We are on somewhat firmer ground with the _Book of History_, which is
a collection of very ancient historical documents, going back twenty
centuries B.C., arranged and edited by Confucius. These documents, mere
fragments as they are, give us glimpses of China's early civilisation,
centuries before the historical period, to which we shall come later on,
can fairly be said to begin.

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