The first dates from the very beginning of the ninth century, and deals chiefly with the Administration of Government, Political Economy, and National Defences, besides Rites, Music, and subordinate questions.

The second dates from the twelfth century, and deals with the same subjects, having additional sections on History and Chronology, Writing, Pronunciation, Astronomy, Bibliography, Prodigies, Fauna and Flora, Foreign Nations, etc.

The third, and best known to foreign scholars, is the encyclopaedia of Ma Tuan-lin of the fourteenth century.  It is on much the same lines as the other two, being actually based upon the first, but has of course the advantage of being some centuries later.

The above three works are in a uniform edition, published in the middle of the eighteenth century under orders from the Emperor Ch’ien Lung.

There are also several other encyclopaedias of information on general topics, extending to a good many volumes in each case.

One of these contains interesting extracts on all manner of subjects taken from the lighter literature of China, such as Dreams, Palmistry, Reminiscences of a Previous State of Existence, and even Resurrection after Death.  It was cut on blocks for printing in A.D. 981, only fifty years after the first edition of the Confucian Canon was printed.  The Cambridge copy cannot claim to date from 981, but it does date from 1566.

Another work of the same kind was the San Ts’ai T’u Hui, issued in 1609, which is bound up in seventeen thick volumes.  It is especially interesting for the variety of topics on which information is given, and also because it is profusely illustrated with full-page woodcuts.  It has chapters on Geography, with maps; on Ethnology, Language, the Arts and Sciences, and even on various forms of Athletics, including the feats of rope-dancers and acrobats, sword-play, boxing, wrestling, and foot-ball.

Under Tricks and Magic we see a man swallowing a sword, or walking through fire, while hard by an acrobat is bending backward and drinking from cups arranged upon the ground.

The chapters on Drawing are exceptionally good; they contain some specimen landscapes of almost faultless perspective, and also clever examples of free-hand drawing.  Portrait-painting is dealt with, and ten illustrations are given of the ten angles at which a face may be drawn.  The first shows one-tenth of the face from the right side, the second two-tenths, and so on, waxing to full-face five-tenths; then waning sets in on the left side, four, three, and two-tenths, until ten-tenths shows nothing more than the back of the sitter’s head.

There is a well-known Chinese story which tells how a very stingy man took a paltry sum of money to an artist—­payment is always exacted in advance—­and asked him to paint his portrait.  The artist at once complied with his request, but in an hour or so, when the portrait was finished, nothing was visible save the back of the sitter’s head.  “What does this mean?” cried the latter, indignantly.  “Oh,” replied the artist, “I thought a man who paid so little as you wouldn’t care to show his face!”