a Chinese princess for the Hun king.  Generally speaking, the Hans would have lived at peace with them if they could, and were ready to try better means of solving the problem than war.  But it certainly was a problem; for in these Huns we find little traces of human nature that you could work upon.  But China was a big country by that time, and only a part of it, comparatively small, suffered from the Huns.  For the rest, Han Kaotsu was popular, his people were happy, and his reign of twelve years was a breathing-time in which they gathered strength.  He kept a hundred thousand workmen busy on public works, largely road- and bridge-building:  a suspension bridge that he built, a hundred and fifty yards long, and crossing a valley five hundred feet below, is still in use,—­or was during the last century.  He died in 194.

He was succeeded, nominally, by his son Han Hweiti; really by his widow, the empress Liu Chi:  one of the three great women who have ruled China.  At this time the Huns, under their great Khan Mehteh, were at the height of their power.  Khan Mehteh made advances to the Empress:  “I should like,” said he, “to exchange what I have for what I have not.”  You and I may think he meant merely a suggestion for mutual trade; but she interpreted it differently, thanked him kindly, but declined the flattering proposal on the score of her age and ugliness.  Her hair and teeth, she begged him to believe, were quite inadequate, and made it impossible for her to think of changing her condition.—­I do not know whether it was vanity or policy.

But it was she, or perhaps her puppet son the emperor, who started the great Renaissance.  A commission was appointed for restoring the literature:  among its members, K’ung An-kuo, twelfth in descent from Confucius.  Books were found, that devotion had hidden in dry wells and in the walls of houses; one Fu Sheng, ninety years old, repeated the Classics word for word to the Commissioner, all from his memory.  The restrictions gone, a mighty reaction set in; and China was on fire to be her literary self again.  A great ball was set rolling; learning went forward by leaps and bounds.  The enthusiasm, it must be said, took directions legitimate and the reverse;—­bless you, why should any written page at all be considered lost, when there were men in Han with inventive genius of their own, and a pretty skill at forgery?  The Son of Heaven was paying well; to it, then, minds and calligraphic fingers!

So there are false chapters of Chwangtse, while many true ones have been lost.  And I can never feel sure of Confucius’ own Spring and Autumn Annals, wherein he thought lay his highest claim to human gratitude, and the composition of which the really brilliant-minded Mencius considered equal to the work of Ta Yu in bridling China’s Sorrow;—­but which, as they come down to us, are not impressive.—­The tide rolled on under Han Wenti, from 179 to 156:  a poet himself, a man of peace, and a reformer of the laws in the direction of mercy.  Another prosperous reign followed; then came the culmination of the age in the Golden Reign of Han Wuti, from 140 to 86.