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Rh  7. One cannot compare carefully even the specimens of the two commentaries which I have given without seeing that there is often a great similarity between them, and having the conclusion suggested to the mind that the one was not made without reference to the other. It is not to be wondered at that some scholars, like Lin Hwang-chung of the Sung dynasty, should have supposed the two to be the production of the same writer. But the differences between them, and occasionally the style of composition, forbid us entertaining such a view. That they were one man has been maintained on another ground. The surnames of Kung-yang and Kuh-lëang ceased with the publication of the commentaries. No Kung-yang nor Kuh-lëang appears after that in Chinese history. This is certainly strange, especially when we consider that there were five Kung-yangs concerned, according to the received account, in the transmission of the commentary from Tsze-hëa to the Han dynasty. I must leave this matter, however, in its own mist. Ch‘ing Ts‘ing-che, Lo Peih, and other Sung scholars held that the author of the two commentaries had been a Këang, and that Kung-yang and Kuh-lëang were merely two ways of spelling it; but the method of spelling by finals and initials was, there is reason to believe, unknown in the Han dynasty.

 

 

THE VALUE OF THE CH‘UN TS‘ËW.

1. I come now to what must-be considered as the most important subject in this chapter,—to endeavour to estimate the value of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw as a document of history; and this will involve a judgment, first, on the character of Confucius as its author, or as having made himself responsible for it by copying it from the tablets of his native State and giving it to the world with 38]