LITERATURE IN CHINA.--The Chinese language was crystallized, in the written form, in the monosyllabic stage of its development. Beginning in hieroglyphs, literal pictures of objects, and having no alphabet, it has so multiplied its characters and combinations of characters as to put great hindrances in the way of the acquisition of it. The utter absence of inflection may have crippled the development of poetry and of the drama, for which the Chinese have a natural taste. In these departments, Chinese productions do not rise above mediocrity. For this, however, the lack of imagination and of creative power is largely accountable. It is in the province of pure prose--as in historical narrations, topographical writings, such as geographies, and in the making of encyclopedias--that the Chinese have excelled. But the yoke of tradition has everywhere weighed heavily. In one sense, the Chinese have been a literary people. The system of competitive examinations for public offices has diffused through the nation a certain degree of book-learning; yet the masses have been kept in a state of ignorance. At the foundation of all learning are the "nine classics," which consist of five works, edited or written by Confucius, of which the "Shoo King," or Book of History, stands at the head, together with the four books written by his disciples and the disciples of Mencius. Great as have been the services of Confucius, his own slavish reverence for the past, so stamped upon his writings, has had the effect to cramp the development of the Chinese mind, and to fasten upon it the fetters of tradition. GOVERNMENT AND CIVILIZATION.--The government of China is "a patriarchal despotism." As father of his people, the king has absolute authority. The power of life and death is in his hand. Yet the right of revolution was taught by Confucius and Mencius, and the Chinese have not been slow to exercise it. The powers of the emperor are limited by ceremonial regulations, and by a body of precedents which are held sacred. He administers rule with the help of a privy council. Officers of every rank in the employ of the government constitute the aristocratic class of Mandarins, who are divided into different ranks.