discipline, the nation bade farewell to the dreamy mysticism of Laou-tsze, to follow the banner of Confucius and conscience. Yet a memory of the sweetness and serenity of those earlier musings lingered long in the national mind, preserving the ancient doctors of Taou from oblivion and their writings from contempt. They appealed to our nature on one side, and they had glimpses of one side of truth also, and although we rejoice in the clear victory of the teacher of righteousness and benevolence, as a notable instance of the survival of the fittest in the mutual struggle for life of the philosophies, we acknowledge that the far-off echoes of ancient Taou sound a note, an under-tone of which can be detected in many quarters, even in our modern Christian England.

There is a vein of humour in Leih-tsze which enlivens with a genial light some of his shrewd observations of human nature; and though he fails to smite at vice with the trenchant blade of moral faith, he manifests a visionary longing for a happier state in which vice is not. With a few extracts illustrative of these traits, we will close this notice of him.

"In the state of Ki there was a man who was anxious lest heaven and earth should fall to pieces and he have no place to lodge his body in. He could neither eat nor sleep from anxiety. And there was another who was anxious about his distress and went to enlighten him. 'The heaven gathers air,' he said, ' and there is no place which is not full of air: sun, moon, and stars are only collected air which contains light; even if they could fall they would do no harm.' His pupil said, 'Suppose the earth should break, what then?' The Earth,' replied his mentor, 'is an accumulation of clods, packed close together on all sides. You may go about the whole day treading and trampling on the earth without any fear of its breaking.' His hearer rejoiced like a released prisoner, and the teacher rejoiced in sympathy with him. But Chang Lo heard it and said with a smile: 'Rainbows and clouds, wind and rain, sky and mountains, seas and rivers, metals and stones, fire and wood, are all but forms of matter in combination. Who says they will not be destroyed? A little thing like man in the midst of the vast universe may think it indestructible, and to trouble ourselves about such a remote contingency is needless. But heaven and earth will inevitably be destroyed, and if you encountered that time, how could you help being anxious?' Leih-tsze heard and smiled, saying: 'It is equally erroneous to say that the universe will be destroyed, and to say that it will not be destroyed. We are unable to determine it either way. Life does not know death, and death does not know life. Why should I trouble my mind about the permanency of the universe?'”

"Yang Choo was travelling through Sung, and came to an inn. The inn-keeper had two wives, one of whom was pretty and the other was ugly. He esteemed the ugly one and slighted the pretty one. Yang Choo asked the reason. The inn-keeper replied: That pretty one thinks herself pretty, but I do not perceive her beauty. The ugly one thinks herself ugly, but I do not perceive her lack of comeliness.' Yang Choo said to

6

his disciples: Remember this; if you act virtuously without attributing the merit of it to yourself, where will you go without being loved ? '”

"When the great Yu was regulating the waters, one day he lost his way, and wandered into a country on the northern shore of the North Sea, he knew not how many times ten thousand miles from China. In that land was neither wind nor rain, frost nor dew, nor did he meet with any kinds of animal or vegetable life. On all sides the ground was perfectly smooth, only gently rising in elevation in the centre. A vase-shaped mountain rose in the middle of that country, with a circular orifice on the summit, from which a fountain issued, called the spiritual fountain. Its fragrance was sweeter than rosee-gardens or cinnamon groves, and its taste was more exquisite than that of the finest wine. From one source it divided into four channels and flowed down the mountain, meandering through the whole land and watering every corner of it. The climate was serene, perfectly free from malaria. The people who lived there were of a gentle disposition and in harmony with their external circumstances. No strife nor violence marred their peace. Their hearts were tender and their frames were soft. They were innocent of pride and envy. Old and young dwelt together, and they had neither prince nor official among them. Men and women wandered about in company, and they employed no match-makers, sent no marriage presents. They dwelt on the banks of the stream, and needed not to plough and sow. The climate was so genial that they did not weave nor wear clothes. They lived to be a hundred years old; premature death and disease being unknown among them. The population was always increasing, till it was innumerable; and enjoyed perpetual felicity, ignorant of decay, old age, grief and hardship. Delighting in music, the voices joining harmoniously in song, ceased not throughout the day. If hungry or weary they drank of the spiritual fountain and their strength and spirits were restored to their normal condition. Too deep a draught intoxicated, and then they slept for a week without waking. When they bathed in the spiritual fountain their skin became glossy and the fragrance exhaled for a week. When King Muh of Chau entered that kingdom he tarried there for three years without a thought of home. On his return to his royal palace he was plunged in profound melancholy, refused food and wine, and all the delights of his harem, and several months passed before he recovered."

"A man in the East, while on a journey, was reduced by starvation, and lay dying by the road-side. A celebrated highwayman passed that way, and, pitying him, dismounted, and put a bottle to his lips. After three sucks the dying man revived, and opened his eyes. Seeing his deliverer bending over him, he inquired his name, and being told, exclaimed, Are not you the famous robber? What induced you to give me drink? I am an honest man, and cannot receive food from you.' Thereupon he beat the ground with his arms and tried to vomit, gasped and gurgled in his throat, fell back, and expired. But if the man was a robber, his drink had not committed theft. How strangely men confuse

things." This is a satire upon certain well-known anecdotes of Confucian worthies, whose unbending scrupulousness appeared ridiculous to our Taonist believer in non-resistance to the universal life-stream of nature.

"A neighbour of Yang Choo lost a sheep, and calling upon the villagers to go in search of it, he asked the assistance of Yang Choo's servant also. Yang Choo inquired why so many persons were needed to seek for a single sheep. His neighbour said, 'Because the roads and bypaths are many.' When they returned, he asked if the sheep had been found. No, it is lost,' they answered. How lost?' he demanded. The bypaths branch out into other bypaths, and we could not possibly tell which way it had gone, so we returned.' A shade of sadness fell upon Yang Choo's countenance; for a long time he did not speak, and he did not smile again that day. His disciples marvelled, and requested an explanation. The sheep was not a valuable animal, and it did not belong to you; why should it cloud over your happiness like this?' Yang Choo returned no answer. Discussing it among themselves, one of them said, 'The great path divides into many bypaths, and many sheep are lost therein. How is it that you sit in the master's school, and have not yet learned to interpret the master's meaning?'"

"Yang Choo's younger brother went out for a walk in a suit of white silk, but rain coming on, he borrowed a black cloak to return in. When he reached the door, his dog came out and barked at him. The young man was provoked, and raised his hand to strike the dog. Yang Choo said, 'Do not beat him; you are no better yourself. Suppose your dog went out white, and came back black, would it not startle you ?'

"One new year's day, the people of Ham Tan presented a number of pigeons to their lord. He was very pleased, and liberally rewarded them. A guest of his inquired the reason. This is new year's day,' he said, 'and I shall set them all at liberty to fly back to the woods, and so express the good-will of my heart to all living things.' His guest replied, 'The people are aware of your intention to release the birds, and therefore they entrap and catch them, and many are killed in their attempts. If you wish to keep them alive, the better way would be to prohibit catching them.'

"A man who had lost his axe, suspected his neighbour's son. He watched him, and said to himself, He is the thief; he has the gait of a thief, the face of a thief, the voice of a thief; everything in his appearance and behaviour says as plainly as possible that he has stolen the axe.' But happening one day to find the axe in his own garden, when he next met his neighbour's son, there was nothing whatever in his looks or behaviour which could lead one to suspect him to be a thief."

"Confucius, on a journey, saw two children disputing, and asked the One of the lads said, 'I say that the rising sun is near us, and at noon it is far off.' The other said, 'No, the sun is far off at dawn, but

reason.

near at mid-day.' The first said, 'Why, when the sun rises it is as large as a chariot-wheel, but in the middle of the day it is no larger than a plate; is it not small when at a distance, and large when it is near?' The other said, 'When the sun first rises, its rays are mild and genial; but at noon it is blazing hot. Surely it is hotter when near, and cooler when afar.' Confucius could not decide the point. The two children smiled and said, 'Who will say that you know much?'"

The English reader may be disposed to think that in this respect there is not much to choose between Confucius and Leih-tsze and all the rest of China's boasted sages. They lived before the Baconian philosophy; and a clever boy from one of our primary schools could instruct them in the exact sciences. But unless, in the progress of human evolution, man develops into a being very different from what he always has been, the subject-matter of Taouistic speculation will continue to possess intensest interest and unrivalled practical importance for mankind. Our meditations upon the whence and the whither may fail to lead to those definite and clear conclusions which science craves, but they exert a momentous influence upon the formation of a practical rule of life. One does not need to go far in modern literature in order to detect an order of thought which is strictly parallel to that naturalistic philosophy of which Leih-tsze is a representative. Those old Chinese thinkers were but following a tendency in human nature, which exists in us still; and it can do us no harm to learn whither it led them, and what it ended in. Happily we have a sure confidence that, as nobler instincts and loftier aspirations prevailed in the far East, leaving this indolent epicurean philosophy to lose itself in the ignominious quagmire of absurd and degrading superstition, so the philosophy of conscience and duty, of effort and conflict, will prevail, and must prevail in the long run, however for a time men may seem to lose heart and long for the land of the lotoseaters.

F. S. T.

65

Ballad.

WHY is it so with me, false Love,
Why is it so with me?

Mine enemies might thus have dealt;

I fear'd it not of thee.

Thou wast the thought of all my thoughts,

Nor other hope had I:

My life was laid upon thy love;

Then how could'st let me die?

The flower is loyal to the bud,
The greenwood to the spring,
The soldier to his banner bright,
The noble to his king:

The bee is constant to the hive,
The ringdove to the tree,
The martin to the cottage-eaves;
Thou only not to me.

Yet if again, false Love, thy feet

To tread the pathway burn

That once they trod so well and oft,
Return, false Love, return;

And stand beside thy maiden's bier,
And thou wilt surely see,

That I have been as true to love

As thou wert false to me.

F. T. PALGRAVE.