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Rh sons should speak tenderly of the errors of their parents, and ministers and subjects generally throw a veil over the faults of their rulers; but it seems to be carrying the instinctive feeling of dutiful forbearance too far when a historian or chronicler tries to hide the truth about his ruler's conduct and condition from himself and his readers in the manner of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw. It should be kept in mind, moreover, that the historiographers of Loo, if Ch‘aou had been the ruler of another State, would, probably, not have scrupled to say that Ke-sun E-joo drove him out, and that he fled to Ts‘e. Where their own State was concerned, they dared not look the truth in the face. Had Wăn Këang been the marchioness of another State, they would have thought that it did not come within their province to say anything about her.

Two more instances of concealment will finish all that it is necessary to say on this part of my indictment against our Classic; and they shall be entries concerning the king. In V. xxviii. 16, it is said that 'the king [by] Heaven's [grace] held a court of inspection at Ho-yang;' and we suppose that we have an instance of one of those exercises of the royal prerogative which distinguished the kingdom in normal times. But the fact was very different. In the 4th month of the year Tsin had defeated Ts‘oo in a great battle, and the States of the north were safe for a time from the encroachments of their ambitious neighbour. Next month the marquis of Tsin called a great meeting of the northern princes at which he required the king to be present. The king responded to the summons of his feudatory, and a brother of his own presided over the meeting;—though both of these facts are ignored in the text. In the winter, the marquis called another meeting in Ho-yang, a place in the present district of Wăn, in the department of Hwae-k‘ing, Ho-nan, at which also he required the presence of the king, and which is chronicled in the 16th paragraph. Tso quotes a remark of Confucius on the case,—that 'for a subject to call his ruler to any place is a thing not to be set forth [as an example];' but to this I would reply that, the fact being so, it should not be recorded in a way to give the reader quite a different idea of it.

The other instance is less flagrant. In V. xxiv. 4 it is said, 'The king [by] Heaven's [grace] left [Chow], and resided in Ch‘ing].' The facts were that a brother of the king had raised an insurrection against him, so that he was obliged to leave his capital and the imperial domain, and take refuge in Ch‘ing, where he remained 44]