"Chinese Recorder" for 1871:--

"A Japanese legend says that about A.D. 519, a Buddhist priest came
to China, and, in order to dedicate his soul entirely to God, he
made a vow to pass the day and night in an uninterrupted and
unbroken meditation. After many years of this continual watching,
he was at length so tired that he fell asleep. On awaking the
following morning, he was so sorry he had broken his vow that he
cut off both his eyelids and threw them upon the ground. Returning
to the same place the following day he observed that each eyelid
had become a shrub. This was the _tea-shrub_, unknown until that
time."

Bretschneider adds that the legend in question seems not to be known to
the Chinese; yet in view of the fact that Buddhism itself, with all its
marvellous legends, was received by the Japanese from China, it is
certainly probable this legend had a Chinese origin,--subsequently
disguised by Japanese chronology. My Buddhist texts were drawn from
Fernand Hû's translation of the Dhammapada, and from Leon Feer's
translation from the Thibetan of the "Sutra in Forty-two Articles." An
Orientalist who should condescend in a rare leisure-moment to glance at
my work might also discover that I had borrowed an idea or two from the
Sanscrit poet, Bhâminî-Vilâsa.

"_The Tale of the Porcelain-God._"--The good Père D'Entrecolles, who
first gave to Europe the secrets of Chinese porcelain-manufacture, wrote
one hundred and sixty years ago:--

"The Emperors of China are, during their lifetime, the most
redoubted of divinities; and they believe that nothing should ever