Tue most convenient division of Chinese history is that of the ancient, the medieval, and the modern age. The ancient terminates best with the Burning of the Books, and the medieval period with the invention of printing. Phe light shed by the life and teaching of Confucius and Mencius was near the and of the first period, and followed a long sories of centuries which were illuminated by the track across the firmament of time of the older sages. OF these mon the Yellow Emperor, and the two illustrious princes Yao and Shun certainly bad the aid of western Knowledge recently acquired, or they could not have originated the cycle of sixty, the astrolabe to mark the posi-by land and by sen, Greek paper came to China, and Chinese silk went to Europe. For the next four centuries the country was usually divided, and daring that time no fewer than fifteen dynasties reigned. Some of these were contemporaneous, and the rest succeeded each other by successful conquest till A.D. 618, when the Tang dyunsty commenced under happy auspices and lasted for three hundred ente. The introduction of foreign paper and ink made of Inmpblack from the distant West led incidentally to a change in the mode of writing the Chinese character in the fourth Chris. tian century. Greek paper and Grovk ink, combined with the fine hair of the weasel and a superior native last, gave to the Chinese writing the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.