other stated times, with those produced within the royal domain itself.

The music-master of the king would get the odes of each state from its
music-master.

But the feudal states were modelled after the pattern of the royal
state. They also had their music-masters, their musicians, and their
historiographers. The kings in their progresses did not visit each
particular state, so that the Grand Music Master could have the
opportunity to collect the odes in it for himself. They met, at
well-known points, the marquises, earls, barons, &c., of the different
quarters of the kingdom; there gave audience to them; adjudicated on
their merits, and issued to them their orders. We are obliged to suppose
that the princes were attended to the places of rendezvous by their
music-masters, carrying with them the poetical compositions gathered in
their several regions, to present them to their superior of the royal
court. We can understand how, by means of the above arrangement, the
poems of the whole kingdom were accumulated and arranged among the
archives of the capital.

How the collected poems were disseminated through the states.

Was there any provision for disseminating thence the poems of one state
among all the others? There is sufficient evidence that such
dissemination was effected out in some way. Throughout the Narratives of
the States, and the details of Zo Khiu-ming on the history of the Spring
and Autumn, the officers of the states generally are presented to us as
familiar not only with the odes of their particular states, but with
those of other states as well. They appear equally well acquainted with
all the Parts and Books of our present Shih; and we saw how the whole of