picion. The 9th ode of Book iii., Part III., relates, in a manner full of military ardour, an expedition conducted. by king Seuen in person to reduce the States of the south to order; but it was all confined to the region of Seu, and in that to operations against the barbarous hordes north of the Hwae. The 8th ode of the same Book gives an account of an expedition, sent by the same king Seuen under an earl of Shaou, to start from the point where the Keang and Han unite, to act against the tribes south of the Hwae, between it and the Keang, and to open up the country and establish States in it after the model of the king's own State. All this was done "as far as the southern Sea," which did not extend therefore beyond the mouth of the Këang. Ode 5th, still of the same Book, describes the appointment of an uncle of king Seuen to be marquis of Shin, and the measures taken to establish him there, with his chief town in what is now the department of Nan-yang, Ho-nan, as a bulwark against the encroachments of the wild tribes of the south. Now Seuen was a sovereign of extraordinary vigour and merit, and is celebrated as having restored the kingdom to its widest limits under Woo and Ch'ing; and after his death the process of decay went on more rapidly and disastrously even than it had done during several reigns. that preceded his.. During the period of the Ch'un Ts'ëw, the princes of Ts'oo, Woo, and Yueh, to whom belonged Yu's provinces of Yang, King, and Leang, all claimed the title of king, and aimed at the sovereignty of the States of the north,-to wrest the sceptre from the kings of Chow. The China of Chow did not extend beyond the limits which I have assigned it, and which are indicated by the imperfect oval marked on the map, hardly reaching half way from the Yellow river to what is now called the Yang-tsze Keang. The country held by the kings themselves, often styled the royal State, lay along the Wei and the Ho for about five degrees of longitude, but it was not of so great extent from north to south. It was, moreover, being continually encroached upon by the growing States of Ts'oo on the south, Ts'in on the west, and Tsin on the north, till it was finally extinguished by Ts'in, which subdued also all the feudal States, changed the feudal kingdom into a despotic empire, and extended its boundaries to the south far beyond those of any former period. 2. In the prolegomena to the Shoo I have mentioned the extravagant statements of Chinese writers, that at a great durbar held by Yu the feudal princes amounted to 10,000; that, when the Shang dynasty superseded the house of Yu, the princes were reduced to about 3000; and that, when Shang was superseded in its turn by Chow, they were only 1773. The absurdity of the lowest of these numbers cannot be exposed better than by the fact that the districts into which the empire of the present day, in all its eighteen provinces, is divided are not quite 1300. But in the Book of Poetry, as has been pointed out already, we have odes of only about a dozen States; and all the States or territorial divisions, mentioned in the Ch'un Ts'ëw and Tso-chuen, including the outlying regions of Ts'oo, Woo, and Yueh, with appanages in the royal domain, attached territories in the larger States, and the barbarous tribes on the east, west, north, and south, are only 198. In the "Annalistic Tables of the successive dynasties," published in 1803, the occurrences in the kingdom of Chow, from its commencement in B.c. 1121 down to 403, are arranged under thirteen States, and from 402 down to its extinction in B.C. 225, under seven States. The principal States which come before us in the She States mention are Ts'in, lying west from the royal domain, ed in the She. a considerable part of which was granted to it in B.C. 759; Tsin, having the Ho on the west, and lying to the north of the royal domain; then to the east, Wei, on the north of the Ho, and Ch'ing on the south of it, with Heu and Ch'in extending south from Ch'ing. East from Ch'ing, and south of the Ho, was Sung, a dukedom held by descendants of the royal family of the Shang dynasty. North from Sung was the marquisate of Ts'aou; and north from it again was Loo, held by the descendants of Tant the famous duke of Chow, to whose political wisdom, as much as to the warlike enterprise of his brother king Woo, was due the establishment of the dynasty. Conterminous with the northern border of Loo, and extending to the waters of what is now called the gulf of Pih-chih-le, was the powerful State of Ts'e. Yen, mentioned in III. iii. VII. 6, lay north and east from Ts'e. The subject of that ode is a marquis of Han, who appears to have played a more noticeable part in the time of king Seuen, than any of his family who went before or came after him did. His principality was on the west of the Ho, covering the present department of T'ung-chow, Shen-se, and perhaps some adjacent territory. The ode commences with a reference to the labours of Yu which made the country capable of cultivation, but much of it must still have been marsh and forest in the time of king Seuen, for mention is made of its large streams and meres, and of the multitudes of its deer, wild-cats, bears, and tigers. The princes of these States, distinguished among themselves by the titles of Kung, How, Pih, Tsze, and Nan, which may most conveniently be expressed by duke, marquis, earl, count or viscount, and baron, were mostly Kes, offshoots from the royal stem of Chow. So it was with those of Loo, Ts'aou, Wei, Ch'ing, Tsin, Yen, and Han. Sung, it has been stated, was held by descendants of the kings of Shang, who were therefore Tszes. The first marquis of Ts'e, was Shang-foo, a chief counsellor and military leader under kings Wăn and Woo. He was a Keang, and would trace his lineage up to the chief minister of Yaou, as did also the barons of Heu. The marquises of Ch'in were Kweis, claiming to be descended from the ancient Shun. The earls of Ts'in were Yings, and boasted for their ancestor Pih-yih, who appears in the Shoo, II. i. 22, as forester to Shun. The sacrifices to Yu, and his descendants, the sovereigns of the Hea dynasty, were maintained by the lords of Ke, who were consequently Szes, but that State is not mentioned in the She. All these princes held their lands by royal grant at the commencement of the dynasty, or subsequently. I have touched slightly on the duties which they owed to the king of Chow as their suzerain in the prolegomena to the Shoo, and I do not enter further on them here. A more appropriate place for exhibiting them, and the relations which the States maintained with one another, will be in the prolegomena to the Chun Ts'ew and the Tso-chuen. 3. The Book of Poetry abundantly confirms the conclusion drawn from the Shoo-king that the ancient Chinese had some considerable knowledge of God. The names given to Him are Te, which we commonly translate emperor or ruler, and Shang Te, the Religious views. Supreme Ruler. My own opinion, as I have expressed and endeavoured to vindicate it in various publications on the term to be employed in translating in Chinese the Hebrew Elohim and Greek Theos, is that Te corresponds exactly to them, and should be rendered in English by God. He is also called in the She "the great and sovereign God," and "the bright and glorious God;" but, as in the Shoo, the personal appellation is interchanged with Teen, Heaven; Shang Teen, Supreme Heaven; Haou Teen, Great Heaven; Hwang Teen, Great or August Heaven; and Min Teen, Compassionate Heaven. The two styles are sometimes combined, as in III. iii. IV., where we have the forms of Shang Te, Haou Teen, and Haou Teen Shang Te, which last seems to me to mean-God dwelling in the great heaven. God appears especially as the ruler of men and this lower world. He appointed grain for the nourishment of all. He watches especially over the conduct of kings, whose most honourable designation is that of "Son of Heaven." While they reverence Him, and administer their high duties in His fear, and with reference to His will, taking His ways as their pattern, He maintains them, smells the sweet savour of their offerings, and blesses them and their people with abundance and general prosperity. When they become impious and negligent of their duties, He punishes them, takes from them the throne, and appoints others in their place. His appointments come from His fore-knowledge and fore-ordination." Sometimes he appears to array Himself in terrors, and the course of His providence is altered. The evil in the State is ascribed to Him. Heaven is called unpitying. But this is His strange work; in judgment; and to call 47 men to repentance. He hates no one; and it is not He who really causes the evil time :-that is a consequence of forsaking the old and right ways of government. In giving birth to the multitudes of the people, He gives to them a good nature, but few are able to keep it, and hold out good to the end. In one ode, II. vii. X., a fickle and oppressive king is called Shang Te in bitter irony. While the ancient Chinese thus believed in God, and thus conceived of Him, they believed in other Spirits under Him, some presiding over hills and rivers, and others dwelling in the heavenly bodies. In fact there was no object to which a tutelary Spirit might not at times be ascribed, and no place where the approaches of spiritual Beings might not be expected, and ought not to be provided for by the careful keeping of the heart and In the legend of How-tseih ordering of the conduct." (III. ii. I.), we have a strange story of his mother's pregnancy being caused by her treading on a toe-print made by God. In III. iii. V. a Spirit is said to have been sent down from the great mountains, and to have given birth to the princes of Foo and Shin. In IV. i. [i.] VIII. king Woo is celebrated as having attracted and given repose to all spiritual Beings, even to the Spirits of the Ho and the highest mountains. In II. v. IX., the writer, when deploring the sufferings caused to the States of the east by misgovernment and oppression, suddenly raises a complaint of the host of heaven;-the Milky way, the Weaving sisters (three stars in Lyra), the Draught oxen (some stars in Aquila), Lucifer, Hesperus, the Hyades, the Sieve (part of Sagittarius), and the Ladle (also in Sagittarius)—all idly occupying their places, and giving no help to the afflicted country. In no other ode do we have a similar exhibition of Sabian views. Mention is made in III. iii. IV. 5 of the demon of drought; and we find sacrifices offered to the Spirits of the ground and of the four quarters of the sky, to the Father of husbandry, the Father of war, and the Spirit of the path.s These last three, however, were probably the Spirits of 1 III. ii. X. 8; and often. 3 III. iii. I. 1. 5 II. vi. VII. 2; et al. 7 III. i. VII. 8. 2 II. iv. VIII. 4; III. iii. I. 5, X. 5. III. iii. II. 7. 6 II. vi. VIII. 2; et al. |