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 480 CHINA (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) on this subject, embracing the productions of 120 scholars, which was published in 1415, with the title Sing le ta tseuen shoo, in 70 books. This was revised by an imperial commission in the last century, and compressed into 12 books, with the title Sing le tsing e. Several of the monarchs of the present dynasty, as preceptors of the people, have written hortative and di- dactic works, enforcing Confucian ethics. In 1655 a treatise of this kind, under the title King sin luh, was issued by the first emperor. It is divided into seven parts, and directed against heart vices. The Shing yu Icwang heun, or " Homilies on the Sacred Edict," con- sists of 16 maxims by Shing-tsoo, the second em- peror of the present dynasty. A short homily was added to each of these by the succeeding emperor in 1724, and orders were issued to have one of these read and explained to the people of every district, on the 1st and 15th of each month. (English by Milne, London, 1817.) Several elementary school books may be mentioned as belonging to this class, small in size, but widely known and read. The San tsze king or " Trimetrical Classic," is a tract written in columns of three characters each, the subject matter including the elements of history, morals, and relative duties. Of this and the next there are several translations in English, French, and German. The Tseen tsze w<tn, or "Thousand-Character Classic," is a small work consisting of 1,000 different charac- ters, said to have been thrown together pro- miscuously, from which the author formed this rhyme, in lines of four characters each, in a single night. (Latin by Hoffmann, Leyden, 1840.) These two tracts form the preliminary studies of the school room, and are memorized by the scholars. Another little book which is in very common use is the Yew he6 she, or " Odes for Children." (English by Bridgman, in the "Chinese Repository," Canton, 1836.) The Pih kea sing is a mere catalogue of 454 of the family names of China, and is one of the elementary school books. Works on agricul- ture form an important though not a very numerous class. Under this head native wri- ters include the art of grazing, breeding cattle, rearing silkworms, and a variety of collateral branches of industrial science. A famous work of this kind is the Nung chjng tseuen shoo, a cyclopaedia of agriculture, as it has been termed, in 60 books. It is the production of Seu Kwang-ke, an early disciple of the Jesuits in the 17th century, better known to Europeans by the name of Paul Seu. After a series of pertinent quotations from the classics, he treats of the division of land, processes of husband- ' ry, hydraulics, including European methods, agricultural implements, rearing silkworms, planting trees, breeding stock, manufacture of food, and provision against dearth. A still more comprehensive work was compiled by imperial order in 1742, with the title Show she fung k'aou. Medical treatises are exceedingly numerous and various in their subjects. Medi- cal practice in China, it is true, stands very low in comparison with European science; yet, considering the attention that has been given to the subject for 2,000 years, it is scarcely reasonable to condemn in toto their medical literature till we know something more about it. The medical art is divided by them into nine branches, relating respectively to the main arteries and blood vessels, their ramifica- I tions, fevers, female complaints, cutaneous com- plaints, cases of acupuncture, eye complaints, throat, mouth, and teeth complaints, and bone diseases. Each of these departments has its literature, while there are also very many works of a general character. The Tung epaou keen, a large work of Corean origin, embraces the whole compass of medicine, and has been sev- eral times republished in China. Books of prescriptions are very numerous. Materia medica has also received a considerable share of attention, as may be seen by the large work of Le She-chin, the Pun ts'aou kang muh, in 52 books, on which the author was engaged for 80 years, having made extracts from upward of 800 preceding authors. It is in fact a kind of natural history, embracing the three king- doms of nature, the subjects being arranged under the several divisions of water, fire, earth, minerals, herbs, grain, vegetables, fruit, trees, garments, and utensils; insects, fishes, crus- tacea, birds, beasts, and man. It was written toward the end of the Ming, and several edi- tions have been published during the present dynasty. The nucleus of the work is tradition- ally ascribed to the half-mythical Shin-nung. Works on astronomy and mathematics, though tolerably numerous, have a somewhat limited circle of readers, yet these are among the elite of Chinese intellects. The oldest work on this subject is the Chow pe swan king, a tract ! on the elements of trigonometrical observation and the rudiments of astronomy. It is thought to be a relic of the Chow dynasty. (French by Biot, Paris, 1842.) The Sin e seangfA yaou. was written by Soo Sung at the close of the llth century. The author had constructed a large celestial globe, with machinery to repre- sent the mechanism of the heavens and illus-. trate the seasons, the whole set in motion by water power. The work named was written specially to explain the theory of these move- ments. The Klh seang sin shoo, by Chaou Yew-k'in, appeared during the Yuen dynasty, and differed in several particulars from the orthodox views of the time. It ascribes the length of the day, not to the distance of the sun, but its altitude, and the heat of the atmo- sphere to the accumulation of air. The plan- ets are made to circulate round the earth in parallels of declination, while they revolve round the pole of the ecliptic in tortuous paths. It ascribes the apparent increase in the size of the sun near the horizon to its nearer approach to the earth than when in the zenith. In other matters also it deviates from the received doc- trines. On the arrival of the Jesuit astrono-