There was K‘UNG JUNG, a descendant of Confucius in the twentieth degree, and a most precocious child. At ten years of age he went with his father to Lo-yang, where Li Ying, the Dragon statesman, was at the height of his political reputation. Unable from the press of visitors to gain admission, he told the doorkeeper to inform Li Ying that he was a connection, and thus succeeded in getting in. When Li Ying asked him what the connection was, he replied, “My ancestor Confucius and your ancestor Lao Tzŭ were friends engaged in the quest for truth, so that you and I may be said to be of the same family.” Li Ying was astonished, but Ch‘ên Wei said, “Cleverness in youth does not mean brilliancy in later life,” upon which K‘ung Jung remarked, “You, sir, must evidently have been very clever as a boy.” Entering official life, he rose to be Governor of Po-hai in Shantung; but he incurred the displeasure of the great Ts‘ao Ts‘ao, and was put to death with all his family. He was an open-hearted man, and fond of good company. “If my halls are full of guests,” he would say, “and my bottles full of wine, I am happy.” The following is a specimen of his poetry:-- “_The wanderer reaches home with joy From absence of a year and more: His eye seeks a beloved boy-- His wife lies weeping on the floor._ “_They whisper he is gone. The glooms Of evening fall; beyond the gate A lonely grave in outline looms To greet the sire who came too late._ “_Forth to the little mound he flings, Where wild-flowers bloom on every side.... His bones are in the Yellow Springs, His flesh like dust is scattered wide._ “‘_O child, who never knew thy sire, For ever now to be unknown, Ere long thy wandering ghost shall tire Of flitting friendless and alone._ “‘_O son, man’s greatest earthly boon, With thee I bury hopes and fears.’ He bowed his head in grief, and soon His breast was wet with rolling tears._ “_Life’s dread uncertainty he knows, But oh for this untimely close!_” There was WANG TS’AN (A.D. 177-217), a learned man who wrote an _Ars Poetica_, not, however, in verse. A youth of great promise, he excelled as a poet, although the times were most unfavourable to success. It has been alleged, with more or less truth, that all Chinese poetry is pitched in the key of melancholy; that the favourite themes of Chinese poets are the transitory character of life with its partings and other ills, and the inevitable approach of death, with substitution of the unknown for the known. Wang Ts‘an had good cause for his lamentations. He was forced by political disturbances to leave his home at the capital and seek safety in flight. There, as he tells us, “_Wolves and tigers work their own sweet will._” On the way he finds “_Naught but bleached bones covering the plain ahead,_”