Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/252

 240 CHINESE LITERATURE

named because the Emperor himself went through all the manuscript, a task which occupied him nearly a year. A list of about eight hundred authorities is given, and the Index fills four hundred pages.

As a pendant to this work Li Fang designed the T'ai P l ing Kuang Chi, an encyclopaedia of biographical and other information drawn from general literature. A list of about three hundred and sixty authorities is given, and the Index fills two hundred and eighty pages. The edition of 1566 a rare work bound up in twelve thick volumes, stands upon the shelves of the Cambridge University Library.

Another encyclopaedist was MA TUAN-LIN, the son of a high official, in whose steps he prepared to follow. The dates of his birth and death are not known, but he flourished in the thirteenth century. Upon the collapse of the Sung dynasty he disappeared from public life, and taking refuge in his native place, he gave himself up to teaching, attracting many disciples from far and near, and fascinating all by his untiring dialectic skill. He left behind him the Wen Hsien T*ung K l ao, a large encyclopaedia based upon the T'ung Tien of Tu Yu, but much enlarged and supplemented by five additional sections, namely, Bibliography, Imperial Lineage, Ap- pointments, Uranography, and Natural Phenomena. This work, which cost its author twenty years of unre- mitting labour, has long been known to Europeans, who have drawn largely upon its ample stores of anti- quarian research.

At the close of the Sung dynasty there was published a curious book on Medical Jurisprudence, which is

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