ministers. The sacrifices to the emperor Shao-hao, the next in descent from Hwang-ti, were maintained in T'an, so that the chief fancied that he knew all about the abstruse subject on which he discoursed. Confucius, hearing about the matter, waited on the visitor, and learned from him all that he had to communicate [1]. To the year B.C. 525, when Confucius was twenty-nine years old, is referred his studying music under a famous master of the name of Hsiang [2]. He was approaching his thirtieth year when, as he tells us, 'he stood [3]' firm, that is, in his convictions on the subjects of learning to which he had bent his mind fifteen years before. Five years more, however, were still to pass by, before the anticipation mentioned in the conclusion of the last paragraph began to receive its fulfillment [4], though we may conclude from the way in which it was brought about that he was growing all the time in the estimation of the thinking minds in his native State. In the twenty-fourth year of duke Chao, B.C. 518, one of the principal ministers of Lu, known by the name of Mang Hsi, died. Seventeen years before, he had painfully felt his ignorance of ceremonial observances, and had made it his subsequent business to make himself acquainted with them. On his deathbed, he addressed his chief officer, saying, 'A knowledge of propriety is the stem of a man. Without it he has no means of standing firm. I have heard that there is one K'ung Ch'iu, who is thoroughly versed in it. He is a descendant of sages, and though the line of his family was extinguished in Sung, among his ancestors there were Fu-fu Ho, who resigned the State to his brother, and Chang K'ao- fu, who was distinguished for his humility. Tsang Heh has observed that if sage men of intelligent virtue do not attain to eminence, distinguished men are sure to appear among their posterity. His words are now to be verified, I think, in K'ung Ch'iu. After my death, you must 1 This rests on the respectable authority of Tso Ch'iu-ming's annotations on the Ch'un Ch'iu, but I must consider it apocryphal. The legend-writers have fashioned a journey to T'an. The slightest historical intimation becomes a text with them, on which they enlarge to the glory of the sage. Amiot has reproduced and expanded their romancings, and others, such as Pauthier (Chine, pp. 121-183) and Thornton (History of China, vol. i. pp. 151-215), have followed in his wake. 2 師襄. See the 'Narratives of the School,' 卷三, art 辯樂解; but the account there given is not more credible than the chief of T'an's expositions. 3 Ana. II. iv. 4 The journey to Chau is placed by Sze-ma Ch'ien before Confucius's holding of his first official employments, and Chu Hsi and most other writers follow him. It is a great error, and arisen from a misunderstanding of the passage from the 左氏傳 upon the subject.