whole. Altogether, therefore, Dr. Legge's judgment on the value of these works cannot by any means be accepted as final, and the translator of the Chinese Classics is yet to come. Since the appearance of the two works above mentioned, many books have been written on China: a few, it is true, of really great scholastic importance; but none, we believe showing that Chinese scholarship has reached an important turning point.
First, there is Mr. Wylie's "Notes on Chinese Literature." It is, however, a mere catalogue, and not a book with any literary pretension at all. Another is the late Mr. Mayers's "Chinese Readers Manual." It is certainly not a work that can lay claim to any degree of perfection. Nevertheless, it is a very great work, the most honest conscientious and unpretending of all the books that have been written on China. Its usefulness, moreover, is inferior only to the Tzu-Erh-Chi of Sir Thomas Wade.
Another Chinese scholar of note is Mr. Herbert A. Giles of the British Consular Service. Like the early French sinologues, Mr. Giles possesses the enviable advantage of a clear, vigorous, and beautiful style. Every object he touches upon becomes at once clear and luminous. But with one or two exceptions, he has not been quite fortunate in the choice of subjects worthy of his pen. One exception is the "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," which may be taken as a model of what translation from the Chinese should be. But the Liao-chai-chih-i, a
