The rewards of authors are given in the shape of official appointments and preferments, and of honors and honorariums bestowed directly by the state. It seems probable that in modern as in ancient times the writers of China could look for no direct returns from the circulation of their productions. It is nevertheless the case that from the time of Confucius to the present day, that is for a period of two thousand four hundred years, the direct influence of scholars, thinkers, and writers has been greater in China than in any other part of the world. The state as a whole and the individual citizen, from the Emperor down, have, as a rule, been ready to recognize and accept the authority and the guidance of literary ideals and of intellectual standards. The case would be paralleled if the French Academy had existed from the time of Charlemagne to the present day, if the counsellors and rulers of the state had always been appointed from the forty, and if the remaining officials of all grades had been selected by competitive examinations, instituted and supervised by the forty. The parallel would not be complete, however, unless the Academy of to-day were still basing its examinations on a codex of Charlemagne. The imperial government of China and the Chinese community as a whole have for many centuries, apparently ever since the time of the book-burning Hwang-ti, rendered a larger measure of honor (and also of direct reward as far as this could be given by official station) to students and scholars, than has been given by any state in the history of the world. The literary ideal and the literary productions, the study of which has thus been honored, have, however, been in the main those of a thousand years or more back. The fact, says Legge, that the earlier literary period was so fruitful, and that the works produced in it have been held by later generations in so great honor, is one cause why original or creative literary productiveness has been discouraged, and why the later literary activities continue in so large proportion to take the shape of commentaries. It has also, he thinks, been an important influence in keeping the language in an inflexible and undeveloped condition. It was the language of the fathers, and it would be sacrilege to modify it. =Japan.=--The civilization of Japan is an off-shoot or development of that of China, and the Japanese literature is based upon Chinese models and standards. The literary relation strikes one as in some respects similar to that which existed between Great Britain and the American Colonies, or later with the American States. The literature of Japan is described, however, as characterized by much more elasticity, variety, and creative originality than is possessed by that of China, and in place of stereotyping itself upon the models of old-time classics, it has shown from century to century a wholesome power of development.