Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/308

 296 CHINESE LITERATURE

may hope by the light of his own petty understanding to establish that which shall endure through all time he shall be confounded indeed."

The third Emperor of this dynasty, whose nephew, the reigning Emperor, disappeared so mysteriously, mounted the throne in 1403. A worthy son of his father as regarded his military and political abilities, he was a still more enthusiastic patron of literature. He caused to be compiled what is probably the most gigantic encyclopaedia ever known, the Yung Lo Ta Tien, to produce which 2169 scholars laboured for about three years under the guidance of five chief directors and twenty sub-directors. Judging from the account pub- lished in 1795, it must have run to over 500,000 pages. It was never printed because of the cost of the block- cutting ; but under a subsequent reign two extra copies were taken, and one of these, imperfect to the extent of about 20,000 pages, is still in the Han-lin College at Peking. 1 The others perished by fire at the fall of the Ming dynasty. Not only did this encyclopaedia embrace and illustrate the whole range of Chinese literature, but it included many complete works which would otherwise have been lost. Of these, no fewer than 66 on the Con- on poetry were copied out and inserted in the Imperial Library.

Many names of illustrious scholars must here, as

1 On the 23rd June 1900, almost while these words were being written, the Han-lin College was burnt to the ground. The writer's youngest son, Mr. Lancelot Giles, who went through the siege of Peking, writes as follows : "An attempt was made to save the famous Yung Lo Ta Tien, but heaps of volumes had been destroyed, so the attempt was given up. I secured vol. 13.345 f or myself."

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