who attribute very many of them to the duke of Kau, to whom we owe so
much of the fifth Part of the Shu). There is, however, independent
testimony only to his composition of a single ode,--the second of the
fifteenth Book in Part I [2]. Some of the other pieces in that Part, of
which the historical interpretation may be considered as sufficiently
fixed, are written in the first person; but the author may be
personating his subject.

In Part II, the seventh ode of decade 2 was made by a, Kia-fu, a noble
of the royal court, but we know nothing more about him; the sixth of
decade 6, by a eunuch styled Mang-Dze; and the sixth of decade 7, from a
concurrence of external testimonies, should be ascribed to duke Wu of
Wei, B.C. 812 to 758.

In the third decade of Part III, the second piece was composed by the
same duke Wu; the third by an earl of Zui in the royal domain; the
fourth must have been made by one of king, Hsuean's ministers, to express
the king's

[1. Analects, II, ii.

2. See the Shu, V, vi, par. 3.]

feelings under the drought that was exhausting the kingdom; and the
fifth and sixth claim to be the work of Yin Ki-fu, one of Hsuean's
principal officers.

4. The ninth ode of the fourth Book, Part II, gives us a note of time
that enables us to fix the year of its composition in a manner entirely
satisfactory, and proves also the correctness, back to that date, of the