the same species, has only two young at a time.

It is highly characteristic of the Chinese critics, that the only one I have met with who touches on this point is Maou K'e-ling. He observes that we have the "seven," or the Chinese character tsʻih, because it rhymes with the character yih, translated in my larger work by "uniformly correct," and are not to understand the text as if it gave definitely the number of the turtle's young! Almost all the critics, moreover, supposing the “ seven to give correctly the number of the young ones, follow “the old Maou " in the most absurd statements about the dove's method in feeding its young, from which they deduce the meaning of the piece.

1 See in the mulberry tree the turtle dove
Her seven young tending with untiring love.
Like her is he, our lord, whose virtuous aim
His movements, all to rule exact, proclaim.
His movements, all to rule exact, attest

His heart to virtue bound within his breast.

2 The mulberry tree still gives the dove to sight,
But to the plum her young have taken flight.
So is that princely man to virtue bound,
Who ever with his silken sash is found.
In silken girdle loves he to appear,

And bonnet made from skin of spotted deer.
3 Behold the dove upon the mulberry tree,
While on the jujube her seven young we see.
In soul so steadfast is that princely man,
Whose course for fault or flaw we vainly scan.
His movements without fault or flaw beget
Good order for his rule throughout the State.
4 See on the mulberry tree the dove still sit,
And on the hazel all her young ones flit.
So on his aim that princely man is set,
Who rectifies the people of our State.
His laws to all affairs such order give ;-
Ten thousand years in vigour may he live!

IV.

The Hea-ts'euen; metaphorical-allusive.

THE MISERY AND MISGOVERNMENT OF TS'AOU MAKES THE WRITER THINK OF CHOW AND OF ITS FORMER VIGOUR AND PROSPERITY.

Seun, mentioned in the last stanza, was a small State, in the present district of Lin-tsin, department P'oo-chow, Shan-se. It was first con

ferred on a son of king Wån, one of whose descendants was the "chief in the text, so called as presiding with vice-regal authority over a district, embracing many States. We do not know when he lived.

1 Down from the spring the chilling waters pass,
And overflow the bushy wolf-tail grass ;-
Fit emblem of our state unblest.

In the dark night, restless, I wake and sigh,
And to my thoughts Chow's capital comes nigh,
When through its kings the land had rest.

2 The bushy southernwood is flooded o'er,
By the cold waters from that spring which pour ;-
Fit emblem of our state unblest.

In the dark night, restless, I wake and sigh,
And to my thoughts Chow's capital comes nigh,
When through its kings the land had rest.

3 The bushy plants, whose stalks serve to divine
Beneath the waters of that cold spring pine;-
Fit emblem of our state unblest.

In the dark night, restless, I wake and sigh,
And to my thoughts Chow's capital comes nigh,
When through its kings the land had rest.

4 Of old there fell the fertilizing rains,

And brightly shone the millet on our plains ;-
The land knew no oppression hard.

The States the king's authority obeyed,
And to each lord, for loyal service paid,
The chief of Seun dispensed reward.

BOOK XV.

THE ODES OF PIN.

ENOUGH has been said about Pin in the note on the title of Book i. There the chiefs of what was subsequently called the House of Chow dwelt for nearly five centuries, from B.C. 1796 to 1325. The first piece in this Book is accepted as a description by the famous duke of Chow of the ways of the first settlers in Pin, and hence the name of Pin is given to all the odes in it, though no other of them refers to anything that took place in that region. They were all made by the duke of Chow about matters in his own day, or they were made by others about him.

The Tsih yuch; narrative.

I.

LIFE IN PIN IN THE OLDEN TIME; THE PROVIDENT ARRANGEMENTS THERE TO SECURE THE CONSTANT SUPPLY OF FOOD AND RAIMENT, WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY FOR THE SUPPORT AND COMFORT OF THE PEOPLE.

This universally accepted account of the ode is not without its difficulties. Pin is not once mentioned in it. The note of time with which the three first stanzas commence is not a little perplexing:-" In the seventh month, the Ho or Fire-star, i.e., the Heart in Scorpio, passes on ;" that is, passes to the westward of the meridian at night-fall. It has been urged that this could not have been the case if the year of Chow began with our December; but the critics meet this difficulty by saying that in this piece, and indeed throughout the She, the specification of the months is according to the calendar of the Hea dynasty, and not that of Chow. This may be granted; but it only leads to another difficulty. Scorpio did pass to the westward in August, or the seventh month of the Hëa dynasty, in the time of the duke of Chow,-say about B.C. 1114; but it did not do so in the time of duke Lew, or B.C. 1796. We are thus brought to one of two conclusions:-that the piece does not describe life in Pin about 700 years before the duke of Chow's time; or that he supposed the place of the sun in the heavens, in the time of duke Lew, to have been the same as it was in his own days. I think we must adopt the latter conclusion, nor need we be surprised at the lack of astronomical knowledge in the great statesman.

I adhere to the ordinary view of the ode, mainly because of the second line in the stanzas already referred to,-that clothes were given out in the ninth month, 'n anticipation of the approaching winter. This must evidently be in the ninth month of Hea, and not of Chow. Were the author telling of what was done in his own time, we cannot conceive of his thus expressing himself. Why then should we not translate the piece

in the past tense, as being a record of the past? I was inclined to do so. The 9th and 10th lines of the first stanza determined me otherwise. The speaker there must be an old farmer or yeoman of Pin, and the whole must be conceived of as coming from him.

At the same time, it will be noted that there are two styles in the indiIcation of the months. We have "the seventh month," "the eighth month," &c., and we have "the first month's days," "the second month's days," &c. The critics say that the dates in the former style are to be referred to the Hea calendar, and those in the latter, to that of Chow. They are probably correct. At any rate, I have in the latter case adhered literally to the text, or put in the pronoun "our."

This long note may be excused, because of the interest attaching to the picture of life and manners in so distant an age.

1 The seventh month sees the Ho go down the sky,
And in the ninth, the stores warm clothes supply.
Our first month's days, the wind blows cold and shrill;
Our second's days, winds hushed, the air is chill.
But for those clothes, and garments made of hair,
At the year's end, how badly all would fare!

Our third month's days, their ploughs in hand they take,
And all the fourth the fields their home they make.
I with my wife and children take my way,

And to the southern acres food convey

For those who toil. Appears th' Inspector then,
Surveys the fields, and cheers the working men.

2 The seventh month sees the Ho go down the sky,
And in the ninth, the stores warm clothes supply.
The warmth begins when come the days of spring,
And then their notes we hear the orioles sing.
See the young women, with their baskets high,
About the mulberry trees their labours ply!
The softest leaves, along the paths, they seek,
To feed their silk-worms, newly hatched and weak.
For such, as longer grow the days of spring,

In crowds they haste white southernwood to bring.
'Mongst them are some who grieve with wounded

heart;

To wed young lords, from parents soon they part!

go;

3 The seventh month sees the Ho down westward
The eighth, the reeds and sedges thickly grow.
The months the silk-worms' eggs are hatched, they break
The mulberry branches, thus their leaves to take;

And where those branches stretch out far and high, Hatchets and axes on them boldly ply,

While younger trees only their leaves supply.

In the seventh month, the shrike's notes shrilly sound, And on the eighth, twisting the hemp they're found. Their woven fabrics, dark or yellow dyed,

Are valued highly o'er a circle wide.

Our brilliant red, the triumph of our art,
For
young lords' lower robes is set apart.

4 In the fourth month, the snake-root bursts the ear; The shrill cicadas in the fifth we hear.

When comes the eighth, the ripened grain they crop,
And in the tenth the leaves begin to drop.
In our first month for badgers quest they make;
The wild-cat also and the fox they take :-
These last the furs for young lords to supply.
Our second month, there comes the hunting high,
When great and small attend our ruler's car,
And practise all the exercise of war.

The hunters get the younger boars they find;
Those three years old are to the prince assigned.

5 The locust in the fifth month beats its thighs;
And in the sixth, its wings the spinner plies.
The next, we find the crickets in the field;
Under our eaves, the eighth, they lie concealed;
The ninth, they come and near our door-ways keep;
The tenth, beneath our beds they slily creep.
The rats we smoke out; chinks we fill up tight;—
And close each opening on the north for light,
And plaster wicker doors; then each one says,
"O wife and children, this year's toiling days
Are o'er, and soon another year will come;
Enter and dwell in this our cosy home."

6 For food, the sixth month, plums and vines they spoil;
The seventh, the beans and sunflower seeds they boil;
The eighth, they strike the jujube dates all down;
The tenth, they reap the paddy fully grown,
And with the grain make spirits 'gainst the spring,
Which to the bushy eyebrows comfort bring.

In the seventh month, their food the melons make;