so few people outside of China have learned anything about them; now, however, as has been intimated, a desire is beginning to be awakened to learn more of China and its literature.

In this volume will be found quotations from the Book of Rites, a few examples from the Book of Odes, and specimens of Chinese composition and style of thought of a later date than Confucius, and these on several subjects.

We have spoken of the high estimation in which the people of China hold these works of their ancient sages; it amounts almost, if not quite, to a religious veneration; indeed, letters, in their view, are sacred: they allow no printed paper-nothing on which there is writing of any kind in the Chinese character-to be put to an ignoble use, to be used for wrapping paper, or to be trampled under foot. There are men employed to go around gathering up all waste documents and pieces of printed paper, which are burned in a formal manner near some shrine or temple.

Further remarks to aid the reader may be found in an Introduction to the Four Books, in the body of the work.