Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/150

 138 CHINESE LITERATURE

of Chuang Tzu. It was said of him that his conver- sation was like the continuous downflow of a rapid, or the rush of water from a sluice.

Kuo P'O (d, A.D. 324) was a scholar of great repute. Besides editing various important classical works, he was a brilliant exponent of the doctrines of Taoism and the reputed founder of the art of geomancy as applied to graves, universally practised in China at the present day. He was also learned in astronomy, divination, and natural philosophy.

FAN YEH, executed for treason in A.D. 445, is chiefly famous for his history of the Han dynasty from about the date of the Christian era, when the dynasty was interrupted, as has been stated, by a usurper, down to the. final collapse two hundred years later.

SH^N Yo (A.D. 441-513), another famous scholar, was the son of a Governor of Huai-nan, whose execution in A.D. 453 caused him to go for a time into hiding. Poor and studious, he is said to have spent the night in repeating what he had learnt by day, as his mother, anxious on account of his health, limited his supply of oil and fuel. Entering official life, he rose to high office, from which he retired in ill-health, loaded with honours. Personally, he was remarkable for hav- ing two pupils to his left eye. He was a strict tee- totaller, and lived most austerely. He had a library of twenty thousand volumes. He was the author of the histories of the Chin, Liu Sung, and Ch'i dynasties. He is said to have been the first to classify the four tones. In his autobiography he writes, " The poets of old, during the past thousand years, never hit upon this plan. I alone discovered its advantages." The Emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty one day said to

�� �