SECTION II.
HIS INFLUENCE AND OPINIONS.

1. Confucius died, we have seen, complaining that of all the
princes of the kingdom there was not one who would adopt his

[Sidebar] Homage rendered to Confucius by the sovereigns of
China.

principles and obey his lessons. He had hardly passed from the
stage of life, when his merit began to be acknowledged. When the
duke Ai heard of his death, he pronounced his eulogy in the words,
'Heaven has not left to me the aged man. There is none now to
assist me on the throne. Woe is me! Alas! O venerable Ni [1]!' Tsze-
kung complained of the inconsistency of this lamentation from
one who could not use the master when he was alive, but the
prince was probably sincere in his grief. He caused a temple to be
erected, and ordered that sacrifice should be offered to the sage,
at the four seasons of the year [2].
The sovereigns of the tottering dynasty of Chau had not the
intelligence, nor were they in a position, to do honour to the
departed philosopher, but the facts detailed in the first chapter
of these prolegomena, in connexion with the attempt of the
founder of the Ch'in dynasty to destroy the literary monuments of
antiquity, show how the authority of Confucius had come by that
time to prevail through the nation. The founder of the Han
dynasty, in passing through Lu, B.C. 195, visited his tomb and
offered the three victims in sacrifice to him. Other sovereigns