Then we have the _Book of Odes_, consisting of some three hundred ballads, also rescued by Confucius from oblivion, on which as a basis the great superstructure of modern Chinese poetry has been raised. Next comes an historical work by Confucius, known as the _Spring and Autumn_: it should be Springs and Autumns, for the title refers to the yearly records, to the annals, in fact, of the native State of Confucius himself. The fifth in the series is the _Book of Rites_. This deals, as its title indicates, with ceremonial, and contains an infinite number of rules for the guidance of personal conduct under a variety of conditions and circumstances. It was compiled at a comparatively late date, the close of the second century B.C., and scarcely ranks in authority with the other four. The above are called the Five Classics; they were for many centuries six in number, a _Book of Music_ being included, and they were engraved on forty-six huge stone tablets about the year 170 A.D. Only mutilated portions of these tablets still remain. The other four works which make up the Confucian Canon are known as the Four Books. They consist of a short moral treatise entitled the _Great Learning_, or Learning for Adults; the _Doctrine of the Mean_, another short philosophical treatise; the _Analects_, or conversations of Confucius with his disciples, and other details of the sage's daily life; and lastly, similar conversations of Mencius with his disciples and with various feudal nobles who sought his advice. These nine works are practically learned by heart by the Chinese undergraduate. But there are in addition many commentaries and exegetical works—the best of which stand in the Cambridge Library—designed to elucidate the true purport of the Canon; and these must also be studied. They range from the commentary of K'ung An-kuo of the second century B.C., a descendant of Confucius in the twelfth degree, down to that of Yüan Yüan, a well-known scholar who only died so recently as 1849. These commentaries include both of the two great schools of interpretation, the earlier of which was accepted until the twelfth century A.D., when it was set aside by China's most brilliant scholar, Chu Hsi, who substituted the interpretation still in vogue, and obligatory at the public competitive examinations which admit to an official career. Archæological works referring to the Canon have been published in great numbers. The very first book in our Catalogue is an account of every article mentioned in these old records, accompanied in all cases by woodcuts. Thus the foreign student may see not only the robes and caps in which ancient worthies of the Confucian epoch appeared, but their chariots, their banners, their weapons, and general paraphernalia of everyday life.