From what has been said, as well as from the above extracts, it will be observed that to all except the native scholars who imagine that they see in its pages deep divinatory lore, the chief interest of the 'Yi King' lies in the linguistic and ethnographical indications which it contains, and which at present we can but dimly discern. It is difficult to assign a date to it, but it is certain that it existed before the time of King Wen (B.C. 1143), who with his son the Duke of Chow edited the text and added a commentary to it. That parts of it are very much earlier than this period there can be no doubt; and it is safe to assume that in the oldest portion of the work we have one of the first literary efforts of the Chinese. It was not, however, until the time of Confucius that the foundations of the national literature may be said to have been laid. From constant references in the early histories it is obvious that before that period a literature of a certain kind existed. The Chinese have an instinctive love of letters, and we know from the records that to the courts of the various princes were attached historians whose duty it was to collect the folk-lore songs of the people of the various States. "If a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make its laws," said Sir Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. So thought the Chinese legislators, who designed their enactments with direct regard to the dispositions of the people as displayed in their songs. At the time of Confucius (B.C. 551-479) a large collection of these ballads existed in the archives of the sovereign State of Chow; and as is generally believed, the sage revised the collection, and omitting those he considered unworthy of preservation, formed an edition containing three hundred and five pieces. This work has come down to us under the title of the 'Shih King' or Book of Odes. The ballads are just such as we should expect to find under the circumstances. They are plainly the utterances of the people in a primitive state of civilization, who nevertheless enjoyed considerable freedom; and though they occasionally had to lament the tyranny of individual princes, they cannot be described as having been among the down-trodden nations of the earth. The domesticity which is still a distinctive feature of Chinese life figures largely in them, and the filial piety which to the present day is so highly esteemed finds constant expression. The measure in which the odes have been handed down to us makes it difficult to understand how any rhythm could be found in them. With few exceptions they are all written in lines of four characters each, and as read at the present day, consist therefore of only four syllables. This seems to be so stunted and unnatural a metre that one is inclined to accept Professor T. de la Couperie's suggestion, for which he had much to say,--that at the time at which they were sung,