remarkably beautiful literary work of art though it be, belongs yet not to the highest specimens of Chinese literature.
Next to Dr. Legge's labours, Mr. Balfour's recent translation of the Nan-hua King of Chuang-tzu is a work of certainly the highest ambition. We confess to having experienced, when we first heard the work announced, a degree of expectation and delight which the announcement of an Englishman entering the Hanlin College would scarcely have raised in us. The Nan-hua King is acknowledged by the Chinese to be one of the most perfect of the highest specimens of their national literature. Since its appearance two centuries before the Christian era, the influence of the book upon the literature of China is scarcely inferior to the works of Confucius and his schools; while its effect upon the language and spirit of the poetical and imaginative literature of succeeding dynasties is almost as exclusive as that of the Four Books and Five Chinese upon the philosophical works of China. But Mr. Balfour's work is not a translation at all; it is simply a mistranslation. This, we acknowledge, is a heavy, and for us, daring judgment to pass upon a work upon which Mr. Balfour must have spent many years. But we have ventured it, and it will be expected of us to make good our judgment. We believe Mr. Balfour would hardly condesend to join issue with us if we were to raise the question of the true interpretation of the philosophy of Chuang-tzu. "But,"—we quote from the Chinese preface of Lin
