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Rh but they themselves gave no indication of the beginning or end of the events to which they referred, or of the various circumstances which marked their course. For instance, suppose the subject was going from Loo to the court of Tsin—In VIII. xviii. 4, we are told that ‘the duke went to Tsin,’ the occasion of his doing so being to congratulate the new marquis of Tsin on his accession; whereas, in IX. iii. 2, we have a notice in the same characters about the child-marquis Sëang, his going to Tsin being to present himself to that court on his own accession to Loo. Suppose, again, the subject to be a meeting between the rulers of Loo and Ts‘e.—In III. xiii. 4, we are told that it is said that ‘duke Chwang had a meeting with the marquis of Ts‘e, when they made a covenant in Ko,’ the object being to make peace between the two States after the battle of Shing-k‘ëw; whereas, in xxiii. 10, we have the notice of a meeting and covenant between the same princes in Hoo, having reference to an alliance by marriage which they had agreed upon.

After further illustrating the nature of the notices, Maou observes correctly, that to look in them for slight turns of expression, such as the mention of an individual’s rank, or of his clan-name, or the specification of the day when an event occurred without the month, and to find in the presence or absence of these particulars the 12]