with some variations, and without saying when or where it
occurred.
2 See the »¡­b, ¨÷¤Q¤E, p. 13.
3 Ana. VII. xiii.
4 Some of these are related in the 'Narratives of the School;'--
about the burning of the ancestral shrine of the sovereign Âç, and
a one-footed bird which appeared hopping and flapping its wings
in Ch'i. They are plainly fabulous, though quoted in proof of
Confucius's sage wisdom. This reference to them is more than
enough.
5 ®a»y, ¨÷¤G, ¤»¥».
6 Ana. XII. xi.
7 Ana. XIII. iii.


chief minister Yen Ying dissuaded him from the purpose, saying,
'Those scholars are impracticable, and cannot be imitated. They
are haughty and conceited of their own views, so that they will
not be content in inferior positions. They set a high value on all
funeral ceremonies, give way to their grief, and will waste their
property on great burials, so that they would only be injurious to
the common manners. This Mr. K'ung has a thousand peculiarities.
It would take generations to exhaust all that he knows about the
ceremonies of going up and going down. This is not the time to
examine into his rules of propriety. If you, prince, wish to employ
him to change the customs of Ch'i, you will not be making the
people your primary consideration [1].'
I had rather believe that these were not the words of Yen
Ying, but they must represent pretty correctly the sentiments of
many of the statesmen of the time about Confucius. The duke of